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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For further information contact: Steven Forester (202) 347-3507 Evenings: (202) 215-3183 USCR Urges President Bush to Condemn Khartoum's Genocide and Act Now to Save Hundreds of Thousands of Lives in Darfur U.S. Ambassador Sees "Indicators of Genocide"; Satellite Photos Show 300 Non-Arab Villages "Completely Destroyed" WASHINGTON DC, June 28, 2004 The U.S. Committee for Refugees welcomes House and Senate action amending the Defense Appropriations bill to provide $25 million for refugees and $70 million for disaster assistance in emergency Sudan funding. But USCR regrets that the Senate on June 24 largely on party lines defeated Senator Biden's amendment to add $118 million more to assist the 200,000 refugees in Chad and more than one million internally displaced persons in Darfur. President Bush should request and Congress should appropriate this desperately needed additional funding. Khartoum continues to commit genocide in Darfur and block humanitarian access. USCR agrees with Senators DeWine and McCain who wrote on June 23, "Mass human destruction is unfolding today in Sudan, with the potential to bring a death toll even higher than that in Rwanda....We must do more, and we must do it immediately." As they suggest, in addition to "pushing the U.N. Security Council to act, we should provide financial and logistical support to countries willing to provide peacekeeping forces"; "initiate...targeted sanctions against [Sudanese] government leaders"; "continue to tell the world about the murderous activities in which these leaders are engaged, and make clear to all that this behavior is totally unacceptable." Said USCR Executive Director Lavinia Limón, "It is good that Secretary Powell will visit the region, but the Genocide Convention requires us to prevent genocide. President Bush has been slow to act and silent since referring in April to Khartoum's 'atrocities.' He must call this crime by its rightful name, 'genocide,' act immediately to stop it, and not merely request but force Khartoum to permit unfettered humanitarian access. Working with our allies, the President should urgently expand our capacity to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to the refugees in Chad and the internally displaced in Darfur." USCR commends Senators DeWine, Brownback, Alexander and others for calling Khartoum's actions "genocide." On June 24 U.S. war-crimes Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper said, "we see indicators of genocide, and there is evidence that points in that direction." Physicians for Human Rights on June 23 issued a report detailing "Indicators of Genocide" falling into "six categories of assault, all of which indicate organized intent to affect group annihilation." U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Andrew Natsios on June 24 presented UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the five permanent members of the Security Council with satellite photographs of 576 villages including hundreds that have been burned to the ground: 300 villages have "been completely destroyed," 76 "severely damaged. The rest are fine, and they are all Arab. It's clear that ethnic cleansing is going on here," said Natsios. Said Limón, "Khartoum continues to kill, rape, starve, and impede humanitarian access to 2.2 million war-affected and terrorized non-Arabs, one million of whom may die from starvation and disease. The rainy season has begun. Child mortality and death rates are soaring. People lack shelter, food, medicine, and security. Time has run out." On June 7 and May 10 respectively, USCR issued press releases entitled, "Stop the Genocide in Darfur, Mr. President - U.S. Official Says One Million Persons May Die" and "Lead More Boldly on Darfur, Mr. President, Don't Repeat Bill Clinton's Historic Mistake on Rwanda," echoing senior U.S. and UN officials and rights group's descriptions of Khartoum's war crimes, ethnic cleansing, scorched earth policy, concentration camps, mass rapes of women and children, widespread killings and executions, bombing and burning of villages, destruction of agricultural infrastructure, and depopulation practices. -------------------------

The U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) is a public information and advocacy program of Immigration and Refugee Services of America (IRSA), a nongovernmental, non-profit organization. Since 1958, USCR has defended the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons worldwide.