Sudan President Blames Media, Israel and the US for Darfur
Posted on March 11, 2008 - Filed Under Darfur |
Sudan President Omar El-Bashir has his own theory on Darfur. According to him, the media is ‘exaggerating’ the reports of deaths, and the situation is fueled by Israel and the US, in attempts to focus attention away from Iraq and Palestine. “Arabs and Muslims are targeted by Zionists and imperial powers everywhere in the world. Sudan is at the forefront of the confrontation,” El-Bashir said.
The UN believes 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since violence first erupted in Darfur. Many watchdog agencies believe that number is too low. Today we learned that the President of Sudan also disagrees with the figures on the crises in Darfur. He believes the UN figures are exaggerated and untrue.
El-Bashir claims the international media is covering Darfur in order to divert attention away from Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Furthermore he believes under 10,000 people have died and under 500,000 have been displaced. There is no evidence from any government, NGO, or other entity that can come even close to the figures El-Bashir proclaimed today. By any measure from any reasonable observer, the killings in Darfur have been conducted on an epic and sweeping scale. The stories of displaced families, raped women, burned villages, mass killings and other travesties are well documented. Yet the President of this war-torn nation apparently has no knowledge of such events.
Instead, he blames the media, the West and Israel for fabricating the crisis.
“Darfur is a symbol of Western double standard. There are no more than 10,000 people killed in Darfur while the number of displaced people is no more than 450,000 people. Compare with Iraq, which has 1 million people killed and 5 million displaced. In Darfur, our forced help displaced Sudanese while fighting rebels, which any government in the world would do,” he said.
With inept leadership like this, is it any wonder that the crisis in Darfur continues and now is poised to expand? Most frightening of all, last week reports surfaced that the janjaweed have returned. If history is any guide, the only thing that follows the janjaweed is death in any village they enter. The crisis in Darfur is about to enter a new violence period, and all the President of Sudan can do is blame the media, Israel and the US.
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