Thanks Ethan, AllAfrica.com Sudan Newswire and RSS feed, new State Department press release
Apr 25th, 2004 by jimmoore
Ethan Zuckerman
of the Berkman Center is discussing Sudan on his blog, with good links
to breaking news. He very helpfully points out that AllAfrica.com
is now putting out a special sorted newswire on Sudan
that is available in RSS feed. This material is very rich and
timely, with lots of sources. I’m going to add it to the newsfeed
page for Passion of the Present.
Included in the latest feed is this press release, sent out by the US State Department on Friday, requesting a special new session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (excerpt follows):
US Calls for Special Session of U.N. Commission On Human Rights On Sudan
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United States Department of State
(Washington, DC)
PRESS RELEASE
April 23, 2004
Posted to the web April 23, 2004
Geneva
Commission must address “ethnic cleansing” in Sudan, official says
The United States has called for a Special Session of the
Commission on Human Rights on Sudan after the UN human rights body failed to
adopt a strong resolution condemning the on-going ethnic cleansing in the
Darfur region.
“The U.N. Commission on Human Rights dare not fail to act,” Ambassador
Richard Williamson, head of the U.S. delegation said. “It must hold
accountable those responsible for the deplorable acts in Darfur.”
Under the Commission’s rules of procedure, any member of the United
Nations may request the Secretary General to convene a special session to
deal with “urgent and acute human rights situations in the most expeditious
way.”
Special sessions can only be convened with the support of a majority of
States members of the Commission. Previous special sessions were held in
1992 to consider the situation in the former Yugoslavia, in 1994 on Rwanda,
and in 1999 on East Timor.
The question of Sudan had been deferred until the final day of the 60th
Session of the Commission as it became apparent that member states were
having difficulty reaching agreement on how the body should treat the
issue.
Members must “reflect on the 30,000 dead and the 900,000 internally
displaced people now living in intolerable and dangerous conditions,”
Williamson said. “This could become a catastrophe of unimaginable
proportions if we fail to act.”