Rock blasts UN on Sudan crisis

Rock blasts UN on Sudan crisis

This may roll the wheel, effective initiatives may be undertaken now that Canadian UN ambassador said the following:

"The Security Council has failed miserably in its responsibility to protect the people of the Sudanese region of Darfur, who are being displaced and slaughtered in a civil war." The Globe and Mail reports the following:

In an open debate at the council, ambassador Allan Rock accused the 15-member body of ignoring long-standing pleas to intervene and push both sides to end attacks on civilians.

Mr. Rock said the council failed for months to heed warnings from aid groups and from its own human-rights commission about the looming humanitarian disaster in Darfur, finally responding just three weeks ago.

"Such inexcusable delays put at risk the lives of those that this council is charged with protecting," he said. "The Security Council's moral authority is underpinned by its willingness to respond effectively and promptly to threats to international peace and security, and it must demonstrate greater resolve in addressing even sensitive and politically challenging situations."

Mr. Rock spoke as the council held a full-day open debate on how the world body should respond to the plight of civilians caught in war zones where their governments either cannot protect them or actively target them.

However, Alan Rock stopped short labeling the Darfur crisis as "genocide" that could automatically activate immediate international responses since there are clear international law for outside intervention in the case of "genocide". When all the neutral groups like human rights ortanizations, UN's own human rights groups and many other relief organizations are calling this as "genocide in making", shouldn't the UN take more active role? Why is it that till now UN's security council is playing timid in handling this worsening situation in Sudan?

Read the following excerpts:

But activists are urging the council to declare the Darfur situation a genocide in the making, since such a finding would require intervention under international law. On the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington is investigating whether that is the case.

In Khartoum on Sunday, UN special representative Asma Janahjir said she was "disturbed and alarmed by the gravity of human-rights abuses perpetrated" in Sudan. But her greatest concerns were saved for Darfur, where two rebel groups have been fighting the Sudanese government since early last year.

UN agencies and relief organizations estimate that at least one million people have fled their homes and become internally displaced since fighting broke out, while another 150,000 refugees have escaped across the border into Chad.

"I am deeply concerned," Ms. Janahjir said. "The crisis is not over and the right to life of [millions of] people is seriously threatened."