Powell wants inquiry into Khartoum's 'genocide'
US Secretary of State Colin Powell called atrocities in Sudan's troubled Darfur region "genocide" and called for a thorough UN probe into the crisis, hasteningmoves towards international sanctions on the Khartoum Government.
Mr Powell told a US Senate hearing that evidence compiled by the United States "concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring".
The Government in Khartoum has been accused of arming and backing Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, that have rampaged through Sudan's western Darfur region.
An estimated 50,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million displaced in a campaign against black Africans that started as an attempt to put down a rebel uprising.
Mr Powell said the US had proposed a resolution to the United Nations Security Council asking for a "full-blown and unfettered" investigation to confirm genocide had been committed and possibly consider oil sanctions on Sudan.
He said he had spoken to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the matter.
The resolution would "request a UN investigation into all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law that have occurred in Darfur, with a view to ensuring accountability", Mr Powell said. But Sudanese Finance Minister Ahmed Hassan al-Zubeir denied there was genocide in Darfur.
"This is just another sort of pressure brought against the Government of Sudan by the United States and Western governments, the kind of general political pressure that shows the US is not a friend of Sudan," Mr al-Zubeir said.
A spokesman for the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, Abdelhafiz Mustafa Musa, welcomed the US move. "The Sudanese Government and its militia, the Janjaweed, have continued to kill innocent civilians in Darfur," he said.
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