US says "genocide" continues in Darfur and UN must act - UN demands US to shut down Guantanamo prison camp

The timing of these news reports, published today, is interesting:

(Reuters) Rice says genocide continues in Darfur, UN must act - "It is our view that genocide was committed and in fact it continues in Darfur," she said adding, "We are doing everything we can to deal with the impact of the situation in Darfur."

[Note, 16 Feb 2006 AFP report says US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said "genocide" was continuing in Darfur, but moves to bolster security with a UN force were held up pending a request from the African Union]

(BBC) Annan backs UN Guantanamo demand - The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has said the United States must shut down Guantanamo Bay prison camp "as soon as is possible". The White House has dismissed the UN report as "a discredit to the UN."
- - -

Further reading:

June 30, 2004 No genocide in Darfur: US government

Sep 9, 2004 BBC Powell declares genocide in Sudan - The BBC's state department correspondent Jill McGivering says the use of the word genocide does not legally oblige the US to act, but it does increase the moral and political pressure.

Sep 9, 2004 US Mission to the UN in Geneva Press Release on The Crisis in Darfur - Text of Secretary Colin L Powell Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington DC, Sep 9. 2004: "Mr Chairman, as I have said, the evidence leads us to the conclusion, the United States to the conclusion; that genocide has occurred and may still be occurring in Darfur. We believe the evidence corroborates the specific intent of the perpetrators to destroy "a group in whole or in part," the words of the Convention. This intent may be inferred from their deliberate conduct. We believe other elements of the convention have been met as well."

Jan 31, 2005 BBC UN 'rules out' genocide in Darfur.

July 3, 2005 BBC Panorama The New Killing Fields transcript: Chris Mullin MP (Foreign Office minister): "What we think is not an effective way of stopping the killings is the way that some people... is the suggestion that some people are urging upon us, that somehow there's some western force that could come riding over the hills and everything will be alright again, but it's not like that. And the odds are that if any western force did intervene it would become bogged down and that some new cause for all the Jihadists in the world would emerge and we'd find ourselves very quickly being shot at by all sides. Plus we would probably destabilise the whole of Sudan which is the size of Western Europe and the last thing we want is a failed state the size of Western Europe on our hands in Africa."

Feb 4, 2006 Eric Reeves says violence still displaces Daruris while US decides genocide no longer exist.

Feb 9, 2006 Eric Reeves asks why has the Bush administration chosen this moment to suggest that genocide is no longer taking place - read US State Department Dishonesty on Darfur.

Feb 16. 2006 UK Conservative Party Speech to the Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations in Washington DC by former leader William Hague mentions the words Genocide in Darfur ...