The usual suspects (Reuters, BBC, AP) seem to be stressing the fact that the UN report into Darfur failed to agree with the US government that genocide was occuring. The BBC comes off best, I think, hinting at the reason why the UN seems to have been unwilling to describe what is happening in Darfur as genocide:
UN rules out genocide in Darfur A UN report has said Sudan's government and its militia systematically abused civilians in Darfur - but it stopped short of calling the violence genocide.
It said those responsible should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
Where genocide is found to have taken place, signatories to a UN convention are legally obliged to act to end it.
As you note from the last sentence extracted, Genocide would trigger a requirement that the UN organise troops to do something militarily to end it. Since its not "genocide" the UN doesn't need to do anything itself but can beg lots of money setting up trials for various people accused of "acts with genocidal intent".
For Reuters though it seems like the more important thing is not the events in Darfur but the fact that the US has seen its charge of genocide not sustained and that the US is unhappy with using the ICC in the Netherlands as the place for trying the various people accused of "acts with genocidal intent" and other war-crimes etc. Here is the headline and the leading paragraphs from Reuters:
New UN Report on Darfur Triggers US-Europe Division
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A key report on war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region is triggering an intense diplomatic battle between the United States and Europe on how to prosecute perpetrators of pillage, slaughter and rape.
A U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry reported on Monday that the Sudanese government and its militia allies committed major crimes under international law, setting the stage for Sudan officials and rebels to be prosecuted as war criminals.
The 176-page report concluded that Khartoum had not pursued a policy of genocide against non-Arabs in Darfur, where at least 70,000 people have died from killings or disease and 1.8 million people were forced out of their homes.
But it said some individuals may have acted with "genocidal intent," which only a court could decide.
That court, the commission's five legal experts said, should be the Hague-based International Criminal Court, or ICC, set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and massive human rights abuses.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) and Europeans want the U.N. Security Council to refer Sudan to the ICC. The panel has produced a sealed list of suspects.
"This is a case that is tailor-made for the ICC," Britain's U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry told reporters.
But the Bush administration vigorously opposes the court, citing fears of prosecutions against U.S. soldiers abroad.
Instead it wants to set up a new U.N.-African Union tribunal in Tanzania. Diplomats said Washington was willing to pay a considerable sum to establish the court but feared no other rich country would help.
Now I admit that I don't fully understand the alleged US reluctance to use the ICC in this case but I simply don't see how a split over the use of the ICC can be the most important part of the news. Surely the more important bit is the fact that the report agrees that the Sudanese government killed 70,000 of its own civillians an made 1.8 million homeless. I cannot help but recall the outcry over the report that claimed that 100,000 Iraqis had been killed by the Coalition.
The AP is, if anything, worse, in that its headline and leading paragraphs seem designed to make the Khartoum regime look wrongly accused:
U.N. Clears Sudan of Genocide in Darfur
UNITED NATIONS - Sudan's government and the Janjaweed militia are not guilty of genocide but did commit mass killings, torture, rape and other atrocities in the Darfur region that merit the trial of suspects in the International Criminal Court, a U.N.-appointed panel said in a new report.
The panel's report, released Monday, sets up a possible showdown with Washington, which opposes the court and has demanded perpetrators of the violence be tried elsewhere.
It also managed to mention the "showdown with Washington" before mentioning precisely what the report describes the Sudanese of doing which only shows up in paragraphs 3 and 4:
The crisis in Darfur, which has killed more than 70,000 people and has affected some 2 million people, has gripped world attention but also drawn calls that international leaders are again standing by while a people is exterminated — as happened in Cambodia, Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
While the United States has labeled the destruction genocide, the U.N.-appointed panel of five lawyers said that there appeared to be no clear evidence of "genocidal intent" against the people of Darfur. Still, it said the atrocities committed there were horrific, and spread the blame among the government, the militias and the region's rebels.
And again the implication seems to me to be that the US is being presented as a trigger happy cowboy making false accusations against some poor weak Sudanese regime who are only responding in kind to the dastardly rebels.
I am sick of this. I really am. One would have thought more priority would have gone into describing what the acts of genocidal intent were and why they didn't count as genocide. Somehow the real reason why we all should be concerned about events in Darfur - the population that is being abused - is considered of less interest than the fact that the US is acting as a lone troublemaker again. It seems that just talking about how bad things are is enough, actually doing something to stop them is no longer necessary. With the UN on the case the perpetrators can look forward to having their day in a nice comfortable courtroom about a decade or so from now where the worst they will face is a few years in a nice comfortable prison cell.
February 1, 2005: Apparently the Sudanese government is once again using its An-24 transports as bomber aircraft in the Darfur region. The An-24 is a two engine Russian aircraft, developed in the 1960s to replace pre-World War II American DC-3s. An-24s can carry up to 50 passengers, or five tons of cargo. Sudan have some of the An-26 versions of the An-24, which has a rear ramp, which bombs are rolled out of. The African Union and various relief agencies report that Sudanese planes bombed the village of Rahad Kabolong in North Darfur state. The attack took place on January 26 and left more than 100 people dead. Some 9000 people fled the village and the surrounding area after the air attack. A monitoring team reported that most of the dead were women and children. As of January 31, the government continued to deny that the air raid took place. The United Nations called the attack a major ceasefire violation-- which of course it was. The UN, however, still refuses to call the Sudanese war in Darfur a genocide.