Yesterday, the United Nations posted on its website an update on Sudan (scroll down to near the end of the March 21 daily report). It is a compilation of euphemisms and meaningless language:
International donors met in Khartoum on Sunday to share impressions they had gathered during the previous week, when seven teams representing donor countries fanned out across Sudan to see the complex situation on the ground.
Manuel Aranda da Silva, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Sudan, said that donors could now return to their headquarters fully apprised of the multiple challenges that Sudan faces.
The donor teams reported that, although the humanitarian situation has stabilized in Darfur, it is precarious, and violations of protection continue at an unacceptable rate.
Having "fanned out," they can report that the "humanitarian situation" has "stabilized" — except it is "precarious" since "violations of protection" have not stopped. On the contrary, they "continue" at an "unacceptable" rate.
Everything’s stabilized. It’s just that people keep getting raped and murdered.
Two weeks ago a "senior U.N. envoy" gave a more candid description of the situation in Darfur: ("UN Envoy Says Deaths in Darfur Underestimated"), describing something the "donor teams" may have missed when they "fanned out" last week:
Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, who just visited Darfur and other parts of Sudan, said it was impossible to estimate the number of deaths from killings or disease because "it is where we are not that there are attacks." . . .
"If you move beyond the camps, the killing continues," Egeland said. "Women are systematically abused and raped.
"I told the government at the highest levels that there was a situation totally out of control and is not being stopped," he said. . . .
Asked about a U.S.-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution on Sudan, Egeland said he was in favor of imposing sanctions on perpetrators of atrocities because "people are getting away with mass murder."
Egeland’s reference to "people" committing "mass murder" sounds bold, but is in fact the bureaucratic language necessary to avoid placing the blame on a "government" committing "genocide."
People committing mass murder might require a few trials of individuals at The Hague in the future (by the way, how’s that Milosovic trial going these days?). A government committing genocide would require the UN under its charter to act — now.
But Egeland has told that Sudanese government — in what he apparently thinks is news to them — that the situation is totally out of control and not being stopped.
Calling John Bolton.