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Date published: 2/12/2005 By RICK MERCIER "THE UNITED NATIONS has failed over and over again to prevent genocide. If in the year 2005 the Security Council cannot deal with genocide, the raping of women, and the systematic burning of villages now occurring, then I believe it is fair to ask: What purpose is the United Nations serving in the 21st century?" If this were some other conservative member of Congress--say, Tom DeLay--lambasting the United Nations, it would be easy to dismiss him as a dime-a-dozen right-wing demagogue climbing on one of his favorite hobby-horses. But this was Virginia Republican Frank Wolf lamenting the United Nations' fecklessness in the face of the genocide--or ethnic cleansing, or whatever you want to call it--in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where a scorched-earth campaign by the Sudanese military and its janjaweed militia allies has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and left 2 million people homeless. No serious person can doubt that Wolf, whose district includes part of Fauquier County, is passionate about the human-rights situation in Sudan. And no serious person who has been following the United Nations' reaction to Darfur's suffering can fail to share Wolf's frustration. The congressman's comments followed the release of a U.N. commission's report last week that said the Sudanese government and the janjaweed "are responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to crimes under international law." The commission, however, declined to go quite as far as Wolf, his fellow members of Congress, and the Bush administration. It said the violence in Darfur did not amount to genocide, although it did assert that some individuals, including government officials, may have committed crimes with "genocidal intent." The report urged the Security Council to refer the Darfur atrocities to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecutions. It's easy to be cynical about the commission's hedging on the question of genocide. Under the terms of the 1948 Genocide Convention, an unambiguous declaration of genocide by the commission would have put the United Nations in a position of having to do something to punish and prevent the widespread and systematic crimes in Darfur.
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
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