No US troops for Sudan
2004-10-01 15:23
Cape Town - United States President George W Bush and his Democratic presidential opponent Senator John Kerry have both come out against the commitment of US troops in the troubled Darfur region of the Sudan.
In the first presidential candidates' debate on Thursday anchored by Jim Lehrer on PBS's The Newshour, Lehrer noted that 50 000 people had already died in that area of Africa and more than a million had been rendered homeless and it had been labelled an act of ongoing genocide "yet neither one of you or anyone else connected with your campaigns or your administration that I can find has discussed the possibility of sending in troops."
Replying first Kerry said "Yes, it is genocide". He continued: "The reason that we're not saying send American troops in at this point is several fold. "Number one, we can do this through the African Union, providing we give them the logistical support.
"Right now all the president is providing is humanitarian support. We need to do more than that. They've got to have the logistical capacity to go in and stop the killing. And that's going to require more than is on the table today.
US is over-extended
"I also believe that it is ... one of the reasons we can't do it is we're over-extended. Ask the people in the armed forces today. We've got Guards and Reserves who are doing double duties.
Kerry said in his plan he would add two active duty divisions to the United States Army, "not for Iraq, but for our general demands across the globe.
"I also intend to double the number of special forces so that we can do the job we need to do with respect (to) fighting the terrorists around the world. And if we do that, then we have the ability to be able to respond more rapidly.
"But I'll tell you this, as president, if it took American forces to some degree to coalesce the African Union, I'd be prepared to do it because we could never allow another Rwanda. It's the moral responsibility for us and the world."
$200-million aid
Bush said he agreed that "it's genocide. And (Secretary of State) Colin Powell so stated. We have committed $200-million worth of aid. We're the leading donor in the world to help the suffering people there. We will commit more over time to help.
"We were very much involved at the UN (United Nations) on the sanction policy of the Bashir government in the Sudan. Prior to Darfur, Ambassador Jack Danforth had been negotiating a north-south agreement that we would have hoped would have brought peace to the Sudan.
"I agree with my opponent that we shouldn't be committing troops. We ought to be working with the African Union to do so - precisely what we did in Liberia. We helped stabilise the situation with some troops, and when the African Union came, we moved them out.