US sees improvement in Sudan

2005-07-21 12:51

Khartoum - United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said the US is making a difference to relieve a refugee crisis and African peacekeeping troops are helping to stop atrocities in Sudan's ravaged Darfur province.

"We are not where we were a year ago," Rice said on Wednesday, ahead of her first trip to Sudan as secretary of state. "We are in a different circumstance and the United States has spent a great deal of money and a lot of diplomatic and other energy to try and bring this conflict to a conclusion."

War-induced hunger and disease have killed more than 180 000 people and driven more than two million from their homes in what Rice said was a case of genocide.

Meetings to discuss various problems

Rice was touring a refugee camp in Darfur, on Thursday, and meeting privately with women to discuss recurring sexual violence against women refugees. The camp, Abu Shouk, is the second-largest in Sudan, with more than 70 000 residents in mud brick huts.

In the capital, Khartoum, Rice was meeting with Sudanese leaders, including the president. President Omar el-Bashir denies government involvement, but the US and international organisations say his military sent helicopter gunships to bomb small villages before militiamen swept in with horses, guns and knives.

Some militiamen wore uniforms provided by the Sudanese Army, US Agency for International Development administrator Andrew Natsios said on Wednesday.

Sudan's new government

Sudan formed a new reconciliation government this month, following a peace agreement to end a 21-year civil war between the Muslim north and the mainly Christian and animist south that killed an estimated two million people.

That conflict was separate from the Darfur killing, which began after black African tribes took up arms in February 2003, complaining of discrimination and oppression by Sudan's Arab-dominated government.

The US has held the Arab-dominated former government at arm's length, operating an embassy without a full ambassador and listing Sudan, Africa's largest country, among the nations sponsoring terrorism.

Still, the Bush administration has made Sudan a focus of diplomatic and humanitarian efforts, with $700m spent for humanitarian needs over the past two years. The US also supplies logistical help for African troops newly installed as peacekeepers.

The period of "ethnic cleansing" has largely ended, Natsios said, and the Darfur crisis has now shifted to peacekeeping and the administration of huge refugee camps.

"The level of attacks has clearly diminished," Natsios said. "The major reason for that, frankly, is there are not many villages left to burn down and destroy."

The United Nations has estimated that 2 000 Sudanese villages have been completely or partially destroyed.

In addition to short-term humanitarian needs, the US and others are trying to prevent the temporary camps from becoming permanent fixtures in Darfur.

- AP