Darfur Update

From everywhere.

African Union monitors have been trying to investigate the reported air attack on the town of Shangil Tobaya on Wednesday, where 100 people are believed to have died.

They were turned away by Sudanese soldiers on Thursday, an AU official told the BBC earlier.

Mr Pronk said observers could not get to the area because it is not safe. "We know that there are at the moment government military trucks driving in that direction," he told Focus on Africa.

He said government-linked Janjaweed militia had attacked around 40 villages in the area around Labado in south Darfur.

"Many villages around Labado are constantly being attacked - not with airplanes but by militia and these villages are being burned down and completely demolished," he said.

"Where the AU are present, they do not attack. The AU is doing an excellent job at the moment but they don't have enough people."

He described the militia as "loyal to themselves" whose objective is to "drive out all people who do not belong to their own tribes - mostly they are African tribes who are being driven out."

Never again, scar on conscience of world, etc etc.

UPDATE - Reader Gary writes

"Apparently, Bush is to blame for Darfur ... according to the Indie ...

"For the Blair government, a founding member of the International Criminal Court which has nailed its colours to the mast on Africa during its presidency of the G8 leading industrialised countries, it will be a moment to decide whether to stand up to the Bush administration."

China is only mentioned briefly at the end of the report, which is odd, because China has been the Sudanese government's "Special Friend" throughout the genocide. The EU is going to lift its arms embargo on China (the Indy does not mention this either!), in effect rewarding it for occupying Tibet, threatening Taiwan, and sponsoring the Darfur genocide (which is incidentally beneficial to Chinese oil interests).

Perhaps, it is not the US and Britain (the Indy seems to think that no other nations have any responsibility for anything, kind of ironic considering their attacks on US unilateralism) who should stop the Darfur genocide...perhaps it is China, which could easily end the killing through diplomatic pressure."

Mick Hartley also posts on Darfur and God Save The Queen on the disgraceful lifting of the arms embargo on China.

Money quote - "there are only two likely uses for any military hardware sold to China: internal repression or agression against Taiwan".