International Response To The War in Darfur - Declarations of Genocide

Declarations of Genocide

The following notable individuals and institutions have declared the conflict in Darfur a genocide (organized chronologically by first statement):

• International Association of Genocide Scholars, 19 February 2004
• Committee on Conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 June 2004
• The United States Congress (House Concurrent Resolution 467), 22 June 2004, passed 422-0 in the House and by unanimous voice vote in the Senate, declaring state-sponsored genocide by the proxy militias known as Janjaweed. Therefore each member of the 108th United States Congress has technically declared that the situation in Darfur is a genocide. All but three members of the 109th United States Congress voted in favor of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, a law signed by President Bush in October 2006 that restated the findings of genocide. Additional individual statements by members of the US Congress are noted below.
• US Sen. Russell Feingold, 22 July 2004
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell, 9 September 2004
• US President George W. Bush, 9 September 2004 Restated declaration in June 2005 and in a meeting with activists from the Save Darfur Coalition, 28 April 2006
• Jewish World Watch, 16 September 2004, in a sermon by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis.
• US Sen. John Kerry, prior to 16 September 2004
• Anti-Defamation League
• US Sen. Joseph Lieberman, 2 March 2005
• Armenian Assembly of America, 2 March 2005
• US Sen. and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, 15 April 2005
• American Jewish Committee, 6 May 2005
• Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, July 2005
• US Sen. Barack Obama, 22 July 2005
• Genocide Intervention Network, 21 November 2005
• Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Itzhak Levanon, 27 January 2006
• US Sen. Hillary Clinton, 16 March 2006
• French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, 6 September 2006
• The Assembly of the Republic of Portugal, 4 May 2007
• Physicians for Human Rights (date unknown)
• U.S. Committee for Refugees (date unknown)
• Africa Action (date unknown)
• Justice Africa (date unknown)
• Africa Confidential (date unknown)
• Yad Vashem (date unknown)
• Genocide Watch (date unknown)
• American Israel Public Affairs Committee

The following institutions have not declared the conflict in Darfur a genocide (related statements included):

• United Nations: Stated that mass murders of civilians have been committed by the Janjaweed, but not genocide
• African Union: In the 2004 the Chair of the AU's PSC said that "abuses are taking place. There is mass suffering, but it is not genocide."
• Amnesty International: "The grave human rights abuses ... cannot be ignored any longer, nor justified or excused by a context of armed conflict."
• Médecins sans Frontières: Director Jean-Hervé Bradol called the term genocide "inappropriate" and deputy emergency director Dr. Mercedes Taty said "I don't think that we should be using the word 'genocide' to describe this conflict. Not at all. This can be a semantic discussion, but nevertheless, there is no systematic target – targeting one ethnic group or another one. It doesn't mean either that the situation in Sudan isn't extremely serious by itself."