“Grupo de escritores ataca falhanço da União Europeia em por fim à violência no Darfur“ in The Independent, 24 de Março de 2007

Cahal Milmo

A coalition of Europe's most eminent intellectuals today delivers a devastating critique of the failure to end the violence in Darfur by the European Union, as its politicians embark on a weekend of lavish 50th birthday celebrations. In a letter to the 27 leaders of EU states gathering in Berlin and published by The Independent, 10 of the continent's leading writers and thinkers evoke the atrocities of Auschwitz and Srebrenica in their call for immediate action against the Sudanese regime. The signatories - Sir Tom Stoppard, Seamus Heaney, Sir Harold Pinter, Dario Fo, Günter Grass, Umberto Eco, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Franca Rame and Václav Havel - demand that the EU imposes the "most stringent sanctions" on the leaders of Sudan. As Tony Blair and his fellow leaders sit down to a special summit in the German capital tomorrow to unveil a "birthday declaration" hailing the achievements of the single market, the letter argues there is little to celebrate when mass killings in Darfur continue. The gathering to mark the formation of the first, six-strong, European club with the Treaty of Rome in 1957 will include a banquet tonight along with a street party, fireworks and the strains of Beethoven. In Darfur, it is likely several hundred more refugees will arrive at crowded camps while unknown numbers will fall victim to a campaign of rape and enslavement. More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur, the western region of Sudan, since a campaign of violence against rebel groups targeting ethnic African farmers and herdsmen began in 2003, with the backing of the Khartoum government. A further 2.5 million people have been displaced in the four years of fighting led by the Arab Janjaweed militias, amid evidence of systematic looting, sexual violence and village burnings. The US has described the violence as "genocide". Alluding to Srebrenica, the UN-protected Bosnian "safe area" where 8,000 men were massacred in 1995 by Serb paramilitaries, as well as the Nazi death camps, the signatories, who include four Nobel literature prize-winners, make it clear that the EU is ignoring its founding purpose by failing to bring an end to the war in Darfur. The letter said: "Has the European Union - born of atrocity to unite against further atrocity - no word to utter, no principle to act on, no action to take, in order to prevent these massacres in Darfur? Is the cowardliness over Srebrenica to be repeated? If so, what do we celebrate?"Amid the pomp and parties this weekend, the Berlin Declaration will be unveiled. The document will contain an affirmation of the basic dignity of the individual.The writers call for unilateral action by the EU to impose a travel ban on the Khartoum government, including the Sudanese President, Omar Bashir. The sanctions should also include freezing of assets held in EU banks and a ban on the use of health facilities and the import of luxury goods into Sudan, they say. The letter will increase the pressure on Mr Blair over Darfur. He wrote this week to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose country holds the EU presidency, outlining his own proposal for UN sanctions. Number 10 said Mr Blair would be seeking to discuss the measures with his fellow leaders this weekend. It was announced this week that refugee camps in the region are full. Sudanis refusing to hand over two officials named as war-crime suspects by the International Criminal Court.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2387863.ece
JPTF 24/03/2007