US Representative Frank Wolf recently visited the Yida refugee camp in newly independent South Sudan
A
US congressman pleaded Monday for action to bring food to thousands in
Sudan's South Kordofan state, accusing the Khartoum government of new
"ethnic cleansing" after a visit to the region.
Representative
Frank Wolf said he went last week to the Yida refugee camp across the
border in newly independent South Sudan and heard accounts of aerial
attacks, arbitrary shootings and severe lack of food in South Kordofan.
Wolf
showed to a Washington news conference videotaped interviews he
conducted with women at the camp who said that Sudan's mostly Arab
forces targeted them for rape and other abuses because they were black
and Christian.
"Clearly, ethnic cleansing is familiar territory
for Khartoum," said Wolf, a longtime critic of President Omar al-Bashir,
who has been indicted for alleged war crimes in the separate conflict
in Darfur.
"Bottom line -- Bashir is using food as a weapon. We
are quickly reaching a time when mere statements will prove wholly
insufficient. If Khartoum persists in barring international access to
these regions, there will be devastating consequences," said Wolf, a
Republican from Virginia.
South Sudan became independent in July
following decades of war. US President Barack Obama, a Democrat,
welcomed Sudan's quick recognition of the new state and initially showed
willingness to start reconciliation with Sudan.
But the Obama
administration voiced alarm after conflict broke out soon afterward in
South Kordofan and nearby Blue Nile state, with Khartoum fighting
insurgents once allied to the former rebels who now rule South Sudan.
The
UN estimates that more than 500,000 people have been displaced. Susan
Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has warned that food
shortages would become critical in March and urged the world body to
consider unspecified "options" if deliveries can not come in by then.
Sudan
has rejected any plan for an aid corridor without involvement by its
government organizations, saying that supplies could go to rebels. On
Sunday, rebel groups from Darfur and South Kordofan said that they
carried out a first joint attack, although Khartoum blamed troops from
South Sudan.
Wolf urged the Obama administration to make a
decision quickly on food, warning that an upcoming rainy season would
complicate potential efforts to bring in food by land.
Pressure
groups have said that frequent raids by Sudanese planes made it
impossible to plant crops in South Kordofan, triggering the food
shortages in a state covered by the Nuba mountains.
After
remaining mostly off the radar screen in the United States, the
situation in South Kordofan has begun to gain attention with prominent
journalists from The New York Times and NBC News recently reporting
there.
"We remember the tragedy of Darfur. It was only when
hundreds of thousands of people began to die that the world took notice
and took action," said Tom Andrews, head of the Genocide Intervention
Network/Save Darfur Coalition pressure group.
"The question now
is, how many are going to be required to die in the Nuba mountains
before we take the requisite action?" he said.
Wolf said that the
United States should bar funding to any country that welcomes Bashir. He
pointed to Malawi, which welcomed Bashir in October despite the arrest
warrant from the International Criminal Court.
The United States
committed $350 million to Malawi's energy sector under the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, an initiative to assist developing countries that
commit to standards on democracy and basic rights.
Washington put the grant on hold in July last year after Malawi cracked down on street protests.
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