Sudan celebrates its genocide in Darfur

President Omar al-Bashir is celebrating his success at continuing the genocide in Darfur. He is now promoting the leader. Turkey hosted Bashir on a state visit. Does Turkey support the genocide?

Nat Hentoff at Jewish World Review

To further show his dancing contempt of the United Nations and George W. Bush — the first world leader to call the mass murders and rapes in Darfur "genocide" — Bashir has appointed (Jan. 16), as a special advisor, Musa Hilal, the chief leader and planner of Bashir's monstrous militia, the Janjaweed.

As Human Rights Watch reports: "Scores of victims, witnesses to attacks and even members of the Sudanese armed forces have named Hilal as the top commander of government-backed Janjaweed militias responsible for numerous atrocities in Darfur."

Moreover, Hilal, also involved with training camps for those rapists and killers, was specifically named, adds Human Rights Watch, "in a government document ... ordering all Sudanese 'security units to allow the activities' of the components of the Janjaweed 'under the command of Sheikh Musa Hilal.'"

And Turkey is hosting al-Bashir:

Blithely countering criticism of his appointment of what Human Rights Watch rightly calls "the poster child" of the burning of Black African villages in Darfur, including the tossing of babies into the flames, Al-Bashir, during an official visit to Turkey, actually celebrated Hilal:

"Having contributed greatly to stability and security in the region, we in Sudan believe that those accusations against Mr. Hilal are untrue" (New York Times, Jan. 22).

Why did the government of Turkey choose to sully its reputation by inviting this master of human-rights crimes?