Sudan blocks U.N. human rights mission over envoy

Sometimes politics just fucking piss me off, but that just may be me.

Granted genocide is a major accusation, but I'm sorry, 200,000 dead probably qualifies whether the UN agrees with me or not. What is the UN threshold for labeling actions in a country genocide? Just asking.

And I don't expect an answer.

Sudan will not allow a U.N. human rights team to visit unless they replace a member of the delegation who Khartoum says is biased, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

A six-member U.N. rights team was due to arrive this week in Sudan to investigate alleged abuses in Darfur. But the government has said they will not get visas.

"We have ... issues about one specific person in the delegation," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali el-Sadig said.

"Before coming to Sudan this person made comments which were totally not objective and so this person is unacceptable to us and must be changed before this delegation will be allowed to enter Sudan."

Another source in the Foreign Ministry said Sudan objected to the presence of Guyanese Bertrand Ramcharan, the former U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights.

"He made comments referring to genocide and saying the government needed to do more right after he was appointed," the source told Reuters.

Sima Samar, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Sudan, visited Darfur last August. The Geneva-based U.N. rights council has been criticised for its ineffectiveness on Darfur.

Washington calls the four years of rape, murder and pillage in Darfur genocide, a term Khartoum rejects and European governments have been reluctant to use.

A U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry found no genocide, but said heinous war crimes no less serious than genocide had taken place in Darfur. It also said individuals may have acted with genocidal intent.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is due to present its first case on Darfur this month. Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes.

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