It’s good news that the Biden administration has formally determined that genocide has been committed in Sudan. But the move raises the question: Why are President Joe Biden and his aides reluctant to hold a crucial culprit accountable?
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the welcome announcement about the genocide determination on Tuesday, asserting that a militia called the Rapid Support Forces has targeted women for rape and slaughtered children and infants, all based on the ethnicity of the victims. The atrocities are indisputable. In September, I reported from the Chad-Sudan border on this campaign of mass murder and rape, in which the Rapid Support Forces attacked villages of non-Arab tribes and went door to door, killing men and boys and raping women and girls. Other journalists and human rights groups have found the same patterns.
Blinken announced that the United States would impose sanctions on the leader of the Rapid Support Forces and seven companies the militia owns in the United Arab Emirates. “The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities,” Blinken said.
Yet the announcement refused to hold accountable the UAE itself. There is overwhelming evidence, including in reporting by my newsroom colleagues at The New York Times, that the UAE has provided the Rapid Support Forces with the weaponry that enables its mass slaughter and mass rape.
