U.N. Darfur report does not see genocide - Sudan

[ZR2]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2005013111280002720623&dt=20050131112800&w=RTR&coview=


ABUJA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - A keenly awaited United Nations investigation into human rights abuse in Sudan's Darfur region does not describe violence against villagers there as "genocide," said Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail.

Pro-government militia are accused of a two-year campaign of raping civilians, and burning and pillaging villages in the vast, arid region where tens of thousands have died and 1.8 million have been driven from their homes.

The United Nations report is currently in the hands of Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Sudanese government, and is expected to be made public this week after being presented to the Security Council.

"We have a copy of that report and they didn't say there is a genocide," Ismail told reporters on Monday on the sidelines of an African Union summit in the Nigerian capital.