Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled on Aug. 8 that the statistic used by the Washington, D.C.-based Save Darfur Coalition in its 2006 advertising campaign—400,000 deaths in Darfur since the conflict began in 2003—is unsubstantiated. The authority said it should have been presented as opinion, not fact.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Aug. 26 that the current mortality rate in Darfur is near, or perhaps even below, the region’s pre-conflict level.
The exaggerated death toll and genocide claims have been used by the U.S. government to tighten economic sanctions against Sudan. Threats of a colonial, Iraqi-style occupation also have proliferated.
“[G]roups in Washington, D.C. … are using very distorted accusations in an attempt to get yet another military intervention in yet another oil-rich Muslim country,” said David Hoile, director of the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council.
The U.S. government’s aim has been “regime change” in Sudan since at least the early 1990s. It aims to force Sudan into the U.S. sphere of influence entirely.
