On April 25 the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on four Sudanese leaders accused of war crimes. The Security Council forbade them to travel and froze their assets outside Sudan. The four were selected from an original list of 51 individuals proposed for sanctions the previous year.

These were the first penalties imposed by the UN for the ongoing Sudanese genocide. U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton was in peak bluster. He called the sanctions "an important first step" and a "'down payment' with more to come."

This month the Security Council is headed by Congolese Ambassador Basile Ikouebe.

Ambassador Ikouebe expressed some skepticism about the Security Council's recent Darfur sanctions. You can say they can't travel and that you can seize their assets, he said. But what if their assets consist of cows? 'You can't put cows in Citibank,' Ambassador Ikouebe concluded. —Matthew Russell Lee in "Press Freedom? Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security Council"

Related posts
The magic word: Genocide (9/13/04)
Powell's follow-up on Sudanese genocide (9/15/04)
Powell's cynical genocide declaration (7/2/05)