AMY GOODMAN: Now Congress has issued a list of senior Sudanese officials who they claim have been involved in war crimes but the administration has not released its own list, as Congress has requested it do.

CHARLES SNYDER: We're in bit of a delicate position here. Everyone sees our opposition to the ICC as a mile wide and 12 miles deep, and we could be accused of prejudicing their actions by coming up with our own name and a list of names and then we get into this game where the ICC says, you know, these 51 and the Americans say that 51. We want to give the ICC some space to operate. So, we are a bit reluctant to get too far into the big names until we see where the ICC investigation goes.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, certainly, in other cases, the US names people they call terrorist, and the US is very busy not supporting the International Criminal Court, so it seems odd to use that as an example to respect the Criminal Court and not name people?

CHARLES SNYDER: Well, on the Security Council, this is the first time we acted on the ICC. We abstained, which said we would give it the space to operate. We just don't feel at this time naming names that may turn out to be a different list of names from what the ICC has or from somebody's professional judgment. Ocampo is a professional prosecutor. In his judgment, the case may not be valid against these 51 names, and we need to be careful. I mean we have also got a peace part of this that we have to balance against the justice. We cannot sacrifice either one to the other. And it's a delicate dance we are doing. We are not going to satisfy Congress on this in the short run, but I think in the longer run, I think they will be satisfied with the way we come out.

AMY GOODMAN: The Congress has requested a number of other steps also like targeted sanctions on people so that they're identified as having committed war crimes. Those that are would have their, for example, bank accounts frozen and be barred from operating on an international level. Your response to that?

CHARLES SNYDER: Well, the resolution has got its own committee enforcing the sanction. You know, 1591 is the particular UN Resolution involved in this. And it's just now begun to be set up under the Greeks and they're not far enough along yet to have a list of names. We'll provide names who we believe are responsible for this. You have also got the problem where a lot of these people, especially when you get down to the tribal chieftain level, this is something that makes us feel good as opposed to is this going to have any effect. These men don't have bank accounts overseas. They don't send their children abroad to school. So the kind of sanctions that we’re dealing with here are just not going to be effective against them.

AMY GOODMAN: What about an arms embargo? Those in Congress asking for an arms embargo on the government of Sudan?

CHARLES SNYDER: We pushed, as you know, in the security council, for an arms embargo. The trouble is to get 15 people to go along with that, you have to overcome the Russians, the Chinese, and several others that object to this, some on theoretical grounds and some on practical grounds, that they're actually selling weapons. But nonetheless we need a universal vote or otherwise it's a unilateral American arms embargo. And right now we have an arms embargo against Sudan: we do not sell weapons to Sudan.

AMY GOODMAN: What difference does it make -- let me put this question to Nick Detorrente, especially with two of your people in a very precarious position now, not allowed to leave the Sudan after the rape report was out -- what kind of pressure is put on the Sudanese government?

NICHOLAS DETORRENTE: Well, I think we’re concerned about the ability to be able to continue to provide humanitarian aid, you know, in Darfur, and we have to remember that, you know, in -- going back a little bit, that for many, many months when the attacks were at their peak in late 2003-early 2004, there was virtually no access at all to Darfur, and aid was completely blocked, and the region was inaccessible. The Sudanese government would not allow aid workers in. Since then it has been opened and political pressure has played a key part in that, in allowing at least humanitarian aid to be provided, and that has enabled a very significant aid effort to be undertaken, which has helped maintain the population above survival levels. I mean, the situation right now is a deep stagnation and stalemate. People are stuck in the camps. They're just above survival level. Assistance is coming in. It's very fragile and precarious. And that needs to be able to continue.

And this is our fear, because these attacks -- these arrests are the most high profile, you know, signs of intimidation of aid workers. But there have been a number of others. A lot of other aid workers have been detained for questioning, arrested at the local level, and we have to remember, most of the aid workers in Darfur are Sudanese. They -- we have international staff, in a way, they are, you know, more protected. These are high profile arrests. Paul Foreman and Vince Hoedt, you know, speak to the BBC. They're well known. But we have, you know, thousands of Sudanese staff who are out on the front lines of providing assistance to the people in Darfur. I frankly, I’m more worried for them right now, because if this gives a signal, kind of a green light for local officials to start intimidating and harassing aid workers at the local level, I think the aid effort could easily be undermined, and that would be very dramatic for the close to 2 million people displaced in camps in Sudan right now, who are utterly dependent on outside assistance as they cannot return to their homes. Their villages are have been burnt, and they're stuck in these camps just above survival levels, and they’re dependent on aid.