Jimmy Carter has never met a genocidal murderous dictator he didn’t like: ’Elders’ criticize West’s response to situation in Darfur.

As the Darfur peace mission of the retired statesmen known as the Elders came to an end, two of their number - former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and former US President Jimmy Carter - chastened the West for its handling of the violent situation in Sudan. The BBC reports that Mr. Brahimi - a member of the group of Elders that includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, rights advocate Graca Machel, and entrepreneur Richard Branson - chastised the West for pandering to Sudanese rebel groups that may not represent the people of Darfur.

“The international community has acted rather irresponsibly on all this in the past by pampering a lot of these people around - not really wondering whether they really represented anybody and whether they were acting responsibly,” said Mr Brahimi.

The BBC adds that although he praised the plans for UN-sponsored peace talks later this month in Libya, Brahimi warned that the West needs to ensure that the people of Darfur are properly represented at the talks. Brahimi’s criticism of the West’s handling of Darfur was joined by that of Mr. Carter, who singled out the United States government for its use of the term “genocide” to describe the Sundanese conflict. Reuters reports that Carter called Washington’s use of the term “genocide” was both legally inaccurate and “unhelpful.”

“There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal standard. The atrocities were horrible but I don’t think it qualifies to be called genocide,” he said. Washington is almost alone in branding the 4 1/2 years of violence in Darfur genocide. Khartoum rejects the term, European governments are reluctant to use it and a U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry found no genocide, but that some individuals may have acted with genocidal intent. Carter, whose charitable foundation, the Carter Center, worked to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC), said: “If you read the law textbooks … you’ll see very clearly that it’s not genocide and to call it genocide falsely just to exaggerate a horrible situation I don’t think it helps.”