For anyone who questioned who's behind the Janjaweed's massacres in Darfur: Sudan government documents incontrovertibly show that government officials directed recruitment, arming and other support to the ethnic militias known as the Janjaweed, Human Rights Watch said today. The government of Sudan has consistently denied recruiting and arming the Janjaweed militias, including during the recent visits of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Human Rights Watch said it had obtained confidential documents from the civilian administration in Darfur that implicate high-ranking government officials in a policy of militia support. “It’s absurd to distinguish between the Sudanese government forces and the militias—they are one,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division. “These documents show that militia activity has not just been condoned, it’s been specifically supported by Sudan government officials.” Human Rights Watch said that Sudanese government forces and government-backed militias are responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and “ethnic cleansing” involving aerial and ground attacks on civilians of the same ethnicity as members of two rebel groups in Darfur. Thousands of civilians have been killed, hundreds of women and girls have been raped and more than one million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes and farms in Darfur.