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| Africa: Subsaharan | ||
| 300,000 Deaths Foretold | ||
| 2004-06-07 | ||
THE EARLY PREPARATION for the genocide in Darfur, Sudan's vast western province, played out behind a veil of ignorance: Almost no foreign aid workers operated in the region, and the world failed to realize what was happening. Stage two of the genocide, the one we are now in, is more acutely shameful: A succession of reports from relief agencies, human rights groups and journalists informs us that hundreds of thousands of people are likely to perish, yet outsiders still cannot muster the will to save them. Unless that changes, we are fated to live through the genocide's third stage. There will be speeches, commissions of inquiry and sundry retrospectives, just as there were after Cambodia and Rwanda. Never again, we will be told. It is already too late to prevent death on a scale that taxes the imagination. Sudan's murderous government and its allies in the death squads known as the Janjaweed have killed an estimated 30,000 people in Darfur since a rebellion broke out there a bit over a year ago. The crackdown has chased more than 1 million people from their homes and villages. Refugees crowd into camps that the Janjaweed encircle, as food supplies dwindle and their children die for lack of clean water and medicines. The rainy season, now beginning, will make it hard to deliver relief supplies, and starvation seems probable. On Thursday, Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, declared that in an optimistic scenario -- meaning one in which significant relief is delivered -- some 300,000 people might perish. That is the equivalent of Sept. 11, 2001, 100 times over. The worst-case scenario, according to Mr. Natsios, is a death toll that approaches 1 million. Sudan's government is delighted with this slaughter. It perfected the art of ethnic cleansing in its long war against the country's southern rebels, and it has expertly repeated the process in Darfur. The formula is to destroy villages using a combination of informal militias and government air power, then to deny relief organizations access and let starvation do the rest. When international protests heat up toward the boiling point, some humanitarian access is granted, but it's always late and inadequate. So it is now in Darfur. The United States recently landed nine planeloads of relief supplies, and the government has relaxed visa restrictions that had kept aid workers out. But the Sudanese regime still demands that relief supplies be transported on Sudanese trucks and distributed by Sudanese agencies, and that medicines not manufactured in Sudan undergo time-consuming testing. The only plausible explanation: Sudan's government wants people to die by the tens of thousands. Meanwhile, Darfur's rebels do not make things easier. Sketchy reports over the weekend indicated that the rebels took 16 aid workers hostage before releasing them Sunday. The United States, Britain and Norway have been anxious to broker and implement a north-south peace and so have shrunk from pressuring the northern government for greater access to Darfur. Outsiders pretend to believe that a team of 60 or 100 observers from the African Union will be enough to end the atrocities in Darfur, a region the size of France, and they pretend to hope that Sudan will grant full humanitarian access without being bullied into doing so. The tragedy is that aggressive diplomatic pressure would have a good chance of working. In the past, Sudan's government has been pushed into expelling Osama bin Laden, negotiating with the southern rebels and signing a paper cease-fire in Darfur. The United States and its allies should press for a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding full and immediate humanitarian access. They should encourage Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, to force the world's attention onto the crisis; a letter by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) calling upon Mr. Annan to visit Darfur has attracted 45 signatures in Congress. And they should authorize the use of military escorts for emergency aid. The United States is overcommitted militarily in Iraq and elsewhere. But this is a mission for which European countries ought to make troops available.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #16 Rock on everyone! Great rants! Nice ones Zenster (#14) and B (#15). Liberals--the same the world over. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2004-06-07 1:32:08 PM |
| #15 Kofi isn't fiddling. Are you kidding? He's sitting on plush cushion, eating Toast di foie gras con kiwi while a full harmonic orchestra fiddles for him. |
| Posted by: B 2004-06-07 12:55:54 PM |
| #14 You mean like the UN that elected Sudan to its Human Rights Commision? As a matter of fact, yes. That little abortion disguised as world politics has voided all moral authority the UN ever might once have had. However obscene it might sound, I am beginning to wish those airliners had slammed into the UN building. This is the first time I've ever voiced such a thought but my disgust with the oil-for-food scandal, Rwanda and the UN's utter inability to outrightly condemn Palestinian terrorism (and international terrorism in general) have all pushed me past the least iota of tolerance for these diplomatic dilettantes. The UN is rapidly assuming direct complicity in crimes against humanity and as a matter of principal should be evicted from American soil. Let's see how quickly all those fat-cat UN ambassadors would flock to a congress in, say, Bangladesh. #11 I think there would be some interesting revelations about this situation, as seen through international *realpolitik* eyes. In other words, the international "community" (that is, the foreign services and governments), have obviously come to two conclusions: 1) The extermination of the people of Darfur, or at least their "reduction", is small loss. And, 2) Once the situation in Sudan has been "stabilized", as in "the genocide is over and there is peace between north and south", the international "community" will profit in some way. I tend to think that there is merely a degree of flat-out bigotry in much of the world community that could be arsed about another African on African slaughter. However frustrating and nearly futile it is to intervene in Africa, to sit by idly in the midst of so much human suffering reduces us all. For a body like the UN whose specific charter is to interdict such global unrest it is simply pure moral bankruptcy. As a parting shot, does anyone remember the UN Hunger Summit Menu? Toast di foie gras con kiwi (Foie gras on toast with kiwi fruit) Aragosta in vinagrette (Lobster in vinaigrette) Filetto d’oca con olive (Fillet of goose with olives) Verdure di stagione (Seasonal vegetables) Composta di frutta con vaniglia (Compote of fruit with vanilla) Mushroom crêpes Risotto with orange and zucchini slices Salmon with peppers and polenta All of these hypocritical b@stards should have choked to death on their 5,000 oysters, 1,000 lbs of lobster and other shellfish, buckets of caviar and kilos of pâté de foie gras. We'll not mention the vintage Champagne, fine wines, and spirits and liqueurs flown in by costly air freight from around the world. Kofi Annan is fiddling while his precious third world burns. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-06-07 12:37:26 PM |
| #13 Where are Danny Glover, Julian Bond and Harry Belafonte on this issue? How come they are not rousing the black community to put pressure on the media to raise awareness of the blatantly racist pogrom? Because it's a black on black fight with no US involvement. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-06-07 12:16:22 PM |
| #12 Where are Danny Glover, Julian Bond and Harry Belafonte on this issue? How come they are not rousing the black community to put pressure on the media to raise awareness of the blatantly racist pogrom? I don't get it. Are they hypocrites or do they just not care? |
| Posted by: remote man 2004-06-07 12:08:52 PM |
| #11 I think there would be some interesting revelations about this situation, as seen through international *realpolitik* eyes. In other words, the international "community" (that is, the foreign services and governments), have obviously come to two conclusions: 1) The extermination of the people of Darfur, or at least their "reduction", is small loss. And, 2) Once the situation in Sudan has been "stabilized", as in "the genocide is over and there is peace between north and south", the international "community" will profit in some way. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-06-07 10:54:04 AM |
| #10 The UN (and the MEDIA) has known about this for at least a year and Kofi has done nothing siginificant and the media has entirely, and deliberatly, ignored it. We here on Rantburg have known (and Ranted about it) for at least as long. You would have think the media might have mentioned something when Sudan was elected to the U.N. Human Rights Sending relief supplies - through the government. How much of those supplies do you think actually get where they are needed. Hell the Militants are probably snacking on the 'relief' supplies between rapes. But -by-god- put one woman's panties on an 'insurgants' head and there is hell to pay from the U.N. and the media.. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-06-07 9:49:27 AM |
| #9 You mean like the UN that elected Sudan to its Human Rights Commision? That's why it's imperative that "The United States and its allies should press for a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding full and immediate humanitarian access" I'd snicker...but it's just so not funny. |
| Posted by: B 2004-06-07 9:06:18 AM |
| #8 The Islamist North versus Christian/Animist South has quited down of recent, Darfur consists of Arab Muslims against Black muslims. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-06-07 7:39:45 AM |
| #7 I always thought it was the Islamist north against the Christian/Animist south. Racism of colour had less to do with it than Religious fascism. Any comments/facts? |
| Posted by: Anon1 2004-06-07 7:36:07 AM |
| #6 Any .... body that condones such crimes against humanity needs to be wiped off of the map. You mean like the UN that elected Sudan to its Human Rights Commision? |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-06-07 5:59:56 AM |
| #5 Zenster: I'm afraid it's a case of dealing with them to secure cooperation in the WoT. Regime change might get the same thing but the trouble would be excessive for not much gain (for our intests mind you!) I think... If cooperation in the war on terror comes with a pricetag one hundredfold that of the World Trade Center atrocity, then we should be ashamed to condone it. Wipe these sh!ts off the slate as a message to all genocidal maggots. A fresh start is better than having an albatross like this hung 'round our necks. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-06-07 4:43:31 AM |
| #4 Heartbroken with despair over the plight of the "Palestinian" people, Sudanese Arabs transfer their seething wrath to the nubians. As every schoolboy knows, the Zionist entityis really to blame! ______borgboy |
| Posted by: borgboy 2004-06-07 2:21:14 AM |
| #3 Zenster: I'm afraid it's a case of dealing with them to secure cooperation in the WoT. Regime change might get the same thing but the trouble would be excessive for not much gain (for our intests mind you!) I think... |
| Posted by: someone 2004-06-07 2:07:11 AM |
| #2 Sudan's government is delighted with this slaughter. It perfected the art of ethnic cleansing in its long war against the country's southern rebels, and it has expertly repeated the process in Darfur. The formula is to destroy villages using a combination of informal militias and government air power, then to deny relief organizations access and let starvation do the rest. When international protests heat up toward the boiling point, some humanitarian access is granted, but it's always late and inadequate. Is there some reason why a genocidal government like this shouldn't be treated to a quick visit with Mister Cruise Missle? What more harm could it do? It's not like these b@stards aren't a waste of skin already. This is murder writ large. Any legislative body that condones such crimes against humanity needs to be wiped off of the map. Where, oh where is Arab outrage at this mass slaughter of Islamic people. What's that? "They're black," you say? But isn't Islam all embracing? Embrace this, motherf&%kers! |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-06-07 1:11:18 AM |
| #1 and the world failed to realize what was happening. BS! We have known about this for 6 months to a year. The silence from the 'international community' and the UN has been deafening. Also note the tone of the article that no fault attaches to the UN for having done nothing. Just like Rwanda! God forbid the UN should actually be responsible for anything. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-06-07 12:42:47 AM |
