It looks as if the realists have won the day in the matter of Darfur. Or, to phrase it in another way, it looks as if the ethnic cleansers of that province have made good use of the "negotiation" and "mediation" period to complete their self-appointed task. As my friend Johann Hari put it recently in the London Independent: "At last, some good news from Darfur: the genocide in western Sudan is nearly over. There's only one problem—it's drawing to an end only because there are no black people left to cleanse or kill."
By some reliable estimates, the Sudanese government or "National Islamic Front" has slain as many as 400,000 of its black co-religionists—known contemptuously as zurga ("niggers")—and expelled perhaps 2 million more. This appalling achievement has been made possible by a very simple tactic: The actual killers and cleansers, the Arab janjaweed militias, are a "deniable" arm of the Sudanese authorities. Those authorities pretend to negotiate with the United Nations, the United States, and the African Union, and their negotiating "card" is the control that they can or might exercise over said militias. While this tap is turned on and off, according to different applications of carrot and stick, the militias pretend to go out of control and carry on with their slaughter and deportation. By the time the clock has been run out, the job is done.
One story which was so buried during the last U.S. presidential election I've never seen it since gave life to what has been going on. On election day (U.S.) some UN observers noted that Sudanese troops were loading Africans on buses, to parts unknown, in direct violation of the 'safe' area the UN had created. One might refer to UN 'safe' areas as waiting rooms for genocide given their recent history.
Genocide weighs heavily on me. I don't consider myself a particularly special person, endowed with exceptional morals, but when I hear of the systematic murder of entire groups of people it makes me question the nature of international law. So often we hear about some trumped-up complaint from the UN, like the burning of dead Taliban terrorists, but the Darfur genocide - under Kofi Annan's watch - appears to be ending because there is nobody left to rape, torture, mutilate, or kill.
I can only pray that this website's title is still validDarfur: A Genocide We Can Stop
The Crime of Our New Century...
The Sudanese Government, using Arab "Janjaweed" militias, its air force, and organized starvation, is systematically killing the black Sudanese of Darfur.
The picture of the boy killed (left) shows what is happening in Darfur. Over a million people, driven from their homes, now face death from starvation and disease as the Government and militias attempt to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching them. The same forces have destroyed the people of Darfur's villages and crops, and poisoned their water supplies, and they continue to murder, rape and terrorize.
How will history judge those who lived through this mass atrocity? For all our platitudes about international law, due process, 'torture,' and 'illegal war,' there is a mass crime against humanity going on under our noses. These victims don't wear panties on their heads. They are raped, tortured, and mutilated to death.
When the political fallout people obsess over fades away, the history of mankind will be written in a more serious tone. Body counts speak volumes in history. History is one long list of body counts which could have, or should have, been prevented.
How many American, French, British, Russian, and Chinese troops would it take to end this genocide? Perhaps a brigade each. But the Chinese and French (among others) have substantial Sudanese oil interests to think about, so UN action is off the table.
Where is the 'Security' in the UN Security Council? Should we use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for toilet paper?
This is a massive genocide being carried out in the most inhumane ways, for oil.
No comments:
Post a Comment