Dafur Genocide Drawing to an End

[Wesley Dodds]

Because, apparently, they're running out of black people in kill. Johann Hari (http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=686):

At last, some good news from Darfur: the holocaust 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.

The National Islamic Front government has culled over 400,000 “Zurga” – a word which translates best as “niggers” – and driven two million more from their homes in its quest to make western Sudan “Zurga-free”. Their racist Janjaweed militias would love to carry on rampaging and raping, but the black villages have all been burned down and the women have all been raped with “Arab seed” to “destroy their race from within” – what’s a poor militiaman to do? The first genocide of the twenty-first century has proceeded without a hitch, and the genocidaires have won.

The primary responsibility for this holocaust lies, of course, with the National Islamic Front government in Khartoum. For decades, they treated Darfur in western Sudan as a nothing more than a source of loyal Muslim conscripts to fight in their civil war against Christians in the South. The “Zurga” were good enough to use as cannon fodder – to die in their hundreds of thousands fighting in a futile war – but not good enough to be allowed into government or to have any public funds spent on them. When in 2003 the “Zurga” staged a minor rebellion against decades of being treated like this, Khartoum reacted with staggering ferocity. They unleashed the Janjaweed militias – a fancy term for men on horseback with knives and machine guns – and backed their raids up with helicopter gunships.


After Kosovo, we had a lot of fun patting ourselves on the back and talking about the new era of humanitarian foreign policy. Well, we know how much all that noise about morality in foreign affairs is worth now, don't we?

[Wesley Dodds]

Brian, can you correct the spelling of Darfur in the thread title?

[pennywisdom]

Brian, can you correct the spelling of Darfur in the thread title?
D'oh!!

Yeah, the Bush Administration has loused foreign policy in just about every way possible, but this tragedy is unacceptable. Why don't they ever talk about it in mainstream news? I wouldn't even know what was happening down there if it weren't for the internet.

[cactusmaac]

*Looks at Aruba coverage*

I wonder why.

[Wesley Dodds]

The media doesn't cover a story unless a faction of America's political party takes up the issue. So, if it's not a Democrat-Republican issue, it doesn't recieve much coverage.

[pennywisdom]

The media doesn't cover a story unless a faction of America's political party takes up the issue. So, if it's not a Democrat-Republican issue, it doesn't recieve much coverage.
That's true. I had a post a while ago on my now-defunct blog about how the Terri Schiavo incident was only worth reporting once they twisted the story into a Blue v. Red issue. It really bothers me that partisanship is at the foundation of everything political. We dropped the ball on this. More people are concerned with name-calling and rhetoric than actually helping people.

[cactusmaac]

I've been following Darfur myself for a while.

Other than directly threatening military action, I'm not sure there's much any foreign party could have done.

[StoneGold]

That's true. I had a post a while ago on my now-defunct blog about how the Terri Schiavo incident was only worth reporting once they twisted the story into a Blue v. Red issue. It really bothers me that partisanship is at the foundation of everything political. We dropped the ball on this. More people are concerned with name-calling and rhetoric than actually helping people.
Why do you hate Freedom?

[pennywisdom]

Why do you hate Freedom?
lol. Yeah, I know. I should love it or leave it.

[Arrjay]

I had a post a while ago on my now-defunct blog about how the Terri Schiavo incident was only worth reporting once they twisted the story into a Blue v. Red issue. It really bothers me that partisanship is at the foundation of everything political. We dropped the ball on this. More people are concerned with name-calling and rhetoric than actually helping people.

That is unfortunately true. Independent Media in the United States is almost non-existant. Perhaps that's a little harsh...it exists but it's underground. You have to track it down yourself. The mainstream media in the U.S will twist and turn everything to make it palpable for their audience who then only have to focus for just a moment and then nod in approval. Then it's shifted to the back of their minds so they can shop comfortably and distract themselves while burying their heads in barcodes.

But the point of the matter is basically in what's been said above. This is genocide and it's happened almost completely unchecked. Disgusting.

When the mainstream media of the U.S can turn it into political propaghanda that delegates the blame to either the red or blue then you will see it on T.V

Until that day: happy beer and pretzels my friend....

[pennywisdom]

Tucker - Very well said. I agree.

That is unfortunately true. Independent Media in the United States is almost non-existant.
Sometimes when I visit The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk) I ask myself "Why do I have to go a British website when I live in a country that was founded on freedom of the press?" Of course, I have nothing against the English, but it does make you think.

[Charles RB]

Tony Blair had pledged in 2001 that “if Rwanda happened again, we would have a moral responsibility to act.” But confronted with precisely that, he offered nothing but a moral fig-leaf: he proposed an African Union (AU) force should be sent to monitor a ceasefire in Darfur. But the AU did not have the physical capability to pacify Tunbridge Wells, never mind Darfur. They sent just 3000 troops to monitor an area the size of France – and the handful of troops they did send didn’t even have a mandate to protect civilians.

Thanks a bundle for that, Tony. Sure, it'd be hard to send British troops in to do anything because so many of them are in Iraq now, but there's no excuse for proposing something that useless when you're one of the main permanent figures on the UN Security Council which can call for troops from other countries. You can't do it through the UN, because:
China and France both have oil interests in Sudan – so they told Kofi Anan they would veto any attempt by the Security Council to end the genocide.
? (And sod you guys for that) Well, how many other countries is Britain allied with in various forms? It's in several organisations, one of which is NATO, a specifically military organisation that's jumped into ethnic cleansing situations in the past. Getting help for a peace enforcement mission in Sudan really shouldn't have been a terribly hard feat that you had to wimp out on, Tony, unless you couldn't give a toss.

Then we have:

The Bush administration talked tough about Darfur at first, becoming one of the first governments to publicly use the g-word. But at the same time, as the Los Angeles Times has revealed, they were sending jets to Khartoum to fly Sudan’s intelligence chief Salan Abdallah Gosh – the man overseeing the holocaust – to Washington. He was ushered into secret meetings where he was feted as a “close ally” for sharing some intelligence about al-Quaida and moving towards opening Sudan’s oil fields to US corporations. Ah well, what’s a spot of genocide between friends? The state department has even begun spouting the Sudanese propaganda line that the Janjaweed are “wild out-of-control tribesmen” not under the control of Khartoum. But how many wild out-of-control tribesmen have helicopter gunships bearing the insignia of the Sudanese army?

Nice one, guys. Great work with that whole war on terror. Bastards.

[MushMouth]

Don't worry, I'm sure a new genocide will break out somewhere in Africa (perhaps Congo or Uganda) that the world can ignore.

[MushMouth]

Sad but true - the only time I've ever heard Darfur talked about on the tv was when PBS had on Nicholas Kristof and when CBN did a segment on the "night commuters" of Uganda and sourthern Sudan.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Other than directly threatening military action, I'm not sure there's much any foreign party could have done.

Darfur demonstrated once again that the UN is either unwilling or unable - or both - to do anything tangible and effective to intervene in genocide. Given that the UN was formed partially in response to WW II and the atrocities of the Nazis, this failure demonstrates as clearly as anything that the UN is pretty much failing at some of its core tasks. Things like UNICEF and the WHO are great, but those are secondary functions, at best.

And, once again the US failed to take a leadership position in dealing with a very clear moral issue. Which is fine - I'm not a believer that the US should act as the world's conscience or watchdog - but Washington can't have it both ways, either. This Administration and future ones need to dispense with the rhetoric about the US acting as a beacon of freedom to the world if the US is gonna just sit it out and watch people be killed, beaten, raped, driven from their homes into the desert and slowly starved to death.

[StoneGold]

But the country was filled with black people and no oil. That's like a double negative.

[MushMouth]

I'd say one could make a strong case for doing away with the Security veto based on Darfur.

US, Russia, France, and China all used their veto power to hold up ending genocide. Genocide is pretty much the very thing the UN was formed to prevent. There's something seriously wrong here.

[MushMouth]

But the country was filled with black people and no oil. That's like a double negative.

Sudan has oil.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/sudan1103/

There are grave and systematic human rights violations taking place within Sudan, particularly with regard to the conduct of the war in the oil-producing regions and elsewhere, that the government of Sudan has been unable or unwilling to address and to date have not been susceptible to remedy through the ordinary mechanisms of the state’s legal system nor through international mechanisms; and no form of pressure from the international community has had any reasonable prospect of having a significant effect in reducing or mitigating the abuses.

In Sudan, the deliberate, forcible displacement, without notice or compensation, of tens and even hundreds of thousands of civilians from the southern oil regions in Western Upper Nile/Unity State has occurred during several periods since the discovery of oil in the south, and is still occurring. The means are military, used by government army or government-armed militias against civilian populations in the context of a war that has been going on for almost twenty years. The oilfields have become the “main conflict area” in Sudan, according to the U.N.

The government’s military campaign in the oil producing regions was specifically designed to clear the civilian population out of the area to facilitate oil production. In this regard, the oil companies clearly benefited from grave and systematic abuses by the state—without such a vicious displacement campaign, the companies would not be able to operate, or so the government seemed to believe. The government chose to depopulate the areas rather than reach and keep peace agreements or other arrangements with those who lived in and had a historical claim on the land.

[west3man]

I've been following Darfur myself for a while.

Other than directly threatening military action, I'm not sure there's much any foreign party could have done.
If hundreds of thousands of deaths doesn't warrant military action, I'm not sure what does... Well, we've seen what does, unfortunately.

[Charles RB]

Darfur demonstrated once again that the UN is either unwilling or unable - or both - to do anything tangible and effective to intervene in genocide.

Well, when you've got China and France both saying they'll veto any Security Council measure on stopping genocide, the US viewing Sudan's government as an ally and Britain not giving a toss, I'm not sure what it could do that would be tangible and effective.

And that's why the way the UN is currently set up looks like a total pisser if you want to get anything tangible & effective done.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Well, when you've got China and France both saying they'll veto any Security Council measure on stopping genocide, the US viewing Sudan's government as an ally and Britain not giving a toss, I'm not sure what it could do that would be tangible and effective.

And that's why the way the UN is currently set up looks like a total pisser if you want to get anything tangible & effective done.

Which comes down to "unable." Which, in a situation like this, clearly equates to "failure."

And as long as the UN functions by the current rules of engagement, the same thing will continue to happen again and agan.

[MushMouth]

And as long as the UN functions by the current rules of engagement, the same thing will continue to happen again and agan.

Understatement

http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocidetable2003.htm

[jade_nova]

Is this going to be one of those famous never again moments people proclaim after a massive genocide but do nothing while a genocide is committed in the future? By the way after the Holocaust how many genocides have there been.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Is this going to be one of those famous never again moments people proclaim after a massive genocide but do nothing while a genocide is committed in the future?
I don't know if people will even bother. No photogenic celebs are making a cause of this one, and people are more interested in Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton than things like this.

By the way after the Holocaust how many genocides have there been.
Depends how you use/define the term. Some that come immediately to mind include:
- Stalin's and Mao's purges of various political enemies, which often included large proportions of specific ethnic groups
- Some of Saddam's actions toward Kurds and Shi'a
- Pol Pot's actions in Cambodia
- various atrocities in Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, etc.
- actions taken against various small, indigenous culture groups throughout South America and Asia

[Hoss]

I've been following Darfur myself for a while.

Other than directly threatening military action, I'm not sure there's much any foreign party could have done.

I'm not trying to start with you - I promise. But these kinds of events are one of the many reasons why I am so against the Iraq war. In the case of Darfur, a country currently experiencing genocide, I am all for US military action. Actually, that is my line in the sand. I believe that the only reason the US has for STARTING a war is to end genocide. But even if there had been popular support for an intervention in Darfur the US armed forces would have been hard pressed to fight two wars at one time. It embarrasses me as an American when we pound our chest about the plight of the Iraqi people while genocide is happening in another country.

And by the way – it isn’t too late to write your Senators about this issue. I got a response back from Bill Nelson when I sent him a letter a while back on this topic. And believe me – these letters do make a difference. It becomes a numbers game and the more they see interested folks writing letters the more confident they feel taking up an issue.

[Winslow]

And by the way – it isn’t too late to write your Senators about this issue. I got a response back from Bill Nelson when I sent him a letter a while back on this topic. And believe me – these letters do make a difference. It becomes a numbers game and the more they see interested folks writing letters the more confident they feel taking up an issue.

Excellent idea.

Anyone have a draft I can plagiarize . . .er. I mean use for reference.

Honestly though, I don't know how to make an intelligent appeal to a congressman over a matter of foreign policy.