Another genocide, more international inaction

[question everything]

By Julianne Malveaux
June 24, 2004

One of the world's "most rapidly developing humanitarian crises" – as UNICEF describes it – is in Sudan. For the last 15 months, the fertile lands of North Darfur have been under attack in western Sudan. An armed militia of nomadic Arab tribes, known as the Janjaweed, has raided these lands, violently displacing more than a million black Sudanese Muslims in a clash over territory.

Thousands have been slaughtered, tens of thousands have been raped and robbed and seen their farms destroyed, hundreds of villages have been burned and dozens of schools have been closed. Some of these attacks have taken place with the help of government soldiers.

(snip)

So far there has been little outrage and hardly any call to action. The international community needs to condemn the complicit Islamic government in Khartoum and coerce it into stopping the atrocities.

Fortunately, pressure is mounting for the U.S. government to take action. The House passed a resolution to freeze the assets of Sudanese implicated in the crisis, as well as bar them from entering the United States. The threat of U.S. sanctions on Sudan has also intensified. But all in all, the Bush administration has remained relatively quiet.

A decade ago, we did not think Rwanda would careen so far out of control that 800,000 people would die for our indifference. A decade later, even as we decry our inaction in Rwanda, we are replaying our apathy in Darfur.

(snip)

Malveaux is a member of the board of directors of TransAfrica Forum. This article was written for the Progressive Media Project (www.progressive.org).


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040624/news_lz1e24malveau.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Disgusting. The West still yawning at Africa. Call Congress. eom