The New York Times, which is just as concerned about Darfur as you and I are,
published an editorial this morning about the "Unkept Promises..."
to the non-Arab Muslims of that wretched swath of Sudan.
While claiming that it will cooperate, Khartoum has repeatedly tried to hobble the force: refusing to accept some non-African peacekeepers, trying to limit the peacekeepers’ use of helicopters and demanding other untenable restrictions. Last week, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, chose a notorious leader of the janjaweed, the militias that have carried out most of the killing, to be a senior government adviser.
The Times hasn't kept up with the body count. Already a year and a half
ago, maybe even two years ago, the statistics said that 200,000 had been
killed. That's the number still used. If this is number is correct, the
genocide has long ended. Which it hasn't. Not by a long shot. It is true
that news coverage of the routine massacres is not ongoing. But there have
been enough reports to show that the unrelenting war of the janjaweed and
the Sudanese government against Darfurians is, well, unrelenting.
"The world's leaders say they care desperately about Darfur's
suffering. But caring is not enough." Yes, yes...that is very true. So
who will help? Of course, it is the United Nations (who else?), but the
U.N. has an aversion to doing anything that has real effect in that part of
the world. "The word of the United Nations is on the line," says the
Times. True, true, all too true. And as long as the Times and the other
noble minds count on the U.N. to stop this ethnocidal murder it will go on.
What is needed is an armed force made up of Americans, Brits, Germans,
French, Japanese, Koreans, Canadians, Australians and troops from such of
the Low Countries and Scandinavia who want to participate. OK, you want
Africans, let there be Africans. But not Africans who themselves have
fought ethnic wars against each other. How about South Africa? It is time
for that government to take some responsibility against the blood being
being shed all over the continent...just to protect Zimbabwe from
criticism.