Archive for May 13th, 2006
Children forced into Darfur death squads
According to the United Nations, the children were among as many as 5,000 male Sudanese refugees from the Darfur conflict who over the past two months have been abducted from camps in neighbouring Chad. In a crisis that refuses to yield to international intervention and peacekeeping efforts, the snatching of children to be forced to become soldiers is the latest horror in three years of bloody fighting between black rebel farmers and Arab militias known as Janjaweed, backed by the Sudanese government. About 200,000 people have died and 2m have been driven from their homes. In New York tomorrow the United Nations Security Council is expected to back a peace deal thrashed out in Nigeria between the Khartoum government and the rebels. But few diplomats believe there will be any let-up in the fighting unless an African Union force of 7,000 peacekeepers is given more clout.
The Sunday Times for complete article.
May 14, 2006
Katharine Houreld, Sudan-Chad border
Most likely and unfortunately quite true to quote Justin Raimondo:
We cannot help Africa, except by trading with it and increasing our humanitarian private efforts to alleviate suffering. The least we can do, however, is to stop encouraging the worst, most illiberal elements by subsidizing governments like those of Ethiopia and Eritrea, run by common thugs paid to do America's bidding. If we really want to help Africa, we'll stay out of their internal political affairs, start granting more visas from that continent, and get over our own sense of moral superiority that lets us imagine we can somehow uplift the entire world to the level of a typical American suburb
But if this be the case then we need to begin.
How the world shed light on Darfur:
How the world shed light on Darfur.
ALAN FREEMAN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
As for Darfur, Prof. Reeves doesn't see the signing of the peace accord as any reason for celebration. He is not convinced the pact will hold and does not believe that Western countries will provide the needed soldiers and firepower to turn the weak African Union peace force into a robust UN-sponsored peacekeeping contingent. “We are putting literally millions of people at risk. It's unconscionable that the world community watches while these people continue to face extraordinary security threats, extraordinary humanitarian shortcomings, which will only get worse as the rainy-season hunger gap gets worse.” “I'm terribly pessimistic. I think we can see more mortality in the next half year than we've seen to date. These people are so vulnerable. I am deeply dispirited. How can it be that we watch Rwanda unfold in slow motion before our eyes?”
