Right now, hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the Sudanese government’s genocide in Darfur are packed into camps along both sides of the border with Chad. Mortality rates inside the camps are already shockingly high, since the Sudanese government restricts the amount of food aid groups can bring in. Recent reports indicate that the Janjaweed—the Arab militias who… return to article
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Reader Comments (6)Page 1 of 1 pagesIf there is truth in this article, then the situation in Darfur is about much more than feelings of tribal superiority. I was happy to see that there is talk in my state of divestment from the oil market in the Sudan. According to the article, a lot of retirement folios have a lot of investments in Sudanese oil.
It confuses me that this administration will use the word “genocide”, while the U.N. argues about what constitutes “genocide”, and yet we do nothing and the European nations do nothing, and NATO does nothing to intervene and stop the violence.
If the U.S. would get back on the Human Rights Commission and join the International Criminal Court, perhaps we could be more helpful.
Meanwhile, I wonder if it would be possible to get journalists and other writers and posters to start putting quotation marks around ethnic cleansing, please, to indicate that it is a euphemism for genocidal practices and not a “cleansing” process.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 16, 2006 at 1:19 AM I have already and often sent letters to my congressmen about Dafur. If a “moralistic” American foreign policy (which I hearily support) is to mean anything, we need to actually do something.
I do take issue with the comment in the article about Russia and China being willing to sign on to some UN initiative. China notably is the one dragging its feet in the Security Council on this issue.
Why?
Google “china dafur un”
The two most telling linked article are these:
Who Funds the Genocide in Dafur, Sudan? :: Sudan :: bLogicus
Who Funds the Genocide in Dafur, Sudan? Not surprising, China is now the largest foreign investor in Sudan, and, when the United Nations’ Security Council ...
www.blogicus.com/archives/who_funds_the_genocide_in_dafur_sudan.php - 100k - Cached - Similar pagesand
China’s Evil Empire
... killing rampage that has consumed hundreds of thousands of lives in Dafur. ... The open threat of a Chinese UN veto has shielded Sudan from possible ...
www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/1/16/165403.shtml - 36k - Cached - Similar pages
Posted by Jay Cline on Mar 17, 2006 at 2:23 PM I don’t “google”, Jay. I use a search engine. I found some interesting articles and it appears that China is indeed, at least one of the sponsors of these atrocities in Darfur, and China imports a lot of petroleum from Sudan.
But how about laying off, the evil empire schtick? China isn’t doing anything that we haven’t done for Exxon or Bechtel. Neither we nor China invented imperialism, colonialism, or the divide-and-conquer technique.
I would like to see the Security Council abolished so that the U.N. can get down to business with majority votes of a quorum. Then we could have some serious peace keeping forces, and the rising, falling, and current superpowers that armed to the teeth can be threatened with sanctions when they go into kill-em-all and steal their resources mode.
All oil producing nations have a serious need to protect themselves from all intruders.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 18, 2006 at 11:14 AM (god, I hate the way this blog sometimes just loses a post! - let me try this again)
WW, if you got issues with the evil emipre schtick, take it up with www.newsmax.com.
Their headline: not mine. I was only demonstrating that China is more of a problem to resolving the Sudan crisis than anyone else.
Regardless of whether I agree with the China isn’t doing anything that we haven’t done schtick, that most certainly is an amoralistic schtick as it shuts down opposing arguments whilst blithely ignoring that moralistic notion of two wrongs do not make a right
I would like to see the entire UN abolished and a new international security arrangement made that does not put totalitarian regimes in the driver’s seat of Human Rights monitors (Google Syria, Lybia, UN Human Rights Commission). Full membership should not be automatic merely because you control the capital city.
As far as the anti-Google search engine rhetoric, take it up with someone who cares.
Posted by Jay Cline on Mar 20, 2006 at 12:39 PM Schtick! Schtick! It’s my turn to say schtick!
The UN is a crippled beast: mostly useless, but too damn stubborn to die. It’s unlikely that we’ll see a new organization rise to take on it’s intended responsibilities any time soon, so the global community is just going to have to work with what’s they’ve got.
Countries like China, who’ve got a nice long list of human rights violations, are always going to try and sabotage any humanitarian efforts that negatively impact their investments. The United States rarely intervenes in foreign affairs for purely humanitarian reasons, and the ideas of equality and human rights are (supposed to be) part of our political doctrine. So… why would you expect anything different from an economic megalith with a large amount of money invested in the current regime? That’s like expecting Pfizer to admit generic Canadian/Mexican drug imports are chemically identical to the brand name counterparts.
Posted by Harrower on Mar 20, 2006 at 1:40 PM Can you give me a source for that pharmaceutical information, Harrower, I have a friend who has a life or death situation with medication and the constant threat of having insurance dropped or cut is a strain? I’ve been looking at international pharmacies, doctors in these parts are as unlikely to admit such a thing as Pfizer is. The prices are so much lower it’s maddening.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 23, 2006 at 10:31 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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