New York Times regular Nicholas Kristof wrote an excellent column on the genocide in Darfur, Sudan and President Bush's deafening silence this year on the mass slaughter.
Kristof notes that presidential attention doesn't necessarily mean the committing of American troops.
Darfur will never be a Somalia or Iraq, because nobody is talking about sending in American combat troops. But simply an ounce of top-level attention to Darfur would go a long way to save lives. In 1999, Madeleine Albright traveled to Sierra Leone and met child amputees there, wrenching the hearts of American television viewers and making that crisis a priority in a way that eventually helped resolve it. Ms. Rice could do the same for Darfur if she would only bother to go.
Albright's trip to Sierra Leone focused international attention on the horrors of Sierra Leone. The US got fully the effort to slap sanctions on the rebels who were committing the worst atrocities in the country and to set up an international tribunal. Many in Washington also got behind efforts to regulate the 'blood diamond' trade that funded the rebels. The US also supported Britain's sending of a small contingent of troops to Sierra Leone that ended up stabilizing the country. As a result, Sierra Leonians no longer have to fear drugged up child soldiers chopping off their arms or hands with machetes. War criminals (with the notable exception of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor) are in prison awaiting trial rather than spreading terror throughout West Africa.
Kristof's last paragraph on Darfur hits the nail on the head:
Mr. Bush values a frozen embryo, he writes, not even mentioning a lone woman in a vegetative state in Florida who galvanized presidential and Congressional outrage. But he hasn't mustered much compassion for an entire population of terrorized widows and orphans. And he is cementing in place the very hopelessness he dreads, by continuing to avert his eyes from the first genocide of the 21st century.
No comments:
Post a Comment