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Dallas Morning News , TX
Aug 27 2004
Why Darfur Matters: Mankind mustn't turn its eyes from genocide
So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard
lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised.
Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
What does the west Sudanese region of Darfur matter? One may as well
ask what the Holocaust mattered, or the Armenian genocide of 1915 to
1916.
Darfur matters, but not in the usual ways. It neither trades much nor
straddles major trade routes. It has few strategic minerals. It
hasn't weapons of mass destruction with which to threaten other
nations.
It matters because it's a humanitarian emergency - the world's
direst. A Sudanese government-backed Arab militia called the
Janjaweed has brought slaughter, rape and displacement to Darfur,
whose people are principally rural and black African. More than
50,000 have died. More than 1 million have fled. As many as 350,000
are at immediate risk of death unless they receive adequate food,
shelter, medicine and protection from the horse- and camel-borne
marauders.
Countries don't let other countries murder and pillage behind the
much-abused principle of self-determination. It's not just a legal,
moral and humanitarian imperative. Self-interest comes into play as
well - and in ways that aren't always evident. As Mr. McCarthy wrote,
"Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams
are hid from us. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We
have no way to know what could be taken away."
By the same token, no one is dispensable - not even a poor,
illiterate, powerless subsistence farmer. Every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main.
To its credit, the United Nations Security Council, of which the
United States is a permanent member, last month gave the government
until Monday to fulfill its promise to halt the atrocities or face
unspecified economic and diplomatic penalties.
Since then, the violence has decreased. The government has disarmed
some militiamen. More humanitarian aid is getting through. But the
government isn't doing enough. And it's still resisting the United
Nations' good proposal to admit more troops from the African Union to
protect civilians and monitor the cease-fire between Darfur rebels
and the government and its surrogates.
If the government misses the deadline, then the world body shouldn't
hesitate to carry out its threat. Darfur is everyone's business.
Aug 27 2004
Why Darfur Matters: Mankind mustn't turn its eyes from genocide
So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard
lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised.
Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
What does the west Sudanese region of Darfur matter? One may as well
ask what the Holocaust mattered, or the Armenian genocide of 1915 to
1916.
Darfur matters, but not in the usual ways. It neither trades much nor
straddles major trade routes. It has few strategic minerals. It
hasn't weapons of mass destruction with which to threaten other
nations.
It matters because it's a humanitarian emergency - the world's
direst. A Sudanese government-backed Arab militia called the
Janjaweed has brought slaughter, rape and displacement to Darfur,
whose people are principally rural and black African. More than
50,000 have died. More than 1 million have fled. As many as 350,000
are at immediate risk of death unless they receive adequate food,
shelter, medicine and protection from the horse- and camel-borne
marauders.
Countries don't let other countries murder and pillage behind the
much-abused principle of self-determination. It's not just a legal,
moral and humanitarian imperative. Self-interest comes into play as
well - and in ways that aren't always evident. As Mr. McCarthy wrote,
"Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams
are hid from us. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We
have no way to know what could be taken away."
By the same token, no one is dispensable - not even a poor,
illiterate, powerless subsistence farmer. Every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main.
To its credit, the United Nations Security Council, of which the
United States is a permanent member, last month gave the government
until Monday to fulfill its promise to halt the atrocities or face
unspecified economic and diplomatic penalties.
Since then, the violence has decreased. The government has disarmed
some militiamen. More humanitarian aid is getting through. But the
government isn't doing enough. And it's still resisting the United
Nations' good proposal to admit more troops from the African Union to
protect civilians and monitor the cease-fire between Darfur rebels
and the government and its surrogates.
If the government misses the deadline, then the world body shouldn't
hesitate to carry out its threat. Darfur is everyone's business.