From today's edition of the "Miami Herald" ("Stop the Killing"); alternate link, added Wednesday...
How long will the world community watch with hands folded as the ethnic cleansing in Darfur continues unabated? Global leaders, including at the United Nations, apparently are willing to wait a very long time -- too long. Yet there is no excuse for the international community's hands-off attitude. The slaughter of more than 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda 10 years ago is a graphic example of what can happen when world leaders fail to stop the systematic slaughter of people.
In Sudan, more than 70,000 ethnic Africans have been killed and more than 1.4 million displaced in 20 months of fighting with Arab Muslims, who are being assisted by the Sudanese government itself.
A visit to western Sudan last week by two U.S. news organizations, including Knight Ridder reporter Sudarsan Raghavan, confirmed suspicions that the Sudanese government is involved in killings. Mr. Raghavan and the other reporters found evidence that bombs had been dropped from government planes on hapless villagers. [The "Miami Herald" is owned by Knight Ridder.]
Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly last week, in a cowardly capitulation, avoided taking a vote on a resolution that would have condemned the violence as a violation of human rights. And although Secretary of State Colin Powell in September called the killings genocide, the United States hasn't been aggressive enough or involved enough to force a different outcome. The African Union has put together a meager force of 700 troops, but this isn't nearly enough manpower or firepower to be effective.
The United States should proceed along two paths. First, we should increase pressure on the U.N. Security Council to intervene with force. The United States must also significantly increase humanitarian aid and assistance to relief agencies, as well as provide U.N. and African Union forces with the supplies and resources that they need. Now is the time to act.
From Monday's edition of the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" ("The Crisis Deepens"); alternate link, added Wednesday; alternate, alternate link, also added Wednesday...
AMERICAN ENVOY JOHN C. DANFORTH is riding the equivalent of two wild horses at once as he works through the United Nations to try to rein in dual conflicts in Sudan. The first horse is Darfur, an area in the western region where government-backed Arab militiamen engage in what the Bush administration says is genocide against African rebels.
Mr. Danforth suffered a serious diplomatic setback last week when the U.N. General Assembly thwarted a resolution that would have denounced the killings and other rights abuses in Darfur. The inaction amounted to moral and political cowardice, particularly among African countries. Once again, they followed their pattern of refusing to criticize human rights abuses by another African nation.
The conflict in Darfur has been spinning out of control for 20 months as government-backed fighters, known as the Janjaweed, engage in wave after wave of terror against Africans, burning villages, killing and maiming men, raping women and causing at least 1.4 million people to flee farms and villages. The death toll is said to exceed 70,000, and tens of thousands more are dying of malnutrition and disease.
The other horse is the 21-year Sudanese civil war between the north's Arab Muslims and black African Christians and animists in the south. During the past two weeks, Mr. Danforth persuaded all 15 members of the Security Council to agree to a resolution tackling the north-south war. Getting unanimous support came at a high price. Focusing on the big picture meant backing away from an earlier U.N. threat of sanctions against Sudan over Darfur.
Mr. Danforth argues that getting the Security Council to work for peace in the larger conflict would pave the way for ending the smaller but no less tragic developments unfolding in Darfur. We hope he's right. A glimmer of hope is seen in the fact that factions in the north-south struggle have agreed once again to do what they promised earlier: honor a cease-fire and a power-sharing accord.
Trouble is, the parties have been given until the end of this year to set the accord in motion. By then, who knows how many more lives the conflict in Darfur will claim? It's essential that pressure be put on the Sudanese government to hold the Arab terrorists in Darfur in check and make sure they don't prevent food and medicine from reaching the needy and the sick.
The developments in Sudan also raise questions about the administration's willingness to follow through on its charge of genocide in Darfur. If it is genocide, then the United States has an obligation under the Geneva Conventions to insist that the perpetrators are brought to justice. No serious effort has been made to prosecute the Janjaweed.
The last time slaughter on a massive scale visited Africa was 10 years ago, when machete-wielding Hutus killed some 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. After the fact, there were plenty of apologies from the West and at the United Nations for having done nothing. Rwanda is worth remembering as Darfur heads down a similar destructive path.
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