darfur
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Day 141 of Bush's SilenceBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: May 31, 2005
Nyala, SudanA reader from Eugene, Ore., wrote in with a complaint about my harping on the third world:
"Why should the U.S. care for the rest of the world?" he asked. "The U.S. should take care of its own. ... It's way past time for liberal twits to stop pushing the U.S. into nonsense or try to make every wrong in the world our responsibility."
And while that reader wasn't George W. Bush, it could have been. Today marks Day 141 of Mr. Bush's silence on the genocide, for he hasn't let the word Darfur slip past his lips publicly since Jan. 10 (even that was a passing reference with no condemnation).
There are several points I could make to argue that it's in our own interest to help Darfur. Turmoil in Darfur is already destabilizing all of Sudan and neighboring Chad as well, both oil-exporting countries. And failed states nurture terrorists like Osama and diseases like polio, while exporting refugees and hijackers.
But there's an even better argument: Magboula, a woman I met at the Kalma Camp here.
She lived with her husband and five children in the countryside, but then as the Arab janjaweed began to slaughter black African tribes like her own, she and her family fled to the safety of a larger town. In December, the Sudanese Army attacked that town, and they ran off to the bush. Two months ago, the janjaweed militia caught up with them.
First the raiders shot her husband dead, she said, her voice choking, and then they whipped her, taunted her with racial insults against black people and mocked her by asking why her husband was not there to help her. Then eight of them gang-raped her.
They may also have mutilated her. At one point she spoke of being slashed with a knife in the shoulder and chest, but when I asked her about it, she kept changing the subject.
"I was very, very ashamed, and very frightened," she said, leaving it at that.
After the attack, Magboula was determined to save her children. So they traipsed together on a journey across the desert to the Kalma Camp, where a small number of foreign aid workers are struggling heroically to assist 110,000 victims of the upheaval. Magboula carried her 6-month-old baby, Abdul Hani, in her arms, and the others, ranging from 2 to 9, stumbled beside her.
Magboula finally arrived at Kalma a few weeks ago. But the Sudanese government is blocking new arrivals like her from getting registered, which means they can't get food and tents. So Magboula is getting no rations and is living with her children under a straw mat on a few sticks.
Then a few days ago, Abdul Hani, Magboula's baby, died.
She and her children are surviving on handouts from other homeless people who arrived earlier and are getting U.N. food. They have almost nothing themselves, but they at least have the compassion to help those who are even needier.
The world might also respond if people could see what is going on, but Sudan has barred most reporters from the area. I'm here because I accompanied Kofi Annan on a visit - bless him for coming! - and then jumped ship while here.
Magboula and the 2.2 million other homeless people from Darfur need food and shelter, and President Bush has been good about providing that. But above all they need the international community to shame Sudan for killing and raping people on the basis of their tribe. Each time Sudan has been subjected to strong moral pressure, it has backed off somewhat - but lately the attention has subsided, and Mr. Bush even killed the Senate-passed Darfur Accountability Act, which would have condemned the genocide.
What killed Magboula's husband and child was, indirectly, the world's moral indifference.
Others can still be saved if there is unrelenting pressure on Sudan to disarm the janjaweed, on intransigent Sudanese rebels to negotiate seriously for peace (instead of lounging about their hotel suites) and on governments like Egypt's and China's to stop being complicit in the Darfur genocide.
When Americans see suffering abroad on their television screens, as they did after the tsunami, they respond. I wish we had the Magboula Channel, showing her daily struggle to forge ahead through humiliation and hunger, struggling above all to keep her remaining children alive. If you multiply Magboula by 2.2 million, you get the reasons why we should care.
- vb_0
amen
.
- johndiggity0
*cough, united nations
- vb_0
*cough
iraq
*cough
no UN
*cough *cough
- r_gaberz0
*cough
- kelpie0
*cough, united nations
johndiggity
(May 31 05, 06:55)fu*cough.
- johndiggity0
well i'm glad you all agree that the un is irrelevant.
- paraselene0
*cough, united nations
johndiggity
(May 31 05, 06:55)fu*cough.
kelpie
(May 31 05, 07:03)you owe me a new keyboard, kelpie. mine is now covered in the (boiling hot, btw, thanks very much) earl grey that just came shooting out of my nose.
- ********0
*cough, united nations
johndiggity
(May 31 05, 06:55)fu*cough.
kelpie
(May 31 05, 07:03)
=================
haha! that one was funny!
- ********0
i agree, johndiggity is irrelevant.
- johndiggity0
and we can always count on an intelligent commentary from you.
- donal0
intelligent commentry:
"*cough, united nations"
- ********0
nah, i'm just lookin for a fight
as always.
- lowimpakt0
here donal. i need to talk to you.
you know the routine.
busy busy
- unfittoprint0
shame.
republicans aren't different, they're just "special". And with a tendency to see things with fairy tale gogles.
Yet they can be productive members of society also.
u know
Nice clay ashtrays, tapestry and colour crayons drawings.
- ********0
i dont understand what point johndiggity was actually trying to make here.
- ********0
u.s. - hall monitors of the world since 1942.
- ********0
i dont think it's that kona.
I think it's a cry of help from an American journalist to his President to help in that situation rather than be silent about it. You know, like he "helped" in Iraq. Is that a bad thing?
- johndiggity0
i'm saying, why blame republicans, like unfit? wasn't the un supposed to watch this? as long as their is no "intent" by the sudanese government to commit genocide, which the government blames on rebels and outsiders, there will never be a vote by the un to condem this and back any sort of multilateral intervention.
i was merely criticizing the watchdog, as we all no the us cannot again take unilateral millitary action on any country again unless there was a direct threath to the us. i think it's a valid point.
- ********0
*checks thread
coughed before unfit said owt about republicans?
anyway the article is just asking for help. didn't say send in the bombers. just saying, Bush hasn't even mentioned the word darfur. Surely it is up to world leaders to bring these issues up? at least bring it up!
stop obfuscating john!
(kona, obfuscate means trying on purpose weely weely hard to make something more complicated that it am!)
