Sudan : Western-supported genocide

2005-11-28

Richard Moore

'Depopulation' is a primary U.S. goal in the third world. Not 
only is genocide systematically tolerated when it occurs, but 
the CIA is often directly involved in causing it in the first 
place.

rkm

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112705C.shtml

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 A Tolerable Genocide 
By Nicholas D. Kristof 
The New York Times 

Sunday 27 November 2005 

Nyala, Sudan - Who would have thought that a genocide
could become worse? But after two years of heartbreaking
slaughter, rape and mayhem, the situation in Darfur is now
spiraling downward.

More villages are again being attacked and burned - over
the last week thatch-roof huts have been burning near the
town of Gereida and far to the northwest near Jebel Mun.

Aid workers have been stripped, beaten and robbed. A few
more attacks on aid workers, and agencies may pull out -
leaving the hapless people of Darfur with no buffer
between themselves and the butchers.

The international community has delegated security to the
African Union, but its 7,000 troops can't even defend
themselves, let alone protect civilians. One group of 18
peacekeepers was kidnapped last month, and then 20
soldiers sent to rescue them were kidnapped as well; four
other soldiers and two contractors were killed in a
separate incident.

What will happen if the situation continues to deteriorate
sharply and aid groups pull out? The U.N. has estimated
that the death toll could then rise to 100,000 a month.

The turmoil has also infected neighboring Chad, which is
inhabited by some of the same tribes as Sudan. Diplomats
and U.N. officials are increasingly worried that Chad
could tumble back into its own horrific civil war as well.

This downward spiral has happened because for more than
two years, the international community has treated this as
a tolerable genocide. In my next column, my last from
Darfur, I'll outline the steps we need to take. But the
essential starting point is outrage: a recognition that
countering genocide must be a global priority.

It's true that a few hundred thousand deaths in Darfur - a
good guess of the toll so far - might not amount to much
in a world where two million a year die of malaria. But
there is something special about genocide. When humans
deliberately wipe out others because of their tribe or
skin color, when babies succumb not to diarrhea but to
bayonets and bonfires, that is not just one more tragedy.
It is a monstrosity that demands a response from other
humans. We demean our own humanity, and that of the
victims, when we avert our eyes.

Already, large swaths of Darfur are so unsafe that they
are "no go" areas for humanitarian organizations - meaning
that we don't know what horrors are occurring in those
areas. But we have some clues.

There are widespread reports that the janjaweed, the
government-backed Arab marauders who have been
slaughtering members of several African tribes, sometimes
find it convenient not to kill or expel every last African
but to leave a few alive to grow vegetables and run
markets. So they let some live in exchange for protection
money or slave labor.

One Western aid worker in Darfur told me that she had
visited an area controlled by janjaweed. In public,
everyone insisted - meekly and fearfully - that everything
was fine.

Then she spoke privately to two sisters, both of the Fur
tribe. They said that the local Fur were being enslaved by
the janjaweed, forced to work in the fields and even to
pay protection money every month just to be allowed to
live. The two sisters said that they were forced to cook
for the janjaweed troops and to accept being raped by
them.

Finally, they said, their terrified father had summoned
the courage to beg the janjaweed commander to let his
daughters go. That's when the commander beheaded the
father in front of his daughters.

"They told me they just wanted to die," the aid worker
remembered in frustration. "They're living like slaves, in
complete and utter fear. And we can't do anything about
it."

That aid worker has found her own voice, by starting a
blog called "Sleepless in Sudan" in which she describes
what she sees around her. It sears at
http://sleeplessinsudan.blogspot.com, without the
self-censorship that aid groups routinely accept as the
price for being permitted to save lives in Darfur.

Our leaders still haven't found their voices, though.
Congress has even facilitated the genocide by lately
cutting all funds for the African Union peacekeepers in
Darfur; we urgently need to persuade Congress to restore
that money.

So what will it take? Will President Bush and other
leaders discover some backbone if the killing spreads to
Chad and the death toll reaches 500,000? One million? God
forbid, two million?

How much genocide is too much?

-- 

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