most folks know that the situation in darfur is desperate. the news is never good there- and i guess i continue to wonder about how human beings can view other humans as objects to be tortured and killed. i think folks get numbed to the mindless genocide around the world and it is all too easy to write these impoverished places off. the 'oh well, let them kill each other if they want to' mentality amazes me- especially from 'bleeding heart' liberals and 'pro-life' conservatives. we allegedly went into iraq (in the third incarnation of reasons i think) to save those poor folks from the horrors of living under saddam hussein. why, then, are we not preemptively going into darfur to save those folks from the janjaweed? and no- that isn't a name from a star wars movie. the west has completely ignored africa- except to plunder its natural resources. we bribe or intimidate whoever we have to to get what we want- and to hell with the indigenous peoples.
the un has coalition troops ready to go- but then- we get the news that blackwater has reared its ugly head yet again. yes, since they have done such a fine job in iraq, apparently, they want to make a few billion dollars more in darfur. so, not only do we have to pressure our government to get involved in darfur- we have to pressure them to NOT send the blackwater thugs to darfur. nice.
for some resources and info on darfur- quaker dave at the quaker agitator- has some good ones on his sidebar.
instantkarma.org has information and petitions to sign- but please, take a moment and think about what africa means to the world. we agreed after world war 2 to never allow genocide happen again. more than 2 million people are displaced and hundreds of thousands are living in refugee camps. no hard data exists as to the death toll, but experts are convinced it's also in the hundreds of thousands. how many folks have to die before it is called a 'terrorist act?'
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