Air and Sea Blockade? Let's Hope So!
Well, the United Nations has failed to "encourage" Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to permit UN peacekeeping troops to monitor the horrendous situation in Darfur, and now we have the potential of a joint U.S.-British initiative that might actually ease the intolerable and relentlessly ongoing Sudanese massacre of innocent civilians.While the 27,000 UN peacekeepers are kept at bay, despite an August 2006 Security Council resolution politely asking President al-Bashir's permission to deploy, here are U.S./British officials speaking of military action with specific economic sanctions. After all, in so doing they are merely practising what the UN has agreed to preach: "responsibility to protect".
Already the violence in Darfur accounts for fully half the numbers murdered in Rwanda's unspeakable genocidal war; which translates to almost a half million dead. While two and a half million are homeless and many millions are dependent on international aid for their very survival.
Still the Sudanese-sponsored Janjaweed militias continue to rape women and children, continue to pillage villages as yet left intact, and to rampage and murder at will. Not so, declares the Sudanese president. These numbers are inaccurately reported, and in any event, what the Sudanese government sees fit to do with its population is its own business.
He suggested international concern over Darfur is a Western conspiracy engineered by Israel to divert attention from conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.
(Ah, Israel. Those damn bloody-minded, interfering, world-dominating Jews are everywhere. No wonder the world is in such a parlous state. Jews, Israel, control everything, nothing will satisfy them but to control the entire world.)
Even the International aid community has been targeted by the Janjaweed. Only a week earlier seven hundred to one thousand of the militia swooped down on El Fasher, a vital relief centre in Darfur. Which caused the United Nations to suspend operations and to withdraw its aid workers in fear for their lives. The supplies to aid the dispossessed were looted.
At this juncture it appears abundantly clear that no ultimatums, no pleas, will move Sudan's leadership to lift their genocidal war against their black Muslim population; they want to get on with their preoccupation with serving the country as they feel best and will brook no interference - either from their neighbouring African countries or worse yet, from the West.
An effective air and sea blockade will stop oil shipments and prevent the Sudanese government from attacking black Sudanese villagers with helicopters and jet fighters. Financial sanctions can pressure Sudan's financial sector, freeze bank accounts halting business procedures and bring the Sudanese government to abrupt attention.
Here's hoping it proceeds.
Even the International aid community has been targeted by the Janjaweed. Only a week earlier seven hundred to one thousand of the militia swooped down on El Fasher, a vital relief centre in Darfur. Which caused the United Nations to suspend operations and to withdraw its aid workers in fear for their lives. The supplies to aid the dispossessed were looted.
At this juncture it appears abundantly clear that no ultimatums, no pleas, will move Sudan's leadership to lift their genocidal war against their black Muslim population; they want to get on with their preoccupation with serving the country as they feel best and will brook no interference - either from their neighbouring African countries or worse yet, from the West.
An effective air and sea blockade will stop oil shipments and prevent the Sudanese government from attacking black Sudanese villagers with helicopters and jet fighters. Financial sanctions can pressure Sudan's financial sector, freeze bank accounts halting business procedures and bring the Sudanese government to abrupt attention.
Here's hoping it proceeds.
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, December 14, 2006
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