False Teeth
Although Darfur has been in the world's horrified eyesight for years, with everyone deploring the tragedy and demanding that responsible agents step up and solve the dreadful carnage - the wasting of hundreds of thousands of human lives, the uprooting of millions of people, the rape, the carnage, the mass murders - the situation continues to unfold.The vast numbers of helpless people, the millions of black Darfurians who have already been stripped of their homes and villages, living hopeless lives in refugee camps and experiencing aerial bombings by the agents of the government of Sudan, violent incursions by the Janjaweed are straining the capacity of international aid groups to assist them in their human needs, to protect them.
The United Nations has proven itself to be spectacularly inept at coming to grips with the need to boldly interfere with the intent of saving lives, for that body is unwilling to question the authority and question the integrity of the leadership of a country that carelessly sacrifices its citizens to quell civil unrest.
In diplomatic language a recent United Nations report announces that the "caseload of conflict-affected populations has increased by more than 500,000 to 4.2 million". The United Nations is very good at disclosing statistics, at reaching conclusions, but not very skilled at proposing, initiating and implementing solutions. All the more so as it waits eagerly for acquiescence from the very perpetrators of the tragedy who remain adamantly opposed to outside intervention.
In their ongoing, tragically inadequate and post-untimely efforts to staunch the blood flow, the rising refugee count, the ongoing attacks, a UN resolution authorizing up to 26,000 troops and police in Darfur has been further diluted in fruitless attempts to appease Sudan's government, to assure it that the UN has no intention of unduly "interfering" and contesting its authority.
Still, the Sudanese ambassador to the UN huffs that the resolution is unacceptable: "It's very ugly. It's worse than the first one". That Sudan's government, which has visited death and misery on a significant segment of its citizenry is permitted veto power over a United Nations resolution whose purported purpose is to bring cessation to what amounts to a genocidal government policy is beyond absurd.
In its first year of operation the joint force of the UN and the AU operating in Darfur is estimated in the neighbourhood of $2 billion, with a December 31 target date to transfer authority from the inadequate African Union to the combined force. Sudan's complaint is that the resolution would permit the use of force in defence of the mission's personnel and humanitarian workers by hostile government forces.
And although Khartoum has agreed to the joint force taking effect, they can also, under the agreement, take sufficient issue with the project to reject entry of foreign-resourced troops. Interchangeably, troop contributors aren't falling all over themselves to send their soldiers into Darfur without the assurance that the mission would be permitted "to use all necessary means as it deems within its capabilities" to protect its people.
The really big, really important question here, the most vexing question is why Sudan, under the circumstances, and with prevailing world opinion, and given the mandate of the United Nations, is allowed by a conscience-stricken world to continue its punishment of its citizens?
Labels: Political Realities, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 25, 2007
<< Home