Thursday, June 24, 2004

There is a genocide going on in the Sudan.

NASA Aerial photos document the destruction of roughly 400 villages.
The number of displaced people is at least 500,000. There are over 100,000
refugees in neighbouring countries. The number of dead is thought to be
at least ten thousand so far.

However, the number of people who are paying attention is abysmally low. One would have thought that after all the hand wringing over Rwanda's '94 massacre, the same thing would not be allowed to happen again; but it is, right done to Kofi Annan's personal refusal to act (in '94, Annan was head of the UN's peacekeeping operations and was aware of plans to exterminate Tutsis in Rwanda; he has now pointedly refused to call the events in Sudan a genocide).

One exception to this has been Nicholas Kristof who has been repeatedly writing columns on the Sudan.

And nobody outside the United States seems to care much anyway:

U.S. officials have been highlighting the plight of the displaced Sudanese, mindful that the world's inattention to Rwanda a decade ago may have contributed to the genocide that occurred there.

Natsios said the U.S. government has spent $116 million on the relief effort in Sudan — more than all other donors combined — "and we pledged $188 million between now and the end of next year."

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