Sudan: Anger Means Guilt
October 22, 2006, 5:52 pm |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
Since February 2003, the Sudanese government in Khartoum and the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia have used rape, displacement, organized starvation, threats against aid workers and mass murder to kill more than 400,000 and displace almost 2.5 million people. Violence, disease, and displacement continue to kill thousands of innocent Darfurians every month.
That any government would sponsor such an atrocity is unconscionable. Maybe a little bit of embarrassment? Not at all. The Khartoum government continues to support this genocide, is completely unrepentant, and now very angry at the UN because one of its envoys, Jan Pronk:
…a blunt-speaking former Dutch Cabinet minister… wrote this month in his blog, http://www.janpronk.nl, that Sudan’s military had suffered heavy losses in recent fighting with rebels in northern Darfur.
“Reports speak about hundreds of casualties in each of the two battles, many wounded soldiers and many taken as prisoner,” he said.
The Sudanese armed forces said Thursday that those remarks amounted to “psychological war against the Sudanese army” and declared that Pronk was “persona non-grata.”
One day later the military demanded an official apology.
An official apology from Pronk because he noted a Sudanese military setback while they were trying to commit genocide? The level of anger belies the Sudanese government’s implicit guilt in trying to eradicate an entire people. The truth hurts, and the truth is out — it has been for some time.
But the UN, African nations, and the West have yet to take any concrete actions to stop Khartoum and its Janjaweed henchmen. How many more Sudanese Black Africans must be slaughtered before anything is done to help them?
The Genocide Intervention Network has a list of “Ten Things You Can Do Right Now” to help stop the genocide in Darfur. Very important is the link provided to find out how your U.S. representative and senator voted on legislation related to Darfur.
Make some noise. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Related: Sudan Monitor, Africa, United Nations (UN)