Where is Jesse Jackson when we need him?
The New Republic has an interesting article on the murderous activity going on in Sudan. Granted, Sudan is only about two miles from the sun, and there probably isn’t enough sunscreen on Earth for thin-skinned reporters.
That was a cheap shot. Sorry. Actually, there are quite a few articles on the web, but the story isn’t getting much play elsewhere. Some things seem more important.
Abu Ghraib is a perfect storm for the media: Powerful Western soldiers abused and humiliated poor non-Westerners after invading their country for supposedly high-minded reasons. But when both the victims and the perpetrators are black or brown, you get the opposite: perfect calm. Thirty-four peasant farmers were massacred by left-wing guerrillas in Colombia last week. (In the distance, a cricket chirps.) And the quiet is never more deafening than when the violence is in Africa.
We have Special Forces units working in various areas of Africa trying to help the locals (which is what the SF is really set up to do). It is the next battleground if we let it smoulder. None of the neighbors or anyone else in the world seems to care, and most of the refugees are going to Chad, which is even more destitute than Sudan.
Hell, Sudan sits on the UN Commission on Human Rights, and holds the seat until 2007. Sudan’s Advisory Council on Human Rights has its own web site, and they’re all over this issue:
The government of Sudan is committed to respecting the human rights of everyone under its jurisdiction. It believes that this goal is compatible with the Islamic and African traditions of Sudan.
So I guess we shouldn’t be too concerned. With the UN and Sudan’s government looking into this, there should be a solution quite quickly.