Darfur/Iraq -v- Apathy/Passion

national | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Wednesday September 08, 2004 00:34

by Michael Hennigan - Finfacts.com

finfacts at finfacts dot ie

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Who Cares About Darfur?

The UN Security Council continues to respond at glacial speed to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and the world shrugs it collective shoulders.

Why does it seem that there has to be an American angle to a humanitarian issue for people to get fired up?

Koffi Annan has got a report on the Sudanese government's non-compliance with the UN Security Council's demands. Nothing much has changed for the people of West Sudan in recent months.

A key question that I’m seeking an answer to, is why an impending war in Iraq can bring 100,000 people onto the streets of Dublin but a war in Sudan which has incurred an estimated 50,000 fatalities, evokes such a tepid response?

The following is an extract from a Washington Post editorial last Saturday.

Who Cares About Darfur?

UNTIL RECENTLY, the international momentum on Darfur seemed positive. The plight of Sudan's western province was recognized as the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis, and a congressional resolution described the eradication of African villages by a government-backed Arab militia as genocide. After much misguided talk about getting Sudan's government to protect civilians in the region -- a wishful idea, given that the government's proxies have taken children from mothers and tossed them into fires -- a consensus has more or less formed that foreign peacekeepers are needed. But now, despite this progress, it seems the momentum is fizzling, in which case the world will have woken up to a catastrophe and understood what it must do -- and then decided not to do it.