Dafur: a mirror on humanity
"After the mass slaughter in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s, the world said “never again”. Yet the world has stood by while genocide, or something like it, has been perpetrated in Darfur.
America, with its reluctance to back the ICC, is not the only culprit:
China has blocked effective sanctions, fearing the consequences for itself if precedents are set for tough UN action against human-rights abuses.
But America’s dilemma over Darfur has been especially acute: on the one hand, it has been in the forefront of pressing for tough action against Sudan;
on the other hand, the White House’s vehement rejection of what President George Bush calls a “foreign court” with “unaccountable judges” has made it highly reluctant to “legitimise” the ICC by agreeing to send suspects for trial.
The compromise reached at the UN this week is an ugly one, with the immunity offered to American citizens creating double standards. But it seems to have been the only way forward."
Quoted from "After 300,000 deaths, a modicum of justice", Apr 1st 2005, From The Economist Global Agenda
The whole concept of the nation state is well over its due date. I sway between despair and frustration that the developed world speaks and idealises one way, but legislates and funds in another. Human rights still bow in the wake of the economy. Bringing it down to a personal scale, do I have the right to complain? Do I ever have to learn the same lessons more than once? I know, I know. But there is something in the collective hope of several empires that leaves me constantly disappointed. When we revisit this scale of lesson, hundreds of thousand if not millions of souls pay for it.
Part of me sympathises with the UN though.
At the moment a group us up are thinking of ways in which we can harness and transfer the wisdom and skill we have picked up through the experience of people on refugee teams around the world.
It is much harder to manifest than I would have thought.
But I'm just a guy working in a non-profit, they are a billion $ international org trusted with the protection and justice of those they keep failing.
I know the pope is dear and important, as is a tragic school shooting, but media where are you?
posted by Simon at 9:59 AM
1 Comments:
the un could do better. the usa could make more of a difference. so could the eu...and possibly even canada and the aussies.
but the source of the issue is elsewhere. these are outside forces - and often unwelcome on location where the pain is worst.
as we criticize the nations that fail to help -or that seem to help with what appear to be self-serving agendas- we must never lose site of the source of the actual problem -in this case, the government of Khartoum. why is the media so much quicker to make the problem that of the un or the usa?
although the press is giving far too little attention to the suffering in Darfur, it is giving even less to the incredible success of the recent peace agreement between northern and southern Sudan. after decades of war and suffering, refugees actually began returning home this year. this peace was, in part, the fruit of a focused effort of the us government (even the Bush administration).
so i echo your final words -media, where are you?
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