The Christian Science Monitor reports about the relatively successful grass roots movement in America calling on the US government and the UN to do something against the genocide taking place in Darfur, Sudan.
Students are organizing themselves and are trying to make the UN do something against the violence in before mentioned region which has already cost 200 000 people their lives and forced 2.5 million people to abandon their homes and (move towards relative safety).
Some of the impact this movement / these movements have had:
In the past month alone:
• The US appointed a special envoy to Darfur, bowing to pressure after an international day of protests – including a rally of some 30,000 in New York’s Central Park.
• California passed legislation to stop investing in companies supporting the Sudan regime – the fifth state to do so. More than two dozen colleges and universities are also in the process of divesting.
“The grass-roots people have really kept the issue alive and forced the hand of the governments,” says Alex de Waal, a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, who has been advising the African Union on Darfur. He says the UN Security Council’s decision in March 2005 to refer Darfur war crimes cases to the International Criminal Court and the US move two years ago to label the conflict “genocide” would not have happened without advocates’ pressure.
However, I used the words ‘relatively successful’ purposely: the violence in Darfur has not ended. People continue to die on a massive scale as a result of violence, hunger, sickness, &c. The ‘success’ of the grass movements mainly exists out of the fact that they have made it into an important issue for the Bush administration and of the UN. Yet, no peace force has been sent to Darfur yet: “the Sudanese government has rejected a Security Council resolution passed last month that calls for 22,000 UN troops to replace the underfunded 7,000-member African Union force.”
Matthew Clark explains that although Bush seems to be willing to do something against the horrific things happening in Sudan, the US is dependent on the Sudanese government to fight against terrorism.
The US also has reasons not to push the Khartoum-based government too hard, observers say. Sudan has helped the US penetrate terror networks it might never have been able to on its own. Also, the US does not want to provoke further instability, says Mr. de Waal. Putting UN troops on the ground would “inflame the situation,” he says.
The Bush administration also worries that a peace deal in a separate decades-long conflict – between Sudan’s Muslim and mostly Arab north and its Christian south – would unravel if Khartoum felt cornered.
For now, the African Union has agreed to extend its stay in Sudan, which was set to expire at the end of September, until the end of the year and add 4,000 troops. “The advocacy movement will not give up on this,” says Reeves, who backs UN intervention.
Which makes sense. But I wonder: why isn’t the rest of the free world putting pressure on Khartoum to let UN peacekeepers in? The US should not be forced to take the lead, the UN itself should. And what the heck is the opinion of the European Union. Why isn’t my own country pressuring the UN into doing something / putting pressure on the Sudanese government to let the UN stop the violence?
The US isn’t solely responsible for the (future of) the world, we all are.
STAND is the student organization dedicated to prevent more useless killings in Darfur. Its websites are here and here. There they explain how you can “take action to help end the genocide in western Sudan.” One can – among other things – sign up for STAND’s National Newsletter, donate money, help organize something at your own school / University, andsoforth.
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