Massacre in Darfur

Wednesday, March 8, I read in our local paper, on the editorial page, an article by a columnist with the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof by name, who had just spent a very eventful, to say the least, three days along the Chad-Sudan border in Africa. What was going on there? He had a word for it: "genocide". In his words, it was the Sudanese militia sending in armed men on camels and trucks to "invade neighboring" "Chadian villages and use machine guns to mow down farming families, whose only offense is that they belong to the wrong tribes and have black skin." The Chadian peasants fled their villages by the thousands, and the Sudanese militia families, called janjaweed, took over their lands. They burned the Chad villages and lands half the time; Mr. Kristof had been to the Darfur region five previous times, but this was his first time seeing the burning within Chad itself. The janjaweed children kept the stolen cattle while their fathers were "presumably off killing people." He even gave an example of one young man and his wife and 3-month-old baby whose village had been attacked: his wife had been beaten so badly that she was still unconscious. The baby was looked at by the Sudanese raiders, and because he was a male, was shot. Chad's army, too small to be of much use, is apparently waiting for help. The entire region is unsafe for U.N. and international aid workers already there, so many people go hungry. Kristof says that Bush seems to be showing a willingness to help Darfur; Sudan's proxy army of Chadian rebels under the commander called Muhammad Nour are doing their best to invade, and who knows when they'll succeed? The French should be doing something about Chad, since they have a military base there, but they are strangely silent. Bush should really get busy with them, according to Kristof, spotlight the issue, attend a donor conference for Darfur, encourage a NATO bridging force to hold the line for U.N. peacekeepers, enforce a no-fly zone, iniate peace talks..... This is all a bunch of great SHOULDS for Bush, but WILL he, that's the almighty question!!! As Kristof ends his article,"ignoring the brutality in Darfur has only magnified it, and it is shameful to pretend not to notice the terrified villagers" and their children, "wondering when they're going to be massacred." I wonder too. I wonder that this state of affairs should exist at all; but look at where we are in Iraq. WE are invaders, even though there are others; we too are killing, bombing. What can we say about ourselves? It's really amazing that Bush can continue to order our fighting in Iraq, and then turn about and say, Well, now, what can we do about Darfur? Some would say, Well, that's why he's the president. I say, That's why some people, like Bush, just happen to have friends in high places. Mr. Nicholas Kristof, Bush will help Darfur if he thinks it helps his public image, and his political agenda. I invite any of you to drop in and comment.