On Thursday, Do Something Useful For Darfur
When a deviant branch of that family of nations flouts, indeed revels in the abandonment of, the most basic norms of human decency, is there really justification in evoking the excuse that protocol requires the permission of that same arrogant and defiant entity? That's the question the Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka recently asked at the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists, about the United Nations' indifference to the ongoing genocide of the Darfuri people of Sudan.
Canadian senator Romeo Dallaire, the former peacekeeper-commander whose hands were tied by the UN during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which left almost a million people dead, says the world should not wait for Khartoum's permission to bring peace to Darfur. Dallaire says the African Union's ill-equipped, hobbled and outgunned forces there should be augmented by a multinational force with a mandate to protect Darfuri civilians, even if it means fighting not only Sudanese rebels, but Khartoum's butchers as well.
Dallaire also says Canada has a special duty (having pioneered the UN's "responsibility to protect" doctrine) and a unique opportunity (as an influential middle power with experience in Sudan) to bring peace and justice to the people of Darfur. He's not alone:
This is the moment for Canada to prove itself and its ideals to the people of Darfur, to the international community and, most importantly, to us -- Canadians at home who know our country can and should be doing more.
What needs to be done is pretty straightforward: The immediate deployment of the peacekeeping force that has already been authorized by the UN; Financial and logistical aid to the African Union force already in Darfur; A peace agreement binding the combatants; A lot more humanitarian aid for Darfur's refugees.
The obligation the world owes the people of Darfur is not a cover for American imperialism, and it's not a conspiracy engineered by Zionists. Jeff Weintraub is someone who has taken pains to tackle all that, head on, and he makes it crystal clear that we can no longer afford to let fashionable pseudo-left bullshit stand in the way of getting serious about the duty of solidarity we all owe the people of Darfur.
If Canadians can't make multilateralism work in this crisis, then we can't bitch if all that's left is Yankee unilateralism. You can read a sound argument for leaving the UN in the dust, if it comes to that, here: Some 450,000 innocent human beings are already dead, and more than 2.5 million have fled their homes. Now Sudan is launching a major offensive in Darfur. After three years of fruitless negotiation and feckless rhetoric, it's time to go beyond unenforced U.N. resolutions to a new kind of resolution: the firm resolve to act.
If you're a Canadian student, sign up with the Canadian Students for Darfur, or at least support their work. Their cross-country contacts are here.
It's time to protect the people of Darfur. You can start on Thursday, October 5.
It works like this:
posted by Terry Glavin at 12:37 AM
3 Comments:
i'd be interested to know WHERE intervention has worked anywhere in the last few decades....any idea, as bosnia has backfired along with a few others.
i'm not knocking the idea of somehow helping dafur....but what are u.n. or nato interventions doing anywhere? we have to start asking questions like this and the traditional methods employed.
and i don't see your connection to the 'left' either (and i'm non-partisan). what has any political party here been doing for dafur? let's look at afghanistan, the majority of canadians don't support it, that's left, right and center....how do you expect canadians to support dafur?
i think people are just getting sick of an eye for an eye methods.
Yes, Canada should be at the forefront of a UN intervention in Sudan, and this is a useful reminder to keep it at the forefront in our government's face.
I'd also like to mention Africa's other forgotten humanitarian crisis right now in the DR Congo, where an estimated 1,000 people are dying every day due to the ongoing conflict.
'debating society bullshit'. hmm, interesting way to get around things.
the examples you use are interesting becaue genocide continues in those countries, abeit on a slower basis through the class system. starvation, innnapropriate medicare, all are too reminiscent of the continued genocide in canada on indigenous people and indigenous people the world over. conqueror mindset only perpetuates war.
that's why i question you on the very tactics advocated ....it's myopic to continue in the same veing we've been doing.
come thursday i will light a smudge and send prayers to dafur.
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