A day does not pass without some Western diplomats blaming the Sudanese government for the conflict and suffering in Darfur.
But at the same time the Western governments do not want to talk about their empty promises to help Darfurians, which have been largely ignored immediately after being proclaimed.
In a report titled "Empty Promises on Darfur: International community fails to protect," Amnesty International has criticized the international community "for its failure to improve the security of people in Darfur since the deployment of peacekeeping troops by the United Nations more than one year ago."
The report states that the "promises made to the people of Darfur that they would be protected through the deployment of a peacekeeping force ring hollow; UNAMID remains chronically under-resourced and attacks against civilians, including killings, continue."
Helicopters for the Darfur mission are a great and sad example of the lack of will and interest to help civilians caught in this deadly conflict.
Since July 2007, the UN, African Union, and aid groups have numerous times asked the world powers to provide the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) with six attack helicopters and eighteen transport helicopters so they can start protecting civilians in Darfur.
Helicopters are essential for any success of the mission in the vast and remote Sudanese region the size of France.
To this day, no country has supplied even one helicopter for the Darfur mission.
Yes, the Sudanese government must be blamed for the conflict and anguish of millions in Darfur. But what did the international community do to ease the suffering, protect civilians, and end the conflict?
Perhaps if Darfurians were white or if Sudan's oil was not already controlled by China, the Western governments would even consider doing something to protect innocent people and end the Darfur conflict.
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Comments: 8
One would have had reason to hope that a change in administrations would bring a significant change to this policy of neglect, but no sign of that so far.
Dare we hope?
we are not depending on international promises any more .
the only way to end this suffer is to change this islamic fundamentalist regime by the sudanese people . only democracy can solve the problems of sudan .
thanks for solidarity
k. ahmed
journalist
Also, Paul, quit making it seem like a Bush/Cheney thing. Bush did more for Africa as a whole than any president ever has. It's a Western government kind of thing. If anyone should really be forced to assist Africa, it's the countries like France, UK, Germany, etc that messed the situation up in the first place. While we're at it, we should probably make them clean up their mess in Central and Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
The problem solution that we don't face is the one that means more than money and troops but our own attitude and that of others around the world. The Darfurians are human beings just like us, but their society as a whole has not grown up sufficiently to have the same sense of humanity as you and I think we have. But have we grown up also? The entire world is something that Darfur is only a microcosmic sampling about. the only difference between ourselves and our ape cousins or our lion cousins (more distant cousins, howbeit) is our spiritual ability to overcome the competitive, dog eat dog paradigm of the animal world. And we have not yet been able to "sophisticate" our spiritual nature collectively to the point of behaving in a more human way and not in the animal way that we grew up from. Don't cry for Darfur. Cry for the world. Because if you cry for Darfur, you only distract yourselves from yourselves and your own inability to live with fellow human beings in a peaceful and unified way.