Recently, on another blog I read about a new charity that will raise funds to help the long suffering people of the war torn Darfur region of Sudan. A few years ago George Clooney and Don Cheedle went to Darfur to lend their celebrity to the cause of peace. Of course, in spite of these and many other admirable efforts, the dying continues.
China supports Sudan's genocidal government, with complete disregard for its human rights record, in exchange for a secure energy supply. The people in Darfur are being bombed by Chinese made planes and shot with Chinese made guns firing Chinese made bullets. The Chinese government is able to serenely ignore criticism of its actions from western nations, well aware that it is all hypocritical.
At the White House, administration spokesmen in the Press Gallery may emotionally and forcefully decry the violence in Sudan, but downstairs in the Situation Room, George and the boys are content to let the mayhem continue indefinitely. Egypt is a reliable ally in the Middle East and Libya could threaten its western border over simmering territorial disputes. As long as the Libyans are distracted by the violence in Sudan, they are unlikely to make trouble for the Egyptians, or so the logic goes. And the killing goes on
Anyone wishing to actually affect the tragedy of Darfur needs to address the politics. Charity to alleviate the suffering, while a fine thing in itself, without a effort to change the underlying motivations of the major players is like applying a band-aid to a gaping wound; it may make you feel better for having done something, but won't achieve anything of substance. If activists had managed to organize an international boycott of the Beijing Olympics to pressure the Chinese government and made the complicity of the United States in Darfur's torment an issue for the current presidential candidates, it would have done more to force a peaceful solution than any amount of energy biscuits and re-hydration salts ever could
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