On Genocide

On Genocide

[International: On Genocide]

The story of displacement and death in the Darfur region of Sudan
is indeed horrific.  And, since Sudan is one of the few countries in
Africa which has been off-limits to US oil deals and capital penetration,
the crimes of the Sudanese government have a special resonance in
U.S policy-making circles. 

Although it is rare that the Darfur tragedy is put into context, please
permit me to try.

Actually, over the past two years 1.1 million Somalis have been
displaced by the Ethiopian army1 with the assistance of Rwandan
army (both of which have been funded by our own government with
the assistance of US military advisors and equipment)2and Somalia
has displaced Sudan’s Darfur, as the world’s most dangerous region,
awful as the Darfur crimes might be3.  We must also note that the
attacks on Muslim Somalis by “Christian”  Ethiopians/Rwandans have
not been characterized as a “genocide” by US leaders, despite its larger
-than-Darfur scale, although others have…..4

The awful number of civilian deaths in Darfur — some 400,000 we are told
— has been eclipsed by the 6.4 million deaths in the Eastern Congo as a
esult of the invasion of the Eastern Congo by US/UK-supported armies of
Uganda and Rwanda beginning in 19965 which are continuing at the rate of
45,000 a month, today.

An October 2003 UN experts report describes how the economy and resources
of the Congo have been stolen by Ugandan and Rwandan militaries, and their
surrogates, during the ongoing, decades-long war in Central Africa6  with not so
much as “peep” from western HR advocates.  And the killing is continuing as I
write and you read these words. But no regular reporting has appeared in the US
press. There has been no condemnation of any kind from USG and no human rights
“movement” has materialized to condemn the invasion or the killing in the Congo,
much less Somalia.

And, European Union Reports from 2003 make clear that the recent electoral
debacle in Zimbabwe in 2008 was merely a repeat of similar tactics, such as
physical attacks, arrests and deportation of the political opposition that occurred
in Rwanda, when President Kagame was “elected” with 95% of the vote in 2003.7
Interestingly, Zimbabwe has been almost completely cut-off from “western” economic
aid — with the predictable results in the African context. 

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