zittiblog.com

This Sunday has been recognized as the International Day for Darfur. Protests are planned in approximately 32 countries but I come to you asking that you just spend 15 serious minutes reflecting on what has gone in the Sudan, while not thinking about anything else. I have, and most definitely will on Sunday.

In case you don’t really care what is going on in Darfur (and that is really OK if you don’t, just please recognize how makes you feel to know whether you honestly do or not), here are a couple of quick things to consider:

1. What is going on Darfur is in fact the first case of true genocide in the 21st century
2. On September 11 2001, 2985 died in the World Trade Centers, since the conflict began in late 2003, the best estimate is that a quarter million have died in Darfur. Just under one hundred times as many as 9/11.
3. Hurricane Katrina temporarily displaced an estimated 1,000,000 people from their homes and was dubbed the worst natural disaster in American history. At least 3,000,000 have been displaced permanently from their homes, the majority of which live in ultra-primitive refugee camps.

It is nearly impossible to go to Darfur, however those that have report that they have seen women raped immediately upon leaving refugee camps to find firewood, entire wells (remember water is scarce) poisoned, and the dead being dumped into those wells to hide the bodies.

The preamble of the UN charter states the United Nations (founded in 1945) are determined “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small” (pasted directly from their website). Is living to tomorrow considered a fundamental human right? Did we lose sight of this goal in like 1946? Here are the events of genocide I can think of off the top of my head since then:

Angola, the Balkans, Burundi (twice), Cambodia, The Congo, El Slavador, Indonesia, Iraq, Rawanda, Somalia, The Sudan (twice), Uganda, and South Vietnam… all cases of killing members of a different race, religion, or political party SINCE the holocaust. I have seen Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland and I have seen the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

Well for me I think it stops this time. On September 30, the 7000 peacekeepers from the African Union have to leave Darfur unless the UN agrees to take over the operation. If the peacekeepers leave, there will be no security for humanitarian organizations. If the humanitarians leave (God bless every one of you), then 3 million Darfur refugees are left with no food or basic medical care.

This is the UN’s last chance with me, seriously. I have seen nothing of hardship compared to what exists in the world, but I have met Cambodians who are missing multiple limbs because they stepped on a land mine while farming. If it happens again (Rwanda and Yugoslavia happened within the last 12 years remember), I am considering the UN a totally ineffective body that does not have the ability to navigate the political complexities necessary to do something about situations like these and that they should be totally disregarded as an international authority.
Political complexities would become very very simple if your daughter, mother, or sister was one of the villagers raped and murdered because political rebels can’t play nice together I bet. As the world’s powerful, and as people who adhere to some level of basic goodness, we have a responsibility to do something for the innocent who are suffering.

Please do something, whatever it is, in your own way to respect this Sunday and remember the world’s victim’s of genocide and politicide.