June 18, 2004 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Backed by Sudan’s military government, the Janjaweed, an armed militia of Arab Muslims which is engaged in a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing against black Africans. More than 15,000 have been killed and over a million people uprooted from their homes since February but there is still no end in sight. Urgent action is required, but it appears that Sudan’s military rulers are well-connected.
This will not happen without strong pressure on Khartoum, but in the Security Council, Pakistan, Algeria and China have been more interested in shielding Sudan’s government from criticism than in protecting its people from starvation. [NYT]
Along with Pakistan and Afghanistan, Sudan was another incubator of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. It is not strange that al Qaeda’s ideology of hatred and tactics of terror live on. The military regime is under no serious pressure to stop the Janjaweed, thanks to its friends at the UN. Besides, American moral authority has taken such a beating in Iraq that it will find it difficult to take any serious action against Arabs. The situation in Darfur is almost certainly going to worsen.
Update:
Annan said he wasn’t ready to describe the situation in Darfur “as genocide or ethnic cleansing yet” but he did call it “a tragic humanitarian situation.” [Jihad Watch]
So how many does it take?
The Head Heeb reports the involvement of Chadian Arabs in the Darfur atrocities raising fears of a regional ethnic war.
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