"See The Nation Through The People's Eyes."

Darfur.

You can almost smell the death from here—the stench of sweat and blood hanging thickly in the air. Awareness is not the problem, nor is apathy. Inaction is in fact the culprit.

Coalitions like Save Darfur and The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have clearly gone to extremes in an effort to increase knowledge about Darfur as well as other global genocides, most of which are in Africa.

And yet we remain inert.

Why? It seems that after past atrocities—in Armenia, in Europe with the Holocaust, in Rwanda, for instance—that the international community would have learned from their mistakes. Instead we have squandered precious time debating whether or not the situation in Sudan is really genocide. Western countries with ample resources are stalling for time—shuffling around paperwork.

Although I have not personally spoken with the people of Darfur, I have a hunch that they don’t care about the paperwork. They don’t care if they are labeled as genocide or merely a civil war way out of hand. The people are DYING. They are swatting flies away from their rotting limbs. They are running from Janjaweed who shoot relentlessly at young children collecting twigs for firewood. They are running from their burned homes and slaughtered and raped relatives. They are tired of running. It’s time to give them relief.

The fact of the matter is that despite the numerous lost lives, the situation is viewed very politically. If there is “nothing to be gained” then countries do not wish to intervene. THIS IS NOT A MATTER OF PERSONAL OR POLITICAL GAIN FOR AN INDIVIDUAL OR A COUNTRY. This is a matter of moral rectitude. After the Holocaust world leaders promised “never again.” And yet here we sit. Watching them die. It’s easy to point fingers and make feeble excuses. But the time for that has passed. Darfur cannot afford to wait any longer.

The United States, for instance, could afford to deploy troops to Sudan. YES, we are critically involved in Iraq. Yes, we are involved in peace keeping operations elsewhere. But the need here is dire. The country can pull troops from global stations other than Iraq if necessary. We could send food and supplies. We could provide transportation. We could offer medical assistance to those in need. Darfur needs relief programs AS WELL AS developmental programs. IF (and I say IF because as of now no one has really jumped on their feet to help aside from a few humanitarian organizations) Darfur emerges from this crisis they will need programs to help them reconstruct their world.

It is a humanitarian injustice to sit on our hands hoping that someone else will help. The atrocity of the nation’s inaction continues to mount as the United States remains seemingly apathetic. It is the United States, then, that becomes the criminal as it refuses much needed aid to Africans in Western Sudan. I think that Udombana sums up the situation quite eloquently in his article “When Neutrality is a Sin: The Darfur Crisis and the Crisis of Humanitarian Intervention in Sudan”:

“Those who have power to prevent acts of savage aggression from being committed on others but prefer to be neutral…are as morally culpable as the perpetrators of the acts are legally responsible; and in international law and relations, legality and morality are different sides of the same coin.”

Without the support of the United States’ (as well as other fortunate countries’) military and resources the genocide in Darfur will continue until only the barren desert remains

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/?gclid=CIawq7XuqJICFQ06awodASw2RQ
Save Darfur:
http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes
Udombana Article (I viewed it through my school’s ProQuest for an essay I am writing, so I apologize if you cannot view it):
http://proquest.umi.com.libproxy.usc.edu/pqdweb?index=4&did=924625081&Sr...

I highly recommend this:

Living Darfur Music Video, Mattafix:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qQwCCm-H-sU