Sudan and Europe.

There are a couple of very good pieces in the Wall Street Journal about the current situation in Sudan. It's a story that Base10 has been following somewhat and the politics of the area are shockingly complex. The first piece, an editorial, describes Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Sudan. The second paragraph says it all:

The Secretary of State's visit also throws a spotlight on another unfortunate global reality. Once again the world is calling on the U.S. to stop a horror that the United Nations and everybody else have failed to act against. The killing of black Muslim tribesmen by government-backed Arab militias has been going on since February of last year. But while the world's moralists are in full cry about the threat of "another Rwanda," no one sees fit to actually do something. No one, that is, except the U.S.

The US has brokered a deal in which the Sudanese government will disarm militias in the south of the country. Time will tell whether this actually does any good, but it is a start. The Sudanese government is also allowing UN monitors. (Although the editors note that Europe is sending all of six troops.

The article concludes, "it is fashionable these days to express distaste for American 'unilateralism' and 'hegemony.' The unfolding catastrophe in Darfur offers a chilling view of what the alternative really looks like.
Here, here WSJ editors!

In the second article, Kamel Labidi calls attention to the shocking silence about the Darfur genocide by the Arab world. This considering that a large number of the victims are Muslim. Here's a quote:

So far, however, only a few Arab voices, most of them in the beleaguered human-rights community, have warned against these large-scale crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Sudanese military government and the Janjaweed militiamen whom it backs and arms. Unfortunately, these voices have little influence in a region where the media is still in the tight grip of entrenched autocrats and most people are mired in illiteracy, prejudice, poverty and injustice.

It is not the first time the state-run Arab media and even civil-society advocates have remained tight-lipped as death, devastation, and human-rights abuses unfold in a "brotherly" Arab country. Sudan is member of the Cairo-based club of Arab autocrats known as the Arab League of States.

Read the whole thing.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:51 AM