The Real News: Sudan

Being a blogger who writes daily dispatches on the articles I come across, I feel embarrassed to admit that I haven't held much interest for the news lately. There's a few good reasons for this: hectic work and school schedules taxing on my free time, not to mention my workload recently doubling, and matters in my personal life to deal with. Hell, in the time it took me to type this paragraph, I had to answer the phone five times and respond to multiple alarms. I've been stretched thin lately.

But there's another reason the news hasn't held my interest. There's a huge story that is being grossly underreported: The Genocide in Sudan. When a story this huge isn't on the front page, above the fold, every single day of the week, can you blame me for my lack of interest in the news?

There are so many facets to this story that we should see reported. I've mentioned the rape camps. The number of Sudanese dead or about to die from starvation is an astronomical 370,000 people. If we don't act soon, the death toll could top 1 million. Because the world has been slow to react, more than 1000 Sudanese day each week.

If that's not enough to raise an eyebrow, Human Rights Watch has obtained Sudanese government documents which "incontrovertibly show that government officials directed recruitment, arming and other support to the ethnic militias known as the Janjaweed." The Sudanese government will, of course, deny these charges, just like they have denied everything else said against them in the past. They will feign innocence while continuing to arm the rebels, block international aid for the refugees, and let the bodies pile up.

And what has our government done about this crisis? In the past, I've given the Bush administration some credit for sending Colin Powell to Sudan and paying attention to the situation. No matter how partisan I am, I try to be fair and give credit where credit's due. But now I'm afraid I have to take back anything good I said about this president. His ignorance of the Sudanese genocide makes me ashamed to be an American.

Bush supposedly attacked Iraq for humanitarian reasons. Saddam was said to be butchering his own people, and we would find mass graves filled with hundreds of thousands of victims. Well, as fellow guest blogger at GC13 Tinheart reports, Saddam's bodycount is at 5000, not hundreds of thousands. And not to belittle such a huge number, but 5000 is really nothing compared to the crisis in Sudan. Even if the estimates of 400,000 buried in Iraqi mass graves turned out to be correct, it still wouldn't eclipse the crisis in Sudan.

If we can invade a country on the pretext that there might be 400,000 people buried in mass graves, why can't we help the persecuted Sudanese who we know will die by the hundreds of thousands in a few short months if we do nothing about it? It seems like the Bush administration is doing everything it can to avoid helping the refugees.

The Passion of the Present, a blog devoted solely to covering this genocide, commends John Kerry for labeling the crisis as such. But Bush won't call it genocide. Is it because he would actually have to take a proactive stance against the crisis if he called a spade for what it is?

No American president has been willing to enforce the 1948 UN Genocide treaty in order to prevent or stop a genocide. http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html

This treaty, signed by most nations of the world, was the single piece of international law to come out of the Holocaust. Because it is never invoked, except in retrospect, "never again" is rendered meaningless.

In fact, Bush won't even merely place sanctions on Sudan.

I'm not sure how to feel about the way Bush has handled the Sudanese genocide. On one level, I'm not the least bit surprised that he's practically ignoring it. Short of nuking China, nothing this man does can surprise me anymore. I've been desensitized to his actions. But how can you not be angry? How can you not feel disappointed? Our country has the opportunity to help the world, but we refuse. When I travel to another country, how am I supposed to introduce myself as an American and feel proud? How can I even hold my head up? If your country could have prevented a million needless deaths from happening but decided not to act, is there anything else to feel besides shame, frustration, and anger?

Make no mistake, we're on the cusp of seeing a million dead Sudanese.

The time to act is now. True Majority reports that there is a bipartisan effort in the House and Senate to hold Bush's feet to the fire, to make him call this a genocide and act to stop it.

Write your Representative and tell them to support "H. Con. Res. 467."

Write your Senator and tell them to support "S. Con. Res. 124."

And, perhaps most importantly, write a letter to the editor. The underreporting of this crisis is absolutely ridiculous. In yesterday's Providence Journal, my hometown paper, the news that Human Rights Watch uncovered documents which prove the Sudanese government is arming and helping the Janjaweed got a 75 word write up on the bottom of page A3. That's an insult to a story of this magnitude. If there's any issue that the media needs to hold our government's feet to the fire for, the Sudanese genocide is it. Will any media agency get a reporter to ask a fair question to the White House like, "Now that you've dispatched Colin Powell, what else are you going to do?"

I've frequently complained about how similar Bush and Kerry seem when you start looking at the issues. This is one instance where I wish I was correct.

[Crossposted to blunted on reality.]

[Also at blunted, there's been some debate over Saddam's bodycount.]