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| | From:  poetsays (Original Message) | Sent: 11/4/2004 8:57 PM |
As is often the case with calamities in Africa, that which has befallen Darfur [in Sudan] seemed to burst into the global consciousness without warning. Until this spring, probably few Westerners had ever heard of the remote region in western Sudan. Then, virtually overnight, it became a topic of urgent discussion in Congress and the United Nations, a staple of the evening news, even a debating point in the American presidential race.
In fact, the alarm had been sounded long before. By the summer of 2003, Darfur refugees slipping across the border into neighboring Chad were telling of a scorched-earth Sudanese Army counterinsurgency campaign. In its hunt for members of a nascent rebel group, the refugees claimed, the army had teamed up with Arab tribesmen, and instead of looking for rebels, these camp followers simply laid waste: shooting down whoever crossed their path, torching homes, looting. In giving these raiders a name, the refugees turned to an old Darfur epithet for bandits--janjaweed, or "devils on horseback."
Despite mounting criticism from abroad, the Sudanese government in Khartoum not only denied any connection with the janjaweed, but continued to suggest there was no crisis at all. As the number of refugees and burned villages soared, Khartoum effectively sealed Darfur off from the outside world. By this spring, vast tracts of the region had been depopulated, the refgee population in Chad had mushroomed to 120,000 and as many as 1,200,000 people were homeless--or, in the dry parlance of the humanitarian aid community, "internally displaced"--inside Darfur. There, they were subject to continuing attacks by the janjaweed and rapidly running out of food.
At this 11th hour, the international community finally went into action. Under pressure spearheaded by the United States, the United Nations compelled Sudan to lift many of the strictures placed on foreign relief agencies, leading to a rapid upsurge in supples and personnel reaching the field. Responding to demands that it protect the refugee camps from further janjaweed attacks, Khartoum shuttled thousands of additional policemen to Darfur and allowed in a handful of African Union observers to monitor the situation. By the closest of margins, wholesale catastrophe appears to have been averted, at least for the time being; while janjaweed attacks persist in some areas, relief agencies are now cautiously optimistic that enough food and medicine are reaching the field to forestall mass starvation or a disease epidemic.
Verbatim from NYTimes.com |
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Thank You Christ Followers <[email protected]> wrote:
The Horror of Darfur
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| From: poetsays |
As is often the case with calamities in Africa, that which has befallen Darfur [in Sudan] seemed to burst into the global consciousness without warning. Until this spring, probably few Westerners had ever heard of the remote region in western Sudan. Then, virtually overnight, it became a topic of urgent discussion in Congress and the United Nations, a staple of the evening news, even a debating point in the American presidential race.
In fact, the alarm had been sounded long before. By the summer of 2003, Darfur refugees slipping across the border into neighboring Chad were telling of a scorched-earth Sudanese Army counterinsurgency campaign. In its hunt for members of a nascent rebel group, the refugees claimed, the army had teamed up with Arab tribesmen, and instead of looking for rebels, these camp followers simply laid waste: shooting down whoever crossed their path, torching homes, looting. In giving these raiders a name, the refugees turned
to an old Darfur epithet for bandits--janjaweed, or "devils on horseback."
Despite mounting criticism from abroad, the Sudanese government in Khartoum not only denied any connection with the janjaweed, but continued to suggest there was no crisis at all. As the number of refugees and burned villages soared, Khartoum effectively sealed Darfur off from the outside world. By this spring, vast tracts of the region had been depopulated, the refgee population in Chad had mushroomed to 120,000 and as many as 1,200,000 people were homeless--or, in the dry parlance of the humanitarian aid community, "internally displaced"--inside Darfur. There, they were subject to continuing attacks by the janjaweed and rapidly running out of food.
At this 11th hour, the international community finally went into action. Under pressure spearheaded by the United States, the United Nations compelled Sudan to lift many of the strictures placed on foreign relief agencies, leading to a rapid upsurge
in supples and personnel reaching the field. Responding to demands that it protect the refugee camps from further janjaweed attacks, Khartoum shuttled thousands of additional policemen to Darfur and allowed in a handful of African Union observers to monitor the situation. By the closest of margins, wholesale catastrophe appears to have been averted, at least for the time being; while janjaweed attacks persist in some areas, relief agencies are now cautiously optimistic that enough food and medicine are reaching the field to forestall mass starvation or a disease epidemic.
Verbatim from NYTimes.com | |
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