In Perspective: The forgotten? African strife

Monday, 12 February 2007

The forgotten? African strife

There is always conflict in the Middle East, it seems, and when something breaks out in Europe or the Americas, western news is all over that too. But what about in Africa?

More developments related to the Darfur conflict in Sudan, which I hope to have a in-depth report on soon. (Too bad they are not exactly good developments, though they are not totally bad either.) People are dying there too!

BBC News:

Envoys from the United Nations and the African Union are visiting Sudan on a joint mission to re-energise the peace process for Darfur.

But the AU says the Sudanese government has bombed two villages in Darfur. There is no word on casualties.

Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim also want to secure Khartoum's permission for the deployment of UN troops.

Despite a peace agreement and numerous ceasefires the conflict in Sudan's far west shows little sign of ending.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million made homeless since war broke out in 2003.

The crisis in Darfur has brought numerous politicians, troubleshooters and envoys to Sudan.

For all their optimistic statements about progress made and agreements signed, little has changed on the ground.

Some day, I hope the current Sudanese government is convicted of war crimes. By killing, raping, and impoverishing its own citizens, supporting genuine terrorist groups, and not letting even the UN in (usually), President Bashir has done great harm to the lives of far too many.

There is still a chance to help the victims of this genocide. The world turned a blind eye to Rwanda, let's not let the history books show us as doing it again. Over three years and hundreds of thousands of deaths...

Want to help? See here and remember: political pressure on your government can also make a difference. Most people are not aware of, largely, what is really going on in the world, not least something like the troubles of western Sudan.

There's a great blog called Daily Darfur that can keep you up to date along with BBC News' relatively great coverage.

The Darfur genocide, like the more deadly Rwanda genocide in the late 20th century, seems to have gone under the radar of the news media, especially in the United States. If something does not include a celebrity, sex, or something to do with America (e.g. US troops in Iraq), it gets pushed back.

Genocides must not make sexy news, but what about civil wars?

Guinea is on the verge of a civil war and is descending into civil strife as a "state of siege" is declared by the president. Fuji — which had a coup late last year — and Guinea are just two countries recently falling into deep political turmoil.

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Update: Ok, looking at my own blog I see how depressing and serious most of the news is. Here is an interesting — yet totally unrelated to this post — science story on how chimps learned to make tools on their own without humans. Interesting stuff.
Also: "Top 10 gay animals".