Ealing North
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Steve Pound MP Ealing North |
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August 2004 Sudan asks us all some very hard questions and I, for one, just don’t know the answers. We can all agree that there currently exists a situation of such horror that it would be impossible for any person with a spark of humanity within them to turn away. In Darfur thousands have been slaughtered, villages have been burned and rape has been used as a weapon of war. Andrew Natsios,of the UN Agency for International Development, said last month that 300,000 people were “likely” to die of starvation or disease and half a million more were “at risk”. Yet the brutality of the Janjawid militias – backed by the National Islamic Front government in Khartoum – is a far from isolated part of the nightmare that is modern Sudan. In the early 1990s the same National Islamic Front waged a war of genocide on the Nuba people of Central Sudan with the stated intention of overcoming all resistance to the creed of “militant Islam” that had been victorious in the coup of June 1989 that brought the NIF to power. In February of this year Khartoum government forces under the command of Major-General Tanginia scorched the earth of the Upper Nile to destroy the Shilluk people. Hundreds were slaughtered and over 15,000 now slowly starve in Malakal with their dying cattle representing the end of any hope of a return to their former lives. The Collo (Shilluk) people lived above an oil reserve. China builds roads that speed the Government of Sudan troops – many of whom are originally from Darfur – to exterminate the pastoral peoples who are in the way of oil exploration. And now we see murder in cold blood under the hot sun of Western Sudan. Unlike the Shilluk massacres this is not an invisible war. The immense courage of the Amnesty International observers on the ground has brought this war into our living-rooms. The worlds media have woken up to the genocidal ambitions of the Govt.of Sudan – but what can we do? Many of the very same people who opposed the invasion of Iraq are now demanding that a new coalition marches into Sudan. They make the point that Iraq and Sudan were both oil rich Muslim countries created by the British and ruled by tyrants. I would hope that we have learned something from Iraq and that we can look at other ways to resolve conflict. We know that things will get worse – one reason why black African Muslims are fighting black African Muslims in Darfur is the slow and unstoppable sweep forward of the Sahara Desert that is rolling over once green lands like an incoming tide. It is no surprise that farmer fights cattleman. The UN has given Khartoum thirty days to stop the war – but what if they don’t? Sudan’s two major investors and supporter nations – France and China – are silent on the subject of the genocide. No sound of condemnation from these countries which are normally so vocal. The African Union is finally getting its act together since the Addis Ababa summit on July 8th. A force of 300 soldiers has been sent to Darfur and Mali, Nigeria and South Africa’s leaders have told Khartoum that more will follow if the NIF government fails to rein in the Janjawid. The UK is the biggest cash donor when it comes to aid – and second only to the US in overall figures. Yet are we to save the starving for them to be slaughtered when they are fit enough to leave the camps on the Chad border? Yes, we can support the African Union and, yes, we can work with the UN but what will it take to end what seems an endless civil war in Sudan? Pressure on the Khartoum government? Forget it! They have a dozen reasons for wanting the war to continue. France and China will back them and the attention of the world will eventually wander off to the Bangladesh floods or the latest disaster. Right now I don’t have the answers but I do have some money and I’m sending it for famine relief in Sudan. Whatever the facts, I want to see this country as one that sends in aid rather than armies from now on. |
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| Disclaimer | Copyright | Designed by Bassam Mahfouz. Promoted by Julian Bell, The Labour Party, Ruskin Hall, 16 Church Road, W3 8PP on behalf of Steve Pound MP |
