some good news from Africa
by John at 7/01/2004 08:50:00 AM
I guess you probably don't care much about this (from the limited attention it is getting, it seems most Americans don't) but the US and UN are making some good progress toward remediating the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan.
The Sudanese government has twice promised to crack down on the Janjaweed militia groups. Annan has demanded action within 48 hours, and Sec. of State Powell is calling for the UN to impose an arms embargo and travel ban on the Arab militias responsible for the violence. Annan is also raising the possibility of using international troops to control the Darfur region if the Sudanese government is incapable. (Of course, using US troops is necessarily off the table because we are already overextended in Iraq). If the experience in Rwanda is any indication, even a few foreign troops can make a tremendous difference in detering violence.
It's important that we not let up on this. If the violence can be stopped immediately and humanitarian aid and services made available, USAID estimates that we can keep the number of dead down to just 300,000. Does that sound like a lot? If the world doesn't do anything, estimates are that 1 million people will die from disease and starvation.
The United States was instumental in preventing the UN from stopping the genocide in Rwanda 10 years ago. We should not make this mistake again. While the ultimate responsiblity rests on those would commit these kinds of atrocities, we must stand up for the values we claim to have if we want credibility and respect as a world leader.
What you can do:
Donate money to NGOs (See USAID link for some ideas)
Write/call/email your representatives and senators (If enough people shout about it, they will do it. Remember cable regulation in the 90s?)
Write/call/email your President
Link dump:
Annan Wants Sudan Progress in 48 Hours
300,000 Deaths Foretold
USAID Sudan: A Reinvigorated Commitment
UNICEF - Darfur (Sudan/Chad) - Region in crisis
Darfur Destroyed
Update: one more link from The Economist
Powell seeks to stop the killing
Update 2: I think I should take back the first line. It's a little insulting. Probably, you do care about this.
The Sudanese government has twice promised to crack down on the Janjaweed militia groups. Annan has demanded action within 48 hours, and Sec. of State Powell is calling for the UN to impose an arms embargo and travel ban on the Arab militias responsible for the violence. Annan is also raising the possibility of using international troops to control the Darfur region if the Sudanese government is incapable. (Of course, using US troops is necessarily off the table because we are already overextended in Iraq). If the experience in Rwanda is any indication, even a few foreign troops can make a tremendous difference in detering violence.
It's important that we not let up on this. If the violence can be stopped immediately and humanitarian aid and services made available, USAID estimates that we can keep the number of dead down to just 300,000. Does that sound like a lot? If the world doesn't do anything, estimates are that 1 million people will die from disease and starvation.
The United States was instumental in preventing the UN from stopping the genocide in Rwanda 10 years ago. We should not make this mistake again. While the ultimate responsiblity rests on those would commit these kinds of atrocities, we must stand up for the values we claim to have if we want credibility and respect as a world leader.
What you can do:
Donate money to NGOs (See USAID link for some ideas)
Write/call/email your representatives and senators (If enough people shout about it, they will do it. Remember cable regulation in the 90s?)
Write/call/email your President
Link dump:
Annan Wants Sudan Progress in 48 Hours
300,000 Deaths Foretold
USAID Sudan: A Reinvigorated Commitment
UNICEF - Darfur (Sudan/Chad) - Region in crisis
Darfur Destroyed
Update: one more link from The Economist
Powell seeks to stop the killing
Update 2: I think I should take back the first line. It's a little insulting. Probably, you do care about this.
I've been trying it out for the last few weeks and I generally agree with John. Unfortunately, I still have to use IE occasionally because some things just don't render properly. CNN never comes through right...but that may have to do with Motorola using some sort of local cache of that site that is probably done with M$ servers (that are likely IE biased). But it is more than just CNN. This blog, for instance, renders with slight errors in Firefox. The names on the right are slightly out of whack...and I can't see the firefox logo that John mentioned either.
You probably meant for this discussion to go on the Firefox post, but what the heck.
I have that name problem you mention too (John and Jeff overlap, right?), but not just with Firefox. Netscape 7.1 does it as well, both on XP. Mozilla 1.4 does it on Linux. Mozilla 1.6 and Firefox on a different Linux computer don't do it. IE never does it. I haven't tried it with Galeon or Konqueror (more linux browsers), but I can when I get home. Galeon, at least, uses the Gecko engine from Mozilla (I think), so that might be problematic, too.
I have no other obvious rendering problems, including the CNN front page. It occurs to me that you can not see the Firefox logo, which is a .png, or get the Teen Titan .mp3, both of which are stored in my comcast webspace. I wonder if it is some kind of firewall problem?
My source was the Frontline "Ghosts of Rwanda."My recollection is a little hazy in the details, but: 10 Belgian peacekeepers were killed by government forces (peacekeepers were there to keep peace between govt and rebels) in order to foster a Belgian "Somalia moment." It worked. Belgium wanted out, but to save face, they asked to US to have the Security Council remove all peacekeepers so it wouldn't look like the Belgians were chicken. The US (Warren Christopher?) told Albright (US ambass to UN) to tell the Sec Council we wanted all peacekeepers out. The Nigerian ambassador gave a passionate speech, and the US made a concession - only most (90%?) of the peacekeepers would leave. This left a very small force in place. These peacekeepers would be pulled out as the massacres started. Only a Canadian colonel (who refused to leave) and a small force (450?) of peacekeepers from African nations remained. They were poorly supported by the UN and the were basically unarmed, but their presence saved thousands of people.
I don't blame the US, but we failed to make sure peacekeepers stayed in place (in fact, we asked them to be removed). The Security Council failed to stand up to us, or perhaps they wanted to pull the peacekeepers out as well.
The Frontline timeline of events is here.
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