(Forward) ضميــر العالم إنتقائى فى معالجـة الأزمـات

THE BOSTON GLOBE

February 8, 2004
Editorials

Sudan's ethnic cleansing


IT IS A SAD TRUTH, illustrated almost daily, that the global village tends to
be strangely selective with its bouts of conscience. Some humanitarian
catastrophes are beamed into millions of homes and reported on the front pages.
Certain conflicts are bemoaned by political leaders and debated at the United
Nations. Yet in other places, disasters of war, ethnic cleansing, and genocidal
slaughters seem to elude the world's attention.

So it is in Sudan, where atrocities are being committed by the ruling
National Islamic Front in the region of Darfur, near the border with Chad. During a
visit to the region in December, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Special
Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Sudan, Eric Vraalsen, said he was shocked by what
he saw of conditions for internally displaced people and refugees in Chad. In
the intervening two months, the situation has only become worse. Although
Sudan's central government denies access to relief organizations, a tidal wave of
human suffering looms ahead.

The dictatorship in Khartoum is responsible for driving more than 700,000
people from their homes. UN staff members working on this humanitarian calamity
fear that 3 million more, defined as war-affected civilians, are at imminent
risk. Estimates of the number already killed run as high as 30,000, and, with
agricultural production brought to a halt, mass starvation may soon accompany
genocidal massacres, death by exposure, and disease.

Amnesty International and the Associated Press have reported the regime's use
of bombers to attack villages of the tribes asking for autonomy from the
central government and a fair share of Sudan's natural resources. As in southern
Sudan -- where 2 million people have died in a war between the Arab Muslim
regime in the north and black African Christians and animists of the south --
Khartoum has armed Arab militia forces known as the Janjaweed to loot and burn
African villages. The principal difference is that in western Sudan, the victims
as well as the raiders are Muslim.

On Thursday, three small rebel groups in western Sudan said they would attend
peace talks in Geneva Feb. 14. The Bush administration, which has been
promoting peace talks for southern Sudan, should back the Geneva talks as well. But
there is an even more pressing need to make Khartoum cease denying access to
displaced refugees of Western Sudan. The world must be made aware of their
plight and see to it that they are sheltered, fed, and returned safely to their
homes.