MySA.com: Commentary

We have a unique opportunity as citizens to make a difference with regard to the Darfur genocide as the U.S. this month holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council...please consider contacting the White House...

MySA.com: Commentary: "The death toll from the Sudanese government's three-year campaign of ethnic cleansing against black Africans in Darfur is now approaching 400,000. The Sudanese military and their Janjaweed allies have driven more than 2 million refugees from their homes. Last year, an investigation by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found as many as 2,000 villages and towns had been depopulated by a brutal scorched-earth policy.

Beyond the abstract numbers are the horrific violations of human dignity taking place in Darfur. The High Commissioner and numerous human rights organizations have documented a widespread, deliberate campaign of terror and sexual violence: women and young girls taken into slavery or gang-raped in public; men castrated and left to bleed to death."...

Whenever I write about the situation in Darfur, readers ask me: "What can I do?" Invariably, I refer them to aid organizations such as the Save Darfur Coalition or tell them to contact their representative and senators.

This month, my answer is different. Contact the White House. Tell Bush that while the United States presides at the Security Council, contingency planning for a U.N. peacekeeping force must become operational planning. Twenty thousand peacekeepers, equipped and supported by the United States and the European Union, are needed on the ground quickly. The first step toward ending the violence is the enforcement a no-fly zone in Darfur by NATO.

Only American leadership can compel the United Nations to stop the slaughter in Darfur. Only by shaking off moral torpor can Bush prevent a genocide that is already well under way from being completed on his watch.