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Jewish World Review
August 2, 2005
/ 25 Tammuz, 5765
Behind the headlines, real news in Sudan
By
Jonathan Gurwitz
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The genocide in Darfur finally made it to the front page. Well, sort of.
Newspapers across the nation recently carried the not-so-shocking news that Sudanese government security forces in Khartoum manhandled members of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic entourage and NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell.
Wire services sent animated descriptions of the scuffle, including one of Rice's advisers yelling, "Get your hands off her!" as guards dragged Mitchell out of a news conference. As she departed Khartoum, Rice told reporters, "They have no right to push and shove."
I would have greater sympathy for the dismayed diplomats and roughed-up reporter if our State Department were more strident in its denunciations of the genocidal regime in Sudan and the American media accorded the ongoing slaughter in Darfur the significance it deserves.
As it is, some reports of the Khartoum incident didn't even mention Darfur. Readers had to delve deep into other accounts after the pushing, shoving, American anger and a Sudanese apology to find out Rice's next destination was the sprawling Abu Shouk refugee camp. There she met with 15 African women, victims of the Sudanese military's policy of systematic rape in Darfur.
The Associated Press carried what may have been the most poignant detail of Rice's trip: "In the area she toured, some of the 55,000 displaced Darfur villagers had tried to add cheer to the hot, sandy expanse by planting pink and magenta flowers outside the doorways of their plywood and canvass huts."
The horrific numbers bear repeating. Humanitarian aid organizations estimate the conflict in Darfur has taken approximately 200,000 lives during the past two years.
Nearly half of Darfur's 5.5 million residents have been killed or driven from their homes. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, there are now 1.88 million internally displaced refugees within Darfur and another 200,000 in camps in neighboring Chad.
A report from the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks last year recounted a typical campaign of rape and pillage in the northern Darfur area of Tawila: "Thirty villages were burned to the ground, over 200 people killed and over 200 girls and women raped some by up to 14 assailants and in front of their fathers who were later killed. A further 150 women and 200 children were abducted."
Earlier this year, Doctors Without Borders documented the continued, premeditated and widespread use of sexual violence. "In spite of high-profile visits of the world's leaders," its report says, "people still face persecution and intimidation inside the camps. Rape, a feature of the attacks on their villages, has now followed them insidiously into their places of refuge."
Pardon me, but some folks are getting overwrought because a handful of Americans got pushed around in Khartoum?
Here's a bit of advice for the aggrieved parties. To Secretary of State Rice, make it your diplomatic mission to open the Bush administration's blind eye toward Darfur.
Convince the president that protecting the lives of Muslim refugees in Sudan and Chad will do more to enhance perceptions of U.S. policy in the region than either Afghanistan or Iraq. Tell him that history will judge inaction in Darfur no less harshly than in Srebrenica or Rwanda.
To Mitchell and the free press, make it your journalistic mission to expose the brutal Sudanese government and its crimes against humanity in Darfur. Newspapers and networks could have a profound impact on the lives of the refugees if they devoted to Darfur a fraction of the coverage they gave to the Michael Jackson trial.
Make the violence against millions of residents of Darfur the lead story, not a footnote to the annoyance of a few visiting Americans.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.Comment by clicking here.
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© 2005, Jonathan Gurwitz
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