Coalition for Darfur: The Attention It Deserves

This week's Coalition for Darfur post is an urgent call to increase the awareness of what is happening there.

This genocide will end in one of two ways: either the international community will begin to take its responsibility to protect the people of Darfur seriously and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure their survival or it will end when the Africans in Darfur have been completely eliminated.

A lot of people, including Kevin Drum who is quoted in this week's article, seem to think that only a large scale invasion of Sudan, presumably by western forces including those of the US, will resolve the problem. But, the African Union already has forces on the ground in Sudan and they have been effective where they have been deployed, and the AU is planning to expand their role. What is needed is for NATO to provide logistical support for the AU forces already on the ground. (As usual, France is a big barrier to this.) In fairness, I should note that Drum considered the AU role as an option, and is none too optimistic about them.

On a side note, the humanitarian aid situation in Darfur is a sharp contrast to what happened in South Asia after the tsunami. BBC reports that Doctors Without Borders raised so much money for tsunami relief (four times what was needed) that they are now trying to contact donors for permission to redirect their donations to other areas, including Darfur. Would that those aiding the suffering of Darfur had the same problem. This contrast shows what can happen when sufficient publicity is given to a problem. The tsunami got the publicity, Darfur has not.