Resolution for Darfur Bush must be urged to intervene to help stop the genocide in Sudan
April 6, 2006
"Never again!"
That's the ritualistic cry heard around the world after any massacre bordering on genocide occurs, whether Cambodia's killing fields, Rwanda's bloodbath or Bosnia's death camps. But that pained incantation always comes after the killing has stopped. Now the U.S. government has a chance to say "never again" and act on it while the killing is still going on in Darfur, the region in Sudan where a genocide of grotesque proportions is taking place.
Yesterday evening the House of Representatives passed a bill that would reaffirm the finding of genocide in Darfur. Among other provisions, it would direct President George W. Bush to demand that the NATO alliance form a military mission to protect the black population of Darfur from lethal attacks by the Arab Janjaweed militias that have been covertly supported by the Khartoum government.
The measure has bipartisan support and was co-sponsored by the entire Long Island congressional delegation, with Reps. Peter King (R-Seaford) and Gary Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) proving instrumental in getting the bill out of committee for a floor vote. A similar resolution was passed earlier in the Senate. Bush should follow the congressional mandate and take immediate steps to bring the issue to his NATO partners.
Though the effectiveness of military intervention for humanitarian reasons is the focus of a continuing foreign policy debate - sometimes, as in Somalia, such interventions backfire with dismal results - the scale of the Darfur crisis begs for the international community to do the right thing. How can the civilized world stand aside, irresolute, while as many as 300,000 unarmed civilians have been killed or died of disease and starvation, and another 2 million have been displaced to refugee camps after their villages and farms were burned to the ground? The United States has a moral obligation to try to stop the killings.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc. |
