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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Orcastraiter who wrote (29516)	6/10/2004 2:45:29 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 81568

From today's Boston Globe: boston.com Annan's dishonor in Sudan By Gloria White Hammond and Francis Bok \| June 10, 2004 TODAY, Harvard University will welcome UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as its commencement speaker and present him with an honorary degree. However, Annan's inaction in the face of genocide in Sudan is anything but honorable. The secretary general has failed to stand up to the Arab-dominated government of Sudan in its murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing, most recently against African Muslim tribes of Darfur in western Sudan, and for more than two decades against Christians and practitioners of traditional religions in southern Sudan. The woeful negligence of the United Nations under Annan's watch is hauntingly familiar. In 1994, Annan was the UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations. He received credible information from UN forces in Rwanda about an impending extermination of Tutsi people. He failed to intervene. The result: 800,000 dead in 90 days. In 1995, 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred in Srebrenica -- a UN safe haven -- while UN troops looked on. In 1997, Annan became secretary general. Throughout his term, the government of Sudan has committed what the US Congress has labeled "acts of genocide." Seeking to impose Sharia law on southern Sudan and gain access to its oil-rich land, the Khartoum regime in northern Sudan has led a brutal campaign for more than 20 years that has resulted in 2 million deaths and 4 million displacements. Tens of thousands of women and children have been enslaved in the north. In February 2004, Khartoum extended its reign of terror to western Sudan, where it has taken on a distinctly racist hue. Arab Muslim militias in collusion with government forces have already slaughtered 30,000 African Muslims. Because the government has restricted humanitarian access within its borders, without immediate intervention, an additional 350,000 will die from starvation and disease in the next nine months. More than a million have been made refugees in camps that by all accounts are abominable. Despite UN investigators having aptly designated these activities as "crimes against humanity" and identified this as the worst humanitarian situation in the world today, the UN under Annan's leadership has engaged in relative silence, pitiful hand-wringing, and functional complicity. This pattern of ineptitude and practice of inaction is a disgrace for the UN, an organization born from the ashes of the Holocaust to ensure that "never again" would the international community tolerate systematic murder and ethnic cleansing. Annan should comply with recommendations proposed by the International Crisis Group: mobilize the UN immediately to provide food and medicines for the war-affected people of Darfur; move expeditiously to stop further atrocities even if it requires the use of military intervention; reverse ethnic cleansing by deploying human rights monitors to accompany internally displaced persons back to their homes; begin to lay the groundwork for a political resolution of the Darfur conflict; establish a process of legal accountability for leaders who have perpetrated genocide and slavery. Additionally we will charge him to seek emancipation of all remaining slaves. Kofi Annan's visit to our community is our opportunity to send a message around the world. He can allow yet another genocide to go down on his watch or he can take decisive action. This time it's Annan's choice. We challenge him to make the decision that is truly worthy of honorable distinction. The Rev. Gloria White Hammond is co-founder of My Sister's Keeper, a humanitarian action organization working in southern Sudan, and a director of the American Anti-Slavery Group. Francis Bok is a former slave from Sudan, an associate of the American Anti-Slavery Group, and author of "Escape from Slavery."