Debased slogan
There's been much in the international press in the last week or two about the Rwandan genocide, ten years on. Meanwhile:
Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, said yesterday that military action by the international community might be needed to stop the ethnic cleansing in western Sudan.It's a case of 'never again' again. Not yet a humanitarian crisis? Anyway, nobody marching.
Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, he expressed "grave concern" about the scale of human rights abuses in the Darfur region of Sudan.The UN says Arab militias have a policy of murder, rape and looting, aimed at driving black Africans out of Darfur.
Mr Annan said aid workers needed to be given full access to Darfur to help hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes. "They need to get to the victims. If that is denied, the international community must be prepared to take swift and appropriate action. I mean steps which may include military action."
There is mounting frustration among aid agencies and UN officials at international indifference to the war in western Sudan, despite universal insistence that the inaction during the Rwandan genocide should not be repeated.
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"We have a vicious war going on which is leading to the violation of human rights on a scale comparable to historic situations, increasingly, for example, Rwanda," he [Mukesh Kapila, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Sudan] said. "The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the numbers of dead, murdered, tortured, raped..."
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The UN estimates that the Darfur conflict, which began more than a year ago, has affected a million people. They include about 110,000 refugees, who have fled to Chad. [Italics all added by me.]