Sunday, September 18, 2005

Weekly Update: Darfur, Analysis 9/18/2005

Katrina moved us to act, so why not Darfur?
The Register Guard- 9/12/2005
In the absence of similarly detailed coverage of Darfur (or any coverage, for that matter), perhaps we can use the imagery of Katrina and its victims as a proxy. All the heart-wrenching emotions we have seen among Katrina's victims must surely be present among the victims of the Janjaweed. As we act to aid the victims of Katrina, should we not act, as well, to aid the victims of Darfur?

Genocide, One Year On
The Washington Post – 9/14/2005
A year ago, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell declared that the violence in the Darfur region of Sudan justified the term "genocide." That was the first time since the adoption of the U.N. Genocide Convention in 1948 that a government had accused a sitting counterpart of this worst of all humanitarian crimes, and Mr. Powell chose his words carefully. The progress over the past year demonstrates that the United States and its allies do have the power to save lives by the tens of thousands. It also suggests that, if the Bush administration had pushed harder and earlier, it could have saved many more people. This lesson must be remembered over the coming weeks.