Culture of Life
May 26th, 2005 at 7:47 am by Susie
Why aren’t we helping?
PALIANG, Sudan (Reuters) - Mothers in southern Sudan are feeding their children leaves to stop them starving to death after rich countries failed to heed months of appeals to prevent the region’s worst food crisis in seven years.
Young women on Thursday crushed foliage torn from trees then boiled it over fires outside their huts, draining the green-tinged water before their children devoured their sole meal for the day with their hands.
“I’ll get diarrhea from eating this, but there’s nothing else,” said Nyankir Malek, 35, chomping on bitter leaves used as food of last resort in southern Sudan. “You can see how thin we are,” she said, fiddling with an ivory bangle around her wrist. “This is all we have had to eat since January.”
They have strikes: 1. they have no oil.
2. no stategic advantage (retention, revenue, mercenary troops, etc.)
This area has been historically ignored by the US unless there was a geopolitical reason for intervening in the internal politics. The fact that the bush administration can even use the term “culture of life” without choking on the words while this genocide goes on is monsterous. There is a special place in their god’s hell for them.
Actually, I believe that the Chinese are making (or have made) a deal with the Sudan to extract its oil - so they must have some. In this case, the resource is controlled by the genocidal Sudanese government. For those in Dafur, this is not a good thing.
Having known a few Sudanese refugees, I can also say that the government’s policies in Dafur are not new. This sort of thing was preceeded by similar genocidal militia/government strikes on the Nuba. The Dinka refugee I knew also had similar experiences, but I think he was victimized by a rebel group in the Southern Sudan.