posted
What I'm saying is basically, the world gets up in arms about the prison abuses (atrocities is way, way to powerful of a word for it) in Iraq, but no one stops in the public discourse and says, "Are we going to do anything about this in the Sudan/Chad?"
Ten years ago, no one said much in Rwanda until it was all over except the burials.
Where is Amnesty International in this? Where is the media? Where's France and Germany?
And most importantly, where is the United Nations during all of this? Where are the peacekeepers?
posted
The Secretary General made a recent statement about it. Can't find the link though. Not sure what could be done, but at this point I'm certain the U.S. can't take the lead.
posted
Actually it's the Sudan that's the one to watch, while they have paid attention to it, they haven't made such a big deal of it. And in Chad, they've been silent for a couple of years.
Perhaps what has made the Sudan such a sticking point for me is the story of Manute Bol, the former NBA basketball player.
Bol, a native of the Sudan, took his earnings from the NBA for years and sent it back home to support relief efforts and efforts to end slavery in his home country (slavery is rampant there). In 1999, he returned to Sudan and personally saw how little impact his work had been having. Many of the food and medical supplies had been confiscated by the government and the money to be used in buying back slaves had pretty much vanished. He left, and brought the issue up in America.
The government of Sudan asked him to be part of a special commission to address these problems. As he said in one interview, I went and worked with a group and we delivered medical supplies and food to a village. As we left and looked back at the village from a nearby hill, Sudanese fighter planes swooped in and bombed the village.
When Bol returned to the capital, he was immediately arrested and thrown into prison. No trial, no chance to say his peace, no chance to even contact the American consulate. He languished there for about a year. Finally, friends of his from back in the US were able to smuggle bribe money in that got him out of the jail. He (at 7' tall) was put in a box and smuggled onto a airplane and flown to Egypt. He set down in Cairo on Dec. 31, 2001 and taken downtown in secrecy and let loose.
Speaking English, he approached a policeman in the streets crowded with New Year's celebrants who were chanting "Death to America". The policeman took him into protective custody and when it was found he had entered the country illegaly, he was left to languish in jail, yet again. The abuses he suffered in the Egyptian prison weren't as bad as had befallen him in the Sudan, but still... He was a man who had followed his Christian beliefs and actually worked to do Good in this world. He was left alone and lost, no one knew where he was.
Finally, a friend from the US was able to track him down. They had wondered what had happened to him, and some probably thought he had been killed and ditched by those who had promised to get him to safety. Eventually, they were able to get the US Consulate in Egypt to vouch for Bol and have him released.
Bol returned to the US, penniless and in a state that would have shattered many of us. Homeless, he was given a small house in Washington, DC by the Catholic Church. Friends provided for his bills and food. Any money he made, he continued to send to the organizations working in Sudan.
And his last big note of public notoriety was when he signed up to fight on Fox's Celebrity Boxing against William "the Refrigerator" Perry. All of his proceeds went to the Sudan. His bruises and injuries he carried home with him, just as they had before.
Once upon a time, when Bol was in the NBA, I joked about him regularly as the "world's tallest stick figure" and less kind things. When I say HBO's Real Sports profile on him before the boxing match, I cried because I had joked about a man who was Good to the depths of his soul and who had sacrificed everything for the people he believed in.
And so, since then, the Sudan has been a point of interest and disgust for me.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I didn't mention what I think about Iraq. I asked a question about why we aren't invading Sudan.
In a thread talking about the lack of outrage over Sudan in contrast to Iraq, and in a nation where we invade countries over their outrageous governments, that's an important question. So, why haven't we?
1.) We're a little busy at the moment. 2.) It's militarily unfeasible. 3.) We don't have justification under international law like we did for Iraq. 4.) We've decided the UN should get off it's bottom and do something. 5.) You've grossly oversimplified the reasons (plural, with an "s") for invading Iraq.
posted
People (and the press), have limited attention spans. Increasingly they go with what sells. I'm sure in various papers there have been articles (in the middle of sections, not front page), on the atrocities over there. I know reading The Metro, a free paper that basically rips Reuters news blurbs, I saw a lot on all sorts of African issues.
I would guess the lack of outrage has more to do with woeful ignorance than callous indeifference. ---
I understand you feel strongly on this issue, but I don't understand who you are castigating in your first post. The audience is [EDIT: ambiguous, NOT ambivalent] enough, and you are well known enough here, that Tres' response, while perhaps uninteresting, is certainly a reasonable response.
posted
I guess that my castigation really kind of goes out to the world. It boils down to how many cesspit countries there are out there, where life is so cheap that no one really pays much attention to.
Now and then these will pop to the surface for a bit and everyone will read the accounts and go "Oh my, that's terrible" and then life goes on.
But where is the International Community's efforts to improve this? Where's the Marshall Plan for the Third World?
Where is the acknowledgement that we are all brothers and sisters on this lil blue ball floating in space?
There's just got to be a better way. Bombs and bullets aren't the answer. But something out there is the answer.
The question remains, though, what is it and how can we (as citizens of the world) accomplish it?
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:The audience is ambivalent enough, and you are well known enough here, that Tres' response, while perhaps uninteresting, is certainly a reasonable response.
Actually, it's not reasonable, if only because the sentence is his interpretation of the policy justifications for the Iraq invasion, and has been hotly disputed on this board by many people. He's reduced his opponents argument to a single sentence that reflects it incompletely and used this thread as an opportunity to show why the policy he opposes isn't valid.
But it's based on a mistatement of that policy, and so is unreasonable.
Chad and the Sudan have been in civil war for about 10 years each and the global press do occasionally report ... when they can .. when the truely horrific happens. But they can't report everyday as there is a limited amount of space in their newspapers and there would be no point reporting it the whole time as the effect would be lost.
I know The Economist had an article on the Sudan not so long ago and generally the situation is getting much better there (usually when there has been a possible oil find excitment ... coincidental?). Although there was a hiccough there a few months back. I also keep a eye on this contry as my Ex was a Christian Sudanese Refugee to the UK. A very interesting man. And one of the things I have noticed about the Sudanese from those that I have met is that they are all very humble and have a capcity for goodness and faith that their country can be reborn into a country that they would be proud of again.
As for why neither of these countries have invaded ...
My understanding from the European Legal Community is that there were plenty of reasons for interfeering with Iraq, Iran, Chad, Sudan on the basis of human rights Violations .. but that also while these problems are of a civil nature we have to be careful about imposing our standards / ideals on others (imperialism is fairly frowned upon by the legal community)... while it would be great to eradicate these problems we have to let them work their own way there. There is also of course the issue of limited resources, we can't do everything for everybody ...
As for why we do get involved in Iraq and not these others ... I'm sure you have had numerous debates. But in my mind it still comes down to the impending civil war in Saudi Arabia and the need for a secure Oil source to take its place. Am I proud of this? NO, I'm also ashamed that our governements have lied about this being a primary reason, I wouldn't have minded so much if they had been honest. Do I think it is necessary for us to have a secure Oil source ... its pretty important.
Posts: 571 | Registered: May 2001
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So you're saying it's definitely not valid to say we should invade a country solely to stop it from killing and attacking it's own people, unless (1)we aren't busy at the time, (2)our military can handle it, (3)we have justification under international law, (4)we don't think the U.N. should be the one fixing the situation, and (5)there are other more complicated issues involved than just stopping genocide?
Isn't that cruel, though, to turn the blind eye and leave the Sudanese to get killed like that? Don't we have a responsibility to fix stuff like this? I think claims like "it's militarily unfeasible" and "we're too busy" are just excuses. We have a massive multibillion dollar military - if we wanted to we could easily take out a nation like Sudan. And telling the U.N. to do it is simply shafting a responsibility, if we have such a responsibility. So, that eliminates (1), (2), and (4)- so why not attack?
Or is none of that stuff sufficient excuse to attack someone without justification under international law, or at the very least some other reasons to back it up?
quote:The question remains, though, what is it and how can we (as citizens of the world) accomplish it?
But here's the thing - what can we do other than what we have been doing? We have been trying to broker a cease fire. We are trying to give aid. But we can't FORCE them to stop fighting, short of the military attack I mentioned above (which still might not work).
So, what can we do to make these people stop doing what they are doing beyond what we are doing now? It's difficult to figure out. This is why the U.N. has a tough job - it has to keep peace without forcing people to do things.
quote: We don't have justification under international law like we did for Iraq.
Yeah. You didn't. Sorry to pick on that point, but there was absolutely no justification at international law for an attack on Iraq without Security Council approval.
(And as someone doing their law honours on international law, I'm quite happy to expand on that point. )
Apart from that - I have long felt that the major countries in the world today (not just the US) focus their attention on what is politically expedient.
In terms of foreign policy, this has meant historically that the Middle Eastern conflict is "worth more" than the Yugoslav/Bosnian conflict which in turn is "worth more" than the Rwandan condlict between the Tutsis and Hutus. Worth more means what will gain more votes, not what will save more lives.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Sopwith, For me, one main path towards a better world lies in the U.S. becoming the good guys in deeds as well as words. I was appalled by Rwanda. I knew and was appalled by the situation in the Sudan (I knew the Manute Bol story too). One of the basic facts is that, if we were as much the good guys that we pretend to be, we'd have done something about these situations.
The U.N. had consistently shown how unwilling they are to take responsiblity for dealing with these situations, despite having one of the fundamental parts of their charter to prevent genocide. We can't trust the international community to do the right thing.
But let's face it, we can't trust the American government or people to do the right thing either. It is partially through our self-serving policies and actions that situations like this in Africa or in Central and South America have come about. In American, we're very adept at deceiving ourselves into thinking we are and have been the guys in the white hats, but it's just not true. At best, we are better than most of the rest of the world. Were we to actually assume the role of the good guys, instead of the better guys who usually act mainly only in our own self-interest, the world would be a much different place.
In part, that's whay I was dissappointed that you immediately and without shame parsed the situation in the Sudan into a context designed to partially excuse the bad actions in the American prisons in Iraq. It doesn't matter at all what is going on in the rest of the world, the abuses in the prisons are still very wrong. It is childish to try to take the sting out of them by offering up excuses and accusations against the people who are say that they are wrong. If Hitler himself came back from the grave and said that the prisoner abuse was wrong, it wouldn't make it any better. It would still be just as wrong. It is only when we are willing to stand up as adults and try to actually consistently do the right thing that the world will change.
edit: To focus in on what I'm trying to say, it is specifically because we are unwilling to admit the many many instances where we are not the good guys, that we always have an excuse or deceptions or accusations instead of responsibility, that America isn't going to be the world-healer that we pretend we are and that the other countries who in some part want to do the right thing neither trust us nor are willing to follow our lead.
quote:Yeah. You didn't. Sorry to pick on that point, but there was absolutely no justification at international law for an attack on Iraq without Security Council approval.
(And as someone doing their law honours on international law, I'm quite happy to expand on that point.)
I've linked the briefs from Britain, America, and Australia on this before. The arguments are at least colorable, and there's no entity with authority to pass final judgment on them. So, sorry, unless your expansion is a point-by-point refutation of the justifications actually made, it's not going to impress me.
quote: But we may have to cut down on viagra and breast implants.
Why include viagra?
Its a very helpful drug for a very real and quality of life threatening problem for millions of people. Imagine not being able to have intercourse with a wife or partner because a body-part is somewhat defective. Not fun.
Just because it has third party companies spamming you with the ads for it, doesn't mean its a superficial product.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote: a·troc·i·ty ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-trs-t) n. pl. a·troc·i·ties 1. Appalling or atrocious condition, quality, or behavior; monstrousness. 2. An appalling or atrocious act, situation, or object, especially an act of unusual or illegal cruelty inflicted by an armed force on civilians or prisoners.
Italics mine. Yeah, no other word fits half as well I'm afraid. Add to that the fact that to a muslim in arab culture, sexual humiliation is the worst kind. Then imagine how you would feel if a friend of yours was taken at a random road stop for questioning, without trial or even accusation of a crime. Then you see pics of hooded men having to perform sex acts on other men at gunpoint (is rape not an atrocity?). You can quite easily imagine your friend being one of the hooded men, since you can't see their faces.
Give me a break.
Pretending it wasn't as bad as it was isn't going to change anything.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I don't hate viagra. One day I may come to apprecite it. It was an off-the-cuff remark about our culture's priorities.
Posts: 4350 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote: So you're saying it's definitely not valid to say we should invade a country solely to stop it from killing and attacking it's own people, unless (1)we aren't busy at the time, (2)our military can handle it, (3)we have justification under international law, (4)we don't think the U.N. should be the one fixing the situation, and (5)there are other more complicated issues involved than just stopping genocide?
Isn't that cruel, though, to turn the blind eye and leave the Sudanese to get killed like that? Don't we have a responsibility to fix stuff like this? I think claims like "it's militarily unfeasible" and "we're too busy" are just excuses. We have a massive multibillion dollar military - if we wanted to we could easily take out a nation like Sudan. And telling the U.N. to do it is simply shafting a responsibility, if we have such a responsibility. So, that eliminates (1), (2), and (4)- so why not attack?
You did not really eliminate any of the options...you just said we should do it anyway. While our military is huge, it is not infinite. (1) We are busy, and we are already fighting on two fronts (Iraq and Afghanistan). Even a large military would be foolish to start a major offensive on a third front while they were still trying to stabilize two others. We would be going into a hostile zone where neither side wanted us...it would turn out to be another mog at best, nam at worst. If we had to keep up 3 fights at once for any period of time, we would need a draft...something the American people would not be for. (2) 2 is really a continuation of 1...you simple say that because we have a strong military would can do anything. This is simply not the case. Sure, we could topple the current government...not that it would help, others would simply fill in their place. If we tried to step into this civil war it would be a bloodbath. Sure, most of the deaths would not be American...they would be the civilians that we are trying to "help" but that is not any better. (3) Going into Iraq had shaky justification under international law. We used the fact that Iraq was violating agreements that they made after the last war. Of course, the UN should have called Iraq on it...which would have made it legal...as they didn't our justification was shaky. And in response, the world was pissed off at us. If we continued to go into countries with shaky legal support (or in this case no legal support) there would be consequences. We would likely face more attacks, perhaps sanctions...and if we kept it up war with other countries. A nation’s FIRST priority is to its own people. A government is created to protect its people, doing something that would lead to more harm to its people without justification would be against what a government is supposed to do. (4) You say that having the UN get involved is passing the buck...how so? Why is it the responsibility of the USA to end all disputes between other countries and end all dictatorships? If the USA has interests in that region, sure...but otherwise it is not the job of one country to make sure every other country behaves. That is the job of the international community (ie: the UN). For you to say the USA should be involved is really passing the responsibility of the UN onto the USA. (5) This is really the most important one of all. This is why so many people died in Vietnam. This is why Americans died in Mog. We did not understand the other issues...and it cost us American lives (and the lives of civilians in the regions). Many of the people in these nations don't want America to come in...and if we do...they will fight us.
Is this cruel? Hell, life is cruel. Many Americans died in the civil war. Many war crimes were committed as well. Crops were burned, civilians killed...but the USA was able to overcome it. Would it have been better if the British had come back in and taken over their wayward colonies? There were British people at the time who thought that was a good idea. If they tried it, there would have been even more blood. If anyone is going to be involved, it needs to be the UN. That way it does not look like one country is trying to invade and rule over another. Right now the USA has a bad name because of what happened in Iraq, there is no way we could come in and try to "fix" this situation without many more lives being lost.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
I like to give money to World Vision International. They're a Christian group that tackles poverty one village at a time. They dig wells and bring in filtration systems so people will have clean water to drink. They provide seeds and tools, teach agricultural techniques, and plant trees to stop soil erosion. They provide vitamins, immunizations, and basic health care. They supply children with uniforms and school supplies so they can get an education. For $26 a month, the price of a dinner out, I help do all this for a little boy in Mozambique.
In developing countries, World Vision also provides disaster relief, small business loans for the poor, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, rape counseling, and many other services.
This is how we change the world. We provide the resources so volunteers can go out and make a difference. And I thank God that there are people out there willing to go to these places.
Do a search for charities. I'm sure you can find plenty. Check their websites for a financial statement. I recommend World Vision becuase the vast majority of the donations go to help those who need it. Very little is spent on administration costs. They're not the only ones out there. Find a group you're comfortable with and go for it.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I back up what Avid said - there's not that much that we individually can do that would make a major difference but we can make small differences:
1. donate to charities that help those affected by these situations or help them raise funds; 2. write to you political representative - unless regular people raise it as an issue it will never become politically expedient; 3. write to your local and national press organisations for the same reason as No. 2 really - they won't report it if they don't think people are concerned; 4. talk to your friends and acquaintances about what you're doing and why - if more people do this then it can become a major difference (i.e. bandaid etc).
One of the major reasons I believe African countries aren't as politically or medially expedient as the Middle East is because:
No. 1 on the whole they're poor and have nothing our governments want; and No. 2 because they're poor they haven't developed their military capabilities i.e. no chance of their having nuclear or large scale chemical weapon programmes - so governments in so called developed countries are not frightened of their conflicts affecting us directly.
It beggers belief that people can do this to one another - humans can be truly evil.
I still think my suggestions above can help some but it's kind of easy to see why Sudan isn't receiving huge publicity with so much of this going on.
Part of me knows that JohnKeats suggestion:
quote: Here's an idea: let's feed the whole world for free and reap the benefits of peace.
can really be the only answer but we're too wicked a civilisation to bring it about ourselves. The only answer is to do what small part we individually can and pray for the second coming, because Heavenly Father is the only one who can ever bring about world peace.
posted
The only situation I'm personally (i.e. not via the media) aware of is that of Liberia. The precis of this book briefly describes the situation.
I served on my LDS mission with an incredible woman who was from here and who had suffered so much. She is the youngest from a large family and had worked for years from her early teens to early twenties and spent the proceeds on paying for her brothers and sisters children to be educated so they would hopefully have a better future. One of her brothers finally paid for her to go to school when she was in her twenties so she could learn to read and write. She continues to do this despite her own poverty.
When she arrived on her mission she had nothing but the clothes on her back and a carrier bag with a few possessions including her scriptures. Her English was heavily accented and she was painfully thin due to malnourishment. As an example when she left Liberia to come to England it officially cost $5 for a can of uncooked rice (a can being the standard baked bean size can which they use for measures). By the way $1 Liberian currently equates to $1.00503 US and is kept pretty much equivalent. The average Liberian yearly income is around US $140 so blackmarketeering is rampant as is theft. Also the average life expectancy is 41 years (men), 42 years (women).
I was with her during bonfire night and she was petified of the fireworks as she'd lived through real mortar attacks. She also hated it if anyone walked closely behind us because she was frightened of attacks and we'd usually have to stop and let people overtake us if it happened.
I've only heard from her a couple of times in the last 4 years since we finished our missions and things were as bad then - no jobs available - blackmarketeering - aid being stolen and used by government officials to sell and make themselves rich - constant guerilla fighting. Its virtually impossible to get a phone connection into the country and letters and parcels are stolen by postal workers so I haven't heard from her in over a year - since before the deterioration of the civil situation.
Then I see it on the list linked in my previous post as being rated last year as a country in the preparation stage for genocide.
I want to cry and all I can personally do to help her is pray. It really makes your own concerns pale into insignificance.
Oh and by the way if you haven't read the link above this was the first republic created by freed American slaves with US backing and support. She told me that the CIA were the ones who put Charles Taylor in power and provided funding and weapons for his government to conduct the civil war (this was the opinion in the country - of course its impossible to know whether its true or false). So I am glad to see that the US took a hand in helping overcome the civil unrest.
However, I'm of the opinion that this isn't the only country that us so called developed nations have had a hand in helping create the problems in the first place.
Even if it is only by insisting that developing countries pay back exorbitant amounts of interest for money we lend them. Third world debt needs to be abolished - that would be a major step towards overcoming some of the problems in Africa and other areas too.
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