Just another day in the life and death of Darfur I

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We do this with Iraq, so why not Darfur? Here's the BBC:

About 30 people have been killed in Sudan's Darfur region, when pro-government militias raided a village, peacekeepers say.

Armed men on horses and camels rode into the village of Sirba, near the Chad border, killing those they found, say UN and African Union officials.

Meanwhile, the UN has offered at least $77m to help [African Union] peacekeepers in Darfur.

I'm sure that'll make all the difference. And I'm sure Khartoum will agree to let the U.N. take over peacekeeping responsibilities from the A.U. Yeah, sure.

There are presently about 7,000 A.U. peacekeepers in Darfur. They "have failed to end the violence," as if they had any chance of doing so. "The UN Security Council has passed a resolution for 20,000 troops to be sent to Darfur but Sudan has refused to let the UN take control, saying that would infringe its sovereignty." Sovereignty comes before genocide, it seems, according to the rules of this morally backwards game. But even if U.N. peacekeepers were to take over in Darfur, would it matter? Would the genocide stop?

Likely not. Until there is a commitment from the international community -- and from the U.S. and its allies above all -- far greater than the U.N. can muster, until the international community stops putting the principle of sovereignty before the far nobler goal of putting an end to genocide, until we all start taking the situation in Darfur much more seriously than we do now, the killing in that distant land will continue.