The Rape of the Sudan
Brutality Without Restraint
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/07/19/sudan.rapes.reut/index.html
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Amnesty International is reporting that Arab militias in Sudan are gang-raping and abducting girls as young as eight and women as old as 80, systematically killing, torturing, or using them as sex slaves. The rape of these poor women and children is part of the Islamic government's policy of ethnic and religious "cleansing" in what is the world's worst human crisis.
According to Amnesty International, the government in Khartoum is using terror and rape as weapons to drive the non-Islamic population of Sudan out. A quote from an Amnesty spokesperson at the press conference follows:
"Soldiers of the Sudan government army are present during attacks by the Janjaweed and when rapes are committed, but the Sudan government has done nothing so far to stop them," Amnesty researcher Benedicte Goderiaux told a news conference.
One of the victims interviewed by Amnesty International said as follows: "When we tried to escape they shot more children. They raped women, I saw many cases of Janjaweed raping women and girls. They are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell us that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish."
The Janjaweed are a government supported militia.
The Sudanese government replied that this was another attempt to distort Islamic culture and to create disorder.
Estimates are that 30,000 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced, their homes burnt and their food taken. This is the second internal conflict in the Sudan, the first having left 2 million people dead.
The world faces a limited number of choices of what to do:
- We can wring our hands and do nothing.
- We can try to reason with and pressure the government of the Sudan. Frankly, I can't imagine how you begin to negotiate with a government that sees the rape of 8-year old children as a legitimate tactic to use against it's own people.
- We can look to the UN to solve intervene and solve this problem. Does anyone really believe that the UN has either the will or the capability to take action?
- We can hope that some country in the international community will do something. Should we expect leadership towards resolving this from the EU? From one of the Arab states? Say from Egypt, that occupied the Sudan a hundred years ago?
- Were the United States to intervene, and Colin Powell has recently visited the region, we can expect condemnation for interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation that is raping and murdering it's own citizens. Should the United States NOT interfere, we should expect condemnation for doing nothing as happened after Rwanda.
I am being sarcastic of course, but the real problem is that there is no organization responsible and empowered to resolve this kind of crisis. What will the UN do? Condemn the actions in a strong memo?
According to Amnesty International, the government in Khartoum is using terror and rape as weapons to drive the non-Islamic population of Sudan out. A quote from an Amnesty spokesperson at the press conference follows:
"Soldiers of the Sudan government army are present during attacks by the Janjaweed and when rapes are committed, but the Sudan government has done nothing so far to stop them," Amnesty researcher Benedicte Goderiaux told a news conference.
One of the victims interviewed by Amnesty International said as follows: "When we tried to escape they shot more children. They raped women, I saw many cases of Janjaweed raping women and girls. They are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell us that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish."
The Janjaweed are a government supported militia.
The Sudanese government replied that this was another attempt to distort Islamic culture and to create disorder.
Estimates are that 30,000 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced, their homes burnt and their food taken. This is the second internal conflict in the Sudan, the first having left 2 million people dead.
The world faces a limited number of choices of what to do:
- We can wring our hands and do nothing.
- We can try to reason with and pressure the government of the Sudan. Frankly, I can't imagine how you begin to negotiate with a government that sees the rape of 8-year old children as a legitimate tactic to use against it's own people.
- We can look to the UN to solve intervene and solve this problem. Does anyone really believe that the UN has either the will or the capability to take action?
- We can hope that some country in the international community will do something. Should we expect leadership towards resolving this from the EU? From one of the Arab states? Say from Egypt, that occupied the Sudan a hundred years ago?
- Were the United States to intervene, and Colin Powell has recently visited the region, we can expect condemnation for interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation that is raping and murdering it's own citizens. Should the United States NOT interfere, we should expect condemnation for doing nothing as happened after Rwanda.
I am being sarcastic of course, but the real problem is that there is no organization responsible and empowered to resolve this kind of crisis. What will the UN do? Condemn the actions in a strong memo?
