The French just announced that they will be shuttling off more troops into Osama bin Laden’s Afghanistan. Bush says more US soldiers are on their way there too. So are soldiers from other NATO / western states. Maybe its good news which might help end all this bloodshed in Afghanistan once and for all.
But in the plains and deserts of Africa, no one seems to care. Those big mouth politicians went to the world and said that we should be left alone. Africans are capable of solving African problems- African solutions for Africa problems. Nice slogan but they forget that Africa at this moment cannot adequately manage its myriad of problems at national levels, lest end conflicts in neighbouring countries. And nice slogans don’t end conflicts.
So here we are with people dying in Darfur and Somalia, with no help in sight. In the case of Darfur, troops and resources have already been promised by various nations both within and without Africa. It’s almost a year now and nothing has been seen. Now imagine this: if even only twenty persons die in these places everyday, I wonder how many world trade centres that would amount to and when the number would be enough for the big nations to stop the rhetoric and jump in to stop the carnage happening on our streets. When the US went guns blazing into Iraq, maybe they shouldn’t have just stopped there. Hasn’t it been alleged that there are what are know as “terrorist elements” in Somalia. And didn’t some of these elements have a hand to play in 9/11? And isn’t the Sudanese government also being accused of killing its own citizens? So why is no one helping? Is the world deliberately turning a blind eye and helping to perpetuate these crimes. Wouldn’t that make everyone then accomplices?
As at now, no one has been able to give a very good reason why the troops and equipments have not arrived in Darfur. Meanwhile China is busy supplying its government with arms in exchange for oil.
The few African peacekeepers in Darfur- who were just told to change their names and call themselves UN peacekeepers- are just sitting ducks, and indeed it seems, have occasionally been used as target practice by unknown rebel thugs. We hold nice funerals for the murdered soldiers and give nice speeches. These soldiers don’t even have prescribed UN uniforms. Some of them, it has been reported, have to tie blue plastic sheeting over their old helmets so that the population would now identify them as UN peacekeepers. But wouldn’t it make them more vulnerable and visible to those seeking target practice? I wonder what kind of peace they are keeping there, considering that they are out-gunned and overwhelmingly outnumbered by the warring parties. And those warring parties are yet to implement the tons of paperwork of agreements signed. It seems these agreements are just worth as much as the paper they were signed on. Or maybe less. And just in case you were wondering; there are African Union soldiers too in Somalia. They are helping keep the peace at the Airport.
Haven’t enough people died, enough women raped and enough of the small ones denied of normal life and education for us to do something? Why are we standing by while these rebels and governments kill and terrorise their own nationals? Why all the diplomatic shuffling and nice speeches when people are out there dying as they make those speeches? Do they stop to think that by the time they finish any of their speeches enough children would have died to fill a nursery classroom?
And then there is that African Union thing we have here which is of no relevance to its citizens but just some sort of an old boys’ club where the despotic leaders of the various African states meet once in a while to exchange notes on who has the latest cars and who is plundering their national assets in more ingenious and creative ways. They meet and talk and talk and waste a lot of money and press time announcing nothings because they have nothing to offer.
So while we are being bombed and shot at, they sit in air-conditioned hotels and conference halls, drinking tea and coffee and showing us their irrelevance. They are the ones who started this slogan of African solutions for African problems. Well it’s time the speeches stopped and they started tackling the real issues that affect us on a daily basis. It’s time we stopped the madness in Darfur and Somalia.
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