Perhaps more than any other single person, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff has worked tirelessly to bring attention to the genocide that is occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan.
In his column Wednesday, he introduces a new expert on the atrocities being committed.
Brian Steidle is a former U.S. Marine captain. He’s one of three American military advisers working with the African Union in Darfur. While the United Nations dithers, China blocks and the United States looks away, militias, working with the Sudanese government, are exterminating people.
“It’s a systematic cleansing of peoples by the Arab chiefs there. And when you talk to them, that’s what they tell you. They’re very blunt about it. One day we met a janjaweed leader and he said, Unless you get back four camels that were stolen in 2003, then we’re going to go to these four villages and burn the villages, rape the women, kill everyone.’ And they did,” Steidle told Kristoff.
“The entire village is now gone. It’s a big black spot on the earth.”
Estimates of the carnage vary widely. But the death toll is likely 300,000 or higher. Countless others have been driven from their homes.
Eyewitnesses reported to Human Rights Watch in February about the unchecked brutality.
Young women are singled out for rape. If the men intervene, they were either killed or beaten, stripped naked, tied to a tree and forced to watch.
“The Sudanese government talks peace at the U.N., but then orders airstrikes and militia raids against its own people in Darfur,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, in a Feb. 25 report. “The Security Council risks losing its relevance unless it finally takes meaningful steps to stop the atrocities in Darfur.”
President Bush has shown more interest in Sudan than many world leaders, but the United States isn’t doing enough. Such unchecked brutality should cast shame upon the world. That it doesn’t is pitiful.
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