Opinion Journal chronicles the international political inaction in today's feature article. As in Rwanda, the French are the best poised to act. Unlike in Rwanda, they are at least not aiding the genocidal regime, but they aren't pushing for troops on the ground, and they aren't giving much money. According to OJ, Kofi Annan came and asked President Bush for more military involvement, but the UN has backed down from that desire after sabre-rattling in Khartoum. It appears that putting white soldiers in harm's way is unacceptable to the Europeans.
The current statistics:
| 200,000 to 400,000 | Sudanese killed since 2003. (Bloomberg) |
| 2,000,000 | Displaced persons |
| 25,000 | Excess deaths among the displaced* |
| 7,000 | AU peacekeepers on the ground |
| 1,336,409,246 | USD of aid given (UN) |
| ..... 41.5% | U.S.A. government aid |
| ..... 17.2% | U.K. and other Anglosphere gov't aid |
| ..... 30% | EU and continental Europe gov't aid |
| ....... 2.5% | Arab League gov't aid |
Obviously, the Arabs and other Muslims are those who should be most ashamed. African nations have the boots on the ground, but are running out of money to support them (sounds dubious), and will let the UN to take over in six months. Apparently Sudan's threats to leave the AU if this happened were a bluff. Meanwhile, a Sudanese student group has somehow come up with $100,000 as a reward for Pronk's head; I wish my student groups had been so well-funded! And I wish the Western and Arab powers-that-be took the situation in Darfur as seriously as Sudanese on both sides of the lines obviously take it.
*70,000 deaths among the displaced (also Bloomberg, a death rate of 14.1 per 1000 over 30 months; compare to 9.16 for all Sudan and 8.25 for the U.S. Do the math, and you get 25,000 excess deaths.
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