Epilogue
It is June 2005. The peace between the Sudan government and the SPLA has been signed. It includes the Nuba Mountains. The Darfur region of Sudan is in flames. It is the story of ethnic cleansing in which the Janjaweed is fronting for the government which is the modis operendi for the Khartoum government. Though a great deal of press and world concern has been showered on the struggle, it continues. The facts remain the same. The brown fundamentalist Muslim are killing black Muslim. It is done through direct killing, rape to create a whole new color or death through displacement. The story is similar to what happened in the Nuba Mountains. Each day that the Sudanese government states that it is complying with UN or world sanctions there is another aggression which causes the NGOs or the UN to pull back. The duplicity continues each day until the goals of the government are met. One hundred thousand civilians have died in the last few months. Again it is the US and Britain leading the world efforts to stop the ethnic cleansing. The Sudan government is following the Taliban tradition of a fundamentalist Muslim regime with its Sharia, which is the rigid strict law that looks down on all outsiders (black in this case) as less then human. The churches and the United Nations give speeches and words with very little effect. Again the NGOs are the front line. The UN has established that the World Court will try the perpetrators of the genocide. The number of people killed by this rogue regime is well over two million (five years ago it was the number and many have died since), almost all civilian. The enslaved number is also very high which is an additional abomination. The human tragedy is incalculable as tribes and whole families are decimated and enslaved by the Muslims in the Sudan. Yet the world has not had the will to stop it. In the future it will sear the conscience of knowledgeable people for decades to come with guilt. They will say they did not know or it was too far away to be concerned. The standard excuses of apathy. It is a sad commentary for the condition of human moral fiber and resolve to not enforce the tenets for which the United Nations was formed. Now the trials of those who were responsible for the genocide in Rwanda are taking place in Arusha, Tanzania. The horror of the genocide and its aftermath are being relived each day and it will continue for years. It will take generations of peace and good will to heal the wounds of the devastation that took place in that fateful month of April in 1994. The same can be said about Sudan. It is a repeat of history that will take many generations of peace to alleviate the hate and fear of the human tragedy and the call to justice will take years.
These stories were brought to you to visualize and read about people that could be you or I. The images give face to humans that strive for the same opportunities that you and I have. They are not crying out for something extra, they are very proud. Just a cry for peace and the ability to maintain their tribes and families after the holocaust they have experienced. These are values that all responsible people aspire to.
President Bush has laid out the human goal of freedom and liberty for all people in this small world in his inaugural address. That should be all of our goal. That tyrannical governments continue to disrupt the world and kill, rape and maim innocent people; and are allowed to perpetrate their destructive ways so that more responsible citizens pick up the aftermath, is against any possible lasting world peace. That terrorists continue to bully their way by intimidating and killing innocent people is a crime against all humanity. The world is too small for responsible nations not to act against them in concert. The excuse of they are not bothering me got lost in the horrific 9/11 catastrophe and the Bali explosion.
Lucian Niemeyer
Santa Fe 2005
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Last updated: June 01, 2005 .