Unashamed politicizing of Darfur

Today the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stooped to a new level and blamed climate change for the genocide in Darfur.

"The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change. Ban said in an opinion piece to the Washington Post. " It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought."

Using climate change as a scapegoat for the violent Islamic fascists who have murdered tens of thousands of people was rhetorically brilliant and personally disgusting. Not only did the UN Secretary General increase the urgency in solving the so-called problem of global warming, but he also shifted the spotlight away from radical Jihadists.

James Phillips, research fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, wrote about the Darfur crisis in 2004, clearly explaining its roots.

The Darfur crisis, like the previous man-made famine in southern Sudan, was engineered by Sudan's dictatorship to suppress popular resistance to its radical Islamic agenda. Ever since seizing power in a 1989 coup, General Omar al-Bashir's regime has exacerbated tensions with non-Muslims in the south and with Sufi Muslims, predominant in western Sudan, who resent the forced imposition of a harsh brand of Islamic law.

When Darfur tribes rebelled in early 2003, the Bashir regime attacked defenseless villages suspected of supporting the predominantly non-Arab rebels. Much of the regime's terror campaign has been conducted by brutal Janjaweed (a colloquialism roughly translated as "devils on horses") militias that Khartoum implausibly claims are criminal elements beyond its control. The Janjaweed, who reportedly share camps with the Sudanese Army, have burned hundreds of villages and robbed, raped, tortured, and murdered their non-Arab inhabitants. Although most of their victims are Muslims, the Janjaweed consider them apostates who deserve death or slavery if they resist the jihad invoked by the extremist regime. Victims report that the Janjaweed often shout "abeed" (slaves) before they rape or kill.

The United Nations estimates that 1.2 million people have been driven from their homes and that roughly 2 million people are in dire need of food aid. Approximately 50,000 people have already died in Darfur, and the U.S. government estimates that another 1,000 die every day from attacks, starvation, and disease.

The United Nations has been dragging its feet since the genocide began. Just last year, the UN Human Rights Council convened its fourth special session to address the Darfur region of Sudan. The result was a resolution that did not assign any guilt, but simply expressed "concern regarding the seri­ousness of the human rights and humanitarian situation." The resolution did not even mention the word "violations." [28]

During that special session, the UN approved an investigory mission, led by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams. The Sudanese government denied the mission entry to Darfur, forcing it to investigate from Ethiopia and Chad. As expected, the mis­sion's report strongly condemned the Sudanese government for orchestrating and participating in "large-scale international crimes in Darfur."[29] Allies of Sudan on the council subsequently rejected the report as invalid because the investi­gatory team had not gone to Darfur. The council finally adopted a weak resolution that "took note" of the Williams report but did not adopt its recommendations or condemn the Sudanese government for its actions in Darfur.[30]

If the UN wants to seriously address the genocide in Darfur, it must stop using political antics to promote pseudo-science and accept the real cause for this humanitarian crisis.