www.talkcyprus.org

[moonskin]

Darfur: a letter from Europe's leading writers
On the fiftieth anniversary of the EU, a call to action
Published: 24 March 2007

To the leaders of the 27 nations of the EU,

How dare we Europeans celebrate this weekend while on a continent some few miles south of us the most defenceless, dispossessed and weak are murdered in Sudan?

Has the European Union - born of atrocity to unite against further atrocity - no word to utter, no principle to act on, no action to take, in order to prevent these massacres in Darfur? Is the cowardliness over Srebrenica to be repeated? If so, what do we celebrate?

The thin skin of our political join?

The futile posturings of our political class?

The impotent nullities of our bureaucracies?

The Europe which allowed Auschwitz and failed in Bosnia must not tolerate the murder in Darfur. Europe is more than a network of the political classes, more than a first world economic club and a bureaucratic excrescence. It is an inherited culture which sustains our shared belief in the value and dignity of the human being. In the name of that common culture and those shared values, we call upon the 27 leaders to impose immediately the most stringent sanctions upon the leaders of the Sudanese regime.

Forbid them our shores, our health service and our luxury goods. Freeze their assets in our banks and move immediately to involve other concerned countries.

We must not once again betray our European civilization by watching and waiting while another civilization in Africa is destroyed.

Let this action be our gift to ourselves and our proof of ourselves. And when it is done, then let us celebrate together with pride.


Umberto Eco
Dario Fo
Günter Grass
Jürgen Habermas
Václav Havel
Seamus Heaney
Bernard Henri-Levy
Harold Pinter
Franca Rame
Tom Stoppard

[cypezokyli]

nobody cares about darfur.
it has no oil - why would the big boys care?
it has no americans - why would all the peace-loving demonstrators care ?

after some years we will issue a resolution against the genocide in darfur, perhaps try to send their current leader in some court, and we will feel satisfied

[thebrix]

cypezokyli wrote: nobody cares about darfur.
it has no oil - why would the big boys care?
it has no americans - why would all the peace-loving demonstrators care ?

after some years we will issue a resolution against the genocide in darfur, perhaps try to send their current leader in some court, and we will feel satisfied

Four points:

1. I note that it is considered improper that one continent should not interfere in the affairs of another. This is going back to the mindset of 100 years ago, and what a turnaround from 50 or even 20 years ago. (If, for example, there had been military intervention from outside to break the infamous Ethiopian famine/civil war of 1984 there would have been the biggest uproar imaginable).

2. Go back five years: change Europe to America and Darfur to Iraq ,,, a cheap attack, but I couldn't resist it.

3. The notion that Bosnia is a "failure" is not one which most people would agree with. (My first rule of campaigning; do not lie!)

4. I saw the list of names and thought "the usual dreary crew". It is always the same people signing these sorts of things, and the irresponsible (writers) trying to take the high ground and oblige those with responsiblity (politicians) to do something is not a pretty sight.

(The appeal would have been much more powerful had Vaclav Havel, whom I admire, signed it as a former politician rather than as a writer and got other politicians to do the same).

[pg]

I also think the parallel to Bosnia is weird. I also do not think anyone suggests risking loosing soldiers in Sudan.

However, the essense of the call is:
Quote:
we call upon the 27 leaders to impose immediately the most stringent sanctions upon the leaders of the Sudanese regime.

Forbid them our shores, our health service and our luxury goods. Freeze their assets in our banks and move immediately to involve other concerned countries.

I think everyone can agree with that.

[Khan]

brix, dont you consider the failure of the west to prevent the massacre of 8000 Bosnians a failure?

[thebrix]

Khan wrote: brix, dont you consider the failure of the west to prevent the massacre of 8000 Bosnians a failure?

I am not well up on the ins and outs of the former Yugoslavia so don't know whether that could have been prevented ... but it is clear that many thousands more (dwarfing that figure) would have been killed without the intervention that did take place.

It is also becoming clear that, in the end, the only way to stop a country doing something seen as generally obnoxious is for everyone else to join together and bomb it into small pieces if it doesn't back down. I misread the open letter, missed that the writers were talking about sanctions rather than a military invasion, and realise that what they are suggesting is worthless. Such financial devices haven't stopped Robert Mugabe or Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, among others.

[Khan]

There was a Dutch UN contingent who was supposed to protect Serb forces from taking Srebrenica, they did not even fire a shot at the Serb army.

[cypezokyli]

Khan wrote: There was a Dutch UN contingent who was supposed to protect Serb forces from taking Srebrenica, they did not even fire a shot at the Serb army.

we are talking about a whole different time , whole different context, and a whole different approach that existed back then on how to deal with such problems

[pg]

Khan, you are also saying that "the West" failed at the same time as you say (rightly)that the UN was responsible.

And all this discussion is in the framework of whether the EU can celebrate without doing something in Darfur.

Who should lead what ever could happen in Darfur; the EU or the UN?
Who should intervene, Egypt or Greece or Finland or Japan or Turkey? Who will risk their lives?

[Khan]

I say the west failed in that they were unable to mount a co-ordinated response as the events unfolded. NATO was also involved, yet made a few innefective bombing raids. No one could agree on how to intervene, meanwhile knowing full well the capacity of the Serbs to massacre the Muslim population. The same problem happened in Kosovo, with the US, Britain and France dithering over how to respond while Mislosevic's men were walking into Kosovon towns and massacring the population.

[brother]

Khan wrote: I say the west failed in that they were unable to mount a co-ordinated response as the events unfolded. NATO was also involved, yet made a few innefective bombing raids. No one could agree on how to intervene, meanwhile knowing full well the capacity of the Serbs to massacre the Muslim population. The same problem happened in Kosovo, with the US, Britain and France dithering over how to respond while Mislosevic's men were walking into Kosovon towns and massacring the population.

The blunt truth but never the less the truth.

[pg]

Who should decide to bomb more or less?

[cypezokyli]

Khan wrote: I say the west failed in that they were unable to mount a co-ordinated response as the events unfolded. NATO was also involved, yet made a few innefective bombing raids. No one could agree on how to intervene, meanwhile knowing full well the capacity of the Serbs to massacre the Muslim population. The same problem happened in Kosovo, with the US, Britain and France dithering over how to respond while Mislosevic's men were walking into Kosovon towns and massacring the population.

i have to repeat again that we are talking about a completely different time and context.

in the early 90s "the west" still believed in the impartiality of the UN troops.
the UN troops were almost always not armed enough to prevent any real conflict , but most importantly their primary aim was to stay impartial. (sth the UN did not keep till the end of the war :wink: )

"the west " still believed that national sovereignty is above human rights.

besides, are you willing to accept that "the west" should have the right to intervene militarily in every place it considers that there are violations of human rights ?


as for the serbian massacres you are ofcource right.
it never stops surprising me though that muslims and the west alike choose to talk only about the massacres that the serbs did. :roll: