Darfur

It's been awhile since my last post, but this is a topic that needs greater discussion. It is disgraceful that we, as a global community, are not doing more about the situation in Darfur. Have we not learned any lessons from the previous 30 or so years since the end of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, Idi Amin in Uganda, Milosevic in Kosovo, and the tragedy of Rwanda 10 years ago. A governments legitimacy is severely strained, to say the least, with the systematic murder of its own populace by proxy or otherwise. While we are praising the peace treaty that is ending a 20 year civil war between the North and the South, we should be putting pressure to bear on the African Union via a United Nations Security Council vote to send peace keepers to stabilize the area as well as to initiate sanctions against a regime that is currently less than responsive to the situation. Of course, negotiations should continue, because the conditions that have led to this crisis need to be addressed and corrected, but there should also be a stabilizing presence in the form of African military units who can safeguard the refugee camps. Time is of the essence.