It has been blogged before, and here it is again- because while I agree that the overboard diary entries about how stupid Bush is are getting boring, it never tires me to debate and stew over the rape, murder, and senseless butchering of thousands of innocent people by their own country.
Sudan- as it stands today, 17 August, 2004. If you can read this diary, you have access to the internet, and therefore, electricity, food (while living on ho-hos is hardly an excuse; but that cheddar drenched pop-corn is tempting), a sleeping location safe from vandals and thugs, etc. so, most likely your prospects of having a worse day than any Sudanese refugee are slim-to-none.
The prospects of today being better for a Sudanese refugee- that depends on where they are located...
If you were a Sudanese refugee located close to the Nigerian soldiers arriving in Darfur around 25 August, you may have the promise of "protection" of sorts, but no viable increase in food, water, medicine, or support.
Plus- let me personally rant here a bit about Nigerian soldiers- from my own experiences with them, they are of the poorest quality of international soldiers. A total of 308 troops are slated by the ill-equipped and under-funded Nigerian military to aid Sudan. 308 soldiers being sent to protect nearly one million displaced refugees, to disarm several thousand heavily armed rebel Janjaweed militants, in a country that is roughly the size of Texas and New Mexico combined, in one of the most arduous climates on the African super continent? Anyone else think this is flicking boogers at a black hole? And, yes- Stephen Hawking's new theory on black holes re-emitting past information on flicked boogers in some form non-withstanding.
The Darfur local government, and the Sudanese government are both corrupt, villainous megalomaniacs bent on smoke screening the world media and hoping this little internal spat will go unnoticed in the hyped Al-queda happy constant media blitz. The fact is, while the CARE International supposed incident last Friday (a man identified as Janjaweed at the camp in Darfur was stabbed and beat to death, with CARE personnel present and somehow involved) is just the tip of the iceberg in the Sudanese government's new attempts to shelter the Janjaweed as "soldiers" protected under law, and any revenge murders on these villains prosecuted by Sudanese law. The Dafur state government is opening legal proceedings now against CARE based upon "gross negligence" in this killing of a suspected Janjaweed rebel.
I'm sorry? Did the Sudanese government just accuse an international aid organization currently pumping in food, medicine, and care to Sudanese refugees of "gross negligence" over the apparent revenge murder of a Janjaweed rebel thug? The same Sudanese government that armed these rebels, set them out to rape, pillage, and murder Darfur Africans in the worst act of genocide of the 21st century (four years in and look what we've done. High-five, homo sapiens. High-five.) and they are accusing CARE of "gross negligence?"
Where is global outrage? Where are Kerry and Bush on the future of Sudan? Why are 308 clueless and poorly equipped Nigerian soldiers about to descend upon the Darfur refugees as their "saviors?" Does anyone give a flying fuck about these poor people?
Think about it. No matter how much your day may suck today (and for a rare few of you dying of cancer or learning today your father died in a car accident, I apologize; but you know 99% of folks blogging away do not apply) your day is way better than a Darfurian. Is that wrong? Is that fair? Granted- the world may never have such equality that every man, woman, and child enjoy the obnoxious wealth that American society normally takes for granted, but is it too much to demand the right to live, breathe, eat sustenance, drink feces-free water (unless that's your bag, baby), and not fear a gang of armed rebels are coming to burn your farm and rape your daughter on any given day?
-CHIII