Sept. 12, 2008 - KEE TETZAY: THE CONTINUING TRAGEDY OF DARFUR - (12th of Elul, 5768)

You know me to be energetic for certain causes and also rather impatient. This week, as we read about the rules God imposes on the Israelite soldiers that are going out to war against their enemies, I was cognizant that God established certain rules about the treatment of captives, specifically for women and children. This week’s Ten Minutes of Torah (URJ) took the opportunity to apply these rules to the rights of women and to the plight of all those who have been mistreated, enslaved, abused and violated. These are horrific wrongs that are occurring throughout the world in epidemic proportions and must be addressed more explicitly and more effectively because such crimes cannot and must not be allowed to go unrecognized and unchallenged. Part of the Torah’s efforts in establishing laws pertaining to a female captive commanded the captor to permit her to pare her nails, cut her hair and to dress her in different clothes. More importantly, before he was allowed to go near her, she was to be given thirty days to mourn her relatives. The URJ’s commentary insightfully stressed the thought that this time period enabled the woman to be seen as an individual and not as some object of war, some booty to be exploited.

As rich as the URJ’s commentary is and as important as the issues it raised are, as I thought about the armed conflict that is occurring in our day, I was troubled and concerned over events which are happening that the Torah did not and could not have imagined. Some years ago, I made the issue of Darfur and the people of that region the subject of a sermon and a few articles and acts that I took on. Today, I am sorry to say that the situation in that part of the world is not only not better, it is far worse. I quote from a recent email article from the Mideast News Source:

Even after all this time and all the energy and treasure spent to try to get the world to move against genocide in Darfur, things are actually more violent and the situation on the ground is now even more dire.

What has happened since we last visited the atrocities of the region together? The President of Sudan, Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, has been accused of crimes against humanity by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Crime Court at The Hague; however a 3 judge panel has yet to issue the arrest warrant, and there has been a flurry of protest by Moslem countries that have rallied to Bashir’s cause.

More disturbing, I guess, after all the email pleas, cajolings and exhortations is the fact that when President Bush recently attended the Olympic Games in Bejing, he made no protest and asserted seemingly no pressure on the Chinese who have been Sudan’s back bone of economic trade and a major financial supporter. Although several protestors attempted to make Darfur a point of Chinese embarrassment, their efforts went mostly unnoticed.

I myself haven’t said much about Darfur in recent months. I am put off by years of vain efforts to rouse the conscience of the member nations of the United Nations. Although that body approved a Peace Keeping Force of 26,000, barely 9,000 men have materialized. Undermanned, under-equipped, comprised of the forces offered by other, not seemingly overly enthusiastic, African nations, it lacks the mobility and size to do much more than, literally, take notes on where and how the Sudanese are pursuing their murderous offensives. Although several peace accords have been worked out over the years, Bashir has ignored and, therefore, abrogated all of them almost as soon as he signed them. Like other despots we have encountered through modern history, his word is as unreliable as his promises are cunningly devised and deceptive. But his lust for power and blood is insatiable.

I am frustrated because I continue to be urged to write Ban Ki Moon and President Bush in an effort to have them block any and all efforts to suspend or undermine the legal pursuit of a war criminal like Omar al-Bashir. I am frustrated because this is but a stop gap measure in any effort to curtail Sudanese genocide. In my mind, it is but the smallest of gestures.

I have repeatedly written and stated that when the countries of the world want the Darfur genocide to stop, they will make it happen within months. But until the U.N. or NATO or the United States takes the plight of the hapless victims of the region seriously…truly seriously… nothing is going to change. If we want to stop the killing, we must establish a no-fly zone over the region. This would take 1000 or 10,000 times the resolve any country is now displaying. But until the Sudanese government forces along with the Janjuweed are denied what aids and abets their attacks, no one, including world aid workers, is safe; and the situation will only grow progressively worse, if such can even be imagined.

When European stability was being threatened in the Balkans, suddenly the U.S. and NATO found the back bone to defeat Slobedan Milosevich and his Serbian thugs. They accomplished this feat through massive air strikes and by manning a robust Peace Keeping Force which had the mandate and the firepower to insure and enforce the mission.

The Darfur region commands the world’s attention, but no one wants to commit to an area this size, least of all the United States whose forces are stretched to the limit and are pinned down in Iraq whose cause we have since learned was trumped up, and whose dictator was the wrong address for United States military action because it was committed for the wrong reasons. Worse still, U.S. action in Iraq opened the door to Iran to pursue the nuclear genie and threaten not only the entire region, but the very commodity that the world so heavily depends upon, oil.

And I want to add one small footnote, in light of the Torah’s pronouncements about the treatment of captured enemy women and children. Had this country not admitted to the use of torture, it might now have a greater moral leverage to complain about the rapes, beatings and burnings that daily take place in northern Africa. But, as we used to say when anyone at the table had lost all their chips, having shot our wad and having succumbed to our government’s twisted logic, we can’t very well now stand in the chambers the World Court or the United Nations and cry foul.

I am weary of half baked efforts and partial attempts at weak solutions. I realize that good people are making what attempts they deem viable, but I fear the futility of it all while good and humble people suffer hunger, displacement and worse….much, much worse. I wish I were more than I am. I wish I could address the world and call it to account. I wish I had an Air Force of my own to send in to stop the slaughter. But I fear that I wish in vain.

There are some issues that take more that high minded ethics and urgings. I don’t see the marches in the street. I don’t perceive a world-wide will. I cannot imagine from whence the miracles may come. But, without more of humanity giving a care, the brutality, murder and atrocities will continue in Darfur and the surrounding regions. There is no one to stop it except those of us who care enough to act.