Happy Rwanda Genocide Day, Sudan!

April 6, 2007 marked the 13th year since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that took over 1 million lives in 100 days. Four years passed, the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ) had not even convicted one person for their role in the genocide, and President William Clinton visited Kigali airport in Rwanda. With the engines of Air Force One running, he encouraged the world to "work together as a community of civilized nations to strengthen our ability to prevent and, if necessary, to stop genocide." He then laid out a plan that would "increase our vigilance and strengthen our stand against those who would commit such atrocities in the future."

I guess he didn't speak for George W. Bush.* Because four years ago, genocide slithered onto Sudan's horizon. Bush recognized it as such, all the way back in June of 2005 when he announced he would end the killings in Darfur by "working with NATO to make sure that we are able to help the AU put combat troops there. And, as a part of that, I believe a transport plane of ours, for example, will be a part of this mission."

Go Bush. His commitment to end the first genocide in the new millennium was firm, as evidenced by the complete lack of funding he provided in the budgets. USAID received about $20k a year to end the Darfur genocide and to keep the peace in southern Sudan, an area trying to recover after 22 years of civil war. He took further steps to shore up this commitment by excluding funding for Darfur from the 2008 US budget, set to begin in October of 2007.

The danger of this long and drawn out mass killing is that it becomes accepted. It becomes how the people living in the areas are defined. And while it is shameful that Anna Nicole Smith's death receives far more coverage than the intentional murder of 400,000 people (with 2 million to go), I find it even more embarrassing that college students are able to generate 12 times more money through a few bake sales and charity functions that my own government.

I don't want my country to be known as the number one exporter of hollow rhetoric and broken promises.** Help end the genocide.

Join. Act. Make a differnce.

~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government http://goodusgov.org/

*Given how quickly he forgot about Rwanda, I doubt he was speaking for himself, either.

**