No Matter How Many “Potential” Genocide’s Obama Seeks to Prevent, His Presidency Will be sullied by the One he Failed to Stop

Last Wednesday, while delegates at the US Africa summit tucked into their grilled beef with coconut milk sauce and cappuccino fudge cakes, Omar, aged 3 and Haroun, aged 4, died of starvation in Darfur.

Sudan’s president Bashir was not invited to the summit which took place in Washington this week. He’s wanted by The Hague on charges of genocide in Darfur, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It is right that Bashir was excluded from the summit, but it’s wrong to silence the voices of Sudanese citizens who are crying out to be heard. To hide the first genocide this century in the corner of the room marked “off limits” is an affront to humanity. In Darfur alone, it’s estimated that half a million people have died from violence, disease, and starvation. Approximately 4 million are living in “displaced person’s” camps, all of whom are dependent on aid.

In 2009, when Khartoum expelled 13 aid agencies from Darfur, rather than condemn the regime, Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly reassured Darfuris that the agencies would be reinstated imminently. They were not, and now hundreds of thousands of people are dying of disease and starvation, as a direct consequence of what has become known as a genocide of attrition. Kerry’s actions arguably served to deflect the media glare from the escalating humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, thus emboldening the genocidal regime. Perfidy, incompetence and impunity have become the trademarks of the US’s calamitous role in Sudan.

In 2010, it was reported that the U.S. signaled its willingness to remove Sudan from the state sponsor of terrorism list, if Khartoum fully implemented the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. When the Bush administration made similar overtures in 2008, then presidential candidate Barack Obama reportedly fulminated, “This reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments”.

Why the change of heart? There are those who believe that US foreign policy in Sudan is driven, not by its “Responsibility to Protect” endangered civilians, but by a counter-intelligence agenda, as reported in the Los Angeles Times in June 2005;
“The CIA and Khartoum's intelligence and security officials have met regularly over the last few years, but Gosh [then head of Sudan’s national security service] had been seeking an invitation to Washington in recognition of his government’s efforts”, sources told The Times. The CIA, allegedly hoping to seal the partnership, extended the invitation.

In August 2010, the Washington Post reported; “The CIA is continuing to train and equip Sudan’s intelligence service in the name of fighting terrorism” said a former intelligence officer who served in Sudan. He notes the duplicitous nature of the arrangement, “We also refer to the Sudanese as a state sponsor of terror and have called their activities in Darfur genocide”. If this is true, the failure to recognise, or care, that this armoury could be turned on defenseless Sudanese civilians is unconscionable.

As presidential candidate, Obama said, “When you see a genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia or in Darfur, that is a stain on all of us…We can’t say ‘never again’ and then allow it to happen again, and as a president of the United States I don’t intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.”

It seems that being the first African American President to turn a blind eye to the genocide of black Africans is not the legacy Barack Obama planned to bequeath. Yet, he seems bent on doing just that.

Obama’s betrayal of black Africans in Darfur hit a heart breaking low last week when he vowed to act decisively in Iraq in order to prevent a “potential” genocide there. What about the one you vowed to stop 7 years ago, if only you were president and had it within your gift? Where the power now exists it seems the will is lacking.

How many more starving, slaughtered Sudanese children must be sacrificed at the alter of (misplaced) self interest before we call in Obama’s promise of “never again” in Darfur?

Everyday Racism, At a Seaside Near You.

If you’re taking an only child for a day at the beach (that’s a long time) it’s essential to pitch up in just the right spot, i.e. next to other children the same age with accompanying adults that look keen. That, says my friend, who is also the mother of an older “only”, is key. Parents who look as though “they have a bit about them” will be vigilant and stand at the waters edge while your child plays with theirs’. “That way you can top up your tan while catching up with the latest celebrity gossip in Heat Magazine”.

I don’t do sun bathing (My freckled Irish skin goes a kind of radioactive red which isn’t a good look) and The Economist, as opposed to Heat, would be my magazine of choice. Despite dismissing the advice as a load of codswallop, I found myself doing a quick reccy of the beach last week and, completely coincidentally, pitched up next to a couple with children about the same age as my 6 year old.

As I wrestled with a beach tent with an identity crisis (it thought it was a kite) in gale force winds (this is England after all), my neighbours watched in amusement. It dawned on me that I would be the one on coast guard duty for the duration.

Having erected our base (after a fashion), I set to work pumping up the newly acquired inflatable dinghy. “A vital procurement”, according to my friend. “It’s a great way to lure other children in”. To which I replied, “I’m the mother of an only child, not Myra Hindley on a grooming expedition.”

The pump either wasn’t up to much or my technique was rubbish, but I kept trying. I overheard the woman opposite (part of the duo that allowed me to struggle unaided with my tent) say to one of her children who seemed upset, “Them children aren’t the same as us. They’re mean and rude, don’t play with them”. Her two blond boys had been playing with two British Asian boys, who I later discovered were Muslim.

Frustrated with my failed attempts to inflate his dinghy, my son accosted the first male he saw to rescue me (time to swap his superhero comics for some Jacqueline Wilson books methinks). The man was the father of the “rude, mean” children, Isa (pronounced Eesa) and Kareem. In return for saving the day, I offered them a ride in the boat. Turns out they were kind, well mannered boys with whom my son spent a joyous day, along with the blonde boys, Josh and Ben, who I invited to jump in too.

I gleaned that the incident that invoked outrage from Josh and Ben’s mum earlier was Isa and Kareem’s decision to go for lunch in the middle of a game. Her son’s disappointment was twisted into something sinister and ugly by his mother. Fortunately, still too young to be tainted by entrenched prejudice, both her boys were oblivious and carried on playing and sharing with their darker hued peers.

In last week’s Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown wrote about the scourge of every day racism. She lambasted the lack of roles for black actors in the UK, the fact that only one black or Asian writer was longlisted for the Booker Prize and the dearth of black editors anywhere in the mainstream media.

The 2011 census showed that 17.9% of the UK population is non-white, against 4.2% of MPs and 3.5% of FTSE 100 chief executives, chairmen and finance directors. That’s not good enough. But, while the campaign group, “Everyday Sexism”, is gaining momentum for gender equality, Everyday Racism goes either unnoticed and/or unchallenged. Apathy and complacency are the greatest enemy of equality and democracy.

Our children aren’t born bigoted. They’re born pure and prejudice free. We (parents, schools, the media, politicians and society), have it within our gift to inculcate that purity or, contaminate and annihilate it. I wonder how long Josh and Ben have before they start seeing Isa and Kareem through their parent’s poisonous prism?