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you follow this topic more than me. Is there a cease-fire? I wonder if the number of people killed has dramatically diminished as it seems from the few news we get from there. Is Darfur just another poor area of Africa or maybe a little bit worse..? I just do not get the info. So , an answer will be welcomd indeed.

Why is it worse than Somalia. Somalia is the tyical example of a country savaged by a soft-war due a hard war.

Nevertheless, the real underreported news is the war   going on right now in COngo. Every month the number of casualties is much more bigger than anything that happens in Iraq (Iraq would be the proud second.. darfur I do not know if it would reach the third or the tenth place, no idea) .

So, if Darfur is just like Cngo now you are deeply right..if not.. well it is like a lot of poor areas of Africa....and discussing what to do if anything about Africa has been debated here...amy be we should talk about it more.

If you ask what the Eu would do.. well.. nothing..no interest in there...the west is like that...And still some discussion about Africa proceeds...let's hope

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu Feb 23rd, 2006 at 04:45:59 PM EST
Darfur is genocide. The Moselm Arabs are killing off the Black Christians and Animists--All of them. We're almost at the quarter million mark.

Yeah, "Democratic"[HA! that's a laugh]Congo is still in "Africa's First World War" and maybe with elections coming up, it'll die down. The Hutu Nazis from Rwanda [y'know, those people who killed a million people with machettes back in 1994], are still causing trouble.

what are we supposed to do about that?

Then There's Nigeria. The Moslems and Christians have been fighting since the "celebratory" massacares in September 2001. This part of the "War on Terror" has claimed over 70 thousand lives, and it's getting worse in recent days. These people DO indeed have oil.

Tell me, what are we supposed to do?

by messy on Thu Feb 23rd, 2006 at 04:58:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
From the news I have Darfur had a dramatic war. I have also received contradictory information regarding the fact that there were mass killings or genocide. I normally think the worst so I think it was targeted mass killings close to genocide.

But, we have also received information in Europe this last months that say there is no mass killing any more. There are actual negotiations right now..and they have been going on for quite some time.

The policy of EU is not vocal just in the most critical moment, now, in the middle of the peace conference.

Maybe the reports I read are wrong and the mass killing continue but this is not what the major broadcasters say (they could lie of course).

Regarding the other countries in Africa in adesperate situation...I have no idea what to do...As a first step it will be to leave them alone...but I have no power to force the mega corporations to stop bleeding Africa...

Other than that...I have my own ideas about Africa but I have not enough experience, background and knwoledge to give any advice....As always.. i would say: listen to Africa poor people and see what they say...and this history is really underreported.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu Feb 23rd, 2006 at 05:21:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Kcurie you are right the situation in Darfur has moved forward. There are peace negotiations and the African Union troop presence on the ground increased last fall but is still only 7000 troops. However, there continues to be deep concern about the level of violence and specifically the cross boarder violence with Chad which the Human Rights Watch report highlighted and hopefully the Tripoli agreement between Chad and Sudan may help.  

The numbers game of which conflict is more horrific isn't that helpful in my opinion. The point is to highlight the situations that require international attention and Darfur unfortunately, as you point out very well and correctly, is only one of them. I encourage you to write up a diary on one of the other conflicts and try to figure out what the European policy has been in that area. I just happened to see the Human Rights Watch report, which prompted me to dig into this topic further.

As for listening to African people you are right and the web provides a great opportunity to have access to many African media, university, NGO and other sources right at our desks! One such resource I found in preparing this diary is The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) but there are many more.  

The only other thing I would add, at the risk of repeating myself, is that we all need to be cautious not to see Africa as one big monolithic continent. It's as diverse, if not more so, then Europe and not all African nations are "failed states" as one might sometimes believe from the selective media reports in the west.

by Alexandra in WMass (alexandra_wmass[a|t]yahoo[d|o|t]fr) on Fri Feb 24th, 2006 at 10:45:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Dead on. I could hardly have said it better.

I think Congo indeed deserves a diary. World's most dangerous place right now.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Fri Feb 24th, 2006 at 12:10:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Look forward to a Congo/EU policy diary if you decide to take that on!!!
by Alexandra in WMass (alexandra_wmass[a|t]yahoo[d|o|t]fr) on Fri Feb 24th, 2006 at 12:59:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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