Sept. 16, 2006 - 20:04 MDT

NO OIL THERE

Sickening to the heart, but true it seems. An article in the Rocky Mountain News of September 15, 2006 by Leyla Linton of the Associated Press seems to tell it like it is. Herein quoted in full:

CLOONEY, WIESEL PRESS U.N. ON DARFUR

UNITED NATIONS -- "Actor George Clooney warned the U.N.'s most powerful body Thursday that if it did not send peacekeepers to Sudan's Darfur region, millions would die in the first genocide of the 21st century."

"Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, echoed Clooney's plea."

"Remember Rwanda," Wiesel said. "I do. Six hundred thousand to 800,000 human beings were murdered. We know then as we know now they could have been saved and they were not."

"He said it was terrible the U.N. let the 1994 killings in Rwanda happen and urged the U.N. to "restore its honor" by taking action in Darfur."

"Clooney and his journalist father Nick Clooney spent five days in Darfur in April, gathering personal stories of the death and suffering that has ravaged the African region. Both have worked to publicize the plight of the people there."

"The mandate of African Union peacekeepers in Darfur expires at the end of the month, and the Sudanese government has rejected their replacement by a U.N. force. George Clooney warned the U.N. Security Council that all aid workers would leave and that the 2.5 million refugees who depend on them would die."

"After September 30, you won't need the U.N. You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones," the Oscar-winning actor said."

"More than 200,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict, and more than 2 million have fled their homes since 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government."

"The United States has called it genocide," Clooney told council members. "For you, its called ethnic cleansing. But make no mistake -- it is the first genocide of the 21st century. And if it continues unchecked, it will not be the last ."

"Clooney was addressing the Security Council at an informal briefing organized by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which recently set up a Darfur Commission of Nobel laureates."

"You are the last political recrouse of Darfur victims and you can stop it," Wiesel said.

"If the Security Council does not act, it will blamed for history," Wiesel told the Associated Press in an interview earlier Thrusday."

"A May peace agreement signed by the government and one of the major rebel groups in Darfur was supposed to help end the conflict."

"Instead, it has sparked months of fighting between rival rebel factions, bringing more death and displacement."

"Sudan is resisting attempts by the U.N. to take over a 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping forcethat has been unable to stop the violence in the western Darfur region."

++++++++++++++++

That a government will allow such things seems to me to be signs of weakness, greed, racial egotism and other things too bad to mention, in my mind anyway.

I guess that the killed and refugees are non-Arab too -- only a guess.

Seems like the rich, strong and powerful have always pursued some form of ethnic cleansing and/or debasement. Our own south has a spotty record and the race riots in our northern part of the country show the fragility of human nature. Greed, envy and racial egotism are part of the mix.

Why nothing has been done in these countries ? ? ? ? Well for one thing, there is NO OIL THERE . . . . . . . . . .

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