GENOCIDE: Sudden vs. Grueling
April 2, 2007
When I was in Kenya last year, I sat in stunned silence as survivors of the Rwandan genocide told me stories about unspeakable atrocities. One man said he sat on the porch of his house on his coffee plantation, watching some kind of disturbance across the river.
"What are they doing," he asked his workers.
"The people are being killed. Tomorrow we will be killed, too." And most were the next day.
My friend was one of only a handful of white people in the entire country to live through the massacre. More than ten years later, he has still to lose the look of utter horror in his eyes and quaver in his voice.
The genocide in Darfur is slower, more drawn out. It doesn't make it any less heinous as the Rwandan genocide. In many ways, it would seem harder to live through years of hell rather than a swift blow that lasts a few nightmarish weeks...and there seems to be no end in sight for the continuing atrocities in Sudan. Al-Qaeda is encouraging its many followers in the country to rise up and attack the UN peacekeepers when and if they get to Darfur.
This latest attack on African Union troops is the deadliest attack against the AU soldiers got there in 2004. It comes on the heels of an attack on Sunday of an AU helicopter in West Darfur. Perhaps this signals the beginning of another round of violence or perhaps yet another in a long string of tit-for-tat horrors.
Complicating things in the region is fighting between the tribes. Ancient grudges die hard, even when each tribe's people are dying from a third party. Reuters reports hundreds have died just since the start of the year.
Click here to read the full Associated Press story about the recent violence in Darfur.
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