Children of Darfur: The world turns its back

2 million children at risk due to underfunding

Photo: Children of Darfur: The world turns its back

Darfur, Sudan. Two million children risk losing their lives because the “developed” and “civilised” world can only come up with 9.79 million dollars of the 89 million needed. Just eleven per cent.

While it is true that the Bush regime has done a lot to help people living with, or at risk of, AIDS and while it is true that the European Union, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries donate a lot of money in research and development, medical care and development programmes, the fact is that more and more billions of dollars are spent in the international community on weapons. Every year.

To use the plight of two million children as a political weapon would be as cynical an action as any and grandstaging at the expense of the defenceless would be about as low as anyone could stoop.

Therefore this article does not intend to punish the Bush regime (I have already highlighted a very positive contribution it has made, especially in Africa) and the Russian Federation, despite its many actions in Africa, is also one of those countries which spends billions on arms.

But how can we say that collectively, we have built a civilised international community when the lives of two million children are at risk because of some 79 million dollars? (Compare the 400 billion the USA has spent on its act of slaughter in Iraq).

While it is the prerogative of the Bush regime to allocate its country’s funds as and when it pleases (especially after having been given a clear majority in the last election by the people of the USA) and this can be said of all members of the international community, it is also true that while the lives of millions of children depend on external aid, and so long as that aid is not forthcoming, there is a place for articles such as this.

Were these two million children white, and especially if they were Europeans or North Americans, certainly the reaction would have been different.

Many are those who are thinking at this very moment that they are neither white, not European or North American and for this reason they are not in the plight they are in. The answer to these ignorant, callous and uninformed people is a two questions: Did the Sudan colonise Europe or North America? To what extent did the colonial period of the Sudan contribute directly towards its present plight?

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

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