Friday, June 15, 2007

Downer Keeps Fingers Firmly in Big Brother's Pie





The crisis in Darfur has been occurring, in one form or another, since the fourteenth century when Islam was introduced as the 'state' religion. Conflicts ensued from this right up 'till Britain, yes Britain, incorporated the Darfur region into neighbouring Sudan in 1916. This just led to further problems, the same sort of problems that occurred in other 'created' nations, problems such as economic marginalisation and no right to self determination. In 1983 and 1984 there was a major famine in Darfur which killed an estimated 95,000 people. Because of this, the then government was overthrown.

Move forward to 2003 and we find ourselves in the early stages of the current conflict. Two groups, The Justice and Equality Movement and The Sudan Liberation Movement, made the claim that the government was favouring Arabs and mistreating non-Arabs. This led to an attack on an area known as Golo by a group called The Darfur Liberation Front which, in turn, led to an attack by The Sudan Liberation Army on an area known as Al-Fashir. This humiliated the Sudanese government and what has resulted has been widely called 'The Darfur Conflict' with an estimated 400,000 people killed to date (2003-2007), among many other human rights abuses.

This week the Sudanese government agreed to let the United Nations send in peace keepers to try and diffuse the conflict. Now whether UN peace keepers are the best method to end this conflict is not what's at issue here. This is a major step forward with the Sudanese government recognising, internationally, that there is a fundamental problem that needs addressing and that it (the Sudanese government) cannot fix the problem on its own (it is widely acknowledged that the Sudanese government is killing and abusing more people than the various rebel groups).

Now today (15 June) we have Alexander Downer claiming that Australia cannot contribute to the UN mission...the 'numbers just don't add up'. What damn numbers does he need to see? Is not 400,000 dead people and uncounted human rights abuses not large enough? We certainly didn't need such large numbers to go and 'help' the Americans in their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor did we need such numbers to keep our friends in power in the Solomon Islands.

No, the only numbers that Downer could possibly be referring to are financial numbers. They are the only numbers that are lower in relation to the other conflicts we've either participated in or helped start. It is simply not profitable enough for Downer's government to engage in this conflict.

Believe me, I was a little surprised when I heard this news as participating in a UN managed peace keeping force aimed at preventing death and human rights abuses, deaths and abuses that are actually documented, would seem to be a politically smart move by a government that is facing certain defeat later in the year. I, naively it seems, assumed that helping innocent people escape from certain death and/or abuse would gain widespread public sympathy for the government. Perhaps in the elections due later in the year the coalition government is going to pull one of those alterity campaigns again. You know, the ones where the government claims that we need to fear the 'other'. We know how successful these campaigns are, our government is well practiced at pulling them off. Maybe we can't help the UN because African's will be the new Iraqis in this election, the 'other' that needs to be feared. Surely the government can't both help and slander the same people.

I would wager, however, that had Australia's big brother, you know the one, the Yanks, had said 'we're going into Sudan to help those God-forsaken Darfur residents, want'a lend a hand?', little John, along with Downer, would have almost ejaculated at the offer. We'd be in there quicker than the gleam that that appears in Howard's eye when Bush's name is mentioned. This is one of the reasons I chose to keep my New Zealand citizenship when I became an Aussie. You've no idea how embarrassing it is saying to people overseas that you're from Australia.

4 comments:

Simon said...

Seems that Downer is doing an about face! Well, at least considering it. For those interested I direct your attention to this -> link.

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed reading this. I don't have any idea how these sorts of conflicts can be resolved or whether interference of any kind is for the best, but I certainly believe it's embarassing to be Australian when Australia's foreign policy is laughably hypocritical, greedy and transparently lap-doggish.

Wish I was a Kiwi, they seem like they have a national spine.

Simon said...

Lap-doggish isn't even harsh enough to describe this current government! I just can't believe that Australian people stand for this sort of leadership, if that's what we'll call it.

There's many benefits to being a Kiwi Bean, for one, there are no snakes in NZ!

Simon said...

P.S. New site looks great! I'll have a better look tomorrow when I've got some time.