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Years ago I was convinced that a New Holocaust was
not possible. For many years I was like a ship in a safe harbour,
feeling strong forces, military and political commitments around me,
which will not permit this to happen again.
As well, after 1945, there were new geo-political
conditions favourable or the mind setting was not focused on mass
extermination (beside the Cold War era and the possibility of an
atomic war)
Today, continually, I am convinced that this can
happen again. Not in the sense of Russians Pogroms, or Nazi-SS
European methods of the WWII. No, this time will be different. We
have evolved and we have new mean of mass killings.
We have seen genocide of unimaginable scale,
occurring under our eyes in 1990's in the "civilized" Europe, in the
very centre of the old continent, in the ex-Yugoslavia republics. No
one had the military power or political will to intervene, until to
late. Again, only with the help of the Americans, the conflict was
pacified and the crimes revealed. Even some were broth to justice.
From April to mid July 1994, in Rwanda, genocide
occurred. "Africa", the continent everyone ignores and nobody
did nothing. When hundred of thousands of ethnic Tutsis (and
thousand of moderate Hutu) were brutally slaughtered, in less than
100 days buy two militias groups of extremist Hutu. The conflict
only ended by external intervention and after the Hutu government
was overthrew by a Tutsi movement under the Rwandan patriotic Front,
led by Paul Kagane. After the internal conflict ended (that ignited
other small regional wars), more than 800,000-1,000,000 bodies
(500,000+ Tutsi) were counted, mutilated in such a manner, the WWII
horror were invoked again.
In Darfur Region (Western Sudan) genocide of
"biblical proportion and cruelty" is taking place, in these very
moments, and nobody cares too much. As the Holocaust, this genocide
is direct by government forces and its Arab franchise groups, the "Janjaweed"
and the cause of death is almost the same as in the Holocaust:
violence, disease, exposure and starvation. More than 2,5
millions people have been displaced and thousand die each month,
from the same reasons. The U.N. estimates that until the beginning
of 2007, more than 450,000 were left dead from violence and
diseases. It is difficult to twist arms of the local Islamic
government, when other countries behave as corporation, respond to
big interests as the oil industry and block the foreign
intervention. As well, the one nation that can project power and
implement some kind of humanitarian aid the U.S. , is over-stretched
from Iraq, to Afghanistan, from0 Europe to South Korea and
Philippines. It is estimated that 9-10,000 people are been killed
every month in Darfur. The Sudanese government is very part in
suppressing the information on Darfur and the cover up is official
policy: the jail or murder the witnesses of this tragic event, they
tamper with evidence or eliminate forensic trails. (See U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1706, UN peace keeping force superior of
17,300 troops)
The other modern nations are only side spectators and
modest participants in peace missions, not in the front line
military operations. Their political willingness (Europeans) and
desire to involve them selves is low. Even mighty NATO, that was a
deterrence force during the Cod War, it is now only a hollow
organization, conducting small operation in Afghanistan.
One may think that with the today's
telecommunications developments, when an instant message or video
clip can be posted in Internet in a matter of seconds and viewed or
downloaded in the same time, we will be ashamed that in our small
planet something this horrible (as Darfur raping and killings) can
occur. But somehow the big, general public is continued to me
mesmerized by banal and trivial TV shows like American Idol, movie
starlets or mundane shows in the European television.
If we can have crimes as in Chechnya or Taliban bands
terrorizing villages in the remote Afghanistan, then our very
existence it is in great and imminent danger. If we have rouge
nations aspiring at atomic weapons, with the mind set into
implementing them or exporting them to terrorist groups, when we are
really doomed.
When the terrorist act and conduct war from within
civil population areas, and take then as shields (as Hezbollah in
the Second Lebanon War) and the army have to behave civilized, at an
extent to extend his own fatalities or when American soldiers are
dying on the Bagdad streets during peace patrols, then even the very
conduction or war have to be changed.
When in Bagdad we have Shiite areas targeted by Sunni
suicide bombers (insurgents) by the hundreds and religious Shiia
militias (Mehdi Army) killing at night the same amount of peoples
killed during the day by bombs, then we are in a cycle we simply
cannot win.
Is the political, social and military situation of
the Middle East and Africa in which we don't see a viable
implementation with a diplomatic-political solution?
We know that there is not a military solution to the
conflict, but the terrorists and the Islamic fundamentalism (as a
religious ideology) leaders are reading the principles of Gottfried
von Clausewitz the other way around. When Clausewitz describe "war
as a
merely continuation of politics"
what we see today is the international war against
terror as a clash of civilizations with religion as the main engine,
conducting the political agenda and the war. But the things are more
complicated than the conclusions of a Prussian general anchored in
the theories and practices of Europe’s end of XIX century. In the
Middle East sands not everything of the European philosophy applies.
Between the sun and the sands of the desert, there are other laws.
Europe is void of political or military power but
full of rhetoric: a simple political show for its domestic
audiences. Europe is a target of small terrorist attacks, which yet
have not accumulated a "critical mass" as in the Sept.
11th 2001 attacks. USA and his small band of allies are
left almost alone to police the world, the very world we all live
in.
During the Jewish Holocaust (1939-1945), nobody
moved a finger to stop the slaughters of millions of Jews and the
Nazis found many collaborators. In the last 4-5 genocides since
1990's hardly anyone helped and help arrived was only too late for
millions of victims.
So can we hope for a special treatment? And should
we wait for it!!! We, alone, should defend ourselves of our enemies.
We should not request help from anybody. We should be
self-sufficient in the defence of our rights of to be and to live as
free people.
From Madrid to Moscow and to Tokyo, from Rabat to
Bagdad, to Teheran to Sudan and to South Africa we have to raise the
world conscience that a New Holocaust, this time not a Jewish one,
is taking place in Darfur/Western Sudan. Some other small genocide,
disguised as civil wars and religious struggles, are occurring
daily, under own eyes and we see them on television, Internet or our
digital phones.
We have to more and conquer our inertia!
Everything we do, even a shot email or a phone call
is important.
We have to denounce the injustice and the killings of
innocent people, every where in the world, from genocides to
"Cultural Revolutions" (China), to the Killing Fields of Cambodia
(Khmer Rouge), to the ethnic cleansing in the former –Yugoslavia, to
the religious crimes of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the "Civil &
Religious War in Iraq or the Communist Suppression of the civic
liberties in Cuba.
We have to bring to justice all the criminals,
responsible and political instigators that produced these genocides!
The terrorist have to be broth to justice!
We have to ask each other, everyday, with what we
have contributed to the world peace!!!
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