Adonis Diaries

Save Darfur Movement? Not a cent reached Darfur; (Jan. 21, 2010)

            The Save Darfur movement started in 2004; it claimed to have reaped $15 millions in donations.  An official at the United Nations humanitarian action, asked how much Darfur received from that collect, replied “Zero dollars”.  The correspondent to Darfur, Mahmood Mamdani, called the movement headquarters in New York and got this response: “We are not an aid agency. Our goal is mainly to plead for the Darfur cause”

            I got into thinking “where does that entire donation sum end up?”  Then, I remembered reading banners displayed by Save Darfur which state: Let’s quit Iraq. Let’s go to Darfur” and Let the US army intervene now”.  It dawned on me that Save Darfur is recapitulating the Superman syndrome: the movement organizers do not give a damn about any resolutions of the Darfur civil war.  The organizers want expeditious revenge and blood vengeance; they want just to punish, finger point haphazardly culprit in general terms (Islam radical terrorists is very comforting).  It is the same Bush Junior mentality of waging war against ghost enemies that affect civilian collateral victims. The Save Darfur organizers want violence against violence, an eye for an eye; getting rid of the bad guys (assuming that they are the good guys).

            Save Darfur organizers have no idea of the political or social situations and they care less: they will be very confused if you interrogate them on specifics, especially who are the real culprits and who might be the good elements.  Who initiated this protracted civil war? How many militias are involved and which tribes are struggling for control of this area as large as France?  It is an ethnic, sectarian, or partition war of Sudan?  How many multinational oil and mineral enterprises and developed States are fighting for piece of the pie?

            The research center for epidemiology of disasters in Belgium reported 120,000 casualties since 2003; the number includes death from diseases and famine.  The UN branch for health reported 70,000 victims in total (35,000 are victims of violence).  Save Darfur is adamant: the number should be 500,000 and climbing exponentially.

            Save Darfur is targeting the high school kids for donations: popular singers and movie stars are financed to drum up support among high school generation: the generation in universities and older have wizened up to this fraud.  In order to convince high school kids the movement internet sites had nothing to offer but violent pictures and videos of rape, murder, and burning villages of the first year of conflict. Darfur is shown as a region with no past and no politics; just a dark region where evil reigns supreme.

            Save Darfur movement claims to expose the cause of the people but so far failed to explain or expose anything.  The American people are willing to donate to save Darfur (of what exactly?) but they hate saving Iraq or Afghanistan.  Why? Iraq and Afghanistan feel very much like paying taxes!