And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Organization: The University of Michigan - Flint
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 09:47:34 EDT
>Subject: Re: US Pllays Favorites in Reaction to Massacres
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>
>Found this article in last night's Flint Journal...have edited it down for
>brevity...was rather long, but have gotten the main points.
>
>Catherine Davids
>Flint, Michigan
>
>*******************************
>
>Written by David Wood
>Newhouse News Service
>
> The scene was horrifying enough: 45 twisted bodies strewn across a bleak
>hillside in Yugoslavia's Kosovo province. Most had been shot point-blank in
>the head or neck, allegedly by Serbian police. The January 15th "Racak
>Massacre" ignited a major crisis, sparking strong U.S. and allied diplomatic
>initiatives and prompting NATO to weigh punitive airstrikes.
> But no one mobilized on behalf of perhaps 500 people who were shot,
hacked and
>burned to death in a small village in eastern Congo around the same time.
No
>outrage was expressed on behalf of many o ther innocents who had the
misfortune
>to be slain just off the world's stage over the past few weeks.
> Why do 45 white Europeans rate an all-out response, while several hundred
>black Africans are barely worthy of notice? While U.S. officials
struggled to
>provide an answer, analysts said the uneven U.S. responses to a spurt of
bloody
>violence in the past month illuminates not only an immoral and perhaps
racist
>foreign policy, but also one that fails on pragmatic and strategic grounds.
> It may once have been true that vital U.S. interests in Europe and, to a
>lesser extent, the Middle East deserved singleminded attention. Now,
however,
>many threats to U.S. interests stem from violent chaos elsewhere on the
globe,
>including terrorism, destabilizing flows of refugees, and political
extremism.
>Chemical and biological weapons make this kind of conflict even more
potent and
>dangerous.
> Tens of thousands have been killed recently in brutal civil wars in j
Sudan,
>Algeria, Angloa and elsewhere deepening vast pools of bitterness and
explosive
>rage. In Columbia over the weekend of January 9-10, 140 civilians were
>murdered by paramilitary squads, including 27 worshippers slain during a
church
>service in the village of Playon de Orozco.
> That incident, unlike the one in Kosovo, drew no angry denunciation from
the
>White House, and no public statement was issued by the State Department. "I
>think we should be paying more attention to massacres in places like
Columbia
>and the Congo," said Paul K. Van Riper a retired Marine Corps general who
spent
>much of his career training and leading men in conflict. "We are more
>concerned toward Europe because of the cultural background and that sure
>doesn't make it right.
> "We can stop massacres if we try, and personally I'm in favor of that,"
said
>foreign policy analyst Jeane Kirkpatrick, was was ambassador to the United
>Nations under President Regan from 1981-1985. The massacre in the eastern
>congo took place on New Year's Day in Makobola, a village in a remote and
>lawless region contested by anti-government rebels, warlords and criminal
>gangs. While the Kosovo massacre drew an immediate condemnation from
>Washington, the reaction to the Congo massacre was muted. Not until a week
>after the fact did it receive official attention.
> State Department spokesman James Rubin, on January 7th said the United
States
>"condemns all human rights violations regardless of who commits them."
> In the weeks since then, the United States has sent a diplomat to the
region
>to urge countries with troops fighting in Congo's civil war to make peace.
in
>contrast, the United States leapt into action within hours of the Kosovo
>massacre. Senior U.S. strategists held emergency meetings at the White
House,
>and NATO dispatched its two top generals to the scene. The Serb government
>refused to withdraw its forces from the area and blocked international
>investigators from examining the site.
> Virtually unnoticed amid this hubbub, 30 people were slain Saturday in an
>ambush in northeastern Angloa, and 11 people were massacred on Sunday by
gunmen
>in South Africa. No U.S. officials have even been to the area in the Congo
>where the massacre took place earlier this month.
> Roger Wilkins, professor of history and American Culture at George Mason
>University in Fairfac, Virginia, said, "I think it's pretty clear that U.S.
>foreign policy is geared to European-American sensibility which takes the
lives
>of white people much more seriously than the lives of people who are not
>white." But there is a pragmatic argument, as well as a moral one, for
paying
>more attention to non-Europeans, Wilkins said. "We need somehow to find a
way
>to make the world a more civilized place, before the technological
capacity for
>making destructive weapons exceeds our defenses," he said.
>
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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