Saturday, January 29, 2005

Hollow words

It's now almost two years, could be more, since Blair made his crusading speech about saving the world and in particular Africa, at a Labour Party Conference attended by Bill Clinton. He said that the world would never stand by and watch another genocide such as that which took place in Rwanda some ten or eleven years ago. Clinton has admitted several times that his greatest regret was not intervening to halt the Rwandan genocide. Believe me, he has no idea just how serious an ommission that is.

Since then much suffering has been inflicted on ordinary Zimbabweans. Tens of thousands have been murdered in the Sudan and many thousands more Africans have been tortured, raped, robbed and murdered at the hands of brutal and corrupt states. Let us not forget either that millions have perished in the Congo over the last decade during which the international community, to its eternal shame, has yet again remained silent and looked the other way.

So much then for crusading speeches. Blair's grand rhetoric rings very hollow two years on. He and the rest of the international community continue to fail the oppressed of this world. They lift not a finger against these tyrants. Indeed they sit side by side with the representatives of these tyrannical states in the UN Assembly! In doing so they give legitimacy to these corrupt states and the criminals that govern them and are therefore guilty by association of complicity in the murder of millions.

Were Mugabe sitting on the world's second largest oil reserves or in possession of a few decrepit missiles, he would by now be either dead or awaiting trial for crimes against humanity. This is the hypocrisy for which the United States and other powerful nations are so hated by the poorer defenceless nations. It seems that as long as they have no oil or WMD, any tin pot tyrants can literally get away with murder for as long as they choose.

So much then for Blair's hollow crusade. So much then for the integrity of the U.N. and the international community at large. Whilst we continue to tolerate the intolerable, we are all barbarians. Whilst the worth of human life is measured in barrels of oil, we are all guilty of crimes against humanity. When will we learn to value most that which is most valuable. How many barrels of oil for an ounce of humanity?


For poetry:
http://www.spearman.blogspot.com

1 comment:

Darin Hadley said...

Interesting read. Great stuff you have going on here!