I was talking last night with a friend who told me,
” Jim, people here don’t care about Togo. People in America don’t care about Togo, or Africa. They don’t pay attention to Africa unless there is some catastrophe. Even Kofi, who’s from Africa, doesn’t care about Africa.”
I thought about this as I listened to the news and read about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in a post by Jayson at Polipundit. Kofi was too busy getting after the US to notice the people dying on his home continent:
Kofi challenged Washington and Moscow to slash their nuclear arsenals irreversibly to just hundreds of warheads.
That call was echoed by a spokeswoman for a coalition of disarmament-minded nations. “We are greatly disappointed” by “unsatisfactory progress” toward disarmament by the big powers, said New Zealand’s Marian Hobbs.
The U.S. representative rejected such criticism, pointing to recent arms-control agreements.
“We are proud to have played a leading role in reducing nuclear arsenals,” said Stephen G. Rademaker, an assistant secretary of state.
But over in Sudan yesterday a new study was published on the mass death in the Darfur Region. Here are some of the figures:
Death Toll– Approximately 400,000 over the course of more than two years of genocidal conflict.
Most are badly weakened by malnutrition and disease, caught amidst a collapsed agricultural economy, facing acute water shortages in often appalling camp conditions, and threatened at every turn by the consequences of ongoing insecurity, too many people in Darfur simply do not have the means to sustain themselves.
…the Khartoum regime refuses to disarm or control its brutal Janjaweed proxies. At the same time, humanitarian capacity is not nearly adequate to present needs, and will be overwhelmed by the 3.5 to 4 million people needing food and medical assistance at the height of the impending rainy season.
Most threatening is the possibility that insecurity will force the suspension of humanitarian operations: if this occurs, UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs Jan “Stingy Americans” Egeland has estimated that Darfur’s mortality rate may increase to 100,000 per month…
Violent Deaths– approximately 143,000 ( another estimate- between 172,542-232,269 violent deaths)
Mortality from Disease and Malnutrition– 70,000 to 350,000
The old figure of 70,000 dead from last March [2004] to late summer [2004] was unhelpful. “Is it three times that [70,000]? Is it five times [i.e., 350,000 dead]? I don’t know, but it’s several times the number of 70,000 that have died altogether,” Jan “Stingy Americans” Egeland told reporters.
Monthly Mortality– 10,000 to 15,000
Continuing Violent Mortality– (including the consequences of violent displacement) in Darfur almost certainly brings total monthly mortality to over 15,000, or 60,000 for the current year. Total mortality is thus approximately 400,000.
Too bad, Kofi is so busy with keeping the Nuke Happy US in check. If only Kofi cared.