Western Liberals Humanitarian Values on Trial: Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Darfur, Somalia, Congo, and the rest...

Where anti-Arab prejudice and oil make the difference

The UN estimates that 3 million to 4 million Congolese have been killed, compared with the estimated 200,000 civilian deaths in Darfur. A peace deal agreed in December 2002 has never been adhered to, and atrocities have been particularly well documented in the province of Kivu - carried out by paramilitary organisations with strong governmental links. In the last month alone, thousands of civilians have been killed in heavy fighting between rebel and government forces vying for control of an area north of Goma, and the UN reckons that another 50,000 have been made refugees.
How curious, then, that so much more attention has been focused on Darfur than Congo. There are no pressure groups of any note that draw attention to the Congolese situation. In the media there is barely a word. The politicians are silent. Yet if ever there were a case for the outside world to intervene on humanitarian grounds alone - "liberal interventionism" - then surely this is it.

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The same people who are calling for a humanitarian intervention in Darfur were calling for the continuation of Israeli bombings of south Lebanese populations last summer with cluster bombs and for the non intervention of the UN and the international community to stop these bombings. These people are making more harm than good to the people of Darfur because their voice is sullied by their calls for belligerant and lethal policies elsehwere...