Geodog

Visual evidence of the ethnic cleansing and devastation in Darfur, Sudan

USAID and the State Department, at the instigation of members of the humanitarian assistance community, have used US satellites to document the destruction of villages in Darfur, Sudan, and to estimate the magnitude of the humanitarian disaster. Now USAID has published some of those images on the Web. Nobody -- not the Sudanese government, not its allies on the security council, not the western press -- can claim about the ethnic cleansing and genocide now taking place in the Sudan, "I didn't know it was happening." The evidence, in everything from multiple accounts of children being chained and burned alive to these images, is available for anyone who wants to know about it. The question is, what are we citizens of the world, knowing that genocide is happening today, going to about it?

As I wrote earlier, I strongly recommend a visit to Passion of the Present if you want more information, and then calling or writing your Senator or Representative and thanking them for passing the Resolution Declaring Genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and asking them to encourage the administration to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution with teeth, and finally, if you can afford it, donating to one of the organizations like Human Rights Watch that has been reporting the truth on what is happening in Darfur, or to one of the organizations like CARE, Mercy Corps or Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières that has been assisting the refugees.

Kudos to USAID for publishing these images, and to Passion of the Present, for publicizing their existence.