Save Sudan... for the Sudanese!

When we learn that something unspeakable happened to a people, we shutter and say, "We would have done something if we had known..."  When we learn that something unspeakable is happening or is about to happen to a people, we sigh and ask,"What can we do?..." President Bush said (and probably meant) that what happened in Rwanda not have happened on his watch.  But on his watch millions of Sudanese people were tortured, murdered and / or left homeless during the bloody conflict there - ultimately, over... oil. 

Earlier this month, President Obama sent Senator John Kerry to the Sudan with an offer to take the country off of the U.S. Terrorist list if they signed the 2005 peace accord that only momentarily slowed down the brutal attacks on the mostly Black population of southern Sudan.  The accord would separate the south from the mostly Arab north and leave the oil heavy mid country of Abiyei to decide their which camp to join.  Call me paranoid but I can't imagine that there is not undue pressure on Abiyei to lean a certain way, leaving the war torn south in a dangerously devastated position. 

Call me a cynic, but if America is asking southern Sudan, (which has not even begun to recover) to secede from their own nature resources (or continue to suffer foreign funded atrocities), I'm thinking something is in it for us - maybe... oil? Change.org is offering Oxfam's petition asking President Obama to take preventative measures in the country Secretary Clinton called "a ticking time bomb."  Not On Our Watch  is offering a petition asking President Obama to "do what he can to avert a terrible conflict in Sudan." I urge you to ask our president to employ humanitarian efforts that do not also cause further devastation.  But since we are currently urging the bruised and battered part of the country to abandon it's most valuable resource, we should at least give them livestock in return. 

To sign Oxfam's petition asking President Obama to support sustainability in the Sudan, click "Sign the Petition," or Click Here! To sign the Not On Our Watch petition asking the president to "do what he can,"  Click Here!  Or write to President Obama and Secretary Clinton directly with your concerns about U.S. involvement in the Sudan (and elsewhere):

President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500 - http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
 
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20520 - Email the US Depart of State