Africa Forgotten: Mass Murder by Complacency

The world's attention is riveted on the unfolding events in Iraq. Inspections for weapons of mass destruction, political posturing, military movements, and high stakes diplomacy have become the cynosure of the media.

So much concern about mass destruction while it was happening under the world's watch. Since civil war began to rage in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1998, lasting until November 2002, 3.3 million people are reported to have perished according to International Rescue Committee. Most of the deaths are attributable to sickness and famine. The DRC economy is in shambles, and the healthcare system has broken down.

As recently as 1994, Africa had fallen under the US radar. Despite repeated warnings predating the bloodbath by three months, unwillingness of western powers scuppered UN involvement to prevent the genocide. The US ignored its responsibility in the Rwandan genocide of up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus at the hands of Hutu extremists.

In 1998, President Clinton apologized for the "most intensive slaughter in this blood-filled century." Coming on the coattails of Mr. Clinton's oleaginous mea culpa was a body count in the DRC to dwarf that in Rwanda.

Africa is beset by misfortune. Currently in AIDS-wracked southern Africa 16 million are faced with starvation. This is nothing new. In June 2001, CBC-TV host Brian Stewart queried Canadian UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis: "Is this the most daunting crisis of all.?" Mr. Lewis's response was that "this dwarfs everything." He spoke to the 13 million orphans and the 40 million orphans projected for 2010. He also spoke of the never-ending struggle to raise money to combat this pandemic in Africa.

Yet a year later, Mr. Lewis was still fighting for money to tackle the pandemic. He mused on why it was so difficult to raise money when dollars were flowing for the War on Terrorism: "Explain to me, if you will, why we have to grovel to extract a few billion dollars to prevent the deaths of more than two million people every year," he said. Mr. Lewis saw the outcome of the G8 meeting in Kananaskis, Canada as crucial for Africa. Professor Ekme-Ekme described the result of the G8 summit as summing up "the West's contempt for the African leaders, who left with nothing concrete to show from their hosts except promises of a modest increase in the overall Western 'aid budget' to Africa."

Mr. Lewis lamented later in 2003: "We know there is a lot of money out there, but something must be profoundly wrong somewhere. Something is morally wrong."

But the US and UK are fighting what UK Prime Minister Blair calls a moral war. It indicates quite a lot about where the priorities of the US "national interest" lie when one considers the 75 billion dollar request President Bush presented to the Congress. Then add the billions to fight Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, take the 400 billion dollar US defense budget, and juxtapose this with the few billion dollars to spare the lives of some dark-skinned people in Africa.

Humanitarian concerns are ostensibly of minimal importance to the US. The US administration of Mr. Bush dismissed warnings of the risks of humanitarian catastrophes in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan has been left hanging, for the most part, waiting for promised billions to arrive to reconstruct their war-ravaged country. Now there will be a demand for more money to reconstruct Iraq.

Meanwhile, Africa languishes under a pandemic. The lifeblood of the country is dying. The lack of funding was decried by Mr. Lewis as a "mass murder by complacency." He derided the "pathological equanimity" of bystander nations that "must be held to account." "There may yet come a day, when we have peacetime tribunals to deal with this particular version of crimes against humanity."