Legal Commentary

Who's Going To Take Away His License To Kill?

By Kevin Funnell

A License To Kill
--- Abdi-Noor Haji Mohamed

In the barren lands of the East
They are fighting a dirty war
But in the shadows of despair
Their children are dying out
Are they leaders of a nation?
Or are they killers of a nation
Is politics a shield to hide from death?
Or is it a license to kill the innocent?
In the eyes of fear shock is the sparkle

The Irish Times, January 26, 2007 

The world is facing a huge human tragedy in Darfur unless the international community intervenes, according to the humanitarian organisation Concern.

Speaking after a visit to the region, Concern Worldwide chief executive Tom Arnold called for political action to enforce a ceasefire in the war-torn region.

The UN has warned that if the security situation doesn't improve, it may pull out its humanitarian aid teams.

Concern claims that 12 aid workers have been killed in Darfur since last July and a further five are missing.

Mr Arnold said: "Unless there is increased recognition, within Sudan and internationally, of the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, we will be faced with a huge long-term human tragedy.

"The only way to prevent this is for urgent political action to improve security in the short-term and to start a meaningful longer term peace process."

He added: " I have met people in West Darfur who were forced to flee their villages by militia who had also stolen their animals and crops.

Mr Arnold was pessimistic about quick solutions, saying Concern was working on the assumption that its camps for the displaced would still be there in 2012.

"The crisis will only worsen through 2007, for displaced people and aid workers, unless there is greater recognition from the international community, and a significant improvement in security," he said.

"At least another five years is the working assumption for our camps, by which time they will house eight-year-old children who were born there. If things continue the way they are, these people may never get out of these camps," Mr Arnold said.

"People are afraid to go outside the camps for fear of being attacked. One local leader said they were living in an open prison. I met nobody who said they were willing to return to their villages without a major improvement in security," he said.

Mr Arnold visited refugee camps run by local programmes assisted by Concern.

Voice of America News, June 25, 2010:

An increase in attacks against humanitarian workers is forcing aid agencies to curtail efforts in Darfur. According to the United Nations, the deteriorating security situation is making it extremely difficult to operate.

A statement released by the United Nations Thursday expressed concern over increasingly dangerous conditions for humanitarian workers in the Darfur region of Sudan. According to the release, the violence has significantly limited and in some cases shut down humanitarian access to regions in serious need of aid.

The statement comes after a surge in attacks against humanitarian workers in Darfur over the past week.

Sgt. Paul Howe, Delta Force, Somalia, 1993, as related by author Mark Bowden, in his book Black Hawk Down:

Civilized states had nonviolent ways of resolving disputes, but that depended on the willingness of everyone involved to back down. Here in the raw Third World, people hadn't learned to back down, at least not until after a lot of blood flowed. Victory was for those willing to fight and die. Intellectuals could theorize until they sucked their thumbs right off their hands, but in the real world, power still flowed from the barrel of a gun. If you wanted the starving masses in Somalia to eat, then you had to outmuscle men like this Aidid, for whom starvation worked. You could send in your bleeding-heart-do-gooders, you could hold hands and pray and sing hootenanny songs and invoke the gods CNN and BBC, but the only way to finally open up the roads to the big-eyed babies was to show up with more guns. And in this real world, nobody had more or better guns than America. If the good-hearted ideals of humankind were to prevail, then they needed men who could make it happen. Delta made it happen.

Full post as published by Counseling Kevin on June 29, 2010 (boomark / email).