Calling all people with a conscience

That breeze has turned stale and deadly. It is laden with racial hatred.

Within a few years, most of the newly liberated countries deteriorated into pseudo-socialist dictatorships or religious tyrannies. Rulers amassed wealth, doling out inane slogans to the toiling masses. The former colonialists, smarting from the end of the grand era of their privilege, and afraid of communism and any pressures for reparation and redistribution, turned a blind eye to corrupt dictators and controlled them with bribes, loans, aid.

By the mid seventies, with a few exceptions such as India and Malaysia, many of the new countries had failed, spiralling into chaos. The threshold of world attention continued to climb higher — tens of thousands must be massacred and hundreds of thousands displaced before it takes notice now. Crises come with the regularity of seasons. They happen even in Europe, in Bosnia and Kosovo. But the greatest severity is reserved for Africa.

In Darfur, the Organisation of Islamic Countries as well as the Organisation of African Unity have failed. They cannot chastise others, for what have they done themselves?

Throughout human history, racial and color prejudice has proved to be the most potent evil. Excuses harking back to colonial and neo-colonial exploitation fall woefully short. They cannot wash away the guilt of those practicing genocide.

It seems Liberia happened yesterday, Rwanda the day before, Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia. It is time a task force was formed under the command of the UN to attend to crises in their early stages.

This was proposed after the Bosnia crisis, but it was ignored. Member countries should commit themselves to activating a contingent under the aegis of the UN to be used after a Security Councl resolution. This requires thoughtful discussion. Had such a force existed, perhaps even the Iraq crisis may have been avoided.