As you know, I traveled recently with Reverend Franklin Graham (and Samaritans Purse) to South Sudan and Sudan. In Sudan, home of dictator-president Omar al-Bashir, I saw starvation -- people eating bugs and leaves after their own president bombed their villages and continued to kill them from the air. Words can't adequately describe the cruelty... and it gets worse every single day. You can't live without food and water (and let me remind you, the temperatures can get over 100 degrees and these people don't even have shoes as they walk the rough terrain hoping to find food and water.) This is so so so cruel.
I know we are all war weary -- and for good reason. But I also know we have a giant collective heart and when we can do something that makes sense -- including that we have the ability and it is practical -- we want to. In looking at this crisis, I asked Reverend Graham what the world could do short of war. He had a rather simple answer: spike (damage) the runways of President Bashir so his planes can't take off... and then humanitarian groups can drop food and water for these people. Bashir's only way of attack is by the air -- and he is killing (and scaring) his people and making it unsafe for humanitarian organizations to drop food and water from the air or attempt to drive food into the Nuba Mountain area. Ruin his runways and it will be years before he can get them fixed.
You know this crisis is not imagined -- you have seen it with your own eyes in my pics and video. I know you hate the cruelty inflicted, too. You know that President Bashir is cruel beyond words to his own people -- look what he did in Darfur. And do I need to remind you that President Bashir is under indictment already in the International Criminal Court for genocide? No... of course... you know that. Bashir can't even travel outside his own country because he fears arrest.
Our politicians are consumed with the crisis in Syria and the suffering there -- and there is much there -- but I would like to draw their attention to this crisis, too. I know we can't police the world, but Reverend Graham's solution is a simple one and worth exploring.
One other thing: the people of the Nuba Mountains, numbering about 1.2 million, are NOT asking for money from us. They just want to live. Stop the bombing and the burning of their villages and they can take care of themselves as they have for decades. They just want the chance to live their lives and raise their families.
[The source of the posted video is Ryan Boyette. He is the American living in the Nuba Mountains. Click here for his website.]
Cross-posted from GretaWire.