British Election Campaigning

[JoeM]

Have done some campaigning myself this week for the Lib Dems, delivering letters at the weekend and today leaflets saying 'remember to vote'.

Perhaps you can enlighten me on their position over Sudan. I'm really upset that Labour are being forced to avoid this one, IMO thanks to the media, rather than public opinion.

 

[col]

Sudan? Do you mean the scare about the food additive? Or something else?

 

[ComradeDavo]

Perhaps you can enlighten me on their position over Sudan. I'm really upset that Labour are being forced to avoid this one, IMO thanks to the media, rather than public opinion.

I dunno, haven't seen anything in the media. Try their website, theres probably something on there somewhere!

 

[JoeM]

lol no I meant the Darfur region of Sudan, genocide, ring a bell?

 

[Kafka2]

I think everyone agrees it's a bad thing, just like the Congo. Personally I'd like to see more done by the UN, but the UN has a propensity for uselessness in cases such as these.

 

[JoeM]

One of the many justifications for the Iraq war (let's not go into that) was that we told a country to stop ****ing around, and followed up on it.

This should make it easier to do the same thing elsewhere. I'm not necessarily saying invade Sudan, but I am saying that strong words might be listened to this time.

 

[col]

I personally would like to see a lot more pressure put on Mugabe.

 

[Kafka2]

Mugabe can wait. Congo has to be the top priority.

 

[Yom]

I think everyone agrees it's a bad thing, just like the Congo. Personally I'd like to see more done by the UN, but the UN has a propensity for uselessness in cases such as these.

Much could be done by the UN in both situations if it were more powerful and less argumentative.

A war spanning four countries (Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and DROC), yet the UN deploys only really a token force to the region, while democide, cannibalism, and other atrocities are being carried out (not even mentioning the use of child soldiers in Uganda by the LRA, although it is not directly involved in the Second Congolese War).

In fact, the lack of recognition despite its importance has earned it becoming the crisis that I'm going to create for my High School's Model UN conference. I bet you 50 quid that less than a quarter of the participants know about the war.

 

[JoeM]

What's happening in Congo? Can it be worse than Darfur?

 

[Kafka2]

The death count is currently estimated at two million, and rising. A very large expanse of central Africa is totally out of control.

 

[JoeM]

Got a link? I did some searches on Congo, but the only talked about civil war in the 90s.

 

[HamaticBabylon]

Maybe the central African states are fighting a world war, like the Europeans did in the early part of the 20th century….