European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 6, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                June stars and stripes Page 13 opinion Darfur a tragedy straight out of Shakespeare vex by Eric Reeves in my decades teaching English Litera Ive experienced nothing so pain Ful As the final scene of King howling in shakes Peares profoundly humbled King enters holding his dead and subsequently Dies of but in the arid regions of Darfur province in Western such agony As Lears is its recorded in Only the terse St accounts from the distinguished by neither poetry nor dramatic the fiercest suffering is muffled within a vast and growing Arena of such voiceless Ness has seemed to me into building on eight years of Sudan re search and i have made it my lifes work to Render Darfur realities As fully As Reading virtually every thing that emerges from human rights groups and humanitarian i speak with Aid workers on the with human rights researchers and with others who have firsthand knowledge from their travels in i also speak with both in the Region and and learn of the unspeakable horrors and unimaginable savagery they have because chemotherapy has badly compromised my immune and because of the obvious Security Ive not been Able to travel to although Ive spent time in Southern Sudan and the Nuba Moun yet As Distant As Darfur is geography it could not be morally More proxy As my own Mission in life has gradually shifted from teaching Shakespeare to bearing witness to Darfur Ive tried to convey what it is that leaves me haunted to the Point of even As a i am often overwhelmed by glimpses of unfathomable anguish and unaccountable evil in Lears holding Cordelias is so shockingly painful that the 18thcentury critic Samuel Johnson could not bring him self to reread the play for but i dont have Johnsons unless China senses that Darfur has truly become a first tier foreign policy Issue for Western it will continue to Mouth meaningless words of concern even As it holds fast to a course of rapacious the notorious Arab militiamen who work As the proxies of the Khartoum then burned the school to the family members heard the screams of the dying children most of the relatives were also Slaugh african Union investigators found the schoolgirls charred i can report that this Hap but i dare not fully imagine such like i have my limits some pain is not to been consider what a Young woman in South Darfur experienced in july according to a Knight Ridder report Kaytoma was inside her hut when the janjaweed her sister was boiling water on a Small her recently born twins next to the janjaweed came and took the water and poured it Over the re called who stayed in the hut and kept silent they tied my sister Idris fled out the As she ran for she said she saw children being thrown into flaming such barbarism has defined Darfur for four with no end in Here we should recall that at the same time As Kaytoma Idris More than Viz years the Radical islamic re Gime in the same men who used to Harbor Osama bin Laden agreed to u Secu Rity Council de mands to disarm the but sudanese president Omar Elbashir complied panel of found last for a Hassan has not a experts septem Ber that his regime was arming these vicious militias More heavily than in concert with a renewed military offensive i cant Stop Reading or listening Dar by Khartoum regular army troops against fur is too insistent and so i again rebel forces in and moments of stabbing which major insurgency began there in Gebru can be neither edited nor Ary following years of severe political i have two soundlessly and economic the primary both of whom have enjoyed Good victims of attacks from the janjaweed and health and Fine educational on july Learned that a group of schoolgirls were chained together in their classroom in the Village of in West Sudan military which often coordinate with each other have come from Dai furs nonarae or african tribal which Bashir sees As the rebels civilian support their attackers have hurled hateful epithets kill the Abid drive the Zurga dirty Blacks from their land so that we May claim it lets rape the female Nuba another common racial epithet to create Arab babies this is language that Best Alizes human has the world responded to this genocide almost three years of obscene Vio Lence have passed since Khartoum prom ised to disarm the the Region has grown steadily More chaotic and violent since the signing of an expedient and ill con Cei Ved peace agreement last the rebel groups fighting Beshirs government have unsure about How to engage with a regime that has consistently proved its bad Faith and is determined to deny the people of Darfur a legitimate role in National affairs or meaningful most the rebel groups want International guarantors for any ceasefire or Security As the regime has waged War of attrition against the worlds largest human the civilian Popula Tion at risk has grown the United nations estimates that a mind numbing million people in Darfur and Eastern Chad now need assistance clean if the ongoing insecurity forces Aid organizations to suspend their Many tens of thousands of people could die every Camps for the Dis housing about by women and children could become last the Security coun prickly City by Scott Stantis source thu hic oot s w 8 i cil passed yet another this time authorizing the deployment of troops and civilian police to protect civilians and boost humanitarian to approximately 200 technical personnel have been Khartoum refuses to accept a More robust u Force that might effectively supplement the hopelessly inadequate african Union Force on the that s easy enough to Khar Toum Hast finished its genocidal counterinsurgency and if it cant Complete the task the regime has clearly re solved to do so by gradually starving the peo ple of Darfur or letting them die of the Dis eases that stalk the these killers see no Point in ending their atrocities if with less they As Macbeth i am in stepped in so far should i Wade no returning were As tedious As go the International the United Europe and Africa has done nothing to change this most ruthless of so the Only country that can now change the regimes logic is Khartoum primary arms economic Oil importer and diplomatic pro but China abstained on the Security Council vote to authorize a u Force for and it has subsequently insisted that even a partial deployment of this Force be contingent upon Khartoum this is All the encouragement Khartoum needs to persist in its the Bush administration and the europeans Are no More willing to confront Beijing than they Are unless China senses that Darfur has truly become a first tier foreign policy Issue for Western it will continue to Mouth meaningless words of concern even As it holds fast to a course of rapacious India As someone who has devoted a lifetime to literary to discerning in words and narratives the most powerful of human i have Over the past four years found in Dai furs agony an overwhelming one that remorselessly forces the Only questions that seem to will the world do anything except posture and Bluff or will the denouement of Dat furs tragedy be catastrophe the weight of this sad time we must Edgar in King Lear speak what we not what we ought to Eric Reeves is professor of English language and literature at Smith College and the author of a Cong Days dying critical moments in the Darfur he blogs at this column first appeared in the Washington