IS IT NEVER AGAIN OR NEVERMIND?
Gail Chatfield – North County Times

North County Times, CA
April 30 2007

I’m not a fan of T.S. Eliot’s poetry, but he does have an opening line
that I find pretty accurate. "April is the cruelest month," he wrote.

April 24 is commemorated as the beginning of the Armenian genocide.

Ninety-two years later and there is still debate if the deaths of 1.5
million Armenians by torture, starvation, deportation and massacre
should be called "genocide."

Holocaust Remembrance Day, which memorializes the deaths of over 6
million Jews under the Nazi regime, was April 16 this year.

April was also the 13th anniversary of the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis
by rival Hutus in Rwanda.

But we cannot forget the Nanking massacre, 300,000 dead; Cambodia
genocide, 2 million dead; and the Bosnia genocide, 200,000 dead. In
Darfur, Sudan, 400,000 people have been killed and over 2 million
civilians have been displaced since 2003.

Call it genocide, ethnic cleansing or casualties of war, but definitely
call it repetitive. Has "Never again" become "Nevermind"?

I had the opportunity to hear Benson Deng speak recently at Chalice
Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Escondido. Benson, along with
his cousin and brother, wrote the book, "They Poured Fire on Us From
the Sky."

Benson was only 7 years old when he and 26,000 other Sudanese boys
ran from their burning villages in the late 1980s during a civil war
between the Muslim, Khartoum-based government in the north and the
Christians and animists in the south. The war continues to this day.

The 26,000 are known as the Lost Boys of the Sudan. Some of them were
as young as 5 years old as they walked thousands of miles with no food,
no water and no adults to the relative safety of Ethiopia. When that
country forcibly kicked them out, the boys walked to Kenya. They were
shot at by soldiers, attacked by lions and crocodiles, and killed
by starvation and disease. Thousands and thousands of unknown little
boys died.

The boys were relatively lucky, though. Usually tending their animals
in the fields, they were able to escape and join up with other young
boys to form this massive children’s exodus. Since girls stayed at
home, they were killed or kidnapped when the horsemen arrived and
massacred the villagers.

Benson, his brother and cousin were lucky once again. Sponsored by the
International Rescue Committee, they came to San Diego in 2001 after
their 14-year ordeal. They went to school, got jobs and adjusted to
their new life. Benson is studying computers and hopes to return to
his village in southern Sudan to develop clean water sources.

Benson did answer the question that was on everyone’s mind. He
suggested donating to organizations like Doctors Without Borders and
the International Rescue Committee. Benson also suggested contacting
our government representatives.

Why does suffering continue in the region? The Muglad Basin in
southwestern Sudan has 3 billion barrels of crude oil. The Darfur
area has unexploited oil and gold reserves, much needed farmland and
possibly uranium, bauxite and copper. Never again or nevermind?

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