Sudan Remains

Don Cheadle, fresh off his stellar performance in Hotel Rwanda, lends his celebrity power to the continuing crisis in Darfur. I have to admit he's right: amidst the happenings in Iraq, Lebanon, Ukraine, the tsunami, and now Kyrgyzstan, it was too easy to forget Darfur. In fact, it's in danger of becoming not the next Rwanda, but the next South Sudan, where civil war held back progress and cost lives for decades.

Cheadle and co-author John Prendergast go balls to the wall in their prescription for action:

Eighth, the U.S. often argues that it cannot do more because China and Russia will veto more potent multilateral action on Darfur. But no one has tested this threat. It is time to play diplomatic chicken with Beijing and Moscow. The U.S. and U.K. should press for a vote on a strong U.N. Resolution with real consequences and dare anyone to support crimes against humanity by vetoing it...

The only antidote to this searing truth--the only way the U.S. will take the kind of leadership necessary to end the horrors for Fatima and her people--is for there to be a political cost to inaction. As American citizens increasingly raise their voices and write their letters about Darfur, the temperature has indeed risen. But not enough. We need to make it a little warmer, a little more uncomfortable for those politicians who would look away. Just a few more degrees. Just a few more thousand letters. It is, frankly, that simple.

You can contact your U.S. Representative here and your Senator here.