Sudan

It's a strange situation. On the one hand, it is such a positive step to be able to take legitimate legal action on such an internationally recognized platform against a man who has been the source of so much evil for so long now. On the other hand, you have the immediate consequences of this action... that the seeds that have been planted, the good that was being accomplished on the ground by aid agencies, is being called to a halt.

This is bad in many respects: first, of course, is the obvious - that the needs of people in Darfur and nearby areas are great, and suddenly the resources to help them are going to vanish. But the other part, the part that has me feeling sick to my stomach and very very nervous...the part that makes me feel like I do in a really well-made horror film, when the suspense is all-encompassing and you just KNOW something horrible is going to happen, though you couldn't possibly anticipate what, or when exactly it will happen--that's the feeling I have right now. Because the logic is probably something like this: Send the westerners packing and then we'll be free to wipe them out.

Maybe that's me just being very paranoid and jumping to conclusions, but I don't think so. I think clearing out right now is a big, huge, MASSIVE mistake. I think that the presence of those aid agencies is the one thing that's keeping the violence from breaking out again. Omar Al-Bashir knows better than to take any action while Western workers are around: (a) they'd be witnesses, and (b) any accidental casualty of an aid worker would result in harsh action. Funny how 300,000 people can die and Western politicians waffle on about how horrible that is while doing little about it, but if one American were to be killed over there... boy howdy, it'd be all over the news, people would be in an uproar, and we'd most likely come in with guns blazing!

I am so so so so nervous right now. Blogging has helped a little. Called the State Department already. Off to leave another message.