"The major human rights NGOs, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch can claim some credit for issuing a flurry of reports, press releases, and urgent appeals over the past few months that have brought this catastrophe to the attention of the mass media and the world¬moving the and the UN Secretariat to serve notice to the Sudanese government. Before AI, HRW, and the UN congratulate themselves for finally denouncing loudly enough to make the headlines, it is important to ask what they did during the past 22 years. Over two million people were killed; mainly civilians from the South, Hundreds of villages were destroyed as in Darfur , slavery, rape, and torture was routine. The deeper tragedy is that this could have been prevented. It would not have happened if the international community had taken notice and made it an issue. Despite the scale, scope, and duration of this, it was never a priority on the agendas of AI, HRW, or the UN. For two decades, they quietly reported on what was happening; however, they made it a low priority." (Based in part on NGO Monitor’s report Asleep at the Wheel: Comparing the Performance of Human Rights NGO’s on Sudan and Arab-Israeli Issues, 26 August 2004.)
Adla Shashati, “The Darfur Effect”, Sudanese-Online, September 5, 2005 , 26 August 2004.)

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