April is Africa Awareness Month Chez Kazoo

I am not a crusader and I do my damnedest to stay out of other people's crusades. I read something in the paper yesterday, though, that called to me to say something. It's Sudan, of course. The Darfur region in flames. Here's the article. A very impassioned and articulate call to action by Paul Rusesabagina, known to the world as the stalwart hotel manager portrayed in "Hotel Rwanda". Read it. Please. Then go to Save Darfur and send a short message to the Prez. Please. With a cherry on top.
I have a second-hand version of events happening there. M spent a month in Sudan a year ago. See, before I dragged his ass out to CA so I could go to school he had a very cool job that involved sporadic travel all over Africa. He worked as a contracter for a government agency that concerns itself with happenings overseas. He gets calls from them periodically to go back over, but with a steady job here it's hard to pull off. Last year, though, Sudan called and he just went. He got a crash course in the politics of the Darfur region and I learned a bunch of new terms (Janjaweed) and acronyms (rebel groups, of which there are more than a few). Others expain it better than I, but the take-away message: it's lawless and wild and, naturally, people are dying in droves. The Sudanese government has been arming and abetting the Janjaweed raiders. Ending the slaughter will require an outside force. The African Union has a mere 7000 peacekeepers to pacify a region the size of France. A large UN force is needed to lock-down the country and force a truce. Only then can anything like a peace be worked out. The countries of the world must act. Let this be the answer for Rwanda.