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Show The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Al5 Tuesday, May9, 2000 It Would Be Better for the Hapless UN. to Just Stay Out of Sierra Leone WASHINGTON — Onthe surface, it looks bad enough. Even as I write this, at least four U.N. soldiers have been murdered byoneof the GEORGIE ANNE GEYER worldwide for orderinghispitiless troops to chop the limbs off of thousands of his “countrymen.” This was in great part done calculatedly, in order to drive masses of annual consumption of petroleum, and thatfigure is expected to double in the next five years. That will make the struggle for West African country of Sierra Leone. Some92 African U.N. peacekeeping troops are ominously under the control of the Revolutionary United Front there, while people out of the diamond-producing ar- the continent’s natural wealth only more intense — and more cruel to the conti- eas. (It is estimated thathalf the country’s nent’s imprisoned people. another 100 peacekeepers surround the homeofthe savage warlord Foday Sankoh. U.N.-approved warlords in the ravaged population of4.5 million were chased out of Everybodyis “up in arms”atthe United Nations in New York, not to speak of the UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE diplomatic corridors of power here. In- dramatic new developments that threaten deed, the usual suspects are indulging in their usual response to this newest outrage against the world organization andall it stands for. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is talking about sending more “peacekeepers” to Sierra Leone; Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is saying that the international community will prepare.a “strong and swift response”; and Congress has approved $20 million to help the devastated country establish a Truth Commissionto “look into human rights abuses” andto “rebuild its war-ravaged infrastructure.” Belowthatsurface,it looks even worse. In Africa — particularly in the case ofSierra Leone, butalso in therelated cases of Angola, Congo, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and who-knows-where-else? — there are some to destabilize the world for decades to come: M@ First, to movements such as Sierra Leone’s and Angola’s Unita and many others, the fight in Africa today is no longer for ideology or even for national independence.Increasingly, these groups, whocould in earlier years be roughly delineated as Marxist or Western-leaning, are simply murdering, maiming and destroying to control Africa’s wealth. Thisis particularly true of two extraordinarily valuable products: oil and diamonds. In northeast Angola, the rich Catoca diamond mineis run by the Angolan military, with workers under foreed labor there: In Sierra Leone, United Front leader Foday Sankohhas beenbitterly criticized @ Fourth,taking form across the world their homesin the 1990s, while half a mil- are whatcould be termed “the oil company lion fled the country entirely.) W@Second, such facts are leading to a as nation-state,” or “the diamond mine as homeland.” As nation-states have broken new and deadly form of cooperation between the increasingly rogue “governments” who pretend to rule cen- down — and indeed as they are disintegrating before oureyes in every morning’s newspapers — theonlyentities left are the tral Africa. In southwest Congo, near the city of big Mbuji Mayi, Congo President Laurent Kabila has controlof the biggest diamond mine in Congo,andheis “sharing”it with maraud across the continent like wild beasts without homesornationalities. This syndrome began with the north- Zimbabwe,allocating a good percentage of the income to his neighbor (also in the throes of savagery, as black Zimbabweans ern Angolanoil-company enclave of Cabindaas early asthe 1970s, when guerrilla fighters began protecting the oil company, daily attack white farmers) in exchange for 11,000 troops whoserveto prop up Kabila’s ragtag government. M@ Third, these situations are set to expand, perhapsevento explode. In Angola, for instance, where people live in perhaps the most abject misery in all ofAfrica,recentoffshore oil discoveries threaten, rather than empower, the average Angolan. At the moment, Angola already accountsfor 7 percent of America’s companies and the motley “revolutionary” groups that roam and with its manicured lawns and neat middle-class houses, for cash. One now sees similar examplesofthis as far away as troubled Indonesia, as today’s much vaunted “globalization” meets the law of the jungle. Someof the companies are quite aware of what they stand to lose, at least in American or European public opinion, if they even appear to grow too deeply in- volved in the business of bankrolling savagery for the West’s comfort. David Rice, a seniorpolitical adviser in London for BP Amoco, which is deeplyinvolved in Angolan offshore rights, was recently quoted in The New York Times as saying ironically, “This is a wonderful cocktail for global public attention: oil, diamonds, civil war and land mines. . - We have to be seen aspart of the solution.” Butso far, there are precious fewsolutions — and noneof them are coming from the U.N., with its hapless neutralism and its refusal to use power against the burgeoning bands of thugs, killers and op: pressors that the world organization pre tendsto try to control. Indeed,in case after case, the U.N. has opted for the appearance of doing something. In Rwanda, they would not use the word “genocide” because that would have obliged them to take action under the Genocide Convention. Throughout the crises of the last nine years, implementa tion of Security Council resolutions was never seriously addressed. And in Sierra Leonelast year, the U.N.-brokered “peace” piously presented to the brutal Sankohinternational legitimacy — and more than half-control of the government. Until such fatal hesitation about the employment of physical and moral power canbe redressed,it would be betterfor the U.N. to just stay home. In This Troubled Age, Cardinal John O’Connor Stood Above the Crowd I first met John O’Connorratherlate in hislife journey.It was 1984, and he had just been named a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Churchby Pope John Paul II. The new Bishop of New York and I were at a television studio in New York City, preparing to tape separate“Firing Line”programswith the grand inquirer, William F. CAL THOMAS tion and homosexuality. It saw his views on these things as arcane, even harmful. While praising his charitable work with AIDSpatients andthe poor,it said that his pronouncements on personal morality “stirred controversy among many New Yorkers and even someof his own parishioners.” So did the Ten Commandments which God sent down from Mt. Sinai by BuckleyJr. “Congratulations on your appointment,”I said to him afterintroductions. He did not say “thank you.” He answered, “Please pray for me.” Monthslater, he sent Mosesto a people who didn’t particularly LOS ANGELES TIMES SYNDICATE mea note commenting (favorably) on one ofmy columnsin the New York Daily News, saying he had added me,a non-Catholic, to his personal prayerlist. I took that as a high compliment. In an age when moral conviction is out offashion, Cardinal O’Connorstood above the crowd.Believing that his church based its‘position on Scripture and the wisdom revealed through its earthly leaders, who were chosen by God, he didn’t consult opinion polls and he did not seek ways to makechurch doctrine more popular in order to attract the masses. He knewthatthe crowdwasfickle, as they were with Jesus, catch up with culture — supported few of his moral convictions, especially on abor- and that they could praise you one moment and then turn on you with vengeance. So he stuckto his and his church’s principles. He wonderfully embodied a sentiment expressed some years ago by columnist Joseph Sobran:“I would rather wantto hear them. But God didn’t revise the Commandments into suggestions, because they were about God’s nature and candidate Geraldine Ferraro put themselves in danger of excommunication for their liberal positions on abortion and gay rights. Inanarticle last Septemberfor Catholic New York, written from his hospital bed, O’Connorreflected on humanity’s priori- ties and how oneisforced to focus on what truly matters when good health is taken away. “The world goes on but makeslittle impact,”he said. He gave thanks to medical professionals for their commitmentto caring for people. And thenhe said that while he hoped for “good and vigorous His requirements. O’Connorknewthat the health for many years to come,” he also authority behind “thus saith the Lord” was more formidable than any opinion realized that “God writes straight with crooked lines and only He knows what the held by man. next moment will bring. This I do know, O'Connorwasbold enoughto state what ought to be true of any church or organi- however, with passionate certitude, that in His unlimited love He created me, as He created each of us whotriesto live and die in that love, for the breathless joy of an belong to a churchthatis 500 years behind the times and sublimely indifferent to change, than I would to a churchthat is five minutesbehind the times, huffing and zation whose membersrefuse to live up to its precepts. He said people, including Catholic politicians, who cannot abide by teachings of the Cardinal John O'Connor has now puffing to catch up.” In its obituary, The New York Times — which is always huffing and puffing to church should not be membersofit. He passed from onespring to another, from stirred tremendous controversy when he one with stormsto the other of eternal bliss. certain fundamental suggested that then-New York Gov. Mario Se Cuomo and one-time vice presidential eternal springtime.” g (Fa Cardinal John O'Connor {s tag, clearance limel TAG CLEARANCE FOR MEN AND WOMEN 50% off red-tagged apparel 50% off grey-tagged women’s shoes 33% off lime green-tagged apparel 33% off purple-tagged women’s shoes 25% off fuchsia-tagged men’s apparel STARTS TODAY AT 8:00 A.M. All markdowns are in addition to our low Nordstrom Rack prices, andwill be taken at the register NORDSTROM RACK IT’S NOT JUST DISCOUNT, IT’S NORDSTROM. Sugarhouse Center Rack, (801) 48 4 |