Worldwide indifference and inertia have always blighted Africa. If the AIDS crisis had reached other parts of the globe in as serious a level as it has in sub-Saharan Africa then billions more would have been spent 10 years ago seeking a cure. Likewise, 10 years ago, the world’s politicians tut-tutted the bloody genocide between Hutus and Tutsis, which led to millions of Rwandans being killed, but did nothing to prevent it.

The Dark Continent is massively underreported. What is happening in the Western Darfur region of Sudan is horrific. By the little red email’s minimum estimate as many people have died there as in the front page grabbing Iraq in the last year. In Darfur, whose size is similar to Iraq’s, it is no understatement to report that genocide and ethnic cleansing is commonplace. Will we see in ten years time world leaders paying their respects at a 10th anniversary memorial service to those who perished in Darfur, just like we saw earlier this year for the missing generation in Rwanda?

Latest reports suggest as many as 10 million people have been dragged into this Sudanese humanitarian disaster. At least 15,000 are reported dead, with over one million displaced, of which children account for 500,000. A further 93,000 people, likely to rise to 200,000 by year end, are in United Nations refugee camps that have spread into neighbouring Chad. Water and food are seriously limited while disease is spreading rapidly among this war-torn part of the central African country.

Rebellion broke out in the area in February 2003, with the government facing two rebel groups. Despite a May 26 ceasefire, the killings have since worsened. Pro-government Arab militias known as janjaweed are routinely butchering black African tribes and there is nothing being done about it. What is different with this latest Sudanese bloodshed is that it is Muslims killing Muslims.

“The janjaweed are the government’s militia, and Khartoum has armed and empowered it to conduct ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Darfur,” Human Rights Watch warns.

All the international community can muster is a bunch of ‘observers’ who are hardly going to quell the situation. African leaders bear some of the responsibility for the timid response to this disaster – they have remained characteristically quiet.

Remaining silent will lead to another Rwanda where 500,000 people died in just 100 days.

The guerrilla raids that killed at least 92 people in the republic of Ingushetia this week are clearly a sad response to the shocking treatment of the nation by Vladimir Putin, the most powerful Russian leader since Leonid Brezhnev.

Moscow fixed the election two years ago so that former KGB man General Murat Zyazikov was victorious. The president has been hugely corrupt and the country has become considerably poorer. Moreover, Russian, Chechen and internal security forces have killed and abducted a number of Ingush civilians.

Ingushetia suffers greatly from bordering Chechnya, a territory destroyed consistently by Russian leaders for 200 years. Experts suggest Moscow is engineering the folding of a number of several North Caucasus states into a single entity to strengthen the control of the Russian Federation. Russian leadership, steeped in the Soviet mindframe, is desperate to assert control of far off republics. Under the dreaded guise of the War on Terror™, Moscow has extended its monstrous military might into Ingushetia having destroyed Chechnya, though not the valiant Chechens.

Amnesty International released a report on Chechnya this week accusing the Russians of continued indiscriminate killings, torture and rape. Amnesty notes that there is “no end in sight to the conflict itself or accompanying human rights abuses”. The charity attacked the international community – and in particular the United Nations Commission on Human Rights – for not criticising Russia for its Caucasus indiscretions following September 11.

The predominantly Muslim Chechens have been seeking independence from Russia for more than 200 years. In 1944 Josef Stalin, fearing Chechen disloyalty, deported the entire population to Central Asia with thousands dying en route. The Chechens returned in 1957 to their small but strategically located country with oil reserves and access to the Caspian Sea. In the wake of the break up of the Soviet Union, Chechnya declared independence but the Russian president at the time, Boris Yeltsin, sent in the troops for a torrid three year skirmish. Under Putin this war has continued since 1999.

A senior American judge has compared President George W Bush’s rise to power to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler. Speaking at the annual convention of American Constitution Society, Guido Calabresi said: “In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States … somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put someone in power. That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power.

“The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenberg put Hitler in … I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. “

The 71-year-old federal judge, who works in the New York appeals courts, advocated voting Bush out at the November election to ensure “the structural reassertion of democracy.” Judge Calabresi was born in Milan and fled with his family from the Mussolini regime in 1939.

Of course, Judge Calabresi (mentioned above) may well be onto something here – the link between the Bush administration and fascism. Bush certainly seems to be on the verge of implementing Fascism Lite™.

We note some of the similarities between the current regime and the European dictatorships of the 1930s, not including the similarly murky roots to power mentioned in the story above.

Overt signs of nationalism – Dubya et al make a point of always wearing a US flag pin on their suit jackets. Most of the time that a major announcement is made, the Stars and Stripes are used as a backdrop. The rhetoric is always of a strong, proud nation when Bush gushes about the American people.

Scapegoats – The War on Terror™ is Bush’s way of getting the nation together. It also necessarily puts the Arabs as his scapegoats of choice. Unfortunately for the spin doctors, that’s technically still anti-semitism. Indeed talk of ‘Evil doers’ and the ‘Axis of Evil’ bring to mind the old Nazi propaganda machine. And like the fascists of old, Bush and Co are also down on homosexuals in a much more overt way than previous administrations.

No regard for human rights – For Auschwitz, read Guantanamo. For Dachau, see Abu Ghraib. Propaganda is used to make Americans feel that those suffering human rights abuses deserve it. And to add to the ubermenschen feel, the US wants their troops immune from prosecution for war crimes – can’t think why.

The supremacy of the military – Congress just signed into law another $417bn for the Pentagon to chow. The military is the biggest plank of the Bush administration; its fixer and ultimately hopefully its downfall.

Church and State – While the communists went out of their way to dismantle the ‘R’ word, the fascists tended to support the majority religion and even appear as a militant defender of the faith. Reborn Dubya is the most religious president for at least the last 70 years. He relies on the religious right for millions of votes.

Not what you know, but who you know – The fascist states saw many entrepreneurs become enormously rich by their close ties with those in government. Halliburton is the modern day Krupps, who as well as making damn fine espresso machines, built much of the Nazi military machine. Both today’s ‘neocons’ and the fascists of yore went to great lengths to protect their preferred business executives.

Black or white – You’re either with us or the terrorists. In Bushworld, there is no grey, like in 1930s Germany and Italy – it’s just right and wrong, us and them. That way argument is lessened.

Pre-emptive – Hitler and Bush sure share a passion for striking first and a disdain for world bodies – the League of Nations then and the United Nations now. And on a dodgy pretext too — in Poland it was ‘they attacked us first, honest’.

Family history – Prescott Bush, Dubya’s grandfather, was of course in cohorts with the Nazis. His business dealings with Hitler’s party are well documented here. George Senior also has a few Nazi skeletons in his closet — read about them here.

Macedonia gets on TWOT gravy train

A recent Reporters Without Borders report entitled Internet Under Surveillance tracks web crackdowns and repression worldwide and makes for alarming reading.

In the Epoch Times, 40-year-old Chinese activist Du Daobin wrote: “We have the legal right to overthrow the government. Democratic countries also encourage us to become a modern, civilised government and eliminate the barbaric dictatorial government.” For this Mr Du was charged with subversion and sentenced to four years of house arrest. He joins more than 60 cyber-dissidents detained by Beijing.

Following China, Vietnam with seven, the Maldives with three and Syria with two are the countries with the most jailed cyber-dissidents.

Some interesting facts from the report.

Saudi Arabia blocks around 400,000 sites, including those that mention women’s rights.

In China, the search engine Google, which was previously blocked entirely, will still freeze if you type in a frowned upon phrase such as the spiritual movement Falun Gong.

In Uzbekistan, where democracy has never properly existed, government geeks from Tashkent are able to strip down sites of controversial content rather than blocking them. Those lovely Syrian authorities do not allow their citizens access to free email accounts such as Hotmail or Yahoo, making them instead opt for government run and monitored internet service providers. All those visiting cybercafés in the communist country of Vietnam have to show ID and their web viewing is closely monitored with spyware. Cuba, the last remaining communist state in the western hemisphere, does not allow computer sales to private citizens and limits internet access to government workers. The public can only access a government approved intranet.

However, the report didn’t just stop at criticising undemocratic countries. The Bush sponsored Patriot Act was attacked for being able to watch its citizens’ browsing too closely.

“As democracies steadily slide toward monitoring the internet, dictatorships are tightening their grip on it. Internet laws are being drafted all over the world, mostly unnoticed by the media and the public,” Julien Pain, who works with RWB maintained.

And it’s 1-2-3 What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask the CIA — they’re not sure at all, at all. According to “Anonymous”, purportedly a 22-year career spook, Operation Invade Iraq is the wrong war — in his book, Imperial Hubris he styles it as “an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat.”

No relation?
This from the marvelously jingoistic Defend America — the Dept of Offense’s TWOT™ site — “WASHINGTON, June 23, 2004 – Navy Secretary Gordon England detailed today the process he has devised to review the cases of each enemy combatant now held at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” Well, let’s just hope Gordon isn’t related to ‘old thumbs ups’ herself, Lynndie England, official pin-up poster girl for The War On Terror™.

What Would Ronnie Do?
Try as we might we can’t help but connect the dots between Reagan and the British sailors who were arrested in Iran. After all the sycophantic eulogising following the passing of the gipper, we can’t help but fondly remember that in this sort of hostage affair, Ronnie would have sold the Iranians lots of guns illegally and then used the profits to fund terrorist groups elsewhere. Naturally, he’d be unable to recall any of it afterwards.