THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 31 lines
``Silver and gold have I none,'' the Rwandans seem to be saying to the world and expecting a miracle of biblical proportions to intervene in the ongoing ethnic genocide in their country.
The country sits in barren central Africa with no oil, no gold, no diamonds or anything of strategic significance to shame the world to action.
During the Cold War, Rwanda would have drawn the West into the conflict by playing the communist card. But, alas, it is caught in a transitional period when America's post-Cold War geopolitical vision has not firmly come to roost. The Rwandans' conflict is an internal ethnic problem that dates back to generations, and they must arrive at a solution that caters to ethnic Rwandan differences.
But whither the moral authority that permeates the consciousness of our triumphant Western values? The end of the Cold War does not mean an isolationist America that stands by and watches an embittered world locked into its own local hostilities. It means an America with a strong hand at the tiller that shapes the world after its democratic and moral whims.
OGU EMEJURU, M.D.
Chesapeake, June 8, 1994 by CNB