In the malnourished and neglected continent of Africa, tragedy and death have become the norm throughout the region’s war-torn, impoverished nations. The clash of ethnic groups and tribal units, historic divisions caused by Western colonialism, are being used as firepower in bloody internal wars that leave thousands dead and millions displaced and homeless.

I ended last semester’s columns with a piece focusing on the horrific autocracies against black Africans in Western Sudan (“Neglected tragedy in Darfur,” Dec. 7, 2004) and the failure of the international community to appropriately respond. Since then, increased outrage against the Darfur crisis (including the creation of the activist group Action Sudan! on this campus) has pressured American leaders to take legislative action and advocate peace negotiations, and the release of the film “Hotel Rwanda” has portrayed the horrors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide to viewers around the world. Though the slow starvation of displaced refugees or the systematic burning of rural villages may not be as sexy to the international media as violent virus outbreaks, “nation building” in the Middle East, or an American pop icon’s child molestation trial, citizens are becoming aware of the inhumane crimes that ravage sub-Saharan Africa and the West’s deliberate, racially-motivated ignorance of them.

Violence particularly plagues Africa’s eastern region, which includes Congo, a country engulfed in a decade-long civil war (once dubbed “Africa’s First World War”); Rwanda, a nation recovering from genocide; Sudan, a nation enduring genocide and Uganda, which may contain today’s most under-reported and unforgiving acts of inhumanity.

In the northern provinces of democratic Uganda, an insurgency led by rebel leader Joseph Kony roams villages and rural areas searching for victims. Operating from bases in southern Sudan and intent on overthrowing the Ugandan government, the Lord’s Resistance Army slaughters men, rapes women and abducts children from their homes. Girls are used as sex slaves and boys as young as eight years old are forced to fight as rebel soldiers, often terrorized into torturing or killing family members and other children. Thousands of teenagers are sold for slave labor in exchange for arms (primarily in Sudan, where Osama bin Laden has been reported to be a main buyer). At night, more than 40,000 children flee their homes and seek refuge in nearby hospitals and churches. In a world intolerant of terrorism, thousands of young people are being stripped of their innocence and molded into terrorists. The 18-year conflict has continued much to the neglect of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a tyrant in a democratic system who enjoys the support of many Western leaders.

Those who rationalize the injustices of America’s invasion of Iraq often use humanitarian and ethical arguments vis-?-vis Edmond Burke’s claim that good men’s failure to act will allow “the triumph of evil.” Yet when it comes to Africa and other Third World regions, that maxim is discounted as the “good” men do nothing and evil remains uncontested. As globalization increases the North-South economic divide and the world’s rich get richer at the expense of the poor getting poorer, the fight for survival will continue to cheapen human life.

Herein rests the flaw of the West’s concept of democratizing nations — the assumption that a specific form of government ensures an end to domestic conflict. Yet democracy does not solve problems of poverty, ethnic and religious division, governmental abuse and war. Freedom is not the fundamental attribute of democratic governing; it is merely the hopeful result. When people are subjected to the same oppression common of authoritarian states, and when there exists no accountability within the system, elections and civil institutions mean nothing.

So what is spreading democracy really about? Self-interest — it’s merely better for America to live in a world where self-rule is the sole form of government? Or is it about human compassion — we care about our fellow man, are committed to concepts of universal rights and human justice and wish to end the days when individuals fall victim to hatred, greed and aggression? If the answer includes the latter, then inaction in response to humanitarian crimes betrays our objective. Whether democracy produces peace is reliant on the quality of the system, not merely the presence of it, and as Uganda shows, installing democratic governments is not necessarily liberation.

Adam Lichtenheld ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and international studies.