Unfettered Letters

U.S. must help manage crisis in Zimbabwe

With so many problems at home, it is easy to lose sight of world issues. Yet events such as those occurring in Zimbabwe are impossible to ignore (12/4, A-11, “Zimbabwe police break up protest; A human rights activist is abducted from her home amid the new crackdown on dissent”).

Health care in Zimbabwe is abysmal. There is no public access, and there are no medicines available to the general population. All medical schools and major hospitals have been closed for weeks.

A cholera epidemic — the result of a collapse of the entire country’s infrastructure — has claimed more than 500 lives. Attempts by the medical community to request assistance are being met with violent, government-sanctioned responses. Estimates by non-governmental organizations suggest that half of the country’s population will require food assistance as soon as next year.

As an American medical student, I am moved by the conditions that my peers face. We must stand up to support health professionals throughout the world.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. State Department must do something to help manage this situation before it becomes so unstable that it compromises the entire region.

Kyle Berens
Kansas City, Kan.

Why ‘African-American’?

Would someone please explain to me why we’re supposed to call black people “African-Americans?” I would guess that next to none of them is actually from Africa, and it’s been more than a hundred years since their ancestors came from there.

Plus, probably lots of their ancestors didn’t come from Africa. I also know that no one calls me a “European-American,” though my ancestors are from Germany and Ireland. Why do black people get a title and I don’t?

I seem to remember a time in the 1960s when the catchphrase was “black is beautiful.” Now, all of a sudden, it must not be so beautiful, because we are not politically correct if we call black people “black.”

White is white, black is black, the same for red and yellow and brown.

Colors are only colors, and I think that when we are expected (for reasons I do not comprehend) to hyphenate the word “American” with where people are supposedly from, it does nothing but cause divisiveness among us. We are all Americans, and that’s the only thing that matters.

Barb Hugunin
Lee’s Summit

Human rights abuses in Zimbabwe

When reading about the situation in Zimbabwe, we realize the importance of continuing to exert an enormous amount of pressure on shameful President Robert Mugabe. Why are so many people obsessed with this situation in Zimbabwe? The fact is there are many people worldwide who believe in the sanctity of God-given human life and that, as human beings, we are all responsible to see that all people have the right to a life where basic human rights are upheld.

If an election is held anywhere in the world, citizens care about how other fellow human beings are treated. This is the same reason that people continue to speak about places such as the Darfur region of the Sudan. It is inexcusable that people can justify violence and intimidation against someone because their message differs from someone else’s.

May God give the international community the courage and wisdom to continue to insist upon basic human rights for all people.

Deborah Solomon
Independence

Trouble in Zimbabwe

I am troubled by the events in Zimbabwe (6/23, A-6, “Mugabe’s rival bows out; The opposition leader cites a desire to halt bloodshed as a reason for decision”). Robert Mugabe has been an undemocratic leader for most of his 28 years in power, though the U.S. has not assailed him until recently. What Americans fail to realize is that the “corporatocracy” promulgated by Washington is instigating the very same human rights abuses as in Zimbabwe around the world.

I urge people to learn from unbiased, independent organizations what the aim is of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy and other agencies that purportedly do one thing but actually spread hegemony and unsustainable empire.

We must stand for justice, not mob-like criminality. The one thing the mafia had that the U.S. does not possess is efficiency. Thank God our Founding Fathers and subsequent leaders were smart enough to build in bureaucracy.

David Davis
Overland Park

Debt relief initiative

President Bush recently made a historic trip to Africa to review the progress of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) and other administration-sponsored development programs in the region. He observed increased investment in health care and education made possible y MDRI debt cancellation.

Expanded debt cancellation is an essential element of any real, long-term development progress in Africa. The Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation, currently under consideration by both houses of Congress, would expand debt cancellation beyond the 23 countries that have benefited from the MDRI, and would help put an end to the kind of irresponsible lending that caused crippling debt burdens in the past.

In Tanzania, debt relief led to a 50 percent increase in primary school enrollment. In Ghana, funds were freed to rehabilitate the transportation infrastructure and to support education and health initiatives.

Debt cancellation has made an enormous impact already. Expanded debt cancellation could help many more impoverished countries.

I strongly believe that debt cancellation will help to free the nations of the world from crippling poverty and I have supported this through my membership in the Jubilee U.S.A. Network as well as lobbying my representatives and senators.

Teresa Orth
Parkville

Press for action on Darfur

Time is running out for the people of Darfur. Sunday is “Global Day for Darfur” when concerned people all over the world will pause to take action calling attention to the escalating violence and the failure of the international community to adequately respond to this crisis.

The Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee urges you to take a few minutes of your Sunday to write to our elected officials, including President Bush, to let them know of your care and concern.

Four years of genocidal violence has left more than 400,000 dead, 2.5 million innocent civilians displaced, and 4 million men, women and children reliant on international aid for survival.

The international community must increase the pressure on Sudan finally to allow the deployment of an international peacekeeping force for the protection of civilians in Darfur.

President Bush should keep his promises to implement and enforce tough unilateral U.S. economic sanctions aimed at Sudan’s oil sector.

The U.N. Security Council should move quickly to pass and enforce a resolution aimed at individuals complicit in genocide. Congress and the president must provide adequate funding for peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts in Darfur.

The time for promises is over.

Judy Hellman
Associate director, Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee
Overland Park

Assaults on justice

Peter Makori’s excellent and timely column (3/28) headed “Assault on the judiciary troubles eastern Africa” paints a grim picture for the survival of justice in the region because of political interference in the dispensation of justice in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

Political interferences in those east African countries may have differed from each other, and may differ from our administration’s firing of eight U.S. attorneys, but all political interference, anywhere, by any means, leads to the same conclusion: Justice is in peril.

The Republicans argue that although explanations of the firings may have been clumsy, those attorneys served at the pleasure of the president, and the firings were nothing more than business as usual. Maybe. But because a large majority of Americans are troubled by the firings, let the facts speak for themselves.

Bring on the subpoenas. Let’s find out if the president’s “pleasure” extends to the prerogative of obstructing justice.

Harold Oppenheim
Kansas City

Funding priorities

U.S. spending priorities

The Star notes we are spending $8 billion a month on the conflict in Iraq (12/10, A-1, “War costs felt all through the ranks”).

Parade magazine quotes Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, as saying for about $2 billion to $3 billion a year, we could begin to break the malaria cycle, which is estimated to kill 3,000 children a day in Africa (“We can save these children”).

Of course, $2 billion or $3 billion could keep the battle in Iraq going for another seven to 10 days.

To her credit, Laura Bush is promoting the anti-malaria program. However, I can’t help but wonder whether she ever hooks the two things together, in terms of our spending priorities and our standing in the eyes of the world.

Dean Askeland
Olathe

Think about these two facts printed in the Sunday Star. We (you and I) are funding the Iraq war to the tune of $8 billion a month.

In another article, about Laura Bush’s campaign to save African babies, we read that for the comparatively tiny sum of $2 billion to $3 billion a year, the cycle of malaria in Africa could be broken. The money would go to the purchase of mosquito-proof nets for beds, which would save 3,000 children a day from dying in Africa.

We are doomed as a nation if this continues to be the way our government prioritizes how our money is spent.

Joan Millon
Olathe

Share costs of war

In response to “War costs felt all through the ranks” (12/10, A-1): It seems it is time for America to tighten its belt. This war in Iraq belongs to all of us (whether we approved of it or not). Until each of us owns the situation, the costs will spiral.

Medical care for those with physical and mental ailments — as well as care and support for their families — is mandatory. Nothing but the best of equipment must be provided.

A military draft would spread the burden to all families. Until we are all equally affected (including and especially those in Congress), people will turn a blind eye.

And whatever happened to war bonds? There seems to be plenty of money going into the stock market. Why not finance our own debt instead of letting China and others do it?

War bonds and the draft would involve personal commitment. This is patriotism.

Wake up, America. We are in a major crisis.

Barbara Alley
Leawood

African’s view of youth

Why, why, why did it take a journalist from Kenya making speeches in the area for Lewis Diuguid to say what needed to be said 13 years ago when my wife and I first came to the Kansas City area (10/4, Opinion, “Young blacks must focus on rules, education”)?

Bill Cosby said essentially the same thing. The “community” didn’t like it. As I remember it, Diuguid didn’t like it.

Peter Makori said the black teens were loud “ruffians,” that this reflects poorly on their parents and the communities that raised them and so on.

As this has been patently obvious for many years, I believe The Star’s Editorial Board could help by encouraging parents and communities to be more aware of their children and their activities at all times.

Schools can only help parents raise their children.

John Schofield
Independence

Real action on Darfur

The term genocide does not seem to have the power to provoke our leaders to action, or even to rhetoric, the way terrorism does.

So here are some more descriptive terms for what’s happening in the Sudan: mass murder, rape of the most brutal kind, starvation and disease.

The African Union peacekeepers in Sudan will leave soon, and they will be replaced — eventually — by shamefully underfunded U.N. forces.

Congress and President Bush need to take the lead and make sure that these troops — not American troops — have our full support as well as the support of every nation that wants to do business with us.

Sen. Sam Brownback has been a powerful force on this issue. Our entire government must now put the pressure on the Sudanese government and keep it on. That means that the voters need to keep the pressure on our elected officials. Four-hundred thousand murders is enough.

Adam Groden
Overland Park