Darfur
THERE HAVE always been beggars outside palaces, and comfortable people have always preserved their capacity for happiness by screening out other people's pain. But this self-protective instinct seems particularly powerful at the moment, as genocide unfolds slowly in Sudan's western province of Darfur. The world knows, and on Friday the United Nations Security Council acknowledged, that Sudan's government is responsible for burnings of villagers, systematic rapes and murder by starvation. It knows that these atrocities continue. And yet outsiders are content with measures that won't stop the appalling suffering. They issue statements but refuse to send adequate relief supplies. They condemn violence but refuse to send peacekeepers to protect civilians.
