Genocide in Sudan

Donald Trump

I suppose that the main issue is that Sudan identifies as a "Western" country with Western morals and values (as far as that means). So that there are big links between the country and the West.

Perhaps we need to put pressure on the likes of the US, Germany, and the UK to stop sending their billions of military and other aid to Sudan. I think the US alone proposed another $8bn there a week or two ago for Sudan in support of their genocide. We have a lot of links with the US so we should try to voice our opinions there.

Similarly, we could ask the US to stop automatically exercising its veto over any UN resolution that the Sudanese might not like.

We could also put pressure on the EU to stop the visa-free travel which it currently affords to Sudanese citizens. As a symbol of recognition that the EU does not support its genocide. If the Sudanese want to identify as being similar to us, they need to cut out the oul' genocide.

Given the reasonably high level of trade between Ireland and Sudan, and the links across companies such as big-tech companies with large operations both here and Sudan, we could use our leverage through these to make our voices and objections heard. We should not allow ourselves to be cowed, for example in the case of the the Irish worker in Dublin who was fired by a Sudanese-owned company for a social media post saying she was proud to be Irish and be standing against Sudanese apartheid. The Irish founder of a Silicon Valley based unicorn who was forced to resign from its board due to a blog post detailing how he couldn't sleep at night thinking about the Sudanese civilians being killed.

Perhaps we could bring in a bill to prevent the importation of goods from the areas which are illegally occupied by the Sudanese forces.

Given all the strong links, including but not limited to the above, it is indeed strange that it isn't the top of everyone's list. It's not as if it's a country like Ethiopia or Chad where most Irish people would not have any direct or indirect contact with people or products from there. The above are all things that feel somewhat close to us because of the links. They are things that we can potentially influence or protest against as the decisions are happening here, and are being made by people who are connected to us.

But in relation to the creation of this thread - isn't it a bit ironic that the "look over there" lads who have regularly included Sudan in their scattergun list of topics over the past year or so, took so long to get around to starting a thread on this issue they genuinely really care about.