Darfur

Front page of Washington Post, 9/6/06

My idea for Darfur is to insert ourselves into the situation - literally. Charter a plane and start flying young Americans over to Sudan. Start from the coast or a major airport and create a human chain, slowly building a line of Americans into the Darfur region to act as civilian reinforcements for the humanitarian aid.

Sure, this is a cynical and imperialistic idea - cynical because it assumes no one really cares until there are Americans there and imperialistic because it involves dropping a large population of Americans on the country - but it's better than military involvement, isn't it? I am in fact counting on the cynical aspect; that more Americans will tune into the area if there are more American lives at stake there (especially non-combatant types).

How much would I budget for such a project? Well, not knowing the distances is the most difficult part: if it's 300 miles to the closest airport (which it looks like it is - if not more) then you have to space out the volunteers (did I mention that? they're volunteers); like one or two every ten miles. That's 30 people, so let's up it to 3 every ten miles, which gives you 90 people. Then let's put 100 people at two different camps, helping with distribution of aid, teaching classes, etc. With 290 people costing $1,000 a pop to fly over, that's $300k already so far. Once they're there, how much would it take to keep them fed and housed (in very sparse conditions; we're not creating a class gap with out volunteers)? If we say $300 a month, then we get $870k a month for their expenses. If we round up to one million, the other $230k a month can be used for supplies for the refugees in the camps and transport costs. (I wonder how much current relief efforts are spending a month for supplies and delivery.) So start with $5.5 million and go for five months. Give the kids volunteering some kind of college credit for their participation.

Perhaps it would be good enough to spread a bunch of people throughout the Darfur region, kind of like election monitors, only these would be violence monitors. Unarmed civilians there to keep the janjaweed or the government forces from attacking and terrorizing the people of Darfur. Have the kids rebuild the villages that have already been razed.

In the scope of today's world, $5.5 million is nothing. Of course, I don't have it so it's easy for me to say. But maybe we could ask the top five hedge fund managers for $1.1m each, since they made over the average of $324m each.

Or someone else, if you can find them. Have the government (U.S.) come up with half and have Hollywood raise the rest (George Clooney can lead the efforts). It can be done. Try to find 55 people who can donate $100k each. I think that shouldn't be a terrible problem. Run the program through an established organization like IRC or the Red Cross. (Try to avoid the U.N.; they don't have such a great reputation these days and people might not commit if they're named.)

I keep trying to tie this up, but there is no tie. I just lay out the idea and let it sit. That's what this site is for.