I have a hard time believing the man said this with a straight face, but UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon blamed the ethnic cleansing in Darfur on global warming:
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday.
"The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change," Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column.
UN statistics showed that rainfall declined some 40 percent over the past two decades, he said, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons.
"This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming," the South Korean diplomat wrote.
"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban said in the Washington daily.
When Darfur’s land was rich, he said, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water, he said.
With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing.
"For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out," he said.
OK, let’s leave out the leap in logic Ban made to assume the rise in Indian Ocean temperatures were anthropogenic in nature. Suffice it to say for now that the "scientific consensus" on man-caused climate change is anything but.
Secretary-General Ban is guilty of two monstrous misrepresentations here: first, by blaming the jihad in Darfur on climate change, he removes any responsibility for the burnings, rapes, and killings from those committing them — the Arab Muslim Janjaweed militias, which receive direct support from the Sudanese government and indirect support from the Chinese, who support that government by guarding their oil fields and pipelines. By making humanity –in other words, everyone– responsible, Ban makes no one responsible.
Second, in the classic twisted logic of appeasers everywhere, he then blames the victim! In Ban’s world, by fencing in their lands, the Black African farmers provoked the nomadic Arab herders, leading to the violence. Although he would never come out and say it, his words imply the farmers brought this on themselves.
The insipid cluelessness displayed by the UN’s top clerk is astounding, but not surprising. His predecessors were capable of equally vapid attempts to avoid hard facts.
Here’s a clue for you, Mr. Secretary-General: I agree with you that the climate change in Northeast Africa has caused hardship, even if I don’t agree about anthropogenesis. However, the only ones responsible for the massacres in Darfur are the Islamofascist militias, their patrons in the Islamist government of Sudan, and their enablers in Beijing. Climate change is a fact, but it was the choice of Islamists in Sudan to kill darker-skinned Sudanese and take their lands.
By ignoring the real cause of the problem, Mr. Secretary-General, you only prolong the killing.
LINKS: More at Little Green Footballs and Roger L. Simon, who thinks Ban is doing more for the Darfuris than his predecessor. That’s an awfully low bar.