on strife-torn Sierra Leone. Here he explains why.

"Thousands of innocent children are starving and dying through want of food -- with no clothes or mere rags which cannot protect them.'' It sounds like an all too common appeal destined to face easy rejection by the jaded masses of the 21st Century. But this one was written, July 1920, for one "Lady Buxton'' to Chief Khawa of Bechaunaland, now part of Botswana.

The"innocent children'' on whose behalf she was appealing were the "starving children of Europe''.

Enclosed was a photograph to drive home the point and no doubt to stir enough compassion to loosen the purse strings.

"It seems so terrible to think of the great sufferings of these poor helpless children, when we, in Africa, have all we require,'' continues the letter, now on display at Botswana's national museum.

How things change.

Today, Africa is the first to be condemned, last to be considered and first to be forgotten in terms of crisis. Even widespread human rights and humanitarian crises. Lady Buxton was right to assume that the cries of European children would not go unheard by African people -- even as Europeans were scrambling for the natural wealth of the continent. And even if the conflict that gave rise to so many victims was a purely European affair with no external forces at play whatsoever, and certainly no African involvement.

The chief, and his people, gave -- generously.

Today that moral imperative to act has been enshrined in dozens of human rights treaties and conventions, starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and the Geneva Convention, itself a by product of another great European war. With that Declaration began the most ambitious and idealistic global project in modern history. Dozens of conventions have emerged since, giving minimum standards and legal obligations of states towards their own people. And when a government fails to protect its citizens from the kind of widespread human rights violations we have seen in Sierra Leone since March 1991, others have a duty to act.

But for most of the past ten years, the cries of innocent children and other civilians in Sierra Leone have been ignored. Thanks to the kidnapping of 500 UN peacekeepers there last May, the most robust and effective international effort to end the crisis began in the summer of 2000. For thousands of maimed, murdered and raped victims, that effort has come years too late. But already thousands of lives have been saved. One of the problems of human rights activism is that success, when a crisis has already begun, is not an easy thing to measure. No-one counts the lives that are saved. How could you? As Pierre Sane, Amnesty International's Secretary General pointed out in his latest annual report, when we find ourselves responding to a crisis we, in the human rights movement, and the international community, have failed. Our job is to prevent human rights abuses. I argue that we, all of us, are the international community. Yet, "activism'' by naming it, has been relegated to some sort of romantic notion reserved for the few.

So it's a thankless job, done by thousands of "activists'' around the world who for little or no pay, make untold sacrifices to see to it that the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is indeed actualized for all the world's peoples.

People like Carlos Carceres-Collazo, a colleague at Oxford University in the summer of 1999. Carlos, having suffered persecution at the hands of Russian forces, for his work among Chechnyan refugees, was drawn to helping East Timorese refugees. He and his two colleagues, Samson Aregahegn and Pero Simundza were rewarded for their efforts by Timorese militia elements who last fall hacked their bodies to bits and left them in ashes.

Carlos and I, together with some one hundred colleagues sat stunned in July 1999, at the closing dinner of a course in international human rights, when it was announced that another colleague in the human rights movement, Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, had been murdered by way of a car bomb in Sri Lanka. For a few short moments, some of us began to question our own sanity. Little did we know that Carlos would be next.

The campaign on Sierra Leone was started in Bermuda not because we expected anyone to risk their lives, and not even to urge Bermudians to send money to a stricken African country. But to educate Bermuda residents as to the external factors at play and their role in ending the crisis. And hopefully to spur local initiatives. Effective action on Sierra Leone will point the way forward for resolving other conflicts in Africa and move the international human rights agenda forward to the benefit of the entire world.

I have decided to end my public involvement in this campaign. Not because I fear joining the ranks of many limbless or dead Sierra Leoneans. Years of too much outrage and having to listen to friends tell me I would never fill a lecture hall with Bermudians listening to anyone talk about Sierra Leone, has no doubt taken its toll.

But the reasons are many -- not the least of which is that corporate friends and sponsors of the media may not react too warmly when I who make a living as a journalist start announcing that Bermuda Inc. may just be dripping a little child soldier's blood flowing from Sierra Leonean diamond fields. To find out why I think so, show up tomorrow at the Bermuda College for a panel discussion on the crisis organised by the Student Government. It will be the last time I speak publicly on the issue. But that's not the only reason why you should be at the North Hall lecture theatre at 7 p.m.

As Sane says: "We all as human beings share a responsibility for the fate of other human beings , wherever they live.'' Strenuous denial of that responsibility is denial of one's own humanity.

Spare a few hours for the same reason why I will always be working quietly behind the scenes: The cries of innocent children should be acted upon.

. . . When we in Africa have all we require . . .