When someone offers an apology, it is usually implicitly understood that it means the person offering it also repents of the behavior or action for which the apology is being offered.

At least, that's the way I understand an apology. This is why most apologies include the words, “I’m sorry” in there somewhere.

With this in mind, I went back to the UN's website to read Secretary-General Kofi Annan's 'apology' for standing idly by during Rwanda's genocidal civil war.

It was a nice speech, filled with promises 'to never forget' and using words like 'appalling' and phrases like 'bitter regret and abiding sorrow' but went on to exonerate himself saying that he, personally, did his 'best' but only wishes he had done more.

"I myself, as head of the UN’s peacekeeping department at the time, pressed dozens of countries for troops. I believed at that time that I was doing my best. But I realized after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support." Poor guy!

After exonerating himself personally, he excoriated the rest of the world for doing nothing. In the course of his 'apology', he acknowledged openly what President Bush addressed during the run-up to the Iraq War -- the UN's relevancy -- or rather, its lack thereof.

"The genocide in Rwanda raised questions that affect all humankind -- fundamental questions about the authority of the Security Council, the effectiveness of United Nations peacekeeping, the reach of international justice, the roots of violence, and the responsibility of the international community to protect people threatened by genocide and other grave violations of human rights," he said.

So, how to make amends for the UN's inaction while eight hundred thousand men, women and children were butchered in a genocidal civil war? Hey -- what about a moment of silence?

"The General Assembly has designated 7 April as the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda. . . Such a minute of silence has the potential to unite the world, however fleetingly, around the idea of global solidarity . . . here today, I would like to urge all people, everywhere, no matter what their station in life, whether in crowded cities or remote rural areas, to set aside whatever they might be doing at noon on that day, and pause to remember the victims. Let us be united in a way we were not 10 years ago,” Annan told the assembled world.

Once having exonerated himself, placed the blame on faceless 'nations' and then promised to gather the world together to have a Coke and sing 'Kumbaya', Annan went on to suggest that a moment of silence would somehow wipe the UN's slate clean;

"And let us, by what we do in one single minute, send a message –- a message of remorse for the past, resolve to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again -– and let’s make it resound for years to come."

Apparently, since the Sudanese didn't have enough wristwatches to time it, it didn't work. So instead of preventing 'such a tragedy from ever happening again', the UN is standing by (again) while the Sudan's Islamic government systematically slaughters and enslaves (yes, enslaves!) Christians and other non-Muslims in the south who refuse to submit to Islam.

Here's how a Western eyewitness describes life for a Sudanese slave under an Islamic master:

"Women and children abducted in slave raids are roped by the neck or strapped to animals and then marched north. Along the way, many women and girls are repeatedly gang-raped. Children who will not be silent are shot on the spot.

In the north, slaves are either kept by individual militia soldiers or sold in markets. Boys work as livestock herders, forced to sleep with the animals they care for."

Writes one former slave, quoted in a story from Front Page Magazine, “Families were broken up, with children sometimes murdered in front of their mothers as a warning and because they were too much trouble. We cried out to the West, to the countries who said they believed in human rights, but they were indifferent to our agony."

The slave trade in the Sudan is every bit as brutal as was the US slave trade prior to the Civil War. A number of private Christian charities, frustrated at the UN's continued willingness to look the other way, -- great swelling words about Rwanda notwithstanding -- have even begun buying back slaves from their masters.

Christian Solidarity International, based in Zurich, has, since 1995, bought and emancipated 5,942 Sudanese children, at a cost of about $50 per child.

For their efforts, UNICEF spokeswoman Marie Heuzer described the slave redemption program as "intolerable" after Christian Solidarity raised the topic by appealing to Secretary General Kofi Annan to condemn slavery in Sudan and to create a special program to trace and free enslaved women and children.

Annan didn't create the special program to help Sudan's slaves. (But there ARE rumors that he is considering a moment of silence after they are all dead.)

The Bible foretold the existence of a global government in the last days, and the United Nations thinks that it is it, but it isn't. The UN governs nothing, meddles in everything, and everywhere it interferes, it leaves chaos in its wake. That is NOT the global government described by the prophets.

But the UN, by its existence, proves the perceived need for a global governing authority, and the UN's many global institutions are now indispensable to international relations, particularly those governing trade.

The Bible says the role of global government in the last days will be assumed by the revived Roman Empire.

The UN is useless, but its infrastructure is critical. It is no coincidence that the EU is uniquely positioned to pick up the pieces in the event of a UN collapse. And it is no coincidence that the calls for the United States to pull out of the UN grow louder each year.

We ARE living in the last days. The evidence is everywhere. Everything continues to follow the Divine blueprint -- as outlined thousands of years in advance -- for one generation, somewhere in time.

Kofi Annan has proved how effective a 'moment of silence' is -- it lulls people to sleep.

"And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." (Romans 13:11)

Excerpted from The Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest, Volume: 34, Issue:14

http://omegaletter.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=3320