democracy's absence...

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” - Churchill
I like what Plato has to say...but it just doesn't seem to work. if anyone can point me to plato's happy little republic with his philosopher king i'd give some sort of happy applause.
In this weeks Guardian I was skimming over an article on the situation in Chad and Dafur. It just seems to me to be the most tragic and infuriating situation...yet a another repulsive example of either how distorted human nature can be (or if we want to takea different slant, how humanity creates institutions that seem to promote abuse)

2.7 million sudanese have fled their homes and approx 300,000 died from war disease and famine. displaced people face "on a daily bais refugees and civilians rape, physical attack, beatings" (oxfam) Children are the target of abductions which create 'child soliders' the government is accused of being complicit with certain military groups. And as for the president..."He is suspected of being criminally responsible... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," says a spokeswoman from the international criminal court.

Sudan's president al-Bashir came to power in a bloodless revolution in 1989 and was re-elected in 1996 in the national elections by which he was the only candidate to run (by law)
since being in power he has kindly suspended political parties, and appointed himself; prime minister, chief of justice, chief of armed forces and minister of defence.
The Internaational Criminal Court (ICC) called for the arrest of Sudan's president Omar al-Bahir. He has been charged with five counts of crime against humanity and two counts of war crimes in Dafur and unfortunately not enough evidence for charges of genocide... to which he responded by expelling 16 non-governmental aid organizations. the warrant for al-Bashir's arrest by the ICC was given to his army...who as we can imagine are going to do a great job of carrying it out (cough cough)
Neighbouring Chad has an estimated 280,00 refugees. Chad is the 5th poorest country in the world with only 30 km of paved road.since Chad's independence in 1960 every new leader has come to power in a coup.
the country is a perfect example of a leader consolidating his power with private goods, the world bank reccently dropped an agreement to help fiance a pipeline after petro-dollars from the newfound oil reserve weren't going into the schools and hospitals as promised but used to consolidate the presidents power. Chad has (according to our maybe not so trusty wikipedia) 170,000 internally displaced people.

Winston Churchill also said "it has been said democracy is the worst form of government except all others have been tried"...
when i look at a place like sudan it seems to me the system of western liberal democracy is pretty good ...the next question is how can that possibly be replicated elsewhere?
in a culture where western conceptions of liberalism don't and most likely will not exist.