By MARK DAVIS
BOOKS EDITOR
Last update: October 02, 2005
It's been in bookstores for a few months now, but Philip Caputo's "Acts of Faith" is a ripped-from-the-headlines novel that could've been released anytime in the last 10 years and still seem evocative and relevant.
A grandiose adventure, "Acts of Faith" follows the lives of several people, Americans and foreigners, who get entangled in Sudan's civil war in the not-too-distant past. Although there's a truce in the large African nation now, the peace is fragile and the U.N. has investigated claims of genocide in the western Darfur region.
The civil war is a violent, unforgiving backdrop on which Caputo paints a resplendent portrait of foreigners trying to do good while trying to deal with their own personal struggles. "Acts of Faith" is a geopolitical soap opera but with deeper and darker themes. Can good be done in such a fractured country? Can altruism be successfully intertwined with business? Can love flourish between people of different races and vastly different ages?
Caputo's plot basically revolves around the lives of four characters, three Americans and one Kenyan. Douglas Braithwaite is a gung-ho, young American pilot who heads an independent air service that makes dangerous relief flights into the heart of Sudan; Wesley Dare is Braithwaite's partner and a veteran pilot and mercenary; and Quinette Hardin is a Christian missionary who is hired by a human rights group to help redeem black slaves captured by Arab raiders. Fitzhugh Martin is a mixed-race Kenyan who joins Braithwaite's team and finds himself immersed in something much bigger, and sinister, than he realized.
Caputo is no stranger to Africa. He has written a few books about the continent, most notably "Horn of Africa" and "Ghosts of Tsavo." The latter was a real-life story about tracking the legendary lions of the Tsavo region. Caputo is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning work for the Chicago Tribune and his acclaimed memoir about the Vietnam War, "A Rumor of War."
Caputo really spreads his wings in "Acts of Faith," putting his experience and knowledge of Africa to full use. With the modern storylines and fully realized characters, the novel packs a punch and wraps up quite nicely. But "Acts of Faith" is not for the meek or faint of heart. It's complex and not easy to get a grip on. It drifts aimlessly in spots. Caputo fans will be satisfied, but readers with less patience and ambition may be too intimidated.
Caputo does a marvelous job of weaving big themes together (love, altruism, business, faith, hope) into an exciting narrative. But Sudan is still a difficult place to understand.
"This entire century has made friends with the absurd, and none are better friends with it than the Sudanese," says a German doctor in a Sudanese field hospital. "A war whose beginning no one can remember, whose end no one can see, whose purpose no one knows."
mark.davis@news-jrnl.com
© 2005 News-Journal Corporation. ® www.news-journalonline.com.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Saturday, October 01, 2005
War crimes warnings over Darfur
The United Nations and UK have warned of possible war crimes prosecutions amid renewed violence in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur.
In the latest incident, 34 people were reportedly killed by pro-government Arab militias at a refugee camp.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an end to attacks, and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
In London, minister Hilary Benn said the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague was collecting evidence.
"The government of Sudan should be under no doubt whatsoever," the international development secretary told the BBC.
"Those who are committing these crimes will in the end be brought to account and the government of Sudan is under an international obligation now to co-operate."
'Names'
The UN Security Council has ruled that human rights violations in Darfur can be prosecuted by the ICC.
On Friday, the UN refugee agency said the death toll from Wednesday's attack on Aro Sharow camp in Western Darfur had risen to 34.
The attackers are believed to be Janjaweed Arab militiamen. It is thought to be the first direct assault on a refugee camp since the conflict began more than two years ago.
The Sudanese government denies any links to the Janjaweed and described them as criminals.
Mr Annan condemned "the attacks of civilians, humanitarian workers and assets and the African Union mission in Sudan".
About 5,600 peacekeepers from the African Union (AU) are monitoring an uneasy ceasefire in Darfur.
UN envoy to Sudan Jon Friday said: "The names of the individuals responsible for the attack, when known, will be reported to the Security Council... as well as to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court."
More than two million people have been forced from their homes and at least 180,000 have died in the conflict between the government and Darfur rebels.
The conflict began in early 2003, after a rebel group began attacking government targets, claiming that the region was being neglected by Khartoum.
Story from BBC NEWS:
"
In the latest incident, 34 people were reportedly killed by pro-government Arab militias at a refugee camp.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an end to attacks, and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
In London, minister Hilary Benn said the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague was collecting evidence.
"The government of Sudan should be under no doubt whatsoever," the international development secretary told the BBC.
"Those who are committing these crimes will in the end be brought to account and the government of Sudan is under an international obligation now to co-operate."
'Names'
The UN Security Council has ruled that human rights violations in Darfur can be prosecuted by the ICC.
On Friday, the UN refugee agency said the death toll from Wednesday's attack on Aro Sharow camp in Western Darfur had risen to 34.
The attackers are believed to be Janjaweed Arab militiamen. It is thought to be the first direct assault on a refugee camp since the conflict began more than two years ago.
The Sudanese government denies any links to the Janjaweed and described them as criminals.
Mr Annan condemned "the attacks of civilians, humanitarian workers and assets and the African Union mission in Sudan".
About 5,600 peacekeepers from the African Union (AU) are monitoring an uneasy ceasefire in Darfur.
UN envoy to Sudan Jon Friday said: "The names of the individuals responsible for the attack, when known, will be reported to the Security Council... as well as to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court."
More than two million people have been forced from their homes and at least 180,000 have died in the conflict between the government and Darfur rebels.
The conflict began in early 2003, after a rebel group began attacking government targets, claiming that the region was being neglected by Khartoum.
Story from BBC NEWS:
"
Attorney stresses importance of war crimes tribunal
Article published Oct 1, 2005
From a podium at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, a supporter of the International Criminal Court made his case for the tribunal Friday afternoon.
John Washburn, with the American Non-governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court, spoke to about 20 people in Gainesville at the end of his three-day speaking tour throughout the South. Washburn, who is an attorney, served as a director in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1988 to 1993.
The coalition is made up of national organizations working to secure United States support for the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands.
Established in 2002, the International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal set up to try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
As of August, 99 countries have ratified a statute defining the court. The United States is not among them.
The court is involved in investigations of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Darfur, Sudan, where the almost two-year conflicts between a government-supported militia and others has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands.
Washburn plowed through this and other details about the court's workings, before taking questions from the group mostly made up of students.
"It is up and running. It's affecting U.S. policy," Washburn said, referring to the court. "And it's quickly providing for the doubters and others a track record for its performance by which we hope that many of their reservations will be taken care of and the court's performance, particularly we hope on Darfur, will assist us to bring the court and the United States together and to bring an end to the hostility campaign of the United States."
Among complaints from U.S. critics of the court are warnings that it exposes American soldiers and political leaders to false claims of war crimes charges and that it has no power to enforce extradition.
Washburn said it's expected that the court will issue arrest warrants in the next few months in the Darfur investigation. Named will likely be senior officials in Sudanese government. Even if officials don't answer to the warrants or possible indictments, he said the investigation will make an impact.
"It is clear that when somebody gets indicted, they start to lose their political standing," and businesses and other governments don't want to deal with these individuals, Washburn said.
They also face arrest in countries that have dealings with the court.
Lise Fisher can be reached at (352) 374-5092 or fisherl@gvillesun.com.
source: gainesville.com
From a podium at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, a supporter of the International Criminal Court made his case for the tribunal Friday afternoon.
John Washburn, with the American Non-governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court, spoke to about 20 people in Gainesville at the end of his three-day speaking tour throughout the South. Washburn, who is an attorney, served as a director in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1988 to 1993.
The coalition is made up of national organizations working to secure United States support for the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands.
Established in 2002, the International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal set up to try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
As of August, 99 countries have ratified a statute defining the court. The United States is not among them.
The court is involved in investigations of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Darfur, Sudan, where the almost two-year conflicts between a government-supported militia and others has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands.
Washburn plowed through this and other details about the court's workings, before taking questions from the group mostly made up of students.
"It is up and running. It's affecting U.S. policy," Washburn said, referring to the court. "And it's quickly providing for the doubters and others a track record for its performance by which we hope that many of their reservations will be taken care of and the court's performance, particularly we hope on Darfur, will assist us to bring the court and the United States together and to bring an end to the hostility campaign of the United States."
Among complaints from U.S. critics of the court are warnings that it exposes American soldiers and political leaders to false claims of war crimes charges and that it has no power to enforce extradition.
Washburn said it's expected that the court will issue arrest warrants in the next few months in the Darfur investigation. Named will likely be senior officials in Sudanese government. Even if officials don't answer to the warrants or possible indictments, he said the investigation will make an impact.
"It is clear that when somebody gets indicted, they start to lose their political standing," and businesses and other governments don't want to deal with these individuals, Washburn said.
They also face arrest in countries that have dealings with the court.
Lise Fisher can be reached at (352) 374-5092 or fisherl@gvillesun.com.
source: gainesville.com
Sudan Government Attacks Darfur Civilians, African Union Says
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) --
Sudanese government troops have attacked civilians in the Darfur region with ``overwhelming'' force in apparent coordination with nomadic militia forces known as the Janjaweed, the African Union said today.
About 400 Janjaweed fighters on camels and horseback attacked the Aro Sharow refugee camp in western Darfur, killing 34 people Sept. 28 as government helicopters flew overhead, said Baba Gana Kingibe, the union's special representative to Sudan.
Government forces have ``resorted to the violent, destructive and overwhelming use of force not only against rebel forces, but also on innocent civilian villages and the IDP camps,'' Kingibe told reporters today in Khartoum, Sudan's capital. The African Union, a regional grouping of African countries, has a peacekeeping force of 6,000 troops in Darfur.
The violence may force the United Nations and international aid groups to suspend aid programs in the region, which is the size of France, Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, said yesterday. Aid agencies are trying to feed 3.5 million people in Darfur. As many as 180,000 people have died and 2 million have fled their homes since a rebellion erupted against the government in Khartoum in 2003.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday said he is ``appalled'' by the attacks which come as government and rebel negotiators are holding a sixth round of talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Kingibe said the violence in Darfur indicates neither side is showing ``good faith.''
The government's deployment of helicopter gunships overhead while the Janjaweed forces were attacking villagers suggests cooperation with the militia, he said.
``This apparent land and air assault gives credence to the repeated claim by the rebel movements of collusion between the GOS forces and the Janjaweed/Arab militia,'' he said.
Last year, the U.S. government accused Sudan's government of carrying out genocide in Darfur.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Karl Maier in Khartoum, Sudan at kmaier2@bloomberg.net.
Sudanese government troops have attacked civilians in the Darfur region with ``overwhelming'' force in apparent coordination with nomadic militia forces known as the Janjaweed, the African Union said today.
About 400 Janjaweed fighters on camels and horseback attacked the Aro Sharow refugee camp in western Darfur, killing 34 people Sept. 28 as government helicopters flew overhead, said Baba Gana Kingibe, the union's special representative to Sudan.
Government forces have ``resorted to the violent, destructive and overwhelming use of force not only against rebel forces, but also on innocent civilian villages and the IDP camps,'' Kingibe told reporters today in Khartoum, Sudan's capital. The African Union, a regional grouping of African countries, has a peacekeeping force of 6,000 troops in Darfur.
The violence may force the United Nations and international aid groups to suspend aid programs in the region, which is the size of France, Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, said yesterday. Aid agencies are trying to feed 3.5 million people in Darfur. As many as 180,000 people have died and 2 million have fled their homes since a rebellion erupted against the government in Khartoum in 2003.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday said he is ``appalled'' by the attacks which come as government and rebel negotiators are holding a sixth round of talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Kingibe said the violence in Darfur indicates neither side is showing ``good faith.''
The government's deployment of helicopter gunships overhead while the Janjaweed forces were attacking villagers suggests cooperation with the militia, he said.
``This apparent land and air assault gives credence to the repeated claim by the rebel movements of collusion between the GOS forces and the Janjaweed/Arab militia,'' he said.
Last year, the U.S. government accused Sudan's government of carrying out genocide in Darfur.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Karl Maier in Khartoum, Sudan at kmaier2@bloomberg.net.
Those who commit atrocities in Sudan will face international court: official at 6:51 on October 1, 2005, EST.
LONDON (AP) - Those who commit atrocities in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan will face trial by the International Criminal Court, a senior British official said Saturday.
"The government of Sudan has should be under no doubt whatsoever - we (the international community) are serious about our commitment to support the International Criminal Court," International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said.
"It is doing its work and those who are committing these crimes will in the end be brought to account."
The United Nations has condemned a militia attack on a refugee camp in western Darfur this week that killed 34 men.
The Darfur crisis began early in 2003 when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.
The government is accused of responding with a counter-insurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, committed widespread abuses against ethnic Africans.
In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, Benn said the only way for the government and the rebels to settle their differences was through peace talks taking place in Abuja, Nigeria.
"These latest attacks are very worrying and those who are committing them have to be very clear - they have to stop and politics has to be used to find a solution," he said.
Benn said the International Criminal Court in The Hague is collecting evidence about atrocities in Darfur.
"When it thinks it is in a position to press charges it will take the necessary action and the international community has got to support that," he said.
"The government of Sudan has should be under no doubt whatsoever - we (the international community) are serious about our commitment to support the International Criminal Court," International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said.
"It is doing its work and those who are committing these crimes will in the end be brought to account."
The United Nations has condemned a militia attack on a refugee camp in western Darfur this week that killed 34 men.
The Darfur crisis began early in 2003 when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.
The government is accused of responding with a counter-insurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, committed widespread abuses against ethnic Africans.
In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, Benn said the only way for the government and the rebels to settle their differences was through peace talks taking place in Abuja, Nigeria.
"These latest attacks are very worrying and those who are committing them have to be very clear - they have to stop and politics has to be used to find a solution," he said.
Benn said the International Criminal Court in The Hague is collecting evidence about atrocities in Darfur.
"When it thinks it is in a position to press charges it will take the necessary action and the international community has got to support that," he said.
UN threatens prosecution as death toll from attack on Darfur camp rises to 34
04:53 AM EDT Oct 01
GENEVA (AP) - The United Nations condemned a militia attack on a refugee camp in Darfur that left 34 dead, warning Friday that the perpetrators will be referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it sent a team to the Aro Sharow camp that had discovered more details about Wednesday's attack by a large group of armed men riding horses and camels.
The UNHCR team reported that many of camp's 4,000 to 5,000 residents had returned from surrounding areas "where they initially fled as the horsemen swooped into the camp, killing residents and burning down their makeshift shelters," the agency said.
The survivors said the attackers included up to 300 Arab men.
The 34 people killed in the attack were men. Half had been living at the camp and half in nearby villages, UNHCR said. One of the victims appeared to have had his arms bound before being killed, and witnesses reported that he was tied up and dragged behind a horse until he died, the agency said.
In New York, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: "The secretary-general emphasizes the need to immediately halt the attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice."
In Khartoum, a senior official of the National Congress, the major partner in Sudan's governing coalition, said no government troops were involved in the attack.
The official, Hussein Barqu, said the Sudanese government would consult the government of Chad, which borders West Darfur, about the suspected perpetrators.
"This (attack) threatens the security of both Sudan and Chad," Barqu said.
The United Nations estimates that the Darfur conflict has left 180,000 people dead, many from hunger and disease, and has driven 2 million from their homes since it started in February 2003.
UNHCR said it was concerned that the deterioration in security was slowing aid supplies, and could prompt Darfur's refugees to flee again, possibly to neighbouring Chad, which already has more than 200,000 Sudan refugees.
The Darfur crisis began when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counter-insurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, committed widespread abuses against ethnic Africans.
© The Canadian Press, 2005
GENEVA (AP) - The United Nations condemned a militia attack on a refugee camp in Darfur that left 34 dead, warning Friday that the perpetrators will be referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it sent a team to the Aro Sharow camp that had discovered more details about Wednesday's attack by a large group of armed men riding horses and camels.
The UNHCR team reported that many of camp's 4,000 to 5,000 residents had returned from surrounding areas "where they initially fled as the horsemen swooped into the camp, killing residents and burning down their makeshift shelters," the agency said.
The survivors said the attackers included up to 300 Arab men.
The 34 people killed in the attack were men. Half had been living at the camp and half in nearby villages, UNHCR said. One of the victims appeared to have had his arms bound before being killed, and witnesses reported that he was tied up and dragged behind a horse until he died, the agency said.
In New York, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: "The secretary-general emphasizes the need to immediately halt the attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice."
In Khartoum, a senior official of the National Congress, the major partner in Sudan's governing coalition, said no government troops were involved in the attack.
The official, Hussein Barqu, said the Sudanese government would consult the government of Chad, which borders West Darfur, about the suspected perpetrators.
"This (attack) threatens the security of both Sudan and Chad," Barqu said.
The United Nations estimates that the Darfur conflict has left 180,000 people dead, many from hunger and disease, and has driven 2 million from their homes since it started in February 2003.
UNHCR said it was concerned that the deterioration in security was slowing aid supplies, and could prompt Darfur's refugees to flee again, possibly to neighbouring Chad, which already has more than 200,000 Sudan refugees.
The Darfur crisis began when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counter-insurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, committed widespread abuses against ethnic Africans.
© The Canadian Press, 2005
Violence threat to Darfur relief
Escalating violence in Sudan's Darfur region could lead to the United Nations halting relief efforts there, says their chief aid coordinator.
Jan Egeland said violence in Darfur had become so bad that the UN operation could "all end tomorrow - it's as serious as that".
He was speaking as reports were made that 29 refugees were killed by Arab militias in their refugee camp.
Mr Egeland said international aid workers were being targeted.
The UN refugee agency said it had received reports that some 300 armed men attacked the Aro Sharow camp in West Darfur.
They burnt 80 shelters, forcing thousands of people who had already fled their homes to run away once more.
'Impunity'
Violence has also flared on the border between Darfur and Chad.
At least 36 people were killed in eastern Chad after gunmen on horseback - said to have crossed the border from Darfur - raided the village of Madayouna in an apparent attempt to steal cattle.
"Armed horsemen wearing military uniforms and coming from Sudan penetrated [on Monday] into Chadian territory," the Chadian government said in a statement.
The military killed eight and captured seven of the attackers, the government added.
On Tuesday, the UN criticised the Sudanese government over its peace efforts.
Special UN advisor on preventing genocide, Juan Mendez, said Khartoum had done little to disarm militias or end the "culture of impunity" there.
He said Sudan's authorities remained in denial about the extent of the problem.
More than two million people have been forced from their homes and at least 180,000 have died during conflict between the government and rebel groups in Darfur.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/4289924.stm
Jan Egeland said violence in Darfur had become so bad that the UN operation could "all end tomorrow - it's as serious as that".
He was speaking as reports were made that 29 refugees were killed by Arab militias in their refugee camp.
Mr Egeland said international aid workers were being targeted.
The UN refugee agency said it had received reports that some 300 armed men attacked the Aro Sharow camp in West Darfur.
They burnt 80 shelters, forcing thousands of people who had already fled their homes to run away once more.
'Impunity'
Violence has also flared on the border between Darfur and Chad.
At least 36 people were killed in eastern Chad after gunmen on horseback - said to have crossed the border from Darfur - raided the village of Madayouna in an apparent attempt to steal cattle.
"Armed horsemen wearing military uniforms and coming from Sudan penetrated [on Monday] into Chadian territory," the Chadian government said in a statement.
The military killed eight and captured seven of the attackers, the government added.
On Tuesday, the UN criticised the Sudanese government over its peace efforts.
Special UN advisor on preventing genocide, Juan Mendez, said Khartoum had done little to disarm militias or end the "culture of impunity" there.
He said Sudan's authorities remained in denial about the extent of the problem.
More than two million people have been forced from their homes and at least 180,000 have died during conflict between the government and rebel groups in Darfur.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/4289924.stm
Friday, September 30, 2005
Darfur militia resume deadly attacks
From correspondents in Khartoum
01oct05
THE African Union appealed for restraint overnight after deadly attacks by Arab militias in Darfur and neighbouring Chad threatened to wreck months of political, security and humanitarian efforts.
"We are issuing an urgent appeal to all parties involved to halt all hostilities," AU spokesman in Khartoum Nureddin Mezni said.
He confirmed there had been a deadly attack by marauding horse- and camel-riding Arab gunmen in northwest Darfur against Aro Sharow camp for displaced Darfurians.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Friday that the death toll in the attack had risen to 34, describing it as a "murderous assault".
UNHCR staff who arrived at the camp said at least one victim appeared to have been tied up before he was killed, camp dwellers said he had been dragged behind a horse until he died.
Most of the 4,000 to 5,000 residents had returned from the surrounding countryside, where they fled as the mounted militia launched their deadly attack on the camp, said the UNHCR.
Staff also found that the raiders had stolen livestock and burned many of the flimsy shelters in which residents were living after abandoning their villages in the area because of similar attacks.
"Such acts have serious humanitarian repercussions since these people are already living a tragedy," Mezni said, adding that an investigation into the incident was underway.
Mezni also said that such incidents were a blow to ongoing negotiations between Darfur rebel groups and the Sudanese government to end the 30-month-old civil conflict.
The Darfur war has pitted ethnic minority black Darfurians against government troops and their proxies, sometimes described as Janjaweed, since February 2003, killing up to 300,000 people and displacing more than two million.
The conflict spilled over into neighbouring Chad this week, when 75 people, including 55 herdsmen, were killed in the village of Madayoun near the border with Sudan.
Chadian President Idriss Deby, himself a Zaghawa, one of the main tribes in Darfur, charged the attack had been carried out by Janjaweed.
A Sudanese official said overnight that the Chadian government had reported arresting seven of the assailants after the attack by "horse- and camel-riding Sudanese men".
The word Janjaweed is an Arab acronym which roughly means "men who ride horses and carry G3 guns", in reference to a German-made automatic rifle. They have been accused of carrying out massacres and rapes against local tribes.
The new round of talks that kicked off earlier this month in Nigeria under the aegis of the African Union have again stalled, with only part of the Darfur rebel factions represented in the negotiations.
The latest killings have prompted the United Nations' top aid official Jan Egeland to warn that all humanitarian operations may have to be halted.
There are around 11,000 UN-supervised aid workers bringing relief to civilians in the western Sudanese region, where the UN has said one of the world's worst humanitarian crises was taking place.
source: theaustralian.com
01oct05
THE African Union appealed for restraint overnight after deadly attacks by Arab militias in Darfur and neighbouring Chad threatened to wreck months of political, security and humanitarian efforts.
"We are issuing an urgent appeal to all parties involved to halt all hostilities," AU spokesman in Khartoum Nureddin Mezni said.
He confirmed there had been a deadly attack by marauding horse- and camel-riding Arab gunmen in northwest Darfur against Aro Sharow camp for displaced Darfurians.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Friday that the death toll in the attack had risen to 34, describing it as a "murderous assault".
UNHCR staff who arrived at the camp said at least one victim appeared to have been tied up before he was killed, camp dwellers said he had been dragged behind a horse until he died.
Most of the 4,000 to 5,000 residents had returned from the surrounding countryside, where they fled as the mounted militia launched their deadly attack on the camp, said the UNHCR.
Staff also found that the raiders had stolen livestock and burned many of the flimsy shelters in which residents were living after abandoning their villages in the area because of similar attacks.
"Such acts have serious humanitarian repercussions since these people are already living a tragedy," Mezni said, adding that an investigation into the incident was underway.
Mezni also said that such incidents were a blow to ongoing negotiations between Darfur rebel groups and the Sudanese government to end the 30-month-old civil conflict.
The Darfur war has pitted ethnic minority black Darfurians against government troops and their proxies, sometimes described as Janjaweed, since February 2003, killing up to 300,000 people and displacing more than two million.
The conflict spilled over into neighbouring Chad this week, when 75 people, including 55 herdsmen, were killed in the village of Madayoun near the border with Sudan.
Chadian President Idriss Deby, himself a Zaghawa, one of the main tribes in Darfur, charged the attack had been carried out by Janjaweed.
A Sudanese official said overnight that the Chadian government had reported arresting seven of the assailants after the attack by "horse- and camel-riding Sudanese men".
The word Janjaweed is an Arab acronym which roughly means "men who ride horses and carry G3 guns", in reference to a German-made automatic rifle. They have been accused of carrying out massacres and rapes against local tribes.
The new round of talks that kicked off earlier this month in Nigeria under the aegis of the African Union have again stalled, with only part of the Darfur rebel factions represented in the negotiations.
The latest killings have prompted the United Nations' top aid official Jan Egeland to warn that all humanitarian operations may have to be halted.
There are around 11,000 UN-supervised aid workers bringing relief to civilians in the western Sudanese region, where the UN has said one of the world's worst humanitarian crises was taking place.
source: theaustralian.com
Sins of inaction
By Joshua Powers
Roughly one year ago, I wrote an article for a competing on-campus newspaper entitled “United Naïveté.” In this article, I described the worsening conditions in Sudan, particularly within the Darfur region, where a massive ethnic cleansing campaign was being conducted by government-assisted Janjaweed militias on a scale comparable to the genocides in Rwanda no more than a decade earlier. One year ago, these Janjaweed militias were responsible for carrying out a racial scorched-earth policy in which all non-Muslim as well as all non-Arab villages were burned to the ground and their inhabitants massacred. One year ago, the number of deaths resulting from this policy was put somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000. The International Crisis Group had warned that if the United Nations or any other power did not take action in Sudan, death tolls could easily reach 350,000 within one year’s time.
That was one year ago. Today, according to numerous sources, including the Coalition for International Justice, a non-governmental organization operating under the U.S. Agency for International Development, it is estimated that the death toll has climbed to 400,000. Studies done on refugees on the Chad-Darfur border indicate that over 60 percent of Sudanese refugees have witnessed the death of a family member. These statistics are not merely numbers; each number is a person who once existed, a person who suffered while the world turned a blind eye.
Holocaust survivors have always reiterated the sentiment of “never again.” But it has happened again and again. It happened in Cambodia, it happened in Rwanda and it has happened in Sudan. One year ago I wrote that article, outlining the expected future if my country and the free world chose not to take action. Now, after 400,000 people have been massacred, millions of Sudanese forced to become refugees living in appalling conditions, the world may begin to mourn their own indifference.
Recently, the rebel groups in the South and the government forces in the North have established peace in Sudan through a sharing of oil revenues and government positions. However, this push toward peace was only accomplished after the genocide had occurred; what punishment awaits those who have violated human rights? It seems that a mere 51 suspects will be put on trial before the International Criminal Court. The punishment of 51 senior officers is not nearly enough to bring justice after the death of 400,000 innocent men, women and children. Justice would have only been served had the United Nations quelled the genocide before it began.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but in this case, so was foresight. The United Nations saw the number of body bags they would need if no action was taken, and they made a choice to let this slaughter occur.
I have always advocated the presence of UN peacekeepers in the Darfur region. While medical and food supplies are urgently needed for the camps, so is stabilization. In March of this year, the United Nations voted to send 10,000 peacekeepers to the Darfur region. If the United Nations had simply taken this action when the genocide was in its infancy, with the intention of staying until the conflict had diminished, 400,000 lives would have been saved. Created in the aftermath of the worst genocide in Europe’s history, the United Nations was established for the purpose of preventing such carnage. Now it is at the epicenter of a sentiment of insouciance, withholding the resolve this world desires to do what is just.
I have come to believe that man’s foremost sins are apathy and inaction, committed by those who have the capacity to act and the cowardice not to.
Joshua Powers is a junior at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.
Roughly one year ago, I wrote an article for a competing on-campus newspaper entitled “United Naïveté.” In this article, I described the worsening conditions in Sudan, particularly within the Darfur region, where a massive ethnic cleansing campaign was being conducted by government-assisted Janjaweed militias on a scale comparable to the genocides in Rwanda no more than a decade earlier. One year ago, these Janjaweed militias were responsible for carrying out a racial scorched-earth policy in which all non-Muslim as well as all non-Arab villages were burned to the ground and their inhabitants massacred. One year ago, the number of deaths resulting from this policy was put somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000. The International Crisis Group had warned that if the United Nations or any other power did not take action in Sudan, death tolls could easily reach 350,000 within one year’s time.
That was one year ago. Today, according to numerous sources, including the Coalition for International Justice, a non-governmental organization operating under the U.S. Agency for International Development, it is estimated that the death toll has climbed to 400,000. Studies done on refugees on the Chad-Darfur border indicate that over 60 percent of Sudanese refugees have witnessed the death of a family member. These statistics are not merely numbers; each number is a person who once existed, a person who suffered while the world turned a blind eye.
Holocaust survivors have always reiterated the sentiment of “never again.” But it has happened again and again. It happened in Cambodia, it happened in Rwanda and it has happened in Sudan. One year ago I wrote that article, outlining the expected future if my country and the free world chose not to take action. Now, after 400,000 people have been massacred, millions of Sudanese forced to become refugees living in appalling conditions, the world may begin to mourn their own indifference.
Recently, the rebel groups in the South and the government forces in the North have established peace in Sudan through a sharing of oil revenues and government positions. However, this push toward peace was only accomplished after the genocide had occurred; what punishment awaits those who have violated human rights? It seems that a mere 51 suspects will be put on trial before the International Criminal Court. The punishment of 51 senior officers is not nearly enough to bring justice after the death of 400,000 innocent men, women and children. Justice would have only been served had the United Nations quelled the genocide before it began.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but in this case, so was foresight. The United Nations saw the number of body bags they would need if no action was taken, and they made a choice to let this slaughter occur.
I have always advocated the presence of UN peacekeepers in the Darfur region. While medical and food supplies are urgently needed for the camps, so is stabilization. In March of this year, the United Nations voted to send 10,000 peacekeepers to the Darfur region. If the United Nations had simply taken this action when the genocide was in its infancy, with the intention of staying until the conflict had diminished, 400,000 lives would have been saved. Created in the aftermath of the worst genocide in Europe’s history, the United Nations was established for the purpose of preventing such carnage. Now it is at the epicenter of a sentiment of insouciance, withholding the resolve this world desires to do what is just.
I have come to believe that man’s foremost sins are apathy and inaction, committed by those who have the capacity to act and the cowardice not to.
Joshua Powers is a junior at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.
UNHCR: Death Toll in Darfur Camp Attack Rises
By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
30 September 2005
The U.N. Refugee Agency reports the death toll in a murderous assault on a camp and nearby villages in the West Darfur region of Sudan has risen to 34. A UNHCR team of protection monitors that went to the region Friday morning describes a scene of fear and desolation.
The U.N. Refugee Agency says the Aro Sharow camp in Western Darfur was attacked on Wednesday by a group of 250 to 300 armed Arab men riding horses and camels. They also attacked some nearby villages.
UNHCR Spokesman, Ron Redmond, tells VOA 34 people were killed, 10 were seriously wounded and 80 makeshift shelters in the camp were burned.
"In all, 17 of the dead actually lived in the camp and another 17 lived in nearby villages and had been visiting the camp because Wednesday was market day," he said. "All 34 of the victims were males. The UNHCR team witnessed the burial of one of the 34 dead and said the man appeared to have had his arms bound before he was killed. Witnesses in the camp said he had been tied up and dragged to his death behind a horse."
After the attack, Mr. Redmond says 4,000 to 5,000 residents of the camp fled to the nearby Jebel Moon mountains for safety. But, the UNHCR team reports many of these people now have returned to the camp.
According to the survivors, the armed men divided into three groups after entering the camp. They said one group stole the cattle, a second chased and killed the people in the camp and a third group set fire to the flimsy shelters.
This is the first time a camp for internally displaced people has been attacked since fighting erupted in Darfur in early 2003. It follows a series of worrisome security incidents throughout the region. The camp is located in an area that has been a no-go zone for the United Nations for months because of the violence.
Mr. Redmond says the UNHCR is concerned the worsening security situation might prevent vital aid from getting through to tens of thousands of vulnerable people.
"And, we also worry that if this violence and insecurity continues, we could see more people fleeing from Darfur to nearby Chad where we have already got 12 refugee camps bursting at the seams with about 200,000 people," he said. "So, we sincerely hope that this violence can be brought to an end and that the Sudanese government accepts its responsibility to protect its own citizens and halts this violence. "
Since the war began, tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million made homeless. Little progress has been made in peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria.
Geneva
30 September 2005
The U.N. Refugee Agency reports the death toll in a murderous assault on a camp and nearby villages in the West Darfur region of Sudan has risen to 34. A UNHCR team of protection monitors that went to the region Friday morning describes a scene of fear and desolation.
The U.N. Refugee Agency says the Aro Sharow camp in Western Darfur was attacked on Wednesday by a group of 250 to 300 armed Arab men riding horses and camels. They also attacked some nearby villages.
UNHCR Spokesman, Ron Redmond, tells VOA 34 people were killed, 10 were seriously wounded and 80 makeshift shelters in the camp were burned.
"In all, 17 of the dead actually lived in the camp and another 17 lived in nearby villages and had been visiting the camp because Wednesday was market day," he said. "All 34 of the victims were males. The UNHCR team witnessed the burial of one of the 34 dead and said the man appeared to have had his arms bound before he was killed. Witnesses in the camp said he had been tied up and dragged to his death behind a horse."
After the attack, Mr. Redmond says 4,000 to 5,000 residents of the camp fled to the nearby Jebel Moon mountains for safety. But, the UNHCR team reports many of these people now have returned to the camp.
According to the survivors, the armed men divided into three groups after entering the camp. They said one group stole the cattle, a second chased and killed the people in the camp and a third group set fire to the flimsy shelters.
This is the first time a camp for internally displaced people has been attacked since fighting erupted in Darfur in early 2003. It follows a series of worrisome security incidents throughout the region. The camp is located in an area that has been a no-go zone for the United Nations for months because of the violence.
Mr. Redmond says the UNHCR is concerned the worsening security situation might prevent vital aid from getting through to tens of thousands of vulnerable people.
"And, we also worry that if this violence and insecurity continues, we could see more people fleeing from Darfur to nearby Chad where we have already got 12 refugee camps bursting at the seams with about 200,000 people," he said. "So, we sincerely hope that this violence can be brought to an end and that the Sudanese government accepts its responsibility to protect its own citizens and halts this violence. "
Since the war began, tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million made homeless. Little progress has been made in peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria.
Sudan: Annan 'Appalled' By Attack On Displaced Persons Camp in Darfur Region
UN News Service (New York)
September 30, 2005
Saying he was "particularly appalled" by Wednesday's deadly attack on a displaced persons camp in Sudan's Darfur region, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for an immediate halt to attacks, as well as action by the Government to protect its people and redoubled efforts from all sides to achieve peace.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which sent a team to the Aro Sharow camp after the attack, reportedly by 250 to 300 armed Arab men on horses and camels, said today the death toll there and in nearby villages had risen to 34.
Many of the 4,000 to 5,000 camp residents, who initially fled to nearby mountains and surrounding countryside when the attackers swooped into the camp, killing residents and burning down their makeshift shelters, had now returned, UNHCR added.
In a statement issued by his spokesman, Mr. Annan voiced alarm at the recent escalation in violence in Darfur, where fighting between the Government, allied militias and rebels has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million since early 2003.
"The Secretary-General strongly condemns the attacks on civilians, humanitarian workers and assets, and the African Union (AU) Mission in Sudan, and deplores the many casualties. He is concerned about the additional suffering and displacement these attacks have caused to the civilian populations," the statement said.
"The Secretary-General emphasizes the need to immediately halt the attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice. He urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any further escalation.
"In the meantime, the parties must apply themselves fully at the sixth round of the Abuja talks to bring an end to the suffering of the people of Darfur," it added, referring to talks in the Nigerian capital.
"The Secretary-general calls upon the Government of Sudan to protect its civilians and to continue its efforts in bringing stability and fostering national reconciliation in the country," it concluded.
The statement was the latest in a recent series of expressions of alarm by UN officials over the deteriorating security situation in Darfur. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland on Wednesday said the situation had become dangerous enough that relief agencies had temporarily suspended operations in some areas.
Also on Wednesday, the Security Council called on all parties to negotiate in good faith with a view to reaching a peace agreement by the end of 2005.
September 30, 2005
Saying he was "particularly appalled" by Wednesday's deadly attack on a displaced persons camp in Sudan's Darfur region, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for an immediate halt to attacks, as well as action by the Government to protect its people and redoubled efforts from all sides to achieve peace.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which sent a team to the Aro Sharow camp after the attack, reportedly by 250 to 300 armed Arab men on horses and camels, said today the death toll there and in nearby villages had risen to 34.
Many of the 4,000 to 5,000 camp residents, who initially fled to nearby mountains and surrounding countryside when the attackers swooped into the camp, killing residents and burning down their makeshift shelters, had now returned, UNHCR added.
In a statement issued by his spokesman, Mr. Annan voiced alarm at the recent escalation in violence in Darfur, where fighting between the Government, allied militias and rebels has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million since early 2003.
"The Secretary-General strongly condemns the attacks on civilians, humanitarian workers and assets, and the African Union (AU) Mission in Sudan, and deplores the many casualties. He is concerned about the additional suffering and displacement these attacks have caused to the civilian populations," the statement said.
"The Secretary-General emphasizes the need to immediately halt the attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice. He urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any further escalation.
"In the meantime, the parties must apply themselves fully at the sixth round of the Abuja talks to bring an end to the suffering of the people of Darfur," it added, referring to talks in the Nigerian capital.
"The Secretary-general calls upon the Government of Sudan to protect its civilians and to continue its efforts in bringing stability and fostering national reconciliation in the country," it concluded.
The statement was the latest in a recent series of expressions of alarm by UN officials over the deteriorating security situation in Darfur. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland on Wednesday said the situation had become dangerous enough that relief agencies had temporarily suspended operations in some areas.
Also on Wednesday, the Security Council called on all parties to negotiate in good faith with a view to reaching a peace agreement by the end of 2005.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Arab Militia Attack on Darfur Refugee Camp Kills 29, UN Says Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) --
Arab men on horses and camels attacked a camp for displaced black villagers in Darfur yesterday, killing 29 people in what the United Nations said was the first assault on a refugee camp during the nearly three-year long conflict in western Sudan.
The incident came amid reports of renewed violence in Darfur and in oil-rich southern Sudan that threatens the stability of the coalition cabinet formed on Sept. 20. The violence also is hindering delivery of food and other humanitarian aid to more than 2 million displaced people in Darfur and neighboring Chad, the UN said.
``As we speak, we have had to suspend action in many areas, tens of thousands of people will not get any assistance today because it is too dangerous, and it could grow,'' Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told reporters in Geneva, according to a transcript of his remarks.
British lawmakers have said as many as 300,000 people have died in Darfur, a region as large as France, since February 2003. The crisis began when the Sudanese government, responding to rebel attacks, organized nomadic herders and some Arabic tribal militias into a counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed to attack farming settlements.
Shelters Burned
The UN refugee agency said as many as 300 Arab men attacked the Aro Sharow camp near the town of Saleah in northwest Darfur. The unidentified attackers burned down 80 makeshift shelters and drove thousands of villagers into the unprotected countryside, the UN said.
Helene Caux, spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, said it was the first time an Arab militia has attacked a refugee camp in Darfur. The area around the Aro Sharow camp, where up to 5,000 villagers lived, had already been declared off-limits to UN aid workers, according to the refugee agency.
Jan Pronk, who represents Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Sudan, told the Security Council on Sept. 21 that deployment of UN peacekeepers to southern Sudan and African Union troops to Darfur must be accelerated. The AU has sent about 3,000 of 7,000 promised troops to Darfur to protect villagers.
The UN has deployed 2,500 of the 10,000 troops authorized in March to monitor a January cease-fire in the two-decade conflict between the Muslim-dominated government in the north and the Christian and animist south that has killed an estimated 1.5 million people. Pronk told the Security Council that the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group with forces in southern Sudan, has begun attacking government troops there.
Sudan is sub-Saharan Africa's third-biggest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola, and expects to boost output to more than 500,000 barrels a day this year from about 340,000 barrels now. Under the peace agreement, the north and south will split oil revenue equally.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Bill Varner in United Nations at
wvarner@bloomberg.net or Karl Maier in Khartoum, Sudan at
kmaier2@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: September 29, 2005 11:20 EDT
The incident came amid reports of renewed violence in Darfur and in oil-rich southern Sudan that threatens the stability of the coalition cabinet formed on Sept. 20. The violence also is hindering delivery of food and other humanitarian aid to more than 2 million displaced people in Darfur and neighboring Chad, the UN said.
``As we speak, we have had to suspend action in many areas, tens of thousands of people will not get any assistance today because it is too dangerous, and it could grow,'' Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told reporters in Geneva, according to a transcript of his remarks.
British lawmakers have said as many as 300,000 people have died in Darfur, a region as large as France, since February 2003. The crisis began when the Sudanese government, responding to rebel attacks, organized nomadic herders and some Arabic tribal militias into a counterinsurgency force known as the Janjaweed to attack farming settlements.
Shelters Burned
The UN refugee agency said as many as 300 Arab men attacked the Aro Sharow camp near the town of Saleah in northwest Darfur. The unidentified attackers burned down 80 makeshift shelters and drove thousands of villagers into the unprotected countryside, the UN said.
Helene Caux, spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, said it was the first time an Arab militia has attacked a refugee camp in Darfur. The area around the Aro Sharow camp, where up to 5,000 villagers lived, had already been declared off-limits to UN aid workers, according to the refugee agency.
Jan Pronk, who represents Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Sudan, told the Security Council on Sept. 21 that deployment of UN peacekeepers to southern Sudan and African Union troops to Darfur must be accelerated. The AU has sent about 3,000 of 7,000 promised troops to Darfur to protect villagers.
The UN has deployed 2,500 of the 10,000 troops authorized in March to monitor a January cease-fire in the two-decade conflict between the Muslim-dominated government in the north and the Christian and animist south that has killed an estimated 1.5 million people. Pronk told the Security Council that the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group with forces in southern Sudan, has begun attacking government troops there.
Sudan is sub-Saharan Africa's third-biggest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola, and expects to boost output to more than 500,000 barrels a day this year from about 340,000 barrels now. Under the peace agreement, the north and south will split oil revenue equally.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Bill Varner in United Nations at
wvarner@bloomberg.net or Karl Maier in Khartoum, Sudan at
kmaier2@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: September 29, 2005 11:20 EDT
U.N.: Attack in Darfur kills 29 refugees
GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Twenty-nine people were reported killed in an unprecedented attack on a refugee camp in the northwest of the Sudan region of Darfur, the United Nations said on Thursday.
According to initial reports, the Aro Sharow camp was attacked by 250 to 300 "armed Arab men on horses and camels" late on Wednesday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.
Another 10 people were reported to have been seriously wounded and the nearby village of Gosmeina was also believed to have been attacked and burned, the agency said. The death toll referred only to camp dwellers.
The camp, home to between 4,000 and 5,000 people, lies 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of the town of Saleah in an area that has been regarded as a no-go zone for the U.N. for months because of continuing violence.
Nevertheless, this was the first time that a camp had been attacked since fighting broke out in the vast Sudanese region over two years ago forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to the makeshift settlements, the UNHCR said.
The U.N. has warned that it may have to suspend aid operations in Darfur because of a resurgence in violence.
Following the attack, High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said it was the responsibility of the Sudanese government to restore order.
"As long as this insecurity continues, the international community cannot provide the assistance that is so desperately needed by hundreds of thousands of people," Guterres said.
"The government of Sudan has a responsibility to ensure security for all its citizens," he added.
The UNHCR said that most of the camp dwellers had fled into the surrounding countryside, which the U.N. considers unsafe.
The attackers had apparently burned about 80 crude shelters, around a quarter of the camp's households.
Fighting erupted in Darfur in early 2003 after years of low-level conflict when rebels took up arms over what they saw as Khartoum's preferential treatment of Arab tribes.
They accused the government of backing militias that have driven non-Arabs from their villages. Khartoum denies the accusations.
Tens of thousands have been killed and more than two million people are living in the camps, mostly inside Darfur, which is the size of France.
Clashes have continued despite a cease fire agreement and little progress has been made in peace talks in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, brokered by the African Union.
Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
According to initial reports, the Aro Sharow camp was attacked by 250 to 300 "armed Arab men on horses and camels" late on Wednesday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.
Another 10 people were reported to have been seriously wounded and the nearby village of Gosmeina was also believed to have been attacked and burned, the agency said. The death toll referred only to camp dwellers.
The camp, home to between 4,000 and 5,000 people, lies 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of the town of Saleah in an area that has been regarded as a no-go zone for the U.N. for months because of continuing violence.
Nevertheless, this was the first time that a camp had been attacked since fighting broke out in the vast Sudanese region over two years ago forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to the makeshift settlements, the UNHCR said.
The U.N. has warned that it may have to suspend aid operations in Darfur because of a resurgence in violence.
Following the attack, High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said it was the responsibility of the Sudanese government to restore order.
"As long as this insecurity continues, the international community cannot provide the assistance that is so desperately needed by hundreds of thousands of people," Guterres said.
"The government of Sudan has a responsibility to ensure security for all its citizens," he added.
The UNHCR said that most of the camp dwellers had fled into the surrounding countryside, which the U.N. considers unsafe.
The attackers had apparently burned about 80 crude shelters, around a quarter of the camp's households.
Fighting erupted in Darfur in early 2003 after years of low-level conflict when rebels took up arms over what they saw as Khartoum's preferential treatment of Arab tribes.
They accused the government of backing militias that have driven non-Arabs from their villages. Khartoum denies the accusations.
Tens of thousands have been killed and more than two million people are living in the camps, mostly inside Darfur, which is the size of France.
Clashes have continued despite a cease fire agreement and little progress has been made in peace talks in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, brokered by the African Union.
Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Hell on earth
Source: Oxfam
Date: 27 Sep 2005
Kalma Camp in Sudan is home to 120,000 people who have lived through some of the most hellish experiences imaginable. Annette Salkeld tells of the daily challenges they face and how Oxfam is helping them to get on with their lives.
From a few kilometres away, you can tell you are coming up to Kalma camp in South Darfur, Sudan, as the scattered baobab trees and acacias of the desert plains give way to a stark, sandy expanse, with little more than tree stumps dotted over land.
This harsh environment has felt the impact of the influx of more than 120,000 people from the surrounding region, who have fled their homes in the face of some of the worst conflict seen in recent years. This is a very brutal conflict, which has seen the civilian population directly targeted. The suffering is immense and on a scale hard to imagine.
Oxfam International is currently working in 17 locations across the three states that make up Darfur — North, South and West Darfur. Oxfam is reaching approximately 700,000 of the nearly two million people who have been made homeless by this crisis, by providing water, sanitation, and public health education.
Kalma camp is the largest in Darfur. It stretches for seven kilometres along the wadi, the dry river bed, and spans up to two kilometres in width. As I arrive at the outskirts of the camp, all I can see for miles in every direction is a sea of makeshift shelters — white plastic sheeting stretched over basic frames made out of sticks and any other material available. Many families have made small fences around their shelters out of the local shrubs, in order to define their little patch of land.
I arrived in Kalma camp on a searing hot day with four other Oxfam staff. Getting out of our vehicles, we were quickly surrounded by dozens of children, most of them waving to us and trying to shake our hands, shouting “okay, okay”, the only English phrase most of them know. Some of the shyer youngsters quietly get beside me and try to hold my hands as I walk along. I feel like the Pied Piper — everywhere I go I am surrounded by millions of children, many contentedly playing with hoops made from old metal wheels or toy cars fashioned out of empty tin cans and bits of rubber.
Kalma camp’s marketplace, which has sprung up in the centre of the camp, is the lifeblood for many residents who have very few options of making a living. Here, people sell meat, clothes, vegetables, dates, fruit, peanuts and basic items such as sugar, salt and soap. At one stall I see, there is a huge pile of thongs, the standard footwear at the camp.
Sheltering from the midday sun under a thatched roof shelter, Kaltaman and her neighbour sit on the ground in front of a bucket of peanuts, shelling them for cooking. Kaltaman’s daughter plays nearby. She is one of Kaltaman’s three children and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.
“We walk about an hour to the nearby town to buy the raw peanuts,” Kaltaman tells me. “We shell them and boil them and then sell them in the market.” The small amount of money she earns enables her to buy food to supplement the rations and basic necessities she can access in the camp.
I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in on part of a two-day public health workshop, held in the Oxfam compound. There were two workshops being held one for women and one for men. These workshops form a central component of the public health promotion that Oxfam undertakes in all of the areas it works in, in an effort to reduce illness and death from disease and infections that can spread so easily among such a crowded population.
The focus of the workshop was basic hygiene. The importance of basic practices, such as washing hands with soap and keeping water containers clean, cannot be under-estimated. The highest cause of death and illness in children under five here is diarrhoea.
Other health issues include where people defecate, keeping animals away from water sources, and reducing the risk of malaria. Positive public health messaging is important, as residents of the camps are living in conditions that they have never encountered before.
The overcrowding, use of western style latrines, inadequate space for the donkeys, which are the main form of transport in this region, and lack of facilities means that in order to stay healthy, some traditional practices have to be changed.
As part of this workshop, the women were divided into groups and given 10 drawings of hygiene actions, and were asked to put them in order from the worst practice to the best. This caused lively debate among the women, although all groups came to a consensus in the end.
During a meal break, I sat down with some of the women to ask why they had participated in this workshop. “We are here for the food,” I was told as the women eagerly awaited the arrival of the meal being provided for them by Oxfam. A good feed of meat, salad and bread is a rarity for most camp residents, as fresh food and meat is unaffordable for most.
But as I probed further to ask if they had enjoyed the workshop or learnt any new practices, there was a general positive consensus, with a few women explaining what they thought were the biggest threats to their health. “Animals near the water sources”, “people defecating around the camp” and “dirty water containers” were among the comments.
After the two-day workshop, these women will become part of the “community mobiliser” network in Kalma camp. They will be able to talk to their neighbours about what they have learnt and hopefully influence the hygiene practices within their communities.
This will complement the work done by Oxfam’s public health promotion teams, which visit each “house” in the camp about every six weeks to see how people are going and reinforce the public health messages, particularly with the women who have the main responsibility of caring for their families.
As I leave these women to their meal, I come away with a feeling of admiration for the courage, tenacity and generosity they show — every single one of them has endured terror, hardship and hellish experiences beyond my comprehension, but they still maintain a sense of positiveness; they’re getting on with their lives.
But I also have a heavy heart as I wonder about their future and whether they will ever be able to go back to their homes and resume the lives they enjoyed before the conflict.
Annette Salkeld is Emergencies Program Officer at Oxfam Australia and visited Darfur as part of an Oxfam International monitoring trip.
Date: 27 Sep 2005
Kalma Camp in Sudan is home to 120,000 people who have lived through some of the most hellish experiences imaginable. Annette Salkeld tells of the daily challenges they face and how Oxfam is helping them to get on with their lives.
From a few kilometres away, you can tell you are coming up to Kalma camp in South Darfur, Sudan, as the scattered baobab trees and acacias of the desert plains give way to a stark, sandy expanse, with little more than tree stumps dotted over land.
This harsh environment has felt the impact of the influx of more than 120,000 people from the surrounding region, who have fled their homes in the face of some of the worst conflict seen in recent years. This is a very brutal conflict, which has seen the civilian population directly targeted. The suffering is immense and on a scale hard to imagine.
Oxfam International is currently working in 17 locations across the three states that make up Darfur — North, South and West Darfur. Oxfam is reaching approximately 700,000 of the nearly two million people who have been made homeless by this crisis, by providing water, sanitation, and public health education.
Kalma camp is the largest in Darfur. It stretches for seven kilometres along the wadi, the dry river bed, and spans up to two kilometres in width. As I arrive at the outskirts of the camp, all I can see for miles in every direction is a sea of makeshift shelters — white plastic sheeting stretched over basic frames made out of sticks and any other material available. Many families have made small fences around their shelters out of the local shrubs, in order to define their little patch of land.
I arrived in Kalma camp on a searing hot day with four other Oxfam staff. Getting out of our vehicles, we were quickly surrounded by dozens of children, most of them waving to us and trying to shake our hands, shouting “okay, okay”, the only English phrase most of them know. Some of the shyer youngsters quietly get beside me and try to hold my hands as I walk along. I feel like the Pied Piper — everywhere I go I am surrounded by millions of children, many contentedly playing with hoops made from old metal wheels or toy cars fashioned out of empty tin cans and bits of rubber.
Kalma camp’s marketplace, which has sprung up in the centre of the camp, is the lifeblood for many residents who have very few options of making a living. Here, people sell meat, clothes, vegetables, dates, fruit, peanuts and basic items such as sugar, salt and soap. At one stall I see, there is a huge pile of thongs, the standard footwear at the camp.
Sheltering from the midday sun under a thatched roof shelter, Kaltaman and her neighbour sit on the ground in front of a bucket of peanuts, shelling them for cooking. Kaltaman’s daughter plays nearby. She is one of Kaltaman’s three children and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.
“We walk about an hour to the nearby town to buy the raw peanuts,” Kaltaman tells me. “We shell them and boil them and then sell them in the market.” The small amount of money she earns enables her to buy food to supplement the rations and basic necessities she can access in the camp.
I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in on part of a two-day public health workshop, held in the Oxfam compound. There were two workshops being held one for women and one for men. These workshops form a central component of the public health promotion that Oxfam undertakes in all of the areas it works in, in an effort to reduce illness and death from disease and infections that can spread so easily among such a crowded population.
The focus of the workshop was basic hygiene. The importance of basic practices, such as washing hands with soap and keeping water containers clean, cannot be under-estimated. The highest cause of death and illness in children under five here is diarrhoea.
Other health issues include where people defecate, keeping animals away from water sources, and reducing the risk of malaria. Positive public health messaging is important, as residents of the camps are living in conditions that they have never encountered before.
The overcrowding, use of western style latrines, inadequate space for the donkeys, which are the main form of transport in this region, and lack of facilities means that in order to stay healthy, some traditional practices have to be changed.
As part of this workshop, the women were divided into groups and given 10 drawings of hygiene actions, and were asked to put them in order from the worst practice to the best. This caused lively debate among the women, although all groups came to a consensus in the end.
During a meal break, I sat down with some of the women to ask why they had participated in this workshop. “We are here for the food,” I was told as the women eagerly awaited the arrival of the meal being provided for them by Oxfam. A good feed of meat, salad and bread is a rarity for most camp residents, as fresh food and meat is unaffordable for most.
But as I probed further to ask if they had enjoyed the workshop or learnt any new practices, there was a general positive consensus, with a few women explaining what they thought were the biggest threats to their health. “Animals near the water sources”, “people defecating around the camp” and “dirty water containers” were among the comments.
After the two-day workshop, these women will become part of the “community mobiliser” network in Kalma camp. They will be able to talk to their neighbours about what they have learnt and hopefully influence the hygiene practices within their communities.
This will complement the work done by Oxfam’s public health promotion teams, which visit each “house” in the camp about every six weeks to see how people are going and reinforce the public health messages, particularly with the women who have the main responsibility of caring for their families.
As I leave these women to their meal, I come away with a feeling of admiration for the courage, tenacity and generosity they show — every single one of them has endured terror, hardship and hellish experiences beyond my comprehension, but they still maintain a sense of positiveness; they’re getting on with their lives.
But I also have a heavy heart as I wonder about their future and whether they will ever be able to go back to their homes and resume the lives they enjoyed before the conflict.
Annette Salkeld is Emergencies Program Officer at Oxfam Australia and visited Darfur as part of an Oxfam International monitoring trip.
UN’s Egeland threatens to halt Darfur operations
2005-09-28
Top UN aid official warns upsurge in violence in Durfur could force relief operations to be halted soon.
By Patrick Baert - GENEVA Top UN aid official Jan Egeland on Wednesday warned that relief operations in Darfur may have to be halted because of an upsurge in violence in the conflict-ravaged western Sudanese region.
Egeland, the overall humanitarian aid coordinator for the United Nations, said the risks faced by the world body's 11,000 relief workers in Darfur could soon be too great.
"The level of violence has been escalating again sharply," he told reporters.
Renewed fighting is undermining a ceasefire between government and rebel movements which was agreed in April 2004 and which had largely held despite sporadic attacks.
"If it continues to be so dangerous to do humanitarian work, we may not be able to sustain our operations for 2.5 million people," Egeland said.
"It could end tomorrow. It's as serious as that."
"We want to stay as long as we can. As we speak we have had to suspend action in many areas. Tens of thousands of people will not get any assistance because it's too dangerous and it could grow exponentially."
Since rebels launched an uprising in western Sudan in February 2003 more than 300,000 civilians have been killed and over two million driven from their homes, according to UN relief agencies.
The Darfur conflict pits two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality movement, against Sudanese forces and the Janjaweed, a government-backed militia which has been accused of carrying out unprovoked attacks on civilians.
Egeland said the international community should ponder past failures, notably during the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when Muslims were massacred by Serb forces in areas purportedly protected by the UN and aid workers' operations were hampered by violence.
"Is it a repeat of the safe areas of Bosnia all over again? We keep people alive, we give them food, we give them medicine but we don't protect them and our own staff," he said.
"So something has to happen. We need to have the same kind of pressure on the parties as we had (in 2004), when world leaders really put their thumb on the government of Khartoum and the guerrilla groups. I don't think they feel the same kind of pressure."
Last year, the UN Security Council threatened sanctions against the Sudanese government unless it disarmed the Janjaweed, and also called on the rebels to stop fighting.
Egeland said he hoped that all sides in the conflict will "behave responsibly and not be utterly irresponsible as they are today."
The African Union (AU) is currently brokering peace talks between Khartoum and its opponents, but progress has been limited, in part because of splits among the rebels.
Pending a deal, Egeland said, the international community must help boost the number of peacekeeping troops sent by the AU in Darfur to monitor the ceasefire -- and deploy more troops from elsewhere.
Egeland called for a force with "three times the strength they have today."
"There are now in excess of 5,000 troops, which is better than they were last year, but it's still incredibly behind what it should be," he said.
"I still cannot believe how a hundred world leaders can say the biggest priority on earth is to get a large AU force in place and then, years after the crisis started, we still have a very inadequate force in place."
Last week, the UN Security Council extended for six months the mandate of its own peacekeeping mission. It is meant to deploy 10,000 soldiers, but only 1,708 were in Darfur as of last month.
Top UN aid official warns upsurge in violence in Durfur could force relief operations to be halted soon.
By Patrick Baert - GENEVA Top UN aid official Jan Egeland on Wednesday warned that relief operations in Darfur may have to be halted because of an upsurge in violence in the conflict-ravaged western Sudanese region.
Egeland, the overall humanitarian aid coordinator for the United Nations, said the risks faced by the world body's 11,000 relief workers in Darfur could soon be too great.
"The level of violence has been escalating again sharply," he told reporters.
Renewed fighting is undermining a ceasefire between government and rebel movements which was agreed in April 2004 and which had largely held despite sporadic attacks.
"If it continues to be so dangerous to do humanitarian work, we may not be able to sustain our operations for 2.5 million people," Egeland said.
"It could end tomorrow. It's as serious as that."
"We want to stay as long as we can. As we speak we have had to suspend action in many areas. Tens of thousands of people will not get any assistance because it's too dangerous and it could grow exponentially."
Since rebels launched an uprising in western Sudan in February 2003 more than 300,000 civilians have been killed and over two million driven from their homes, according to UN relief agencies.
The Darfur conflict pits two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality movement, against Sudanese forces and the Janjaweed, a government-backed militia which has been accused of carrying out unprovoked attacks on civilians.
Egeland said the international community should ponder past failures, notably during the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when Muslims were massacred by Serb forces in areas purportedly protected by the UN and aid workers' operations were hampered by violence.
"Is it a repeat of the safe areas of Bosnia all over again? We keep people alive, we give them food, we give them medicine but we don't protect them and our own staff," he said.
"So something has to happen. We need to have the same kind of pressure on the parties as we had (in 2004), when world leaders really put their thumb on the government of Khartoum and the guerrilla groups. I don't think they feel the same kind of pressure."
Last year, the UN Security Council threatened sanctions against the Sudanese government unless it disarmed the Janjaweed, and also called on the rebels to stop fighting.
Egeland said he hoped that all sides in the conflict will "behave responsibly and not be utterly irresponsible as they are today."
The African Union (AU) is currently brokering peace talks between Khartoum and its opponents, but progress has been limited, in part because of splits among the rebels.
Pending a deal, Egeland said, the international community must help boost the number of peacekeeping troops sent by the AU in Darfur to monitor the ceasefire -- and deploy more troops from elsewhere.
Egeland called for a force with "three times the strength they have today."
"There are now in excess of 5,000 troops, which is better than they were last year, but it's still incredibly behind what it should be," he said.
"I still cannot believe how a hundred world leaders can say the biggest priority on earth is to get a large AU force in place and then, years after the crisis started, we still have a very inadequate force in place."
Last week, the UN Security Council extended for six months the mandate of its own peacekeeping mission. It is meant to deploy 10,000 soldiers, but only 1,708 were in Darfur as of last month.
DARFUR
'Never again' means fighting for justice
BY JENNIFER SANTIAGO
santiagoesq@yahoo.com
Never again.
I remember the phrase with haunting clarity -- uttered over and over again on Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remebrance Day. I was just a fourth grader at Solomon Schecter School in Queens. And that year, like every on Yom Hashoah, our teachers would tape yellow paper stars that read ''Jude'' onto our blue-and-white uniforms then march us down to the library to watch grainy black-and-white films of Jewish Holocaust survivors. The film was apparently taken by allied forces after the Germans fled the Nazi concentration camps, leaving thousands of tortured, starving survivors to await rescue. Naked men smiled for the cameras, their flesh hanging lose over bone-thin frames. I remember being confused by their unapologetic nudity, confused by their laughter. I was too young to really understand how this was a moment that captured a freedom thought futile.
And then the world uttered Never Again. But, here we go again. This time I'm much older, and the emotions don't provoke confusion, just a profound, heavy sadness. This time it is mostly women who smile for the cameras -- their black, dusty flesh hanging over bone thin-frames. Some clutch tiny children -- pouring formula onto their chapped lips.
Surrounded by Jews
This isn't a concentration camp, but a refugee camp in Chad where thousands of Sudanese women and children are sheltered after fleeing the Janjaweed -- a maniacal militia supported by the Sudanese government and armed to rid Darfur of its black Africans. A tall white man walks among the refugees -- explaining to a 60 Minutes crew how this 2 ½-year conflict has already cost the lives of more than 300,000 people, threatening millions more. His name is John Prendergast. Today as I watch the video, I am again surrounded by Jews -- this time men and women who have gathered at the Greater Miami Jewish Federation to hear Prendergast explain how it is happening all over again.
''This is Rwanda in slow motion,'' explains Prendergast who has spent a good part of the last 20 years of his career focused on conflict resolution in Africa. The Jewish Community Relations Council invited him to speak last week to raise awareness and promote action to stop the Genocide in Darfur. This former director of African affairs during the Clinton administration likens this genocide to the Holocaust and most recently Rwanda in the '90s when more than 800,000 Tutsis were massacred over the course of 100 days by the majority Hutus after a coup.
Back then the world didn't react -- ambivalent, in part, and confused over whether the killing in Rwanda was in fact genocide.
This time there is no confusion. One year ago, almost to this day, President Bush concurred with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell calling the killings in Sudan's Darfur region genocide. The United States, under the 1948 U.N. convention on genocide, is committed to preventing such killings and punishing the killers if it deems a genocide is taking place. And yet, the killings continue one year later. Never again?
Sudan conflict to forefront
''Shame them,'' says Prendergast to his all-Jewish audience. ''Shame them into doing something,'' he continues acknowledging that grass-root efforts by Jewish organizations have brought the Sudan conflict to the forefront of our consciousness. Because it isn't enough to wear a yellow star and watch videos of the dying to honor the victims of the Jewish Holocaust. ''Never again'' means making the world aware that the only response to genocide isn't designating a day of remembrance but designating everyday to fighting injustice for those who can't fight for themselves
• To see the interview with John Prendergast and video from the refugee camps, watch today's CBS 4 News First at Five.
Jennifer Santiago is a reporter for CBS 4 News.
BY JENNIFER SANTIAGO
santiagoesq@yahoo.com
Never again.
I remember the phrase with haunting clarity -- uttered over and over again on Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remebrance Day. I was just a fourth grader at Solomon Schecter School in Queens. And that year, like every on Yom Hashoah, our teachers would tape yellow paper stars that read ''Jude'' onto our blue-and-white uniforms then march us down to the library to watch grainy black-and-white films of Jewish Holocaust survivors. The film was apparently taken by allied forces after the Germans fled the Nazi concentration camps, leaving thousands of tortured, starving survivors to await rescue. Naked men smiled for the cameras, their flesh hanging lose over bone-thin frames. I remember being confused by their unapologetic nudity, confused by their laughter. I was too young to really understand how this was a moment that captured a freedom thought futile.
And then the world uttered Never Again. But, here we go again. This time I'm much older, and the emotions don't provoke confusion, just a profound, heavy sadness. This time it is mostly women who smile for the cameras -- their black, dusty flesh hanging over bone thin-frames. Some clutch tiny children -- pouring formula onto their chapped lips.
Surrounded by Jews
This isn't a concentration camp, but a refugee camp in Chad where thousands of Sudanese women and children are sheltered after fleeing the Janjaweed -- a maniacal militia supported by the Sudanese government and armed to rid Darfur of its black Africans. A tall white man walks among the refugees -- explaining to a 60 Minutes crew how this 2 ½-year conflict has already cost the lives of more than 300,000 people, threatening millions more. His name is John Prendergast. Today as I watch the video, I am again surrounded by Jews -- this time men and women who have gathered at the Greater Miami Jewish Federation to hear Prendergast explain how it is happening all over again.
''This is Rwanda in slow motion,'' explains Prendergast who has spent a good part of the last 20 years of his career focused on conflict resolution in Africa. The Jewish Community Relations Council invited him to speak last week to raise awareness and promote action to stop the Genocide in Darfur. This former director of African affairs during the Clinton administration likens this genocide to the Holocaust and most recently Rwanda in the '90s when more than 800,000 Tutsis were massacred over the course of 100 days by the majority Hutus after a coup.
Back then the world didn't react -- ambivalent, in part, and confused over whether the killing in Rwanda was in fact genocide.
This time there is no confusion. One year ago, almost to this day, President Bush concurred with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell calling the killings in Sudan's Darfur region genocide. The United States, under the 1948 U.N. convention on genocide, is committed to preventing such killings and punishing the killers if it deems a genocide is taking place. And yet, the killings continue one year later. Never again?
Sudan conflict to forefront
''Shame them,'' says Prendergast to his all-Jewish audience. ''Shame them into doing something,'' he continues acknowledging that grass-root efforts by Jewish organizations have brought the Sudan conflict to the forefront of our consciousness. Because it isn't enough to wear a yellow star and watch videos of the dying to honor the victims of the Jewish Holocaust. ''Never again'' means making the world aware that the only response to genocide isn't designating a day of remembrance but designating everyday to fighting injustice for those who can't fight for themselves
• To see the interview with John Prendergast and video from the refugee camps, watch today's CBS 4 News First at Five.
Jennifer Santiago is a reporter for CBS 4 News.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
No time for patience
Opinion
Editorial
September 23, 2005
The arrival of Paul Rusesabagina to campus elicited an enormous response from the student body. The Bowdoin Film Society has screened Hotel Rwanda every night this week, and will continue to do so through the weekend. Tickets for Mr. Rusesabagina's Common Hour talk ran out soon after tickets became available. Students rightly feel awe and admiration for the man who, abandoned by the world, risked his life fighting against the unspeakable horror that engulfed Rwanda over a decade ago.
Any student who attended a screening of Hotel Rwanda this week likely found herself overwhelmed by guilt over how Americans wallowed while thousands of Africans were slaughtered by hand.
It may be too late for us to stand behind Mr. Rusesabagina, but it is not too late for us to stand against the genocide of today.
The Sudanese government currently sponsors the Janjaweed militia in its terrorization of villages in the Darfur region of the Sudan. The violence in this region has displaced close to a million people from their homes. Many are in camps where there isn't enough food or water to sustain the multitudes of refugees. Women are raped on a daily basis. One hundred thousand people have already died. If left unchecked, the genocide will extend beyond blatant murder. For many, disease and starvation will finish the job the militia started.
Mr. Rusesabagina's visit to Bowdoin rightly prompts us to reflect on the horrors of the Rwandan bloodshed. But it should also spur us into action against the bloodshed going on presently. There are two easy things you can do today: read an article about genocide, and write your elected officials. It should not take a feature film 11 years after the fact to bring the issue of genocide to the forefront of our collective conscience.
As Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor and later inventor of the term "genocide," asked, "When the rope is already around the neck of the victim and strangulation is imminent, isn't the word 'patience' an insult to reason and nature?"
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Religious, Humanitarian Aid Leaders Urge Nation to Stand Up, Speak Out to Save Darfur
The Save Darfur Coalition held a National Leadership Assembly on Sept. 21 at the nation's capital to highlight the urgency of the Darfur situation and the need to face the millions that are being abused, starved and displaced in Sudan.
WASHINGTON – On the day that marked the first anniversary of when President Bush declared the crimes in Darfur as genocide, leaders of religious and humanitarian aid groups came together on a strong call to stop the violence.
The Save Darfur Coalition held a National Leadership Assembly on Sept. 21 at the nation's capital to highlight the urgency of the Darfur situation and the need to face the millions that are being abused, starved and displaced in Sudan.
In the midst of such sweeping disasters as last year's tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and now Rita, the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, executive director of the National Council of Churches, stressed that the Darfur genocide must be the world's top issue of concern.
“The issue of genocide is one that needs to break through the haze and is one that needs to be lifted in scale," said Edgar, "and we need to stand firm against genocide wherever it happens."
With 400,000 people killed, 3.5 million suffering in hunger and 2.5 million displaced, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) encouraged the crowd of participating groups, including Bread for Life, Open Doors, World Relief and the American Jewish World Service, to make every effort in pushing the issue forward.
"Your thoughts and your prayers and your actions are all necessary," he said.
"This is a moment for civilization to step up."
Religious leaders sent a letter to President Bush on behalf of the Save Darfur Coalition to call for more action.
"The United States government has to do more," said Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
"There is a moral imperative to respond to these atrocities," stated the signers in the letter that called for four steps of actions.
The points of action called the President to: continue to speak out forcefully against the ongoing atrocities in Darfur, press China and other leading nations to support international action to end the crisis, employ the coalition's mission to the United Nations to propose a Security Council resolution, and instruct the State Department to issue regular reports on the situation in Darfur and the effectiveness of the involvement of the coalition and other partnering groups there.
The Security Council resolution proposes the expansion of the African Union Mission in Sudan's (AMIS) mandate to include civilian protection with the guarantee that the United States and other nations will provide the AMIS with the financial and logistical support necessary to fulfill the mandate.
Drawing attention to the grassroots involvement in what the United Nations dubbed as "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," Brownback said that "there are a lot of people who care about this."
A phone call from Faisal Hussain Omar, a witness to the genocide in Darfur, made the situation more real to the assembly attendants as he described his burned down village and murdered family members.
"We need to stand up when others tell us to sit down, and we need to speak out when others tell us to be silent," stated Edgar during the assembly.
Students, religious groups, and church communities spoke out as they hosted local events across the states to spread awareness.
Access Sudan, a student organization led by Askia Tariq West, a senior at Washington International School, hosted a screening of "Hotel Rwanda" to get the word out about the atrocities in Sudan to the youth.
"We want to take a holistic view of Sudan and we wanted to give context to [the situation] in Sudan," said West.
Following the National Day of Action that brought hundreds to their feet in action, the Save Darfur Coalition will be reconvening Thursday to review the words spoken and steps taken on Wednesday and plan for further action.
"The real heroes of the movement, of history will be the people who unite together behind this – the Darfurians who are being so mercilessly slaughtered," said Cizik.
lillian@christianpost.com
WASHINGTON – On the day that marked the first anniversary of when President Bush declared the crimes in Darfur as genocide, leaders of religious and humanitarian aid groups came together on a strong call to stop the violence.
The Save Darfur Coalition held a National Leadership Assembly on Sept. 21 at the nation's capital to highlight the urgency of the Darfur situation and the need to face the millions that are being abused, starved and displaced in Sudan.
In the midst of such sweeping disasters as last year's tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and now Rita, the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, executive director of the National Council of Churches, stressed that the Darfur genocide must be the world's top issue of concern.
“The issue of genocide is one that needs to break through the haze and is one that needs to be lifted in scale," said Edgar, "and we need to stand firm against genocide wherever it happens."
With 400,000 people killed, 3.5 million suffering in hunger and 2.5 million displaced, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) encouraged the crowd of participating groups, including Bread for Life, Open Doors, World Relief and the American Jewish World Service, to make every effort in pushing the issue forward.
"Your thoughts and your prayers and your actions are all necessary," he said.
"This is a moment for civilization to step up."
Religious leaders sent a letter to President Bush on behalf of the Save Darfur Coalition to call for more action.
"The United States government has to do more," said Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
"There is a moral imperative to respond to these atrocities," stated the signers in the letter that called for four steps of actions.
The points of action called the President to: continue to speak out forcefully against the ongoing atrocities in Darfur, press China and other leading nations to support international action to end the crisis, employ the coalition's mission to the United Nations to propose a Security Council resolution, and instruct the State Department to issue regular reports on the situation in Darfur and the effectiveness of the involvement of the coalition and other partnering groups there.
The Security Council resolution proposes the expansion of the African Union Mission in Sudan's (AMIS) mandate to include civilian protection with the guarantee that the United States and other nations will provide the AMIS with the financial and logistical support necessary to fulfill the mandate.
Drawing attention to the grassroots involvement in what the United Nations dubbed as "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," Brownback said that "there are a lot of people who care about this."
A phone call from Faisal Hussain Omar, a witness to the genocide in Darfur, made the situation more real to the assembly attendants as he described his burned down village and murdered family members.
"We need to stand up when others tell us to sit down, and we need to speak out when others tell us to be silent," stated Edgar during the assembly.
Students, religious groups, and church communities spoke out as they hosted local events across the states to spread awareness.
Access Sudan, a student organization led by Askia Tariq West, a senior at Washington International School, hosted a screening of "Hotel Rwanda" to get the word out about the atrocities in Sudan to the youth.
"We want to take a holistic view of Sudan and we wanted to give context to [the situation] in Sudan," said West.
Following the National Day of Action that brought hundreds to their feet in action, the Save Darfur Coalition will be reconvening Thursday to review the words spoken and steps taken on Wednesday and plan for further action.
"The real heroes of the movement, of history will be the people who unite together behind this – the Darfurians who are being so mercilessly slaughtered," said Cizik.
lillian@christianpost.com
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
NATO extends Darfur airlift mission:
Posted on 22 Sep 2005 # Reuters
BRUSSELS: NATO has agreed to extend by a month a mission to airlift African troops joining peace efforts in Sudan's Darfur region and is studying other ways to help, an alliance official said.
NATO chiefs agreed today to prolong until the end of October its first mission on the African continent and added it was considering an African Union (AU) request for help in training of African officers and in providing transport for future troop rotations.
''The AU came to NATO with a new request,'' said the official, who requested anonymity, adding the alliance would by the end of this week have airlifted a total of 3,500 African troops, including from Nigeria and Rwanda.
Fighting between government troops and rebels has caused tens of thousands of deaths and driven about 2 million people from their homes in Darfur. Aid officials have said banditry has increased and is disrupting aid deliveries.
There have been calls from non-governmental organisations and others for NATO to send its own troops to act as a buffer between opposing forces in Darfur.
The alliance is sceptical of such a role and insists any involvement must be sanctioned both by the AU and the Sudanese government.
source: www.newkerala.com
BRUSSELS: NATO has agreed to extend by a month a mission to airlift African troops joining peace efforts in Sudan's Darfur region and is studying other ways to help, an alliance official said.
NATO chiefs agreed today to prolong until the end of October its first mission on the African continent and added it was considering an African Union (AU) request for help in training of African officers and in providing transport for future troop rotations.
''The AU came to NATO with a new request,'' said the official, who requested anonymity, adding the alliance would by the end of this week have airlifted a total of 3,500 African troops, including from Nigeria and Rwanda.
Fighting between government troops and rebels has caused tens of thousands of deaths and driven about 2 million people from their homes in Darfur. Aid officials have said banditry has increased and is disrupting aid deliveries.
There have been calls from non-governmental organisations and others for NATO to send its own troops to act as a buffer between opposing forces in Darfur.
The alliance is sceptical of such a role and insists any involvement must be sanctioned both by the AU and the Sudanese government.
source: www.newkerala.com
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