By Eric Reeves
Northampton, Mass. - Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is on the verge of plunging into yet another north/south civil war. International failure to guarantee the key provisions of a linchpin peace agreement means that a renewed war could be the most widespread and destructive in the country's half century of independence.
The 2005 "Comprehensive Peace Agreement" (CPA) between the present National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime in Khartoum and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) ended one of Africa's longest civil wars, with nominal agreement on security, wealth sharing, and governance issues.
However, the international community – including the African Union, the US, the European Union, and China – has not taken implementation of the peace agreement seriously enough for oil-rich Sudan. This has enabled Khartoum to renege on key elements of the agreement with little consequence and to manipulate ethnic, political, and military tensions throughout the region.
Without meaningful pressure, the NIF/NCP regime has also delayed the legislation that will guide a referendum in which South Sudan votes on whether to secede or remain part of a unified Sudanese state. The vote is scheduled for January 2011, but referendum legislation is already two years behind schedule. The self-determination vote is critical for all of Sudan, and if compromised, southern Sudanese are likely to consider this the final straw and resort to renewed war to gain the independence the majority seeks. In anticipation, Khartoum may launch a preemptive military campaign.
This is particularly bad news. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Poor significance of "Vice President from Darfur"
By Gamal A Adam
November 16, 2009 — The theme of a “Vice President from Darfur” has been a recurring issue on Sudanese websites for the last few weeks. Different sources that have discussed the issue have underlined the fact that it emanated from the National Congress Party (NCP) during one of its recent meetings and that Omer Albashir has been serious in considering it. Some of these sources went as far as pointing out that the person who is expected to represent Darfur in that position will be a leading member of the Popular Congress Party because that might, according to these sources, be a suitable dowry with which the National Congress Party can remarry the Popular Congress Party after their divorce of 1999.
However, this discussion raises a number of questions. Notably: “Is the Sudanese Problem in Darfur resolvable by reconciliation between the National Congress Party and the Popular Congress party through the position of Vice President? Has the Darfur problem only come to the fore as a result of conflict over positions between northern and western Sudanese in National Islamic Front (NIF) before 1999? Since when was the NIF representative of Darfur to the point that its reestablishment will automatically lead to the resolution of the region’s problems? If the position of Vice President was really the solution to the problems of marginalized regions in Sudan why has the position of First Vice President not solved the problem of Southern Sudan? And can even the position of President from a marginalized region solve the problem of Darfur, Southern Sudan or Eastern Sudan while the Sudanese state continues to be like a corporate enterprise run by individuals from the arbized-Nubian tribes of Ja’alyeen, Shaiguia and Danagla?
Those who think that the Darfur problem is resolvable through the creation of new positions are deliberately misinterpreting the problem of the region. These include the social, economic and education destruction specialists in National Congress Party and their puppets from Darfur whose main functions include the occupation of lower ranks in that party, patronage positions invented for them and surveillance against innocent Darfuris. My focus in the following pages is on those who have transformed the country into a tribal enterprise and who are now marketing the position of vice president for the Darfur cause. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
November 16, 2009 — The theme of a “Vice President from Darfur” has been a recurring issue on Sudanese websites for the last few weeks. Different sources that have discussed the issue have underlined the fact that it emanated from the National Congress Party (NCP) during one of its recent meetings and that Omer Albashir has been serious in considering it. Some of these sources went as far as pointing out that the person who is expected to represent Darfur in that position will be a leading member of the Popular Congress Party because that might, according to these sources, be a suitable dowry with which the National Congress Party can remarry the Popular Congress Party after their divorce of 1999.
However, this discussion raises a number of questions. Notably: “Is the Sudanese Problem in Darfur resolvable by reconciliation between the National Congress Party and the Popular Congress party through the position of Vice President? Has the Darfur problem only come to the fore as a result of conflict over positions between northern and western Sudanese in National Islamic Front (NIF) before 1999? Since when was the NIF representative of Darfur to the point that its reestablishment will automatically lead to the resolution of the region’s problems? If the position of Vice President was really the solution to the problems of marginalized regions in Sudan why has the position of First Vice President not solved the problem of Southern Sudan? And can even the position of President from a marginalized region solve the problem of Darfur, Southern Sudan or Eastern Sudan while the Sudanese state continues to be like a corporate enterprise run by individuals from the arbized-Nubian tribes of Ja’alyeen, Shaiguia and Danagla?
Those who think that the Darfur problem is resolvable through the creation of new positions are deliberately misinterpreting the problem of the region. These include the social, economic and education destruction specialists in National Congress Party and their puppets from Darfur whose main functions include the occupation of lower ranks in that party, patronage positions invented for them and surveillance against innocent Darfuris. My focus in the following pages is on those who have transformed the country into a tribal enterprise and who are now marketing the position of vice president for the Darfur cause. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Losing the fight for Darfur
By Michael Gerson
T he genocide in Darfur is no longer a trendy, breathless global cause. But the women of Darfur haven't gotten the message.
On May 15, a woman near the Al Hamadiya camp in Zalingei was collecting firewood. Three armed men in khaki uniforms raped her, stabbed her in the leg, inflicted genital injuries and left her bleeding. She spent 45 days in the hospital. In 2003, the same woman was raped and shot while fleeing her village.
Her story is in a recent, exhaustive, chilling report on Sudan written by a panel of experts at the United Nations. A U.N. official told me, "We have not talked to a single woman [in Darfur] who has not stated that sexual violence is their first concern." The panel documented sexual assaults against pregnant women and 12-year-old girls. Prosecutions are nonexistent. Local officials are indifferent. Read more >>>>>
T he genocide in Darfur is no longer a trendy, breathless global cause. But the women of Darfur haven't gotten the message.
On May 15, a woman near the Al Hamadiya camp in Zalingei was collecting firewood. Three armed men in khaki uniforms raped her, stabbed her in the leg, inflicted genital injuries and left her bleeding. She spent 45 days in the hospital. In 2003, the same woman was raped and shot while fleeing her village.
Her story is in a recent, exhaustive, chilling report on Sudan written by a panel of experts at the United Nations. A U.N. official told me, "We have not talked to a single woman [in Darfur] who has not stated that sexual violence is their first concern." The panel documented sexual assaults against pregnant women and 12-year-old girls. Prosecutions are nonexistent. Local officials are indifferent. Read more >>>>>
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Bashir misses Islamic summit
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, indicted by the International Criminal Court, has pulled out of an Islamic summit in Istanbul.
The Turkish government had previously welcomed the attendance of President Bashir at the meeting and said that he would not be arrested.
But the EU, which Turkey hopes to join, wanted the invitation to be withdrawn. Read more >>>>>>>>>
The Turkish government had previously welcomed the attendance of President Bashir at the meeting and said that he would not be arrested.
But the EU, which Turkey hopes to join, wanted the invitation to be withdrawn. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Expulsions hit Darfur rape victims: Aid groups
By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Rape victims in Sudan's Darfur region have lost vital medical and psychological support since Khartoum expelled aid agencies working against sexual violence this year, the United Nations and aid workers said.
A Sudanese minister on Wednesday dismissed the reports as "propaganda" saying there was no widespread rape in the region and that foreigners were free to come and investigate.
Sudan ousted 13 foreign aid groups and closed three local organisations in March after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al- Bashir to face charges of masterminding atrocities in Darfur.
Khartoum accused the groups of passing information to the Hague-based court, a charge they deny.
Ten out of the 13 expelled foreign groups were doing work related to protection and sexual violence, said an official from one of the ousted organisations who asked not to be named.
"Women are now feeling a lot less safe in reporting rapes and there's been a resurgence of the bad old days when women victims are treated like criminals if they report it," the official said. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Rape victims in Sudan's Darfur region have lost vital medical and psychological support since Khartoum expelled aid agencies working against sexual violence this year, the United Nations and aid workers said.
A Sudanese minister on Wednesday dismissed the reports as "propaganda" saying there was no widespread rape in the region and that foreigners were free to come and investigate.
Sudan ousted 13 foreign aid groups and closed three local organisations in March after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al- Bashir to face charges of masterminding atrocities in Darfur.
Khartoum accused the groups of passing information to the Hague-based court, a charge they deny.
Ten out of the 13 expelled foreign groups were doing work related to protection and sexual violence, said an official from one of the ousted organisations who asked not to be named.
"Women are now feeling a lot less safe in reporting rapes and there's been a resurgence of the bad old days when women victims are treated like criminals if they report it," the official said. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Sudan: Election Crisis Reveals a Country Lurching Toward War
There is growing awareness that national elections scheduled for April 2010 will fail on many counts, with unpredictable consequences for the Khartoum regime’s ambitions to retain its stranglehold on Sudanese national wealth and power. In turn, the prospect of an aborted or compromised Southern self-determination referendum (January 2011) looms ever closer, with the potential to trigger unfathomable destruction.
Eric Reeves
November 9, 2009
With growing inevitability, Sudan has begun what the evidence suggests is a final lurch toward renewed North-South war—and the likely spread of intense fighting to other marginalized areas, including Kordofan, southern Blue Nile, Kassala and Red Sea states, Nubia, and most ominously Darfur. For the Darfuri rebel groups will certainly see the outbreak of war between Khartoum’s forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army as an occasion for overcoming the prevailing military stalemate in the west. War will begin when Khartoum decides that it has nothing further to gain from its merely nominal commitment to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)—or when Southerners become convinced that the bedrock principle of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement—a Southern self-determination referendum guaranteed in the Machakos Protocol (July 2002)—will not be honored by the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime. Whether in the form of a unilateral abrogation of yet another agreement by Khartoum or a unilateral Southern declaration of independence, the moment of most desperate truth for millions of Sudanese will have arrived.
In the short term Khartoum may still decide that its interests lie in making temporary concessions on the referendum legislation that was to have been passed more than two years ago. But recent public comments, from both the Southern political leadership and Khartoum officials, suggest that this is growing less likely. Moreover, several other key issues impinge on the final meaning of the self-determination referendum, including a demarcation of the North-South border; the final status of Abyei (which is to have its own self-determination referendum, with the choice of joining the South); the role of a deeply compromised census favoring Khartoum on virtually every demographic issue; and the use to which the regime will put the April 2010 national elections, which have already been delayed twice and now lie only five months off. Further delay would push these elections into the rainy season and make an already overwhelming logistical challenge utterly impossible. Read more >>>>
Eric Reeves
November 9, 2009
With growing inevitability, Sudan has begun what the evidence suggests is a final lurch toward renewed North-South war—and the likely spread of intense fighting to other marginalized areas, including Kordofan, southern Blue Nile, Kassala and Red Sea states, Nubia, and most ominously Darfur. For the Darfuri rebel groups will certainly see the outbreak of war between Khartoum’s forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army as an occasion for overcoming the prevailing military stalemate in the west. War will begin when Khartoum decides that it has nothing further to gain from its merely nominal commitment to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)—or when Southerners become convinced that the bedrock principle of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement—a Southern self-determination referendum guaranteed in the Machakos Protocol (July 2002)—will not be honored by the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime. Whether in the form of a unilateral abrogation of yet another agreement by Khartoum or a unilateral Southern declaration of independence, the moment of most desperate truth for millions of Sudanese will have arrived.
In the short term Khartoum may still decide that its interests lie in making temporary concessions on the referendum legislation that was to have been passed more than two years ago. But recent public comments, from both the Southern political leadership and Khartoum officials, suggest that this is growing less likely. Moreover, several other key issues impinge on the final meaning of the self-determination referendum, including a demarcation of the North-South border; the final status of Abyei (which is to have its own self-determination referendum, with the choice of joining the South); the role of a deeply compromised census favoring Khartoum on virtually every demographic issue; and the use to which the regime will put the April 2010 national elections, which have already been delayed twice and now lie only five months off. Further delay would push these elections into the rainy season and make an already overwhelming logistical challenge utterly impossible. Read more >>>>
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Al-Bashir should be arrested, not invited
He is back in town. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, president of Sudan, against whom the International Criminal Court, or ICC, has issued an arrest warrant, has been invited to a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, in Istanbul. Last year, al-Bashir visited Turkey twice and despite national and international protests the Turkish government seems to have no intention at all of changing its policy on allowing a person into the country that is under strong suspicion of being responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
First the facts. Between 2003 and 2008, according to United Nations estimates, 300,000 people were killed in Darfur, a region in Sudan where armed groups oppose the central government. A campaign against these rebels was organized that included unlawful attacks on that part of the civilian population of Darfur perceived to be close to the organized armed groups. In March 2009, the ICC found that al-Bashir, as the de jure and de facto president of Sudan and commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, is suspected of having coordinated the design and implementation of that campaign.
Until today, 110 countries have ratified the Rome Statute establishing the ICC. The Court will only intervene if national legal systems are unable or unwilling to do so. The Court can automatically exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of a state that is a member of the ICC or by a national of that state. ICC members must cooperate with the court, including surrendering suspects when requested to do so by the court. Turkey has not yet ratified the Rome Statute despite promises made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dating back to 2004. Read more >>>>>>>>>
First the facts. Between 2003 and 2008, according to United Nations estimates, 300,000 people were killed in Darfur, a region in Sudan where armed groups oppose the central government. A campaign against these rebels was organized that included unlawful attacks on that part of the civilian population of Darfur perceived to be close to the organized armed groups. In March 2009, the ICC found that al-Bashir, as the de jure and de facto president of Sudan and commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, is suspected of having coordinated the design and implementation of that campaign.
Until today, 110 countries have ratified the Rome Statute establishing the ICC. The Court will only intervene if national legal systems are unable or unwilling to do so. The Court can automatically exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of a state that is a member of the ICC or by a national of that state. ICC members must cooperate with the court, including surrendering suspects when requested to do so by the court. Turkey has not yet ratified the Rome Statute despite promises made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dating back to 2004. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Two Kidnapped Darfur Aid Workers Freed - Official
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Two kidnapped aid workers from the Irish agency Goal were released on Sunday in Sudan's troubled Darfur region after more than 100 days in captivity, a government official said.
"They were released earlier this morning," Sudan's state minister for humanitarian affairs, Abdel Baqi al-Jailani, told Reuters.
Sharon Commins, from Dublin, and Hilda Kawuki, from Uganda, were seized in their north Darfur compound by a group of armed men in July.
Darfur has seen a wave of kidnappings in the past year, and aid workers working in the hostile region have had to step up security. Mostly Darfur rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect.
A brutal counter-insurgency campaign drove more than 2 million people from their homes and sparked a humanitarian crisis which the United Nations says has claimed 300,000 lives.
Sudanese officials had been negotiating with the kidnappers through tribal elders. Jailani's ministry said no ransom had been paid and the two women were on their way to North Darfur's capital el-Fasher.
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said they had received the women in their office in Kutum, but added they were not involved in the negotiations.
"A doctor looked at them and they seemed in good health," said ICRC spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh.
Aid groups say they have faced increased hostility and threats since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March for Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges that he masterminded war crimes in Darfur. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>
"They were released earlier this morning," Sudan's state minister for humanitarian affairs, Abdel Baqi al-Jailani, told Reuters.
Sharon Commins, from Dublin, and Hilda Kawuki, from Uganda, were seized in their north Darfur compound by a group of armed men in July.
Darfur has seen a wave of kidnappings in the past year, and aid workers working in the hostile region have had to step up security. Mostly Darfur rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect.
A brutal counter-insurgency campaign drove more than 2 million people from their homes and sparked a humanitarian crisis which the United Nations says has claimed 300,000 lives.
Sudanese officials had been negotiating with the kidnappers through tribal elders. Jailani's ministry said no ransom had been paid and the two women were on their way to North Darfur's capital el-Fasher.
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said they had received the women in their office in Kutum, but added they were not involved in the negotiations.
"A doctor looked at them and they seemed in good health," said ICRC spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh.
Aid groups say they have faced increased hostility and threats since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March for Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges that he masterminded war crimes in Darfur. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sunday, October 04, 2009
American approach to Darfur genocide woefully lacking
By Jonathan Gurwitz
If you have followed the genocide in Darfur over the past six years, then you have seen and heard every manner of insult to the human conscience. I'm not talking here only about the endless atrocities of the Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militias, atrocities documented at length by human rights organizations, a United Nations commission, the International Criminal Court and the U.S. government.
I'm not talking about the genocidal plan of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to kill or drive out the black African residents of Darfur, a plan that has claimed 400,000 mostly civilian lives and created 2.5 million refugees. I'm not talking here about the widespread use of sexual violence as a premeditated strategy — gang rapes of women and girls, the castration of men and boys.
I am talking about the unconscionable response of American leaders to what's continuing to happen in Darfur.
While President George W. Bush did and said more than any other head of state to end the human calamity in Western Sudan, his special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, was saying something else. Back in 2007, Natsios was arguing that the slaughter in Darfur was over.
Sudanese solders and the Janjaweed evidently didn't get the message. The killings and rapes continue to this day, albeit at lower rates than at the height of the conflict. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If you have followed the genocide in Darfur over the past six years, then you have seen and heard every manner of insult to the human conscience. I'm not talking here only about the endless atrocities of the Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militias, atrocities documented at length by human rights organizations, a United Nations commission, the International Criminal Court and the U.S. government.
I'm not talking about the genocidal plan of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to kill or drive out the black African residents of Darfur, a plan that has claimed 400,000 mostly civilian lives and created 2.5 million refugees. I'm not talking here about the widespread use of sexual violence as a premeditated strategy — gang rapes of women and girls, the castration of men and boys.
I am talking about the unconscionable response of American leaders to what's continuing to happen in Darfur.
While President George W. Bush did and said more than any other head of state to end the human calamity in Western Sudan, his special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, was saying something else. Back in 2007, Natsios was arguing that the slaughter in Darfur was over.
Sudanese solders and the Janjaweed evidently didn't get the message. The killings and rapes continue to this day, albeit at lower rates than at the height of the conflict. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Monday, September 21, 2009
Diversionary tactics on Darfur
By Anne Bartlett
September 20, 2009 — Diversionary tactics seem to be the order of the day where Darfur is concerned. The real tragedy of Darfur – the suffering of its people – has been forgotten under a sea of pointless initiatives, all of which seem to have only one goal in mind: to create enough confusion and chaos that the status quo will prevail. On the ground - and contrary to prevailing diplomatic speak - people continue to be killed and targeted in the Jebel Marra area by government forces that now have carte blanche to do what they like. Meanwhile, day after day we are treated to a circus-like environment in which more and more competing initiatives are announced. Of course none of them have a hope of working, but that isn’t the point. For most of those involved, self-interest and geo-political gamesmanship have been put before human suffering – a point that is not lost on those living through this nightmare every day on the ground.
For the most part, Darfur has become a giant chess game in which everyone except the local people have a stake. For the NIF, chaos in Darfur creates a useful game of smoke and mirrors through which they are able to turn attention away from the possibility that they might be held accountable for their actions. To augment this strategy, the security and intelligence arms of the government are also working overtime, using oil money to bribe anyone to testify on their behalf. This situation has become markedly worse as a result of the relative impunity the Sudanese government now enjoys. Take for example the recent press conference by the oddly named “National Group for Correcting the Track of the Darfur Crisis” (NGCTDC). Their claim that external actors are manipulating and overstating the crisis is telling, as is the copious Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) coverage of their press conference which suggests clear government involvement.
Then of course, there is the US game of “soft diplomacy” with Scott Gration at the helm. For Gration the stated aim behind this softly-softly approach is to provide “leverage” so as to extract more concessions from the Sudanese government: a kind of carrot and carrot approach. Yet for all the talk, his plan is strangely reminiscent of a dictator appeasement policy carried out with the clear aim of currying favor with China and smoothing the way with the enormous portions of American debt they hold. More problematic still, it seems to be ahistorical in scope, conveniently stepping over the NIF’s track record and paying no strategic mind to the course of events that will be set in train over coming decades if extremists continue to control the largest country in Africa. This model of friendly condescension to locals and deals done under the table with dictators is fooling no one. As locals in Zam Zam and Abu Shouk camp recently pointed out, the US approach has done nothing to enhance their security or indeed their chances of survival.
As if the cynicism and manifest self-interest of western governments isn’t bad enough, there are then the interventions by regional players in the crisis. The first of these is the Doha initiative. Aside from the obvious issue of Qatar’s relationship with Sudan and of course, the disingenuous behavior on the part of the African Union, there is also the idiotic behavior by JEM which seems to be desperately jockeying to maintain its position and promote the interests of its followers. Add to this heady mix, a bunch of cellphone commanders and their sidekicks who have no credibility in Darfur, and Doha becomes nothing more than a talking shop created and maintained by NIF and Turabi supporters. Whatever one might think about Doha, seriousness or the ability to effect change on the ground should not figure into the calculation.
Not to be outdone, there are parallel initiatives from Egypt. Take for example the agreement between JEM and the Umma Party in Cairo in July. To understand this, one has to understand the desperation of all parties involved. JEM, as previously stated, has a lot of weapons, but no influence on the ground. Their backer, Al-Turabi, desperately wants to get his foot back in the political door. His relative, Al-Mahdi, is no better. The Umma Party and Al-Mahdi have neatly sidestepped their responsibility for the mess in Darfur, despite their central role in creating and perpetrating ethnic divisions in Darfur going back as far as elections in 1968. The Umma party therefore has a history of using and abusing ethnic and religious politics in Darfur and that propensity has not changed. Finally Egypt has an interest in perpetuating instability in the region, because a chaotic and underdeveloped Sudan augments their power and influence. It also prevents anyone from looking too carefully at the looming water crisis in the region.
Then of course there is the Libyan involvement. Libya’s role as a power player in the crisis is equally self-interested. From the early days and the deals done with Sadiq al-Mahdi to use Darfur as a weapons dump in his fight with the Chadians, to the attempts made to fracture and buy off factions of the SLA at the time of the Abuja talks, Gadaafi’s role in this crisis is constant and unrelenting. Recent weeks have witnessed a new initiative around the establishment of Sudan’s Liberation Revolutionary Forces (SLRF), with Libya attempting to create one structure before the resumption of peace talks in Doha. However, their lack of seriousness can be seen in the choice of candidate to lead such a group. Tigani Seisi Ateem, former Governor of Darfur, former sidekick of Al-Mahdi and staunch supporter of the politics of the center, cannot be considered a serious candidate to lead Darfurians anywhere. Besides his disastrous tenure as Governor of the region in which he sold the rights of the people of Darfur to the government and did next to nothing to advocate for their interests, he has no respect or constituency on the ground and certainly no ability to effect change.
As I write this at the time of Eid, the ramifications of these interests become even more devastating. Before in Darfur, Eid was a time of unity. People moved from village to village greeting each other and wishing the best for the following year. Kids dressed in new clothes, ate halawa and looked forward to this day all year as a time of joy and a celebration of their culture. Today however, kids live in camps, many of them not knowing or experiencing what Eid was like before. Many of them have no hope for the future, no understanding of peaceful coexistence and no connection to the culture or society that created them.
For Darfurians the message should be clear: Your strength lies in unity and understanding, not in division and hatred. The more Darfur is fractured, the more you allow the people of the region can be used by external parties for their own interests. The only way to stop this situation is to look internally and for the leaders of the region to stand up and be counted, not for their own benefit but for the benefit of their people. It is now 7 years since local people have experienced any normality whatsoever. Without a serious effort to redress the chaos that has been created by damaging agendas of the NIF, regional interests and western governments, there will be no future to look forward to. Herein lies the challenge and, in turn, your task for the year ahead.
Anne Bartlett is a Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. She may be reached at albartlett@usfca.edu
September 20, 2009 — Diversionary tactics seem to be the order of the day where Darfur is concerned. The real tragedy of Darfur – the suffering of its people – has been forgotten under a sea of pointless initiatives, all of which seem to have only one goal in mind: to create enough confusion and chaos that the status quo will prevail. On the ground - and contrary to prevailing diplomatic speak - people continue to be killed and targeted in the Jebel Marra area by government forces that now have carte blanche to do what they like. Meanwhile, day after day we are treated to a circus-like environment in which more and more competing initiatives are announced. Of course none of them have a hope of working, but that isn’t the point. For most of those involved, self-interest and geo-political gamesmanship have been put before human suffering – a point that is not lost on those living through this nightmare every day on the ground.
For the most part, Darfur has become a giant chess game in which everyone except the local people have a stake. For the NIF, chaos in Darfur creates a useful game of smoke and mirrors through which they are able to turn attention away from the possibility that they might be held accountable for their actions. To augment this strategy, the security and intelligence arms of the government are also working overtime, using oil money to bribe anyone to testify on their behalf. This situation has become markedly worse as a result of the relative impunity the Sudanese government now enjoys. Take for example the recent press conference by the oddly named “National Group for Correcting the Track of the Darfur Crisis” (NGCTDC). Their claim that external actors are manipulating and overstating the crisis is telling, as is the copious Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) coverage of their press conference which suggests clear government involvement.
Then of course, there is the US game of “soft diplomacy” with Scott Gration at the helm. For Gration the stated aim behind this softly-softly approach is to provide “leverage” so as to extract more concessions from the Sudanese government: a kind of carrot and carrot approach. Yet for all the talk, his plan is strangely reminiscent of a dictator appeasement policy carried out with the clear aim of currying favor with China and smoothing the way with the enormous portions of American debt they hold. More problematic still, it seems to be ahistorical in scope, conveniently stepping over the NIF’s track record and paying no strategic mind to the course of events that will be set in train over coming decades if extremists continue to control the largest country in Africa. This model of friendly condescension to locals and deals done under the table with dictators is fooling no one. As locals in Zam Zam and Abu Shouk camp recently pointed out, the US approach has done nothing to enhance their security or indeed their chances of survival.
As if the cynicism and manifest self-interest of western governments isn’t bad enough, there are then the interventions by regional players in the crisis. The first of these is the Doha initiative. Aside from the obvious issue of Qatar’s relationship with Sudan and of course, the disingenuous behavior on the part of the African Union, there is also the idiotic behavior by JEM which seems to be desperately jockeying to maintain its position and promote the interests of its followers. Add to this heady mix, a bunch of cellphone commanders and their sidekicks who have no credibility in Darfur, and Doha becomes nothing more than a talking shop created and maintained by NIF and Turabi supporters. Whatever one might think about Doha, seriousness or the ability to effect change on the ground should not figure into the calculation.
Not to be outdone, there are parallel initiatives from Egypt. Take for example the agreement between JEM and the Umma Party in Cairo in July. To understand this, one has to understand the desperation of all parties involved. JEM, as previously stated, has a lot of weapons, but no influence on the ground. Their backer, Al-Turabi, desperately wants to get his foot back in the political door. His relative, Al-Mahdi, is no better. The Umma Party and Al-Mahdi have neatly sidestepped their responsibility for the mess in Darfur, despite their central role in creating and perpetrating ethnic divisions in Darfur going back as far as elections in 1968. The Umma party therefore has a history of using and abusing ethnic and religious politics in Darfur and that propensity has not changed. Finally Egypt has an interest in perpetuating instability in the region, because a chaotic and underdeveloped Sudan augments their power and influence. It also prevents anyone from looking too carefully at the looming water crisis in the region.
Then of course there is the Libyan involvement. Libya’s role as a power player in the crisis is equally self-interested. From the early days and the deals done with Sadiq al-Mahdi to use Darfur as a weapons dump in his fight with the Chadians, to the attempts made to fracture and buy off factions of the SLA at the time of the Abuja talks, Gadaafi’s role in this crisis is constant and unrelenting. Recent weeks have witnessed a new initiative around the establishment of Sudan’s Liberation Revolutionary Forces (SLRF), with Libya attempting to create one structure before the resumption of peace talks in Doha. However, their lack of seriousness can be seen in the choice of candidate to lead such a group. Tigani Seisi Ateem, former Governor of Darfur, former sidekick of Al-Mahdi and staunch supporter of the politics of the center, cannot be considered a serious candidate to lead Darfurians anywhere. Besides his disastrous tenure as Governor of the region in which he sold the rights of the people of Darfur to the government and did next to nothing to advocate for their interests, he has no respect or constituency on the ground and certainly no ability to effect change.
As I write this at the time of Eid, the ramifications of these interests become even more devastating. Before in Darfur, Eid was a time of unity. People moved from village to village greeting each other and wishing the best for the following year. Kids dressed in new clothes, ate halawa and looked forward to this day all year as a time of joy and a celebration of their culture. Today however, kids live in camps, many of them not knowing or experiencing what Eid was like before. Many of them have no hope for the future, no understanding of peaceful coexistence and no connection to the culture or society that created them.
For Darfurians the message should be clear: Your strength lies in unity and understanding, not in division and hatred. The more Darfur is fractured, the more you allow the people of the region can be used by external parties for their own interests. The only way to stop this situation is to look internally and for the leaders of the region to stand up and be counted, not for their own benefit but for the benefit of their people. It is now 7 years since local people have experienced any normality whatsoever. Without a serious effort to redress the chaos that has been created by damaging agendas of the NIF, regional interests and western governments, there will be no future to look forward to. Herein lies the challenge and, in turn, your task for the year ahead.
Anne Bartlett is a Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. She may be reached at albartlett@usfca.edu
Monday, September 14, 2009
Raising awareness
Students, activists and elected officials marched through Downtown this afternoon to raise awareness of the human rights violations taking place in Darfur and South Sudan.
The march is the first of several events this month organized by the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition to take advantage of the arrival of world leaders and international media in Pittsburgh for the upcoming G-20 Summit on Sept. 24 and 25.
The marchers, lead by a group of West African drummers, held signs bearing the names of destroyed villages as they walked from the City-County Building to Mellon Park. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Has war ended in Darfur?
By Eric Reeves
Has Darfur’s war ended? Has the genocidal counter-insurgency launched by the Khartoum regime in 2003 against Darfuri rebels and the non-Arab civilian population of Darfur been halted? Two departing leaders of the current UN/African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) claim that the war is indeed over, and has devolved into a “low-intensity” security problem. General Martin Agwai, the Nigerian force commander, declared on stepping down that, “as of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur,” but rather "very low intensity" engagements. “What you have is security issues more now. Banditry, localised issues….” Rodolphe Adada of Congo, the incompetent joint UN/African Union representative to UNAMID, declared with breathtaking arrogance, “I have achieved results" in Darfur. "There is no more fighting proper on the ground.” “Right now there is no high-intensity conflict in Darfur…. Call it what you will but this is what is happening in Darfur---a lot of banditry, carjacking, attacks on houses.”
How accurately do these self-serving assessments comport with the daily realities that confront Darfuris and the international aid workers who struggle to provide food, clean water, shelter, and primary medical care for some 4.7 million conflict-affected civilians? Over the past 20 months---all on UNAMID’s watch---some 450,000 civilians have been newly displaced in Darfur, a large majority by violence; camps for displaced persons are now home to almost 3 million people. “Low-intensity”? A UN map of areas that have little or no humanitarian access shows virtually all of Darfur as significantly insecure (search “darfur humanitarian access map"+july+2009 at http://www.unsudanig.org/). As a consequence, most humanitarian operations and international humanitarian workers have retreated to urban areas, where there are still shockingly violent attacks, official harassment, carjackings, and banditry. There has also been an alarming increasing in the kidnapping of aid workers. Much of this violence is clearly condoned by Khartoum in a ruthless war of attrition against humanitarian operations. Unsurprisingly, it has become harder and harder to attract experienced aid workers to Darfur, an essential task following Khartoum’s March expulsion of thirteen key international aid organizations.
Darfuris wishing to return to their homes and villages to resume agriculturally productive lives cannot: Khartoum’s brutal Arab militia allies, the Janjaweed, continue their predations, often within sight of the camps. Women and girls are raped, men and boys beaten or killed. At the same time, many villages and lands have been occupied by marauding Arab groups, some from as far away as Chad, Niger, and Mali.
Adada and Agwai make much of a decline in violent mortality; but this decline was inevitable for two reasons. First, the actual military conflict in Darfur has drifted into a tactical and strategic stalemate, one that inevitably favors Khartoum---especially if the international community seizes on characterizations such as those offered by Agwai and Adada. Of the rebel movements, only the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has the military resources and disposition to go on the offensive; but even JEM can no longer hold towns or villages it seizes and seems incapable of delivering a truly sustained and punishing blow to Khartoum’s regular military or various paramilitary proxies. Military coordination between the rebel factions is non-existent. Even so, the stalemate might still be broken for a number of reasons, and UNAMID at present would be powerless to halt a new escalation of violence.
Second, given the high levels of previous destruction, there is relatively little that remains in the way of promising new targets of opportunity among the villages and lands of non-Arab or African populations of Darfur, which made up at least two-thirds of the pre-war population. If we assume that the total pre-war population of Darfur was between six and seven million, then approximately 70 - 85 percent of the African population is either displaced or dead. My own survey of informed Darfuris in the diaspora revealed a clear consensus that 80 - 90 percent of African villages have been destroyed. And Google Earth has recently released new data showing more than 3,000 villages in Darfur destroyed or damaged during the period of greatest violence (see http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/...). These highly detailed photographs of course do not indicate villages that were simply abandoned for fear of impending attacks.
Let us be clear: “low-intensity” does nothing to describe or convey the terrible destruction that the AU and the international community allowed to rage when violence could have been halted by prompt and robust humanitarian intervention. Nor does “low-intensity” describe the present soul-destroying nature of existence within the camps: the relentless privations, the pervasive threats to health, the loss of hope, the acute sense of abandonment, and the anger and despair that relentlessly haunt daily existence. Victims of genocidal violence continue to be victimized, continue to face conditions of life calculated in many ways to bring about their physical destruction.
As to the scale of current violence in Darfur, it must be said first that UNAMID simply isn’t in a position to assess comprehensively the number of violent deaths or deaths that result from civilians fleeing violence. And limited access to much of Darfur is only part of the problem. In February, for example, approximately 100,000 civilians in the Muhajeria area of South Darfur were forced to flee following large-scale fighting between JEM and Khartoum’s forces, as well as subsequent bombing and ground attacks on neighboring towns and villages by Khartoum. We know that many made it to camps to the west and northwest, but a great many fled east and are unaccounted for. The very elderly and very young would have struggled to make it to camps, as would those injured during the fighting; a number of these people would have died. Conditions were appalling on the outskirts of Zamzam camp, to which some 35,000 people fled, overwhelming available resources and creating an immediate health emergency, with inevitable additional morbidity and mortality.
Nonetheless, UNAMID promulgated a figure of 102 violent deaths for all of February, throughout all of Darfur: this represented the number of bodies actually counted and assigned “violence” as the cause of death. But so much is excluded by means of this astringent methodology that it becomes meaningless as a figure for global mortality, particularly when to date perhaps 80 percent of those dying in the Darfur conflict are victims of the after-effects of violence rather than directly perpetrated violent acts. Violence is no less the cause of death, but this hasn’t prevented UNAMID officials from using their own highly circumscribed figures as evidence of the mission’s “success.” The same was true for the large-scale, scorched-earth campaign mounted by Khartoum north of el-Geneina in February 2008 (early in UNAMID’s official tenure): again, many of those killed or displaced were never accounted for.
UNAMID is neither responsible for the diminishment in the levels of violence in Darfur nor capable of halting major conflict should it resume. UNAMID offers some important security to civilians and humanitarians, in some locations, but given the mandate of the force and the size of nominally committed resources, it should be capable of much more, particularly in monitoring and bolstering security in more remote locations. Instead, General Agwai gave us an all-too-accurate account of UNAMID’s ability to monitor developments on the ground when he recently acknowledged that the force was like “very small ink spots on blotting paper. [We currently have] 32 spots, but we’re beginning to expand and spread.” We’ve been hearing a version of this claim since the UN Security Council authorized UNAMID over two years ago (UN Security Council Resolution 1769, July 31, 2007). But as recently as this past April, Special Representative Adada was obliged to concede in his briefing of the Council that UNAMID “was operating at roughly one third of its full capability.”
Moreover, UNAMID is in no position to continue with even its current protection efforts if it must at the same time effectively monitor a cease-fire, were one to be negotiated between Khartoum and the rebels. Yet virtually all observers acknowledge that a well-defined, robustly enforced cease-fire is the critical first step for successful peace negotiations. Adada and Agwai, with considerable (and justifiable) concern for how history will judge them, have done little to explain how UNAMID will meet the challenges of successfully monitoring such a cease-fire. Instead, they are framing the issues in Darfur in a way that deliberately obscures the massive security crisis that only deepens with time, and the extreme challenges of monitoring a cease-fire agreement that would have as one of its signatories a regime that has a history defined by reneging on such agreements.
Large-scale conflict may or may not resume in Darfur; but to focus only on the scale of military confrontation misses the broader issue. If insecurity ---from whatever source(s) --- collapses present international humanitarian operations, there will be hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and it will not matter whether or not they are described as "low intensity."
Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College and author of "A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide"
Has Darfur’s war ended? Has the genocidal counter-insurgency launched by the Khartoum regime in 2003 against Darfuri rebels and the non-Arab civilian population of Darfur been halted? Two departing leaders of the current UN/African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) claim that the war is indeed over, and has devolved into a “low-intensity” security problem. General Martin Agwai, the Nigerian force commander, declared on stepping down that, “as of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur,” but rather "very low intensity" engagements. “What you have is security issues more now. Banditry, localised issues….” Rodolphe Adada of Congo, the incompetent joint UN/African Union representative to UNAMID, declared with breathtaking arrogance, “I have achieved results" in Darfur. "There is no more fighting proper on the ground.” “Right now there is no high-intensity conflict in Darfur…. Call it what you will but this is what is happening in Darfur---a lot of banditry, carjacking, attacks on houses.”
How accurately do these self-serving assessments comport with the daily realities that confront Darfuris and the international aid workers who struggle to provide food, clean water, shelter, and primary medical care for some 4.7 million conflict-affected civilians? Over the past 20 months---all on UNAMID’s watch---some 450,000 civilians have been newly displaced in Darfur, a large majority by violence; camps for displaced persons are now home to almost 3 million people. “Low-intensity”? A UN map of areas that have little or no humanitarian access shows virtually all of Darfur as significantly insecure (search “darfur humanitarian access map"+july+2009 at http://www.unsudanig.org/). As a consequence, most humanitarian operations and international humanitarian workers have retreated to urban areas, where there are still shockingly violent attacks, official harassment, carjackings, and banditry. There has also been an alarming increasing in the kidnapping of aid workers. Much of this violence is clearly condoned by Khartoum in a ruthless war of attrition against humanitarian operations. Unsurprisingly, it has become harder and harder to attract experienced aid workers to Darfur, an essential task following Khartoum’s March expulsion of thirteen key international aid organizations.
Darfuris wishing to return to their homes and villages to resume agriculturally productive lives cannot: Khartoum’s brutal Arab militia allies, the Janjaweed, continue their predations, often within sight of the camps. Women and girls are raped, men and boys beaten or killed. At the same time, many villages and lands have been occupied by marauding Arab groups, some from as far away as Chad, Niger, and Mali.
Adada and Agwai make much of a decline in violent mortality; but this decline was inevitable for two reasons. First, the actual military conflict in Darfur has drifted into a tactical and strategic stalemate, one that inevitably favors Khartoum---especially if the international community seizes on characterizations such as those offered by Agwai and Adada. Of the rebel movements, only the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has the military resources and disposition to go on the offensive; but even JEM can no longer hold towns or villages it seizes and seems incapable of delivering a truly sustained and punishing blow to Khartoum’s regular military or various paramilitary proxies. Military coordination between the rebel factions is non-existent. Even so, the stalemate might still be broken for a number of reasons, and UNAMID at present would be powerless to halt a new escalation of violence.
Second, given the high levels of previous destruction, there is relatively little that remains in the way of promising new targets of opportunity among the villages and lands of non-Arab or African populations of Darfur, which made up at least two-thirds of the pre-war population. If we assume that the total pre-war population of Darfur was between six and seven million, then approximately 70 - 85 percent of the African population is either displaced or dead. My own survey of informed Darfuris in the diaspora revealed a clear consensus that 80 - 90 percent of African villages have been destroyed. And Google Earth has recently released new data showing more than 3,000 villages in Darfur destroyed or damaged during the period of greatest violence (see http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/...). These highly detailed photographs of course do not indicate villages that were simply abandoned for fear of impending attacks.
Let us be clear: “low-intensity” does nothing to describe or convey the terrible destruction that the AU and the international community allowed to rage when violence could have been halted by prompt and robust humanitarian intervention. Nor does “low-intensity” describe the present soul-destroying nature of existence within the camps: the relentless privations, the pervasive threats to health, the loss of hope, the acute sense of abandonment, and the anger and despair that relentlessly haunt daily existence. Victims of genocidal violence continue to be victimized, continue to face conditions of life calculated in many ways to bring about their physical destruction.
As to the scale of current violence in Darfur, it must be said first that UNAMID simply isn’t in a position to assess comprehensively the number of violent deaths or deaths that result from civilians fleeing violence. And limited access to much of Darfur is only part of the problem. In February, for example, approximately 100,000 civilians in the Muhajeria area of South Darfur were forced to flee following large-scale fighting between JEM and Khartoum’s forces, as well as subsequent bombing and ground attacks on neighboring towns and villages by Khartoum. We know that many made it to camps to the west and northwest, but a great many fled east and are unaccounted for. The very elderly and very young would have struggled to make it to camps, as would those injured during the fighting; a number of these people would have died. Conditions were appalling on the outskirts of Zamzam camp, to which some 35,000 people fled, overwhelming available resources and creating an immediate health emergency, with inevitable additional morbidity and mortality.
Nonetheless, UNAMID promulgated a figure of 102 violent deaths for all of February, throughout all of Darfur: this represented the number of bodies actually counted and assigned “violence” as the cause of death. But so much is excluded by means of this astringent methodology that it becomes meaningless as a figure for global mortality, particularly when to date perhaps 80 percent of those dying in the Darfur conflict are victims of the after-effects of violence rather than directly perpetrated violent acts. Violence is no less the cause of death, but this hasn’t prevented UNAMID officials from using their own highly circumscribed figures as evidence of the mission’s “success.” The same was true for the large-scale, scorched-earth campaign mounted by Khartoum north of el-Geneina in February 2008 (early in UNAMID’s official tenure): again, many of those killed or displaced were never accounted for.
UNAMID is neither responsible for the diminishment in the levels of violence in Darfur nor capable of halting major conflict should it resume. UNAMID offers some important security to civilians and humanitarians, in some locations, but given the mandate of the force and the size of nominally committed resources, it should be capable of much more, particularly in monitoring and bolstering security in more remote locations. Instead, General Agwai gave us an all-too-accurate account of UNAMID’s ability to monitor developments on the ground when he recently acknowledged that the force was like “very small ink spots on blotting paper. [We currently have] 32 spots, but we’re beginning to expand and spread.” We’ve been hearing a version of this claim since the UN Security Council authorized UNAMID over two years ago (UN Security Council Resolution 1769, July 31, 2007). But as recently as this past April, Special Representative Adada was obliged to concede in his briefing of the Council that UNAMID “was operating at roughly one third of its full capability.”
Moreover, UNAMID is in no position to continue with even its current protection efforts if it must at the same time effectively monitor a cease-fire, were one to be negotiated between Khartoum and the rebels. Yet virtually all observers acknowledge that a well-defined, robustly enforced cease-fire is the critical first step for successful peace negotiations. Adada and Agwai, with considerable (and justifiable) concern for how history will judge them, have done little to explain how UNAMID will meet the challenges of successfully monitoring such a cease-fire. Instead, they are framing the issues in Darfur in a way that deliberately obscures the massive security crisis that only deepens with time, and the extreme challenges of monitoring a cease-fire agreement that would have as one of its signatories a regime that has a history defined by reneging on such agreements.
Large-scale conflict may or may not resume in Darfur; but to focus only on the scale of military confrontation misses the broader issue. If insecurity ---from whatever source(s) --- collapses present international humanitarian operations, there will be hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and it will not matter whether or not they are described as "low intensity."
Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College and author of "A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide"
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Time to act
THE GENOCIDE IN Darfur has carried on for seven years, approaching the lifespan of Hitler’s Third Reich.
Emporia residents and dedicated officials like Sen. Sam Brownback have garnered attention to this issue worldwide and the suffering has not been forgotten. However, despite President Barack Obama’s March 18 statement that “Sudan is a priority for this administration,” the White House has failed to demonstrate the sense of urgency portrayed in the campaign.
Although many of us were delighted by the President’s promises for urgent action in Darfur, the administration has failed to release a long-overdue policy review of Sudan and our special envoy appears to focus on undeserved rewards for Kartoum.
Ten years of the regime should have taught us to trust deeds over words. The policy review must clearly state objectives in Sudan: a peace process for Darfur, a comprehensive peace agreement between North and South Sudan and a Chad-Sudan peace process. Until robust action has occurred, the Obama administration must abandon the moral high ground that gave the campaign such a clear view of the White House. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Emporia residents and dedicated officials like Sen. Sam Brownback have garnered attention to this issue worldwide and the suffering has not been forgotten. However, despite President Barack Obama’s March 18 statement that “Sudan is a priority for this administration,” the White House has failed to demonstrate the sense of urgency portrayed in the campaign.
Although many of us were delighted by the President’s promises for urgent action in Darfur, the administration has failed to release a long-overdue policy review of Sudan and our special envoy appears to focus on undeserved rewards for Kartoum.
Ten years of the regime should have taught us to trust deeds over words. The policy review must clearly state objectives in Sudan: a peace process for Darfur, a comprehensive peace agreement between North and South Sudan and a Chad-Sudan peace process. Until robust action has occurred, the Obama administration must abandon the moral high ground that gave the campaign such a clear view of the White House. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Thursday, August 20, 2009
ANALYSIS-Frustrated Darfur activists slam US envoy Gration
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Frustrated by the world's failure to end the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's western Darfur region, some advocacy groups have turned on the new U.S. envoy, accusing him of helping Khartoum thwart peace.
The unusual public censure highlights a growing divide on Darfur. One side are those who feel more engagement with -- and less criticism of -- Khartoum is needed to end the suffering in Darfur. On the other are those who support more pressure, more sanctions and possibly military action if Sudan blocks efforts to secure peace in the region.
The Darfur conflict has been going on for more than six years. The United Nations says as many as 300,000 people have died since 2003, compared to Khartoum's official death toll of 10,000. The world body also says some 4.7 million people in Darfur rely on aid to survive.
In an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force General Scott Gration, actress Mia Farrow and other activists said that Gration's strategy with Sudan was prolonging the crisis.
"We believe that your conciliatory stance and reluctance to criticize (Khartoum) both excuses and emboldens (it), thereby facilitating its ongoing reign of terror and well-known strategy of 'divide and rule,'" the letter said. Read more >>>>>>>>
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Frustrated by the world's failure to end the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's western Darfur region, some advocacy groups have turned on the new U.S. envoy, accusing him of helping Khartoum thwart peace.
The unusual public censure highlights a growing divide on Darfur. One side are those who feel more engagement with -- and less criticism of -- Khartoum is needed to end the suffering in Darfur. On the other are those who support more pressure, more sanctions and possibly military action if Sudan blocks efforts to secure peace in the region.
The Darfur conflict has been going on for more than six years. The United Nations says as many as 300,000 people have died since 2003, compared to Khartoum's official death toll of 10,000. The world body also says some 4.7 million people in Darfur rely on aid to survive.
In an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force General Scott Gration, actress Mia Farrow and other activists said that Gration's strategy with Sudan was prolonging the crisis.
"We believe that your conciliatory stance and reluctance to criticize (Khartoum) both excuses and emboldens (it), thereby facilitating its ongoing reign of terror and well-known strategy of 'divide and rule,'" the letter said. Read more >>>>>>>>
Monday, August 17, 2009
Jewish leaders criticize Mubarak for receiving Sudanese president
A hundred rabbis and Jewish organizational leaders from North America have signed a letter reproaching the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak for hosting his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir in Cairo. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with the genocide in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
The letter, organized by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, was handed Sunday to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington. "As Jewish leaders living in the aftermath of the Holocaust, we are keenly aware of the need for swift action against the perpetrators of genocide. Bashir should be brought to justice, not treated as if he is a respected international leader," it read.
The letter comes on the eve of Mubarak's visit to Washington. The White House wants Egypt to help press the Palestinians back to the table and to persuade other Arab nations to make conciliatory gestures to Israel. In Washington, Mubarak was to meet with US Jewish leaders. Read more >>>>>>>>>
The letter, organized by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, was handed Sunday to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington. "As Jewish leaders living in the aftermath of the Holocaust, we are keenly aware of the need for swift action against the perpetrators of genocide. Bashir should be brought to justice, not treated as if he is a respected international leader," it read.
The letter comes on the eve of Mubarak's visit to Washington. The White House wants Egypt to help press the Palestinians back to the table and to persuade other Arab nations to make conciliatory gestures to Israel. In Washington, Mubarak was to meet with US Jewish leaders. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Where is the Muslim anger over Darfur?
By: Ed Husain
As war raged in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, people around the world called for international intervention to stop the shelling of civilians. In January this year, millions shared similar feelings of horror and anger witnessing the bloodshed in Gaza. Both events were especially painful to Muslims watching other defenceless Muslims being killed. But why have the deaths of vastly more unarmed Muslims in Darfur caused so little concern among co-religionists?
The Khartoum regime, brought to power in a highly ideological and fundamentalist Islamist coup 20 years ago, has killed an estimated 400,000 of its fellow Muslim citizens. Yet, there is near silence about massive human rights abuses in the remote western corner of Sudan. As Tareq Al-Hamed, editor of the Asharq Alaswat paper, has asked, "Are the people of Darfur not Muslims as well?"
When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese leader, President Bashir, in March, Muslim politicians from Senegal to Malaysia rallied behind him. The same people who demand international justice for war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza abruptly changed their tune. Instead of denouncing Bashir as the architect of ethnic cleansing, they congratulated him for defying the "conspiracy" to undermine Sudan's sovereignty so the West can take its oil. The Iranian Parliamentary Speaker, Ali Larijani, said the ICC warrant was "an insult to the Muslim world". Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As war raged in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, people around the world called for international intervention to stop the shelling of civilians. In January this year, millions shared similar feelings of horror and anger witnessing the bloodshed in Gaza. Both events were especially painful to Muslims watching other defenceless Muslims being killed. But why have the deaths of vastly more unarmed Muslims in Darfur caused so little concern among co-religionists?
The Khartoum regime, brought to power in a highly ideological and fundamentalist Islamist coup 20 years ago, has killed an estimated 400,000 of its fellow Muslim citizens. Yet, there is near silence about massive human rights abuses in the remote western corner of Sudan. As Tareq Al-Hamed, editor of the Asharq Alaswat paper, has asked, "Are the people of Darfur not Muslims as well?"
When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese leader, President Bashir, in March, Muslim politicians from Senegal to Malaysia rallied behind him. The same people who demand international justice for war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza abruptly changed their tune. Instead of denouncing Bashir as the architect of ethnic cleansing, they congratulated him for defying the "conspiracy" to undermine Sudan's sovereignty so the West can take its oil. The Iranian Parliamentary Speaker, Ali Larijani, said the ICC warrant was "an insult to the Muslim world". Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sunday, August 09, 2009
National fast draws attention to Darfur tragedy
By Judy Hellman,
On Thursday, I will join concerned people from across the country in a fast of solidarity with the people of Darfur. The Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee invites the community to participate.
Many thousands of people from 35 countries have participated in a rolling fast since Mia Farrow started the fast on April 27. The purpose of our fast is to call the world’s attention to the tragedy in Darfur and to demand the restoration of humanitarian aid to the people of Darfur and to the whole of Sudan.
It has been more than three months since humanitarian groups were expelled from Sudan, and the situation remains unresolved. Across Sudan communities that relied on aid groups now suffer without adequate food, sanitation or medical supplies.
The imminent onset of the rainy season is likely to lead to mass migration and water-borne disease epidemics in internally displaced persons camps, risking the lives of more than one million people. Children will be disproportionately affected.
Reports also have shown sharply escalating instances of rape as a weapon of war. Read more >>>>>>>>>
On Thursday, I will join concerned people from across the country in a fast of solidarity with the people of Darfur. The Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee invites the community to participate.
Many thousands of people from 35 countries have participated in a rolling fast since Mia Farrow started the fast on April 27. The purpose of our fast is to call the world’s attention to the tragedy in Darfur and to demand the restoration of humanitarian aid to the people of Darfur and to the whole of Sudan.
It has been more than three months since humanitarian groups were expelled from Sudan, and the situation remains unresolved. Across Sudan communities that relied on aid groups now suffer without adequate food, sanitation or medical supplies.
The imminent onset of the rainy season is likely to lead to mass migration and water-borne disease epidemics in internally displaced persons camps, risking the lives of more than one million people. Children will be disproportionately affected.
Reports also have shown sharply escalating instances of rape as a weapon of war. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Saturday, August 08, 2009
After six years, Darfur genocide still a reality
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof once described Darfur as a “genocide in slow motion.” Slow motion, because the international media were so lax in reporting the mass rapes of women and girls, the international community so meek in responding to each successive campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Year after year, the numbers added up — 100,000, then 200,000, then 400,000 dead, and 2.5 million refugees. Satellite images show a region nearly the size of Texas that has been scorched and depopulated. The fewer people who are left, the fewer there are to kill.
That led to some unusual semantics. The U.S. government officially describes the systematic elimination of the black African population of Darfur as genocide. But Andrew Natsios, President George W. Bush's special envoy to Sudan, told a group of journalists in 2007, “The slaughter in Darfur is over.”
That depends of course on your definition of slaughter. Thousands more would still perish — are still perishing — since Natsios made his remark. Later, former President Jimmy Carter said that referring to the post-slaughter in Darfur as genocide is inaccurate and unhelpful.
Now President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan is echoing both of these sentiments. “There's significant difference between what happened in 2004 and 2003, which we characterized as a genocide, and what is happening today,” Gen. Scott Gration told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Gration's comments reflect a debate within the Obama administration about Sudan policy. Facing the “remnants of genocide,” Gration and others argue, the United States should lift sanctions on Sudan and remove it from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
That would be a profound mistake. As long as the perpetrators of the atrocities are still empowered in Khartoum, as long as millions of refugees continue to live and die in squalid refugee camps, the genocide in Darfur cannot be airbrushed out of history. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Year after year, the numbers added up — 100,000, then 200,000, then 400,000 dead, and 2.5 million refugees. Satellite images show a region nearly the size of Texas that has been scorched and depopulated. The fewer people who are left, the fewer there are to kill.
That led to some unusual semantics. The U.S. government officially describes the systematic elimination of the black African population of Darfur as genocide. But Andrew Natsios, President George W. Bush's special envoy to Sudan, told a group of journalists in 2007, “The slaughter in Darfur is over.”
That depends of course on your definition of slaughter. Thousands more would still perish — are still perishing — since Natsios made his remark. Later, former President Jimmy Carter said that referring to the post-slaughter in Darfur as genocide is inaccurate and unhelpful.
Now President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan is echoing both of these sentiments. “There's significant difference between what happened in 2004 and 2003, which we characterized as a genocide, and what is happening today,” Gen. Scott Gration told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Gration's comments reflect a debate within the Obama administration about Sudan policy. Facing the “remnants of genocide,” Gration and others argue, the United States should lift sanctions on Sudan and remove it from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
That would be a profound mistake. As long as the perpetrators of the atrocities are still empowered in Khartoum, as long as millions of refugees continue to live and die in squalid refugee camps, the genocide in Darfur cannot be airbrushed out of history. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Genocidal Linkage
By: Kenneth Levin
The world’s media have given scant coverage lately to the ongoing genocide in Darfur, and - despite extensive reporting on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict - they have likewise offered little on the continuing campaign of genocidal incitement against Israel by her enemies. While seeming very separate issues, the two campaigns, and the choice by media and world leaders largely to ignore both, are, in fact, connected.
On one level, of course, the connection is obvious. Israel-hatred is spearheaded by the Arab world; in virtually every Arab nation, demonizing and delegitimizing of Israel, and often of Jews, is a staple of government-controlled media, schools and mosques. This is true even of the Arab states with which Israel is formally at peace. At the same time, the Arab world is the chief support of fellow Arab leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his Sudanese regime's genocidal assault on the Muslim blacks of Darfur. Illustrative was the Arab League’s unanimous, effusive embrace and defense of al-Bashir at its meeting in Doha, Qatar, in March, shortly after his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Tunisian human rights activist Mohammed Bechri several years ago argued that to understand Arab support for the genocide in Darfur, one has to recognize the "twin fascisms" - Bechri’s term - that dominate the Arab world: Islamism and Pan-Arabism. The first rejects the legitimacy of any non-Muslim group within what the Arabs perceive as their proper domain; the latter takes the same view towards any non-Arab group. The genocidal rhetoric, and efforts at mass murder, directed at Israel, and the genocidal assault on the Muslim but non-Arab people of Darfur follow from this mindset. (Bechri’s "twin fascisms" also account for the besiegement of Christians across the Arab world and backing for Sudan’s murder of some two million Christian and animist blacks in the south of the country. They help explain as well broad Arab support for the mass murder of Kurds - a Muslim but non-Arab people - in Iraq by Saddam Hussein and for the besiegement of the Kurds of Syria and the Berbers - another non-Arab Muslim group - in Algeria.)
But the connection between animosity towards Israel and coldness towards the victims in Darfur extends beyond the Arab world. It embraces, for example, all those European leaders who bend their consciences to accommodate Arab power - in oil, money and strategic territories - and who may pay lip service to recognizing the murderous incitement and related threats faced by Israel or to deploring the crimes suffered by Darfur but refuse to take serious steps to curb either. Read more >>>>>>>>>
The world’s media have given scant coverage lately to the ongoing genocide in Darfur, and - despite extensive reporting on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict - they have likewise offered little on the continuing campaign of genocidal incitement against Israel by her enemies. While seeming very separate issues, the two campaigns, and the choice by media and world leaders largely to ignore both, are, in fact, connected.
On one level, of course, the connection is obvious. Israel-hatred is spearheaded by the Arab world; in virtually every Arab nation, demonizing and delegitimizing of Israel, and often of Jews, is a staple of government-controlled media, schools and mosques. This is true even of the Arab states with which Israel is formally at peace. At the same time, the Arab world is the chief support of fellow Arab leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his Sudanese regime's genocidal assault on the Muslim blacks of Darfur. Illustrative was the Arab League’s unanimous, effusive embrace and defense of al-Bashir at its meeting in Doha, Qatar, in March, shortly after his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Tunisian human rights activist Mohammed Bechri several years ago argued that to understand Arab support for the genocide in Darfur, one has to recognize the "twin fascisms" - Bechri’s term - that dominate the Arab world: Islamism and Pan-Arabism. The first rejects the legitimacy of any non-Muslim group within what the Arabs perceive as their proper domain; the latter takes the same view towards any non-Arab group. The genocidal rhetoric, and efforts at mass murder, directed at Israel, and the genocidal assault on the Muslim but non-Arab people of Darfur follow from this mindset. (Bechri’s "twin fascisms" also account for the besiegement of Christians across the Arab world and backing for Sudan’s murder of some two million Christian and animist blacks in the south of the country. They help explain as well broad Arab support for the mass murder of Kurds - a Muslim but non-Arab people - in Iraq by Saddam Hussein and for the besiegement of the Kurds of Syria and the Berbers - another non-Arab Muslim group - in Algeria.)
But the connection between animosity towards Israel and coldness towards the victims in Darfur extends beyond the Arab world. It embraces, for example, all those European leaders who bend their consciences to accommodate Arab power - in oil, money and strategic territories - and who may pay lip service to recognizing the murderous incitement and related threats faced by Israel or to deploring the crimes suffered by Darfur but refuse to take serious steps to curb either. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Concern about Darfur
By Emmett Orr
Concern about Darfur
I am a 12-year-old boy with a concern about the Darfur genocide crisis in Sudan. The year of 1945 was the end of the Holocaust and we, as a country, decided "never again," but it is happening once again right in Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, yet this horrific genocide is being ignored.
In this government-sponsored horror, peace has been elusive and deaths and violence continue to increase. Read more >>>>>>
Concern about Darfur
I am a 12-year-old boy with a concern about the Darfur genocide crisis in Sudan. The year of 1945 was the end of the Holocaust and we, as a country, decided "never again," but it is happening once again right in Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, yet this horrific genocide is being ignored.
In this government-sponsored horror, peace has been elusive and deaths and violence continue to increase. Read more >>>>>>
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Holocaust scholars praise Uganda for stance on Darfur
By Cnaan Liphshiz,
Uganda's decision to block Sudan's president from attending a conference in Uganda this weekend drew praise from leading Holocaust scholars from around the world, who support Omar al-Bashir's isolation for his role in the Darfur genocide.
The scholars - including Yad Vashem Professor Yehuda Bauer and the president of Genocide Watch, Gregory H. Stanton - signed a petition praising the move.
"During the Holocaust, the international community failed to act," said cosignatory Dr. Rafael Medoff.
"By contrast, Uganda's action helps isolate Sudan's president and shames the Arab and African countries that have given him red-carpet treatment," concluded Medoff, director of the Washington-based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which organized the petition.
Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for his role in Darfur, had planned to attend the Smart Partnership conference in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, today until the recent announcement by Uganda Foreign Minister Henry Okello that Bashir could be arrested if he showed up.
In recent months, Bashir has visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, all of which ignored the ICC warrant for Bashir's arrest. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Uganda's decision to block Sudan's president from attending a conference in Uganda this weekend drew praise from leading Holocaust scholars from around the world, who support Omar al-Bashir's isolation for his role in the Darfur genocide.
The scholars - including Yad Vashem Professor Yehuda Bauer and the president of Genocide Watch, Gregory H. Stanton - signed a petition praising the move.
"During the Holocaust, the international community failed to act," said cosignatory Dr. Rafael Medoff.
"By contrast, Uganda's action helps isolate Sudan's president and shames the Arab and African countries that have given him red-carpet treatment," concluded Medoff, director of the Washington-based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which organized the petition.
Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for his role in Darfur, had planned to attend the Smart Partnership conference in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, today until the recent announcement by Uganda Foreign Minister Henry Okello that Bashir could be arrested if he showed up.
In recent months, Bashir has visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, all of which ignored the ICC warrant for Bashir's arrest. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sexual violence against Darfuri-women out of control
J.E. Robertson
Life for women in Darfuri refugee camps in Sudan and neighboring Chad is extremely hard. Many have no access to any public authority that will investigate violence against women, and medical facilities are scarce to non-existent. While rape is rampant, and has allegedly been used as a “weapon of war” by the Khartoum backed militia engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, women are seldom able to find safety in seeking help from local authorities.
Uprooted from their homes, often relegated to ad-hoc communities where male elders are dispersed or involved in conflict, women victimized by corrupt camp guards or Sudanese police or militia risk serious physical attack or punishment for reporting rape. The Darfur refugee crisis has exacerbated the crisis levels of violence against women, and ongoing conflict and an apparent government cover-up campaign help to conceal the crimes.
The Nobel-prize-winning human rights and medical aid group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has been investigating the proliferation of accounts of brutal treatment of women in the camps. One woman told the group “I was raped in the camp in 2007 by a man with a knife at night. I am very sad. I told this to the sheikha, but they didn’t find the man who did it. My new husband doesn’t know that this happened to me.” She also said Chadian soldiers now raid camps at night, but she was lucky to have evaded being raped, so far.
Another woman told PHR:
There is no food. I am suffering. They only give us a little bit of sorghum. How can I be happy? I think a lot about my country. I don’t think I’m sick, but I think a lot about what happened. The sadness has entered into my heart.
Sometimes, I go to look for wood. But if I see anyone on the way, I go back to the camp. They yell at me, “Leave the wood.” There’s only me on my ration card, so I don’t get enough wood.
I live here with my husband and grandchildren and daughter-in-law, the wife of my son who was killed. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Life for women in Darfuri refugee camps in Sudan and neighboring Chad is extremely hard. Many have no access to any public authority that will investigate violence against women, and medical facilities are scarce to non-existent. While rape is rampant, and has allegedly been used as a “weapon of war” by the Khartoum backed militia engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, women are seldom able to find safety in seeking help from local authorities.
Uprooted from their homes, often relegated to ad-hoc communities where male elders are dispersed or involved in conflict, women victimized by corrupt camp guards or Sudanese police or militia risk serious physical attack or punishment for reporting rape. The Darfur refugee crisis has exacerbated the crisis levels of violence against women, and ongoing conflict and an apparent government cover-up campaign help to conceal the crimes.
The Nobel-prize-winning human rights and medical aid group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has been investigating the proliferation of accounts of brutal treatment of women in the camps. One woman told the group “I was raped in the camp in 2007 by a man with a knife at night. I am very sad. I told this to the sheikha, but they didn’t find the man who did it. My new husband doesn’t know that this happened to me.” She also said Chadian soldiers now raid camps at night, but she was lucky to have evaded being raped, so far.
Another woman told PHR:
There is no food. I am suffering. They only give us a little bit of sorghum. How can I be happy? I think a lot about my country. I don’t think I’m sick, but I think a lot about what happened. The sadness has entered into my heart.
Sometimes, I go to look for wood. But if I see anyone on the way, I go back to the camp. They yell at me, “Leave the wood.” There’s only me on my ration card, so I don’t get enough wood.
I live here with my husband and grandchildren and daughter-in-law, the wife of my son who was killed. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Why Did The Slave Trade Happen?
Has the black man learned from the humiliation of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? No, we haven’t! Are we perpetually locked in the act of dehumanizing each other for the betterment of other races? Yes, we are! These questions and answers kept ricocheting through my mind when Barack Obama visited Ghana and as part of that highlighted the shame and guilt that the perpetrators of slavery never felt. Having a church sitting right on top of the dungeons, these people worshipped right on top of people they were subjecting to inexplicable conditions.
But who will you blame for slavery? It feels to me like the black person will do anything to humiliate his own kind to satisfy people of other color. To think that African chiefs will hunt their own down and give them off to slavery, not knowing what will be their fate in a completely strange land still puzzles me! And mentioning this brings to mind the way the African Union (AU) is shelving and protecting the president of Sudan, Oumar Al-Bashir. He is being accused of crimes against humanity in Darfur by the international community, yet he is allowed to go free by the AU, in the name of African peace. What is peaceful about methodically supervising the killings of innocent people and the raping of defenseless women by the Janjaweed militia in Darfur? Over 200, 000 people have been killed or displaced under the watch of this devil called Oumar Al-Bashir. Raed more >>>>>>>>>>
But who will you blame for slavery? It feels to me like the black person will do anything to humiliate his own kind to satisfy people of other color. To think that African chiefs will hunt their own down and give them off to slavery, not knowing what will be their fate in a completely strange land still puzzles me! And mentioning this brings to mind the way the African Union (AU) is shelving and protecting the president of Sudan, Oumar Al-Bashir. He is being accused of crimes against humanity in Darfur by the international community, yet he is allowed to go free by the AU, in the name of African peace. What is peaceful about methodically supervising the killings of innocent people and the raping of defenseless women by the Janjaweed militia in Darfur? Over 200, 000 people have been killed or displaced under the watch of this devil called Oumar Al-Bashir. Raed more >>>>>>>>>>
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Darfur people may be left out of Sudan election: U.N.
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - When Sudan holds its first democratic elections in over two decades next year, people in the conflict-ravaged region of Darfur may be left out, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said Friday.
"The contested census, large-scale displacement and volatility -- particularly in the area bordering Chad -- create enormous risks that the people of Darfur will not be in a position to participate in the electoral process," U.N. under-secretary-general Alain Le Roy said.
"This would further disenfranchise millions already disempowered by conflict," he told the U.N. Security Council, adding that the election results will have an "enormous impact" on the distribution of political power in Darfur where millions of internally displaced refugees live in camps. Read more >>>>
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Secretary-General deeply concerned by violence in West Darfur
Source: United Nations Secretary-General
The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
The Secretary-General is deeply concerned by the increasing violence in West Darfur and along the Chad-Sudan border.
The Secretary-General is disturbed by reports that bombs dropped by Chadian aircraft have struck locations in the vicinity of Umm Dukhum in West Darfur on 16 July. These events put the lives of Sudanese civilians at risk and could increase the tensions between the two countries. The Secretary-General condemns the incident and takes note that the Government of Sudan has rightly responded through diplomatic means. He urges both Governments to show restraint and make greater efforts to improve their relations.
The Secretary-General is also gravely concerned by the reports of bombings by the Government of Sudan on rebel positions in the Jebel Moon area of West Darfur, which took place on 18 July. He calls on the Sudanese Government and all parties to the conflict to cease military actions, comply with Security Council resolutions in this regard and to commit to a cessation of hostilities. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
The Secretary-General is deeply concerned by the increasing violence in West Darfur and along the Chad-Sudan border.
The Secretary-General is disturbed by reports that bombs dropped by Chadian aircraft have struck locations in the vicinity of Umm Dukhum in West Darfur on 16 July. These events put the lives of Sudanese civilians at risk and could increase the tensions between the two countries. The Secretary-General condemns the incident and takes note that the Government of Sudan has rightly responded through diplomatic means. He urges both Governments to show restraint and make greater efforts to improve their relations.
The Secretary-General is also gravely concerned by the reports of bombings by the Government of Sudan on rebel positions in the Jebel Moon area of West Darfur, which took place on 18 July. He calls on the Sudanese Government and all parties to the conflict to cease military actions, comply with Security Council resolutions in this regard and to commit to a cessation of hostilities. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Al-Bashir Backers Just as Guilty
By E Nkosi,
UGANDA should be commended for agreeing to arrest Sudanese President Hassan Al Bashir for committing genocide if he steps foot on Ugandan soil.
It is tragic that the recent gathering of African leaders at the African Union summit in Sirte, Libya, decided to side with dictators and not the victims of the brutality of some of the continent’s leaders.
The fact that the leaders see nothing wrong with the holocaust in Darfur can only suggest that they are as guilty as Sudan’s President. South Africa is a signatory to the Rome Statute and that is why Al Bashir was not able to travel for President Jacob Zuma’s inauguration.
We need more countries with the courage of Uganda and South Africa in order to put a stop to the abuse of Africans by their so-called leaders. It is a pity that the initiative should come from outside the continent. If African leaders serve the interests of the people as opposed to their own personal agendas, they would have welcomed the Rome Statute. Read morev >>>>>>>>>
UGANDA should be commended for agreeing to arrest Sudanese President Hassan Al Bashir for committing genocide if he steps foot on Ugandan soil.
It is tragic that the recent gathering of African leaders at the African Union summit in Sirte, Libya, decided to side with dictators and not the victims of the brutality of some of the continent’s leaders.
The fact that the leaders see nothing wrong with the holocaust in Darfur can only suggest that they are as guilty as Sudan’s President. South Africa is a signatory to the Rome Statute and that is why Al Bashir was not able to travel for President Jacob Zuma’s inauguration.
We need more countries with the courage of Uganda and South Africa in order to put a stop to the abuse of Africans by their so-called leaders. It is a pity that the initiative should come from outside the continent. If African leaders serve the interests of the people as opposed to their own personal agendas, they would have welcomed the Rome Statute. Read morev >>>>>>>>>
Monday, July 13, 2009
Uganda willing to arrest al-Bashir for war crimes
By GODFREY OLUKYA
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda said Monday it would arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir if he enters the country, an unusual stance after a summit of African leaders denounced the international arrest warrant against al-Bashir.
Henry Oryem Okello, Uganda's minister for international affairs, spoke after meeting with the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in Kampala.
Police "will ensure that he is arrested" if al-Bashir arrives, Okello said.
Ocampo added: "It is a legal obligation for Uganda to arrest Bashir if he comes to Uganda."
Earlier this month at an African Union summit, Africa's leaders criticized the International Criminal Court and refused to extradite al-Bashir, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Sudan welcomed the move, and other Africans said it was a signal that the West should not impose its ways on Africa. But several African leaders appeared to strongly disagree with the AU statement, and Benin Foreign Minister Jean-Marie Ehouzou said Sudan's neighbor and antagonist, Chad, objected to the wording. Read more >>>>>>>>
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda said Monday it would arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir if he enters the country, an unusual stance after a summit of African leaders denounced the international arrest warrant against al-Bashir.
Henry Oryem Okello, Uganda's minister for international affairs, spoke after meeting with the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in Kampala.
Police "will ensure that he is arrested" if al-Bashir arrives, Okello said.
Ocampo added: "It is a legal obligation for Uganda to arrest Bashir if he comes to Uganda."
Earlier this month at an African Union summit, Africa's leaders criticized the International Criminal Court and refused to extradite al-Bashir, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Sudan welcomed the move, and other Africans said it was a signal that the West should not impose its ways on Africa. But several African leaders appeared to strongly disagree with the AU statement, and Benin Foreign Minister Jean-Marie Ehouzou said Sudan's neighbor and antagonist, Chad, objected to the wording. Read more >>>>>>>>
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
ICC asked to charge Bashir with genocide
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, July 8 (UPI) -- Prosecutors have asked the judges of the International Criminal Court to reconsider their decision not to charge Sudan's president with war crimes.
The prosecutors filed an appeal Monday, the BBC reported.
In March, the judges issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir. The charges included war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the court, argues he and his colleagues assembled evidence showing the Sudanese state was mobilized to destroy three tribal groups in Darfur for at least six years. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
The prosecutors filed an appeal Monday, the BBC reported.
In March, the judges issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir. The charges included war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the court, argues he and his colleagues assembled evidence showing the Sudanese state was mobilized to destroy three tribal groups in Darfur for at least six years. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Botswana shows up SA on AU ‘reprieve’ for Bashir
SOUTH Africa has been upstaged by Botswana breaking ranks and condemning an African Union (AU) decision not to co-operate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its indictment of Sudan’s president.
Botswana’s criticism was the strongest by an AU member country since the resolution in favour of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was passed last Friday at the summit chaired by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
SA let the resolution pass despite being a signatory to the convention on the ICC, and has now tied itself into a diplomatic conundrum. By remaining silent on the AU resolution, SA gives tacit approval to Bashir’s flouting of his indictment, the first against a sitting head of state. SA is obliged to assist in the arrest of Bashir. Read more >>>>>
The AU summit decision enables Bashir to travel across Africa without fear of arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity as set out by the ICC.
Botswana’s criticism was the strongest by an AU member country since the resolution in favour of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was passed last Friday at the summit chaired by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
SA let the resolution pass despite being a signatory to the convention on the ICC, and has now tied itself into a diplomatic conundrum. By remaining silent on the AU resolution, SA gives tacit approval to Bashir’s flouting of his indictment, the first against a sitting head of state. SA is obliged to assist in the arrest of Bashir. Read more >>>>>
The AU summit decision enables Bashir to travel across Africa without fear of arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity as set out by the ICC.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Africa and the International Court
Eleven years ago when I opened the Rome conference that led to the founding of the International Criminal Court, I reminded the delegates that the eyes of the victims of past crimes and the potential victims of future ones were fixed firmly upon them. The delegates, many of whom were African, acted on that unique opportunity and created an institution to strengthen justice and the rule of law.
Now that important legacy rests once more in the hands of African leaders as they meet in Libya on Wednesday. The African Union summit meeting will be the first since the I.C.C. issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his alleged role in the atrocities in Darfur.
The African Union’s repeatedly stated commitment to battle impunity will be put to the test. On the agenda is an initiative by a few states to denounce and undermine the international court. In recent months, some African leaders have expressed the view that international justice as represented by the I.C.C. is an imposition, if not a plot, by the industrialized West.
In my view, this outcry against justice demeans the yearning for human dignity that resides in every African heart. It also represents a step backward in the battle against impunity.
Over the course of my 10 years as United Nations secretary general, the promise of justice and its potential as a deterrent came closer to reality. The atrocities committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia moved the Security Council to set up two ad hoc tribunals, building on the principles of post-World War II courts in Nuremberg and Tokyo.
These new tribunals showed that there is such a thing as effective international justice.
But these ad hoc tribunals were not enough. People the world over wanted to know that wherever and whenever the worst atrocities were committed — genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity — there would be a court to bring to justice anyone in a government hierarchy or military chain of command who was responsible. That principle would be applied without exception, whether to the lowliest soldier or the loftiest ruler.
Thus the International Criminal Court was formed. It now has 108 states, including 30 African countries, representing the largest regional bloc among the member states. Five of the court’s 18 judges are African. The I.C.C. reflects the demand of people everywhere for a court that can punish these serious crimes and deter others from committing them. Read more >>>>>>
Now that important legacy rests once more in the hands of African leaders as they meet in Libya on Wednesday. The African Union summit meeting will be the first since the I.C.C. issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his alleged role in the atrocities in Darfur.
The African Union’s repeatedly stated commitment to battle impunity will be put to the test. On the agenda is an initiative by a few states to denounce and undermine the international court. In recent months, some African leaders have expressed the view that international justice as represented by the I.C.C. is an imposition, if not a plot, by the industrialized West.
In my view, this outcry against justice demeans the yearning for human dignity that resides in every African heart. It also represents a step backward in the battle against impunity.
Over the course of my 10 years as United Nations secretary general, the promise of justice and its potential as a deterrent came closer to reality. The atrocities committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia moved the Security Council to set up two ad hoc tribunals, building on the principles of post-World War II courts in Nuremberg and Tokyo.
These new tribunals showed that there is such a thing as effective international justice.
But these ad hoc tribunals were not enough. People the world over wanted to know that wherever and whenever the worst atrocities were committed — genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity — there would be a court to bring to justice anyone in a government hierarchy or military chain of command who was responsible. That principle would be applied without exception, whether to the lowliest soldier or the loftiest ruler.
Thus the International Criminal Court was formed. It now has 108 states, including 30 African countries, representing the largest regional bloc among the member states. Five of the court’s 18 judges are African. The I.C.C. reflects the demand of people everywhere for a court that can punish these serious crimes and deter others from committing them. Read more >>>>>>
Monday, June 22, 2009
Fast draws attention to ongoing Darfur tragedy
As I write this letter on Thursday, I am joining rabbis across the country in a fast of solidarity with the people of Darfur. Thousands of people, celebrities, politicians, activists, and clergy from 35 different countries have fasted in an ongoing chain since Mia Farrow started the fast on April 27. The goals of this ongoing fast are to command the world's attention to genocide in Darfur and demand the restoration of humanitarian aid to the people there.
It has been almost three months since humanitarian groups were expelled from Sudan. Communities are suffering without adequate food, sanitation or medical supplies. Rape and deadly violence continue to threaten any hope for stability. With the rainy season comes mass migration and water-borne disease, risking yet more millions of lives.
Fasting is a traditional part of Judaism, used to remember tragedy or express repentance, but this fast is different. This fast is an active response to ongoing tragedy. If we just stand by, the people of Darfur will die. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
It has been almost three months since humanitarian groups were expelled from Sudan. Communities are suffering without adequate food, sanitation or medical supplies. Rape and deadly violence continue to threaten any hope for stability. With the rainy season comes mass migration and water-borne disease, risking yet more millions of lives.
Fasting is a traditional part of Judaism, used to remember tragedy or express repentance, but this fast is different. This fast is an active response to ongoing tragedy. If we just stand by, the people of Darfur will die. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Saturday, June 20, 2009
On the Re-writing of the Darfur Narrative
The historical narrative of the Darfur genocide is presently being re-written. Despite dozens of human rights reports that have established the basic realities of ethnically-targeted human destruction in Darfur and Eastern Chad over the past seven years, an effort is being made to minimise the scale of that destruction, elide the role of ethnicity in the conflict and downplay the responsibility of the Khartoum regime.
This large-scale revision has been taken up by those – particularly on the left – with an ideological aversion to humanitarian intervention. If the catastrophe can be portrayed as non-genocidal and essentially local in character, then advocacy efforts – initially for humanitarian intervention and currently for robust support of a weak and ineffectual UN/African Union peace operation – are misguided and misplaced.
The most conspicuous effort at re-writing history is Mahmood Mamdani’s “Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror.” The book focuses on the purported misperceptions and distortions of the American-based Save Darfur Coalition, which Mamdani argues is an unwitting supporter of the “war on terror”. “Darfur [has become] not just an illustration of the grand narrative of the War on Terror but also a part of its justification,” Mamdani writes. He would have us believe that in turning the Darfur conflict into a moral rather than a political issue, Americans in SDC can “feel themselves to be what they are not in Iraq: powerful saviors.” “Darfur is a place of refuge. It is a surrogate shelter. It is a cause about which they can feel good.”
It is true that some advocacy efforts have been prone to oversimplification, naïveté and occasionally misguided policy initiatives. Some corrective is no doubt needed. But Mamdani’s points are tendentious and overstated, and should not distract from the substantial consensus about events that has been authoritatively established by human rights reporting, UN investigations and some excellent on-the-ground news reporting. Perversely, human rights reporting on Darfur is invisible in Mamdani’s text. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>
This large-scale revision has been taken up by those – particularly on the left – with an ideological aversion to humanitarian intervention. If the catastrophe can be portrayed as non-genocidal and essentially local in character, then advocacy efforts – initially for humanitarian intervention and currently for robust support of a weak and ineffectual UN/African Union peace operation – are misguided and misplaced.
The most conspicuous effort at re-writing history is Mahmood Mamdani’s “Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror.” The book focuses on the purported misperceptions and distortions of the American-based Save Darfur Coalition, which Mamdani argues is an unwitting supporter of the “war on terror”. “Darfur [has become] not just an illustration of the grand narrative of the War on Terror but also a part of its justification,” Mamdani writes. He would have us believe that in turning the Darfur conflict into a moral rather than a political issue, Americans in SDC can “feel themselves to be what they are not in Iraq: powerful saviors.” “Darfur is a place of refuge. It is a surrogate shelter. It is a cause about which they can feel good.”
It is true that some advocacy efforts have been prone to oversimplification, naïveté and occasionally misguided policy initiatives. Some corrective is no doubt needed. But Mamdani’s points are tendentious and overstated, and should not distract from the substantial consensus about events that has been authoritatively established by human rights reporting, UN investigations and some excellent on-the-ground news reporting. Perversely, human rights reporting on Darfur is invisible in Mamdani’s text. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>
Obama's Darfur policy lacks clarity, advocates say
By WILLIAM C. MANN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Human rights groups working to end the dying in Darfur fear for the survival of 2.5 million people huddled in refugee camps if the Obama administration doesn't put on record its plans to bring security to them.
The administration said Thursday it still considers the Darfur problem genocide. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley emphasized that to counter a comment by President Barack Obama's special envoy on Sudan, retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration.
Gration said Wednesday from the same State Department podium that what is being seen in the vast Western Sudan region now are "the remnants of genocide" and "the consequences of genocide, the results of genocide."
Obama himself had spoken recently of "ongoing genocide" in Darfur, and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, a Cabinet-level official, repeated in a speech Monday that genocide is being waged.
Although Gration's comments caught leaders of Darfur advocacy groups by surprise, they are more worried about the lack of a clear-cut U.S. policy than a semantic mistake by the special envoy.
Alex Meixner, director of policy and government relations for the Save Darfur Coalition, said Obama considers the situation genocide, and "he's the decider."
Meixner said in an interview that he thinks the verbal contretemps probably were overblown.
"I don't think they are at odds where they want to get, but in terms of semantics, this is sort of a red herring," he said. Genocide or not, he said, "everybody in Darfur has been purposefully on the brink of death for years." Read more >>>>>>>>>>
WASHINGTON (AP) — Human rights groups working to end the dying in Darfur fear for the survival of 2.5 million people huddled in refugee camps if the Obama administration doesn't put on record its plans to bring security to them.
The administration said Thursday it still considers the Darfur problem genocide. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley emphasized that to counter a comment by President Barack Obama's special envoy on Sudan, retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration.
Gration said Wednesday from the same State Department podium that what is being seen in the vast Western Sudan region now are "the remnants of genocide" and "the consequences of genocide, the results of genocide."
Obama himself had spoken recently of "ongoing genocide" in Darfur, and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, a Cabinet-level official, repeated in a speech Monday that genocide is being waged.
Although Gration's comments caught leaders of Darfur advocacy groups by surprise, they are more worried about the lack of a clear-cut U.S. policy than a semantic mistake by the special envoy.
Alex Meixner, director of policy and government relations for the Save Darfur Coalition, said Obama considers the situation genocide, and "he's the decider."
Meixner said in an interview that he thinks the verbal contretemps probably were overblown.
"I don't think they are at odds where they want to get, but in terms of semantics, this is sort of a red herring," he said. Genocide or not, he said, "everybody in Darfur has been purposefully on the brink of death for years." Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Thursday, June 18, 2009
UN rights body votes to continue Sudan scrutiny
GENEVA -- The U.N. Human Rights Council has voted 20-18 to continue its close scrutiny of the situation in Sudan.
Western countries want the 47-member body to keep its independent expert who is probing abuses in Darfur and elsewhere in the African nation.
Thursday's vote, with nine abstentions, is a defeat for some African countries, who have argued that Sudan can protect its citizens without outside interference. Read more >>>>>>>
Western countries want the 47-member body to keep its independent expert who is probing abuses in Darfur and elsewhere in the African nation.
Thursday's vote, with nine abstentions, is a defeat for some African countries, who have argued that Sudan can protect its citizens without outside interference. Read more >>>>>>>
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sudan forces still attacking Darfur civilians -UN
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA - The U.N. human rights investigator for Sudan said on Tuesday that Khartoum's forces continue to carry out land and air attacks on civilians in Darfur, and arrest and torture activists and aid workers there.
Sima Samar, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Sudan, also voiced concern at "large scale killings" in the south, where several hundred civilians died in inter-tribal clashes in March and April amid growing violence in the region.
But diplomats said Sudan was trying at the United Nations Human Rights Council this week to win backing from African and Islamic states to block Western attempts to extend her mandate to report on violations in Sudan for a further year.
"I continue to receive reports of arbitrary arrests, detention, as well as allegations of ill-treatment and torture of human rights defenders and humanitarian workers by security forces," the former Afghan deputy prime minister told the 47-member forum.
Her latest report, covering from last August to her visit to Sudan earlier this month, was also issued on Tuesday. "Land and air attacks by government forces on civilians in Darfur took place during the reporting period," it said.
Air attacks in Darfur are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions and failed ceasefires, but Khartoum has in the past reserved the right to attack the Justice and Equality Movement and other rebels who did not sign a 2006 Darfur peace deal. Read more >>>>>>>
GENEVA - The U.N. human rights investigator for Sudan said on Tuesday that Khartoum's forces continue to carry out land and air attacks on civilians in Darfur, and arrest and torture activists and aid workers there.
Sima Samar, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Sudan, also voiced concern at "large scale killings" in the south, where several hundred civilians died in inter-tribal clashes in March and April amid growing violence in the region.
But diplomats said Sudan was trying at the United Nations Human Rights Council this week to win backing from African and Islamic states to block Western attempts to extend her mandate to report on violations in Sudan for a further year.
"I continue to receive reports of arbitrary arrests, detention, as well as allegations of ill-treatment and torture of human rights defenders and humanitarian workers by security forces," the former Afghan deputy prime minister told the 47-member forum.
Her latest report, covering from last August to her visit to Sudan earlier this month, was also issued on Tuesday. "Land and air attacks by government forces on civilians in Darfur took place during the reporting period," it said.
Air attacks in Darfur are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions and failed ceasefires, but Khartoum has in the past reserved the right to attack the Justice and Equality Movement and other rebels who did not sign a 2006 Darfur peace deal. Read more >>>>>>>
ICC escalates pressure on Sudan
By Abayomi Azikiwe
International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has called for the immediate arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Hague-based court indicted Al-Bashir in March in connection with the government’s efforts to halt rebel attacks in the western Darfur region of the central African state.
“The government of Sudan has the responsibility to arrest him [al-Bashir],” Moreno-Ocampo told the United Nations Security Council on June 5, citing legal obligations mandated by the U.N. Charter and resolutions.
In addition, the ICC prosecutor told the Security Council that the Sudanese government “has also the duty to arrest” Sudanese ex-minister Ahmad Haroun and Civil Defense Forces leader Ali Kushayb who were also cited by Moreno-Ocampo for alleged war crimes in the Darfur region of the country.
Moreno-Ocampo then accused the Sudanese government of violating U.N. resolutions by appointing Haroun as governor of South Kordofan province. “We are at a crossroads. There’s a chance to stop the violence. Crimes have to be stopped,” the ICC prosecutor said. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has called for the immediate arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Hague-based court indicted Al-Bashir in March in connection with the government’s efforts to halt rebel attacks in the western Darfur region of the central African state.
“The government of Sudan has the responsibility to arrest him [al-Bashir],” Moreno-Ocampo told the United Nations Security Council on June 5, citing legal obligations mandated by the U.N. Charter and resolutions.
In addition, the ICC prosecutor told the Security Council that the Sudanese government “has also the duty to arrest” Sudanese ex-minister Ahmad Haroun and Civil Defense Forces leader Ali Kushayb who were also cited by Moreno-Ocampo for alleged war crimes in the Darfur region of the country.
Moreno-Ocampo then accused the Sudanese government of violating U.N. resolutions by appointing Haroun as governor of South Kordofan province. “We are at a crossroads. There’s a chance to stop the violence. Crimes have to be stopped,” the ICC prosecutor said. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Friday, June 12, 2009
'Desperate' al-Bashir cannot escape ICC: prosecutor
Johannesburg - Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will eventually face justice, even if it takes six years to arrest him, the prosecutor who indicted him for war crimes said in Cape Town Friday. Speaking on South African radio on the last day of the World Economic Forum on Africa, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo vowed: "Bashir will face justice," even if it took, "two months, two years ... even six years."
The ICC in March issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Western Sudanese province of Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have died since 2003 in an ethnic-based conflict. Read more >>>>>>>>
The ICC in March issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Western Sudanese province of Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have died since 2003 in an ethnic-based conflict. Read more >>>>>>>>
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Jolie calls for Darfur justice
calls for Darfur justice
Angelina Jolie said Sudanese president should face war crime chargesAngelina Jolie has called for international intervention to bring the Sudanese president to court over alleged war crimes in Darfur.
President Omar al Bashir has been indicted under the International Criminal Court to answer charges relating to the slaughter and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Darfurians, but the Sudanese government will not to cooperate.
Now Hollywood star Angelina has said UN countries should take action in a letter to Time magazine.
On Friday, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo called on the UN Security Council for support and urged member states to abide by international treaties that compel them to arrest anyone indicted found travelling in their countries. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>
Angelina Jolie said Sudanese president should face war crime chargesAngelina Jolie has called for international intervention to bring the Sudanese president to court over alleged war crimes in Darfur.
President Omar al Bashir has been indicted under the International Criminal Court to answer charges relating to the slaughter and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Darfurians, but the Sudanese government will not to cooperate.
Now Hollywood star Angelina has said UN countries should take action in a letter to Time magazine.
On Friday, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo called on the UN Security Council for support and urged member states to abide by international treaties that compel them to arrest anyone indicted found travelling in their countries. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>
Friday, June 05, 2009
Darfur rape study finds lasting scars
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 31 (UPI) -- The widespread use of rape as a weapon against women from Sudan's Darfur region has left deep psychological and physical scars, a U.S. report says.
The study, released Sunday by Physicians for Human Rights, based in Cambridge, Mass., and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, indicated that continuing fear of rape among Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad has done nearly as much damage as the physical crimes themselves, The Boston Globe reported.
"What is striking is the extent of rape and fear of rape in Chad itself," said Susannah Sirkin, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights. "So it's a two-fold revelation of real horror and shame and sorrow, and really of failure." Read more >>>>>>>>>>
The study, released Sunday by Physicians for Human Rights, based in Cambridge, Mass., and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, indicated that continuing fear of rape among Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad has done nearly as much damage as the physical crimes themselves, The Boston Globe reported.
"What is striking is the extent of rape and fear of rape in Chad itself," said Susannah Sirkin, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights. "So it's a two-fold revelation of real horror and shame and sorrow, and really of failure." Read more >>>>>>>>>>
ICC prosecutor urges Sudan to arrest Beshir
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Friday pressed the Sudanese government to arrest President Omar al-Beshir who stands accused of Darfur war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"The government of Sudan has the responsibility to arrest him (Beshir)," Moreno-Ocampo told the UN Security Council, citing a legal obligation stemming from the UN Charter and UN resolutions.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Beshir at Moreno-Ocampo's request last March but since then the defiant Sudanese leader has made at least seven trips outside Sudan.
Moreno-Ocampo further told the council that the Sudanese government "has also the duty to arrest" Sudanese ex-minister Ahmad Harun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, both also accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
He said the recent designation of Haroun as governor of the South Kordofan province "contravenes the resolutions of this council."
"We are at a crossroads," the prosecutor later told reporters. "There's a chance to stop the violence (in Darfur). Crimes have to be stopped."
But Sudan's UN Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad once again made clear that "We are not going to cooperate with this politically-motivated court (the ICC)."
He lambasted Moreno-Ocampo as a "mercenary of destruction and death" and a "real threat to peace and stability in Darfur."
"The prosecutor has outlived his usefulness and has become a liability for his own promoters," the Sudanese envoy, with Moreno-Ocampo at his side, told reporters. Read more >>>>>>>>>
"The government of Sudan has the responsibility to arrest him (Beshir)," Moreno-Ocampo told the UN Security Council, citing a legal obligation stemming from the UN Charter and UN resolutions.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Beshir at Moreno-Ocampo's request last March but since then the defiant Sudanese leader has made at least seven trips outside Sudan.
Moreno-Ocampo further told the council that the Sudanese government "has also the duty to arrest" Sudanese ex-minister Ahmad Harun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, both also accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
He said the recent designation of Haroun as governor of the South Kordofan province "contravenes the resolutions of this council."
"We are at a crossroads," the prosecutor later told reporters. "There's a chance to stop the violence (in Darfur). Crimes have to be stopped."
But Sudan's UN Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad once again made clear that "We are not going to cooperate with this politically-motivated court (the ICC)."
He lambasted Moreno-Ocampo as a "mercenary of destruction and death" and a "real threat to peace and stability in Darfur."
"The prosecutor has outlived his usefulness and has become a liability for his own promoters," the Sudanese envoy, with Moreno-Ocampo at his side, told reporters. Read more >>>>>>>>>
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Khartoum Collapses Darfuri Civil Society Peace Effort
Northampton, Mass. - Is there a road to peace in Darfur? The question has broad geopolitical implications. Sudan is the biggest country in Africa, it borders nine states, and is located at the crossroads of Africa and the Arab world. Its fate is tied not only to the region, but to the continent of Africa and the rest of the world.
Though earlier this year Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir became the first national leader to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), he remains defiant and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur only deepens. Several hundred thousand people have died and 3 million have been displaced by fighting since 2003.
Is there a way to overcome the bloody tribal and ethnic rivalries that have become endemic in the vast western province over the past six years and are an essential part of the Khartoum regime's divide-and-rule strategy in the region? There may well have been a particularly promising opportunity, until Khartoum ended a bold and innovative effort by Darfurian civil society to forge unified positions on a broad range of key issues. If we want to seize such an opportunity again, the international community must push hard.
The initiative of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, a conference called Mandate Darfur, was to bring together some 300 representatives of Darfur from across geographic, ethnic, and political backgrounds, including traditional and young leaders and a strong contingent of Darfurian women.
Instead, discussions slated for this month have been aborted. Mandate Darfur announced that after months of working with Darfurian civil society to build a mandate for peace, the Sudanese government was obstructing the safe passage of Darfurian delegates from Sudan to the conference in Ethiopia and thus it had to be canceled.
Khartoum's obstruction of the Darfurian civil society initiative was greeted with appalling indifference by the world community. There have been none but the mildest condemnations from the United Nations, the US, the European Union, and the African Union. It hardly helps that Western news reporting on this significant development has been virtually nonexistent. Sadly, it is as though the international community has accepted Khartoum's premise that peace talks need involve only combatants. Read more >>>>>>
Though earlier this year Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir became the first national leader to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), he remains defiant and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur only deepens. Several hundred thousand people have died and 3 million have been displaced by fighting since 2003.
Is there a way to overcome the bloody tribal and ethnic rivalries that have become endemic in the vast western province over the past six years and are an essential part of the Khartoum regime's divide-and-rule strategy in the region? There may well have been a particularly promising opportunity, until Khartoum ended a bold and innovative effort by Darfurian civil society to forge unified positions on a broad range of key issues. If we want to seize such an opportunity again, the international community must push hard.
The initiative of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, a conference called Mandate Darfur, was to bring together some 300 representatives of Darfur from across geographic, ethnic, and political backgrounds, including traditional and young leaders and a strong contingent of Darfurian women.
Instead, discussions slated for this month have been aborted. Mandate Darfur announced that after months of working with Darfurian civil society to build a mandate for peace, the Sudanese government was obstructing the safe passage of Darfurian delegates from Sudan to the conference in Ethiopia and thus it had to be canceled.
Khartoum's obstruction of the Darfurian civil society initiative was greeted with appalling indifference by the world community. There have been none but the mildest condemnations from the United Nations, the US, the European Union, and the African Union. It hardly helps that Western news reporting on this significant development has been virtually nonexistent. Sadly, it is as though the international community has accepted Khartoum's premise that peace talks need involve only combatants. Read more >>>>>>
Photographs Display Darfur's 'Forgotten People'
Ann Curry, a 30-year veteran journalist and NBC News anchor, returns to dangerous corners of Africa so often that she's lost count.
And even though she travels with a full crew and the latest in video satellite technology, she always takes along a simple still camera to create her favorite and most powerful images.
"It's important for me to give back forgotten people their voice, but still photographs can express some things much more deeply," said Curry. "I've found myself using it more and more, interweaving my stills into the finished piece as a kind of beat. They let viewers take in the story with greater thoughtfulness."
When she froze these moments in Sudan's battered Darfur, Curry's principal videographer was working alongside her. They shared a quiet kind of ballet, anticipating each other, drawing inspiration from each other's sense of time and composition.
"A little boy sits down suddenly beside his mother, his finger delicately touching her," recalled Curry of one picture that is among the hardest for her to forget.
"She was explaining how she was carrying him in her womb when she was attacked by the janjaweed, and she turned her back on purpose as they took her, just so they would not hurt her unborn child. At 2 years old, he was already a survivor of a crime against humanity. My heart swelled with the story of her suffering, and her courage, risking her own life to protect his," she said.
"The boy's finger was key. The light made a halo on his head. My brain was working. I was concentrating on the little boy's eye, making sure the exposure was exactly what I wanted. As soon as the camera clicked, he stood up again."
Just when traditional newspapers have morphed into multimedia engines, borrowing from the radio and television playbook, Curry has chosen one of the oldest ways of all to communicate visually -- putting images on a wall. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
And even though she travels with a full crew and the latest in video satellite technology, she always takes along a simple still camera to create her favorite and most powerful images.
"It's important for me to give back forgotten people their voice, but still photographs can express some things much more deeply," said Curry. "I've found myself using it more and more, interweaving my stills into the finished piece as a kind of beat. They let viewers take in the story with greater thoughtfulness."
When she froze these moments in Sudan's battered Darfur, Curry's principal videographer was working alongside her. They shared a quiet kind of ballet, anticipating each other, drawing inspiration from each other's sense of time and composition.
"A little boy sits down suddenly beside his mother, his finger delicately touching her," recalled Curry of one picture that is among the hardest for her to forget.
"She was explaining how she was carrying him in her womb when she was attacked by the janjaweed, and she turned her back on purpose as they took her, just so they would not hurt her unborn child. At 2 years old, he was already a survivor of a crime against humanity. My heart swelled with the story of her suffering, and her courage, risking her own life to protect his," she said.
"The boy's finger was key. The light made a halo on his head. My brain was working. I was concentrating on the little boy's eye, making sure the exposure was exactly what I wanted. As soon as the camera clicked, he stood up again."
Just when traditional newspapers have morphed into multimedia engines, borrowing from the radio and television playbook, Curry has chosen one of the oldest ways of all to communicate visually -- putting images on a wall. Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Darfur remains a U.N. disgrace
Murderous Islamic radicals have murdered thousands of people in terrorist attacks during the past several years. At the same time state terrorism - with Islamic radical underpinnings - has killed an estimated 300,000 people in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Virtually nothing has been done to stop the slaughter, which shows no sign of abating on its own.
Unless the United States takes the lead, as it did in toppling the vicious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the world community seems unwilling to take any action to prevent massacres such as that occurring in Darfur. As Americans are painfully aware, our country has paid in blood and treasure for serving as the world's policeman for several decades. It is long past time for other countries, fully capable of mounting meaningful peacekeeping actions, to take the lead.
Darfur is in the news again. That country's President Omar al-Bashir is expelling 16 international aid agencies. He and his Arab-based government seem determined to accelerate the pace of genocide directed at Sudan's ethnic African people.
What is happening in Darfur is clear, yet the United Nations - formed to prevent such atrocities - will not act to stop the killing. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Virtually nothing has been done to stop the slaughter, which shows no sign of abating on its own.
Unless the United States takes the lead, as it did in toppling the vicious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the world community seems unwilling to take any action to prevent massacres such as that occurring in Darfur. As Americans are painfully aware, our country has paid in blood and treasure for serving as the world's policeman for several decades. It is long past time for other countries, fully capable of mounting meaningful peacekeeping actions, to take the lead.
Darfur is in the news again. That country's President Omar al-Bashir is expelling 16 international aid agencies. He and his Arab-based government seem determined to accelerate the pace of genocide directed at Sudan's ethnic African people.
What is happening in Darfur is clear, yet the United Nations - formed to prevent such atrocities - will not act to stop the killing. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Darfur remains a U.N. disgrace
Murderous Islamic radicals have murdered thousands of people in terrorist attacks during the past several years. At the same time state terrorism - with Islamic radical underpinnings - has killed an estimated 300,000 people in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Virtually nothing has been done to stop the slaughter, which shows no sign of abating on its own.
Unless the United States takes the lead, as it did in toppling the vicious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the world community seems unwilling to take any action to prevent massacres such as that occurring in Darfur. As Americans are painfully aware, our country has paid in blood and treasure for serving as the world's policeman for several decades. It is long past time for other countries, fully capable of mounting meaningful peacekeeping actions, to take the lead.
Darfur is in the news again. That country's President Omar al-Bashir is expelling 16 international aid agencies. He and his Arab-based government seem determined to accelerate the pace of genocide directed at Sudan's ethnic African people.
What is happening in Darfur is clear, yet the United Nations - formed to prevent such atrocities - will not act to stop the killing. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Virtually nothing has been done to stop the slaughter, which shows no sign of abating on its own.
Unless the United States takes the lead, as it did in toppling the vicious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the world community seems unwilling to take any action to prevent massacres such as that occurring in Darfur. As Americans are painfully aware, our country has paid in blood and treasure for serving as the world's policeman for several decades. It is long past time for other countries, fully capable of mounting meaningful peacekeeping actions, to take the lead.
Darfur is in the news again. That country's President Omar al-Bashir is expelling 16 international aid agencies. He and his Arab-based government seem determined to accelerate the pace of genocide directed at Sudan's ethnic African people.
What is happening in Darfur is clear, yet the United Nations - formed to prevent such atrocities - will not act to stop the killing. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Darfur remains a U.N. disgrace
Murderous Islamic radicals have murdered thousands of people in terrorist attacks during the past several years. At the same time state terrorism - with Islamic radical underpinnings - has killed an estimated 300,000 people in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Virtually nothing has been done to stop the slaughter, which shows no sign of abating on its own.
Unless the United States takes the lead, as it did in toppling the vicious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the world community seems unwilling to take any action to prevent massacres such as that occurring in Darfur. As Americans are painfully aware, our country has paid in blood and treasure for serving as the world's policeman for several decades. It is long past time for other countries, fully capable of mounting meaningful peacekeeping actions, to take the lead.
Darfur is in the news again. That country's President Omar al-Bashir is expelling 16 international aid agencies. He and his Arab-based government seem determined to accelerate the pace of genocide directed at Sudan's ethnic African people.
What is happening in Darfur is clear, yet the United Nations - formed to prevent such atrocities - will not act to stop the killing. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Virtually nothing has been done to stop the slaughter, which shows no sign of abating on its own.
Unless the United States takes the lead, as it did in toppling the vicious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the world community seems unwilling to take any action to prevent massacres such as that occurring in Darfur. As Americans are painfully aware, our country has paid in blood and treasure for serving as the world's policeman for several decades. It is long past time for other countries, fully capable of mounting meaningful peacekeeping actions, to take the lead.
Darfur is in the news again. That country's President Omar al-Bashir is expelling 16 international aid agencies. He and his Arab-based government seem determined to accelerate the pace of genocide directed at Sudan's ethnic African people.
What is happening in Darfur is clear, yet the United Nations - formed to prevent such atrocities - will not act to stop the killing. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Darfur activists protest at White House
By James Wright
(May 23, 2009) - More than three dozen “Free Darfur” activists protested at the front gate of the White House on Friday, saying that the Obama administration is not living up to its promise of working to eradicate the genocide taking place in Sudan.
“We are here to tell President Obama to live up to the promises that he made during the election campaign last year,” Musa Tageldin, a leader in the “Free Darfur” movement in Washington, said. “We are asking him to put pressure on the Sudanese government. We want him to implement a no-fly zone over the areas where the genocide is taking place and we want him to pressure the government to allow those humanitarian organizations that have been expelled to come back and help the people of Darfur.”
Earlier in the week, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus launched a fast against the genocide and attempted to put the issue back into the national conversation and in the media. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) was joined in the effort by actress Mia Farrow and social activist Marcia Dyson.
Edwards has committed to fast every Friday until the August recess.
“The Darfur genocide has killed more than 400,000 civilians and displaced 2.5 million people from their homes,” said Edwards. “We ask Obama and his administration to use their political capital to lead a truly international effort, using all carrots and sticks as appropriate and necessary to make progress towards the shared goal of achieving peace for Darfur and all of Sudan.” Read more >>>>>>>>>>>
(May 23, 2009) - More than three dozen “Free Darfur” activists protested at the front gate of the White House on Friday, saying that the Obama administration is not living up to its promise of working to eradicate the genocide taking place in Sudan.
“We are here to tell President Obama to live up to the promises that he made during the election campaign last year,” Musa Tageldin, a leader in the “Free Darfur” movement in Washington, said. “We are asking him to put pressure on the Sudanese government. We want him to implement a no-fly zone over the areas where the genocide is taking place and we want him to pressure the government to allow those humanitarian organizations that have been expelled to come back and help the people of Darfur.”
Earlier in the week, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus launched a fast against the genocide and attempted to put the issue back into the national conversation and in the media. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) was joined in the effort by actress Mia Farrow and social activist Marcia Dyson.
Edwards has committed to fast every Friday until the August recess.
“The Darfur genocide has killed more than 400,000 civilians and displaced 2.5 million people from their homes,” said Edwards. “We ask Obama and his administration to use their political capital to lead a truly international effort, using all carrots and sticks as appropriate and necessary to make progress towards the shared goal of achieving peace for Darfur and all of Sudan.” Read more >>>>>>>>>>>
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Lawmakers, Farrow Urge Further Action by Obama on Darfur
Members of the U.S. Congress are urging President Obama to take further steps to address the situation in Darfur. Lawmakers joined Darfur activist and actress Mia Farrow and others at a news conference on Capitol Hill.
Acting on doctor's orders earlier this month, the 64-year-old actress ended a 12-day-long liquids-only hunger strike to protest the expulsion by Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of more than a dozen humanitarian aid agencies from Darfur.
Farrow said the symbolic protest, later taken up by British billionaire Richard Branson, and her appearance with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), underscore the need for new international action, including steps to bring those responsible for atrocities in Darfur to justice. "It is to say to our president, and to the world, we are better than this. We cannot simply stand and watch, the slaughter of innocents, the death of innocents," she said. Read more >>>>>>>>
Acting on doctor's orders earlier this month, the 64-year-old actress ended a 12-day-long liquids-only hunger strike to protest the expulsion by Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of more than a dozen humanitarian aid agencies from Darfur.
Farrow said the symbolic protest, later taken up by British billionaire Richard Branson, and her appearance with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), underscore the need for new international action, including steps to bring those responsible for atrocities in Darfur to justice. "It is to say to our president, and to the world, we are better than this. We cannot simply stand and watch, the slaughter of innocents, the death of innocents," she said. Read more >>>>>>>>
Thursday, May 21, 2009
”Never Again?”
by Melitta Tchaicovsky
”Never Again?” is about the conflict going on for more than 6 years in the Darfur region of Sudan. It addresses issues that are at the core of the Darfur genocide, lending insight on what is really going on in the region, why this tragedy is still going on and why the international community is not doing enough to stop it.
The documentary contains footage of interviews with survivors in displacement camps in Sudan and neighbouring Chad, with refugees, activists and scholars living in Europe and in Israel. Watch it here >>>>>>>>> http://vimeo.com/4664470
”Never Again?” is about the conflict going on for more than 6 years in the Darfur region of Sudan. It addresses issues that are at the core of the Darfur genocide, lending insight on what is really going on in the region, why this tragedy is still going on and why the international community is not doing enough to stop it.
The documentary contains footage of interviews with survivors in displacement camps in Sudan and neighbouring Chad, with refugees, activists and scholars living in Europe and in Israel. Watch it here >>>>>>>>> http://vimeo.com/4664470
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Sudanese Rebel Leaders Face War Crimes Charges
By Colum Lynch
UNITED NATIONS, May 17--The International Criminal Court's pre-trial judges have summoned three Sudanese rebel leaders to appear before the Hague-based tribunal to face charges of ordering a deadly attack more than 18 months ago against African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, according to diplomats and court officials.
It is the first time that Darfur's rebels have been charged with war crimes since the court opened its investigation into mass violence in Darfur in 2005. Until now, the court has focused primarily on the Sudanese government's role in atrocities, issuing arrest warrants for Sudan's President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a top aide, and an allied militia leader.
The charges stem from a September, 29, 2007, raid on an African Union compound in the town of Haskanita, Darfur, where rebel commanders allegedly killed 12 peacekeepers and seriously wounded 8 more.
Various rebel factions have denied responsibility for the raid. But at least one of the accused commanders, Bahar Idris Abu Garda, the leader of a rebel splinter faction, the United Resistance Front, has agreed to defend himself. He is scheduled to arrive in the Hague, Netherlands, on Sunday and to appear before the court on Monday.
The prosecutor accused Garda and two other unidentified commanders in November of leading a heavily armed force of more than 1,000 rebel troops against an outnumbered contingent of Senegalese, Malian and Botswanan peacekeepers. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>
UNITED NATIONS, May 17--The International Criminal Court's pre-trial judges have summoned three Sudanese rebel leaders to appear before the Hague-based tribunal to face charges of ordering a deadly attack more than 18 months ago against African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, according to diplomats and court officials.
It is the first time that Darfur's rebels have been charged with war crimes since the court opened its investigation into mass violence in Darfur in 2005. Until now, the court has focused primarily on the Sudanese government's role in atrocities, issuing arrest warrants for Sudan's President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a top aide, and an allied militia leader.
The charges stem from a September, 29, 2007, raid on an African Union compound in the town of Haskanita, Darfur, where rebel commanders allegedly killed 12 peacekeepers and seriously wounded 8 more.
Various rebel factions have denied responsibility for the raid. But at least one of the accused commanders, Bahar Idris Abu Garda, the leader of a rebel splinter faction, the United Resistance Front, has agreed to defend himself. He is scheduled to arrive in the Hague, Netherlands, on Sunday and to appear before the court on Monday.
The prosecutor accused Garda and two other unidentified commanders in November of leading a heavily armed force of more than 1,000 rebel troops against an outnumbered contingent of Senegalese, Malian and Botswanan peacekeepers. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Darfur: A forgotten conflict
THERE is a virtual genocide going on right now, under our very noses, largely ignored and seldom talked about. In 2003, two wars were unleashed upon the world and true to their nature, each caused much suffering. One, infamously, perhaps arrogantly, was announced as ‘Shock and Awe,’ while the other went largely unnoticed, in a seemingly uninteresting part of the world. Both ravaged human lives. The war in Iraq caught the media’s attention, with journalists embedded in the battlefield, bringing images and stories to our living rooms. The conflict in Darfur, however, was largely overlooked.
Still, a few groups devoted to serving humanity persisted, trying to raise the issue and give it the attention it deserved. A few from the entertainment industry caught sight of the issue, and tried to use their celebrity status to focus more attention of the powers that be. Finally, when it seemed like these organisations had managed to stir UN conscience by referring the matter to the Security Council, Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, shocked the world by absolving Sudan’s president of any wrongdoing.
Like many conflicts, this catastrophe is man-made, deliberate and orchestrated by the Sudanese government to inflict collective punishment on a population. By conservative UN estimates, it has taken more than 300,000 lives and displaced nearly 2.5 million people, at the rate of nearly a 1,000 per day. Not only is the government of Sudan committing atrocities against its own people in Darfur, it is actively preventing aid from getting to the affected civilians.
The Sudan government represents the politically powerful, wealthy north of the country; Darfur lies on the western periphery, impoverished and thus resentful. Feelings of being disfavoured nurtured rebel sentiment, and triggered a civil war which has dragged on for years. Time has splintered the rebel groups into various factions, some along tribal alliances. As if internal strife were not enough, neighbouring Chad and Sudan have entered into a proxy war in the region, using and arming militias to fight each other, and China’s investments in the Sudanese oil sector have further complicated the situation. In short, there is a mess disrupting innocent lives. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Still, a few groups devoted to serving humanity persisted, trying to raise the issue and give it the attention it deserved. A few from the entertainment industry caught sight of the issue, and tried to use their celebrity status to focus more attention of the powers that be. Finally, when it seemed like these organisations had managed to stir UN conscience by referring the matter to the Security Council, Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, shocked the world by absolving Sudan’s president of any wrongdoing.
Like many conflicts, this catastrophe is man-made, deliberate and orchestrated by the Sudanese government to inflict collective punishment on a population. By conservative UN estimates, it has taken more than 300,000 lives and displaced nearly 2.5 million people, at the rate of nearly a 1,000 per day. Not only is the government of Sudan committing atrocities against its own people in Darfur, it is actively preventing aid from getting to the affected civilians.
The Sudan government represents the politically powerful, wealthy north of the country; Darfur lies on the western periphery, impoverished and thus resentful. Feelings of being disfavoured nurtured rebel sentiment, and triggered a civil war which has dragged on for years. Time has splintered the rebel groups into various factions, some along tribal alliances. As if internal strife were not enough, neighbouring Chad and Sudan have entered into a proxy war in the region, using and arming militias to fight each other, and China’s investments in the Sudanese oil sector have further complicated the situation. In short, there is a mess disrupting innocent lives. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bashir sure to face genocide charges: prosecutor
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Monday he is confident the court's judges will soon charge Sudan's president with genocide and three Darfur rebels with war crimes.
A three-judge panel at The Hague-based court in March issued a warrant for the arrest of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity for deportations and mass killings in Sudan's western Darfur region.
While they charged Bashir on seven counts of crimes in Darfur, two of the three judges deemed the evidence insufficient to support genocide. In an interview with Reuters, the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he had clarified the case to the point that it should meet the judges' high evidence threshold.
"It's more than enough for the arrest warrant phase," he said.
Moreno-Ocampo said that the judges had required that he go beyond the normal criteria for an arrest warrant -- sufficient grounds for belief of guilt -- and remove any doubt that Bashir had tried to exterminate at least one specific group of people, normally the threshold for a guilty verdict. Read more >>>>>>>.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Monday he is confident the court's judges will soon charge Sudan's president with genocide and three Darfur rebels with war crimes.
A three-judge panel at The Hague-based court in March issued a warrant for the arrest of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity for deportations and mass killings in Sudan's western Darfur region.
While they charged Bashir on seven counts of crimes in Darfur, two of the three judges deemed the evidence insufficient to support genocide. In an interview with Reuters, the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he had clarified the case to the point that it should meet the judges' high evidence threshold.
"It's more than enough for the arrest warrant phase," he said.
Moreno-Ocampo said that the judges had required that he go beyond the normal criteria for an arrest warrant -- sufficient grounds for belief of guilt -- and remove any doubt that Bashir had tried to exterminate at least one specific group of people, normally the threshold for a guilty verdict. Read more >>>>>>>.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
UN aid chief frets about rainy season supplies to Darfur
KHARTOUM (AFP) — UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said on Sunday that he was worried about getting supplies in place for distribution in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur in time for the rainy season.
Holmes told a Khartoum news conference that the expulsion of 13 foreign aid agencies by the Sudanese government in March following the issue of an international warrant for the arrest of President Omar al-Beshir on war crimes charges had aggravated the problem.
"We are not as ready as we would like to be," the UN aid chief said, as he wound up a four-day visit to Sudan.
"Normally before the rainy season, the agencies and NGOs working there would be prepositioning food and other goods, whatever it might be... because it is very difficult to move around once the rainy season starts," he said.
"Those efforts were delayed by the effect of the expulsions, by the fact that we took some time to get access to warehouses where some of these stores were kept." Read more >>>>>>>>>
Holmes told a Khartoum news conference that the expulsion of 13 foreign aid agencies by the Sudanese government in March following the issue of an international warrant for the arrest of President Omar al-Beshir on war crimes charges had aggravated the problem.
"We are not as ready as we would like to be," the UN aid chief said, as he wound up a four-day visit to Sudan.
"Normally before the rainy season, the agencies and NGOs working there would be prepositioning food and other goods, whatever it might be... because it is very difficult to move around once the rainy season starts," he said.
"Those efforts were delayed by the effect of the expulsions, by the fact that we took some time to get access to warehouses where some of these stores were kept." Read more >>>>>>>>>
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Bashir experienced ‘severe panic’ in Ethiopia by the sight of chartered plane with a US flag
The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir went through thirty minutes of panic at an airport in northern Tigray region during an official visit last month, an Ethiopian news paper reported today.
‘The Reporter’ independent daily which is published in native Amharic language said that the Sudanese delegation headed by Bashir was stuck in the presidential jet at Mekele Airport waiting for the boarding ladder.
Al-Bashir had arrived to lead Sudan at the meetings of the supreme joint committee co-chaired by the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
The Sudanese head of state visit to Ethiopia was the latest in a series of trips abroad in a show of defiance to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for him in March in connection with war crimes committed in the Darfur region.
However all the countries he visited were non-parties to the Rome Statute which is the founding text of the ICC, which means they have no legal obligation to apprehend Al-Bashir on their territory.
The newspaper said that the delay by airport authorities in bringing the boarding ladder caused “severe panic” among the embattled president and his entourage.
Quoting eyewitnesses, the newspaper said the panic was exacerbated by the sight of chartered plane with a US flag close to Al-Bashir’s plane.
Prior to the Bashir’s trips abroad since the arrest warrant, Sudanese officials have expressed fears that a Western power would attempt an operation to arrest him through military bases in Africa. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>
‘The Reporter’ independent daily which is published in native Amharic language said that the Sudanese delegation headed by Bashir was stuck in the presidential jet at Mekele Airport waiting for the boarding ladder.
Al-Bashir had arrived to lead Sudan at the meetings of the supreme joint committee co-chaired by the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
The Sudanese head of state visit to Ethiopia was the latest in a series of trips abroad in a show of defiance to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for him in March in connection with war crimes committed in the Darfur region.
However all the countries he visited were non-parties to the Rome Statute which is the founding text of the ICC, which means they have no legal obligation to apprehend Al-Bashir on their territory.
The newspaper said that the delay by airport authorities in bringing the boarding ladder caused “severe panic” among the embattled president and his entourage.
Quoting eyewitnesses, the newspaper said the panic was exacerbated by the sight of chartered plane with a US flag close to Al-Bashir’s plane.
Prior to the Bashir’s trips abroad since the arrest warrant, Sudanese officials have expressed fears that a Western power would attempt an operation to arrest him through military bases in Africa. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Sudan: Is Judgment Day Near for Omar Al-Bashir?
Mahmood Mamdani's recent article Beware of human rights fundamentalism substantively goes through the reasoning the author has repeatedly made over the past few years regarding the Darfur imbroglio. This time he is offering gratuitous advice to former South African President Thabo Mbeki about the arguments he should make to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and interested parties on how to deal with the African Union's (AU) call for him to negotiate a postponement of the ICC's indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.
Leading a panel and mandated by the AU, Mbeki has started work on a possible African-led resolution of the crisis in Darfur. The panel has been advised by AU members to call for a year's deferment of the process of the ICC war crimes indictments against Sudan's president. The eight-member panel includes three former African heads of state: South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Burundi's Pierre Buyoya and Nigeria's General Abdusalam Abubakar.
During the opening session of the exercise at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa various delegates argued that the ICC indictments against President al-Bashir will in effect undermine attempts to arrange peace in Darfur. The suggestion is that deferring the ICC indictments will allow time for African-led peace efforts in Darfur to take firm shape. Mbeki argued that the AU charter claims primary authority over African peace and security issues: 'The African Union has taken the clear and unequivocal decision the continent must act not only to end war and violent conflict in Africa, but also to ensure that where war does anyway break out, all belligerents must know that war crimes, crimes against humanity and other abuses will be punished resolutely, and that a culture of impunity will not be permitted to take root and entrench itself.'
There are certainly legions of problems with the self-appointment of the ICC to sit in judgment on all of us when we are neither all in agreement with the terms of the mandate or the moral credentials of the powers that be. These are general considerations. Its use cannot be ruled out however. Slobadan Milosevic, Charles Taylor and Thomas Lubanga are clear cases in point. In the specific instance of President Omar al-Bashir and his genocidal project in Darfur, is judgment day is near?
Taking a page from the book of the South African settlement which brought apartheid to a close, Mamdani's plea on behalf of al-Bashir is that, 'The rationale was simple: where there was no victor, one would need the cooperation of the very leaders who would otherwise be charged with war crimes to end the fighting and initiate political reforms. The essence of Kempton Park can be summed up in a single phrase: forgive but do not forget. Forgive all past crimes - in plain words, immunity from prosecution - provided both sides agree to change the rules to assure political justice for the living.' In other words, the recommended course of action should be based more on political expediency than justice. There are many who would swallow this suggestion, in spite of the bad taste it leaves in the mouth. Some will also argue that in light of the history of Arab-African agreements from time immemorial in the Sudan, the peace, if it is so loosely structured, will degenerate into a 'practico-inert'. We must remember that the Kempton Park meetings formally ended apartheid. Will al-Bashir end his brutal and genocidal policies in Darfur? Kicking out humanitarian NGOs does not speak well for magnanimity and reconciliation. As Abel Alier, the Southern Sudanese former vice-president under Muhammad Ja'far Numeiri, put the case in his book with the same title, there have been 'too many agreements dishonored' Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Leading a panel and mandated by the AU, Mbeki has started work on a possible African-led resolution of the crisis in Darfur. The panel has been advised by AU members to call for a year's deferment of the process of the ICC war crimes indictments against Sudan's president. The eight-member panel includes three former African heads of state: South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Burundi's Pierre Buyoya and Nigeria's General Abdusalam Abubakar.
During the opening session of the exercise at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa various delegates argued that the ICC indictments against President al-Bashir will in effect undermine attempts to arrange peace in Darfur. The suggestion is that deferring the ICC indictments will allow time for African-led peace efforts in Darfur to take firm shape. Mbeki argued that the AU charter claims primary authority over African peace and security issues: 'The African Union has taken the clear and unequivocal decision the continent must act not only to end war and violent conflict in Africa, but also to ensure that where war does anyway break out, all belligerents must know that war crimes, crimes against humanity and other abuses will be punished resolutely, and that a culture of impunity will not be permitted to take root and entrench itself.'
There are certainly legions of problems with the self-appointment of the ICC to sit in judgment on all of us when we are neither all in agreement with the terms of the mandate or the moral credentials of the powers that be. These are general considerations. Its use cannot be ruled out however. Slobadan Milosevic, Charles Taylor and Thomas Lubanga are clear cases in point. In the specific instance of President Omar al-Bashir and his genocidal project in Darfur, is judgment day is near?
Taking a page from the book of the South African settlement which brought apartheid to a close, Mamdani's plea on behalf of al-Bashir is that, 'The rationale was simple: where there was no victor, one would need the cooperation of the very leaders who would otherwise be charged with war crimes to end the fighting and initiate political reforms. The essence of Kempton Park can be summed up in a single phrase: forgive but do not forget. Forgive all past crimes - in plain words, immunity from prosecution - provided both sides agree to change the rules to assure political justice for the living.' In other words, the recommended course of action should be based more on political expediency than justice. There are many who would swallow this suggestion, in spite of the bad taste it leaves in the mouth. Some will also argue that in light of the history of Arab-African agreements from time immemorial in the Sudan, the peace, if it is so loosely structured, will degenerate into a 'practico-inert'. We must remember that the Kempton Park meetings formally ended apartheid. Will al-Bashir end his brutal and genocidal policies in Darfur? Kicking out humanitarian NGOs does not speak well for magnanimity and reconciliation. As Abel Alier, the Southern Sudanese former vice-president under Muhammad Ja'far Numeiri, put the case in his book with the same title, there have been 'too many agreements dishonored' Read more >>>>>>>>>>
Darfur refugees urge AU to pursue Beshir arrest
N'DJAMENA (AFP) — Sudenese refugees urged a high-level African Union mission to speed up the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for President Omar al-Beshir for war crimes, Chadian state radio said Friday.
Refugees at a camp in Djabal in the east of Chad accused Beshir of causing "genocide, rape and pillage" and said they would not return to Darfur until peace is established between Khartoum and N'Djamena, the station added.
Their plea came as they met an AU delegation led by South African ex-president Thabo Mbeki, former Nigerian president Abdusalami Abubakar and Pierre Buyoya, the ex-Burundian president.
The delegation travelled to the east Chadian towns of Abeche, Goz Beida and Djabal on Thursday as part of its efforts to help broker peace talks in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur province, the radio station added.
Diplomatic relations between Chad and Sudan are severely strained, with each accusing the other of supporting rebel movements in its territory.
Several hundred Sudanese refugees have fled across the border to escape the conflict in Darfur, for which the international community has largely blamed the Khartoum government.
The ICC on March 4 issued the warrant to arrest Beshir for alleged crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>
Refugees at a camp in Djabal in the east of Chad accused Beshir of causing "genocide, rape and pillage" and said they would not return to Darfur until peace is established between Khartoum and N'Djamena, the station added.
Their plea came as they met an AU delegation led by South African ex-president Thabo Mbeki, former Nigerian president Abdusalami Abubakar and Pierre Buyoya, the ex-Burundian president.
The delegation travelled to the east Chadian towns of Abeche, Goz Beida and Djabal on Thursday as part of its efforts to help broker peace talks in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur province, the radio station added.
Diplomatic relations between Chad and Sudan are severely strained, with each accusing the other of supporting rebel movements in its territory.
Several hundred Sudanese refugees have fled across the border to escape the conflict in Darfur, for which the international community has largely blamed the Khartoum government.
The ICC on March 4 issued the warrant to arrest Beshir for alleged crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>
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