A duty to help Darfur, in spite of Khartoum

From Friday's Globe and Mail

The government of Sudan is being entirely unreasonable in opposing the deployment of a robust United Nations military force in Darfur. In fact, its bellicosity -- it has threatened to attack any arriving UN soldiers -- deserves the strongest possible condemnation. Is Beijing listening? Read more >>>

Aid agency warns on Darfur rapes

Aid agencies in the Sudanese region of Darfur say they are alarmed by a sharp escalation in sexual attacks on displaced women and young girls.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has warned that in Darfur's biggest camp for displaced people, 200 have been raped in the past five weeks.

It says this signals a rapid deterioration in terms of security.

Meanwhile, Sudan's ruling party has rejected a draft UN resolution on sending peacekeepers to Darfur. Read more >>>

Peace still eluding Darfur

IN THE MIDST of the turmoil in the Middle East, events in Darfur, Sudan, may have escaped scrutiny. Despite several efforts to halt the slaughter of innocent civilians, the violence continues unabated and remains a blot on man's inhumanity.


The United Nations (UN) reported recently that a peace deal signed three months ago between Sudan's government and the main rebel group has failed to halt violence in Darfur, citing an increase in rape and continued attacks by militias and rebel factions.

The global body said the May 5 peace deal, signed in Nigeria, was "doomed to failure" without more support from the Sudanese government, "with the population of Darfur continuing to suffer grave violations of human rights as violence among competing armed groups persists". Read more >>>

SUDAN: Children still victims of war

NAIROBI, (IRIN) - Children are still being recruited by the Sudanese army and various armed groups, despite the signing of formal peace and ceasefire agreements, a United Nations report has found.

"It is clear that thousands of children are still associated with armed forces in southern Sudan, awaiting demobilisation," UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said in a report released on Tuesday. "Recruitment continues to be widespread because the war in southern Sudan has created a plethora of government-aligned militias or other armed groups," the report added. Read more >>>

Darfur sex attacks rise as security deteriorates

LONDON, Aug 23 (Reuters) -
Sex attacks on displaced women collecting firewood in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region have surged to 200 a month from just a handful as security deteriorates, an international aid agency said on Wednesday.

Darfuri women are forced to walk several miles into isolated bush from their camp confines to search for fuel, and a peace deal agreed in May between the Khartoum government and a Darfur rebel group has done little to bring security for them.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) documented more than 200 attacks on the women in the past five weeks outside the largest camp for displaced people in Darfur, where a three-year conflict has forced about 2.5 million people from their homes.

"This is a massive spike in figures," Kurt Tjossem, the IRC's deputy chief for East Africa, said in a statement. "We are used to two to four incidents of sexual assault per month in Kalma camp." Read more >>>

The crisis in Darfur

RI's Concerns

Three years of fighting in Darfur have destroyed hundreds of villages, displaced 2.2 million and led to more than 400,000 deaths. RI is advocating for a swift and forceful response to the Darfur crisis, including better coordination of and more provision of humanitarian aid and establishment of an effective peacekeeping force to protect civilians.

The UN warns that the situation in Darfur is emerging as the worst humanitarian crisis in Sudan since 1998. The United States government and the parliament of the European Union agree that the government of Sudan is committing genocide in Darfur. Despite the signing of a ceasefire agreement and numerous other international agreements, the government of Sudan and Janjaweed militia continue to attack civilians with impunity. Forced relocations of settlements for internally displaced people, rapes of women by government police officers, and continued attacks on villages continue to plague the region and there seems to be little that the international community can do. Read more >>>

Don't Forget Sudan

Special Report
By Daniel Allott

Jan Egeland, head of United Nations humanitarian operations, describes the region as "going from real bad to catastrophic" and "headed toward total chaos."

The top U.N. aid official says the level of violence faced by humanitarian workers is "unprecedented."

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan refers to the situation as "one of the worst nightmares in recent history," "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," and "little short of hell on earth."

No, they're not talking about the crisis in the Middle East, where the United Nations has just announced plans to dispatch a 15,000-strong international force to enforce a cease-fire in southern Lebanon. These are the latest reactions of U. N. officials to the unfolding genocide in Darfur. Read more >>>

Whither Darfur?

by Aaron Tesfaye

Sudan is a nation confronted by three intractable political challenges, where peace has been elusive and political solutions to state-society conflicts chimerical. In the south of the country, the people under the leadership of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) had fought the central government for some twenty years and in the process up to a million people had lost their lives. In the east, there is a simmering rebellion fueled by politics and disgruntled army elements that live scattered among the Beja in and around Kasala. In the west, the region of Darfur has become known as a land of an all-out scorched-earth war, rape, plunder, and refugees. Read more >>>

U.N.: Reject Sudan’s Darfur Plan

HRW

The United Nations Security Council should reject a Sudanese government plan for “strengthening security and restoring stability” in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today. The government proposes to send 10,500 new government troops to Darfur, in direct violation of the Darfur Peace Agreement signed by the Sudanese government on May 5.
“The Sudanese government’s plan is a recipe for inflicting even more abuses on a devastated civilian population,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Khartoum wants the U.N. to endorse a plan that would throw out the Darfur peace agreement. It wouldn’t help protect civilians from constant attack or make it safe enough for them to return home.” Read more >>>

Sudan: Peace deal and new speech in Darfur

Nairobi (HAN)

In its statement of Aug 16th, 2006 on the suspension of the DPA non signatories from Joint Commission and Ceasefire Commission, the first reason of AU mission is the allegation emanating from “media statements” and “media reports” of the group’s hostility against AMIS personnel and installations.

AU mission does not bother itself to investigate the accuracy of the allegations as long as the accusations are not directed to its allies: the government of Sudan, its janjaweed militias and the new ally Minni. Read more >>>

DARFUR: NEW URGENT CRISIS

UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com UN/ - 19 August 2006 - U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown has warned the international community today of the “extraordinary concern” over the dangerous situation in Darfur and that “something very ugly is brewing” in the strife-torn western Sudan.

“We are extraordinarily concerned,” Malloch Brown told reporters at the U.N. today and he said the humanitarian and security situation is worsening in “the absence of a clear political path to the deployment of a UN force.”

U.N. Security Council members are circulating a draft resolution on the size and scope of a possible UN peacekeeping operation to replace the current mission of the African Union (AU). Read more >>>

Darfur needs a UN peacekeeping force

Amnesty International

Sudan: Darfur needs a UN peacekeeping force that can provide security for civilians

The African Union and the Darfur Peace Agreement are failing the people of Darfur, Amnesty International said today, as the UN Security Council prepared to discuss the possible mandate of a UN peacekeeping force to protect civilians in Darfur. Only a renewed and determined engagement by the UN and the international community can offer hope for an end to the people's suffering.
"The international community must admit that no solution has been offered to the suffering in Darfur -- on the contrary things are getting worse," said Kate Gilmore, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International. "What the people of Darfur need now is an international peacekeeping force with the power to put a stop to the killings, to the raping, and to the displacement. Personal security is the basic need -- and fundamental right -- of all people in Darfur." Read more >>>

US, Britain want UN to authorize troops for Darfur

By Matthew Verrinder

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain and the United States on Thursday introduced a U.N. Security Council resolution to send some 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers to the Darfur region of Sudan, despite opposition from the Khartoum government.

The resolution can be adopted without any consent from Sudan, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Jackie Sanders said. But in practice troops cannot be deployed until Khartoum agrees.

"I hope that when we negotiate this text, there will be clarity from the government of Sudan that such an operation, favored by the African Union and favored by the Security Council should take place," Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters. Read more >>>

Peace Deal Has Increased Violence

The situation in Sudan's western Darfur region has gone from bad to worse. Renewed violence has either stymied or stopped food and relief aid deliveries to three million refugees and displaced people in the region. The May 5 peace agreement (Darfur Peace Agreement, or DPA) has not brought peace. Read more >>>

Selfish motivations for peace

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, you describe the increase in violence recently since the May peace agreement. From what you could see, why isn't the agreement working?

KEN BACON: Well, I think it's not working for one fundamental reason, which is that the two signatories to the agreement, the government of Sudan and the Minni Minnawi faction see the agreement primarily as a way to continue augmenting their territory and augmenting their influence.

They see the agreement as a way to advance their causes. It doesn't look like they're interested in peace and reconciliation; it looks more like they're interested in attacks and retribution. Read more >>>

Red Cross warns of catastrophe in Darfur

(CWNews.com) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that the security of aid workers in Darfur is at risk, following the deaths of eight aid workers in the region during the month of July.

The humanitarian group said the deaths underscore the fragile security situation, which had rendered the distribution of relief aid in the Sudanese province even more difficult. ICRC said despite maintaining contacts with all parties to the conflict, its staff members have periodically been threatened and its convoys and staff robbed by groups over which the parties have no control. Read more >>>

Letter to the U.N. Security Council on Sudan Sanctions and Civilian Protection in Darfur

Your Excellencies:

Human Rights Watch supports the recommendations and plans for a robust U.N. force in Darfur as set forth in the July 28 report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Darfur. We urge you to act quickly to fully implement the planned U.N. peacekeeping mission at the earliest feasible date and to bolster the 7,000 African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) civilian protection troops in Darfur in the interim, as recommended by the Secretary-General. Read more >>>

Darfur Grows Deadlier

Michael Huang

The May Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) between the Sudanese government and several rebel groups has brought anything but peace, as the region is ravaged by escalating violence and crisis. More aid workers were killed in Darfur within two weeks than in the two years previous, marking July as the deadliest month of violence since the conflict began. The latest rise in violence is merely consistent with a year-long trend of growing insecurity, as the UN notes that the number of armed clashes during the first half of 2006 is double the same period of 2005. Read more >>>

Danger and death continue in Darfur with little world response

United Nations needs to send a large peacekeeping force as soon as possible


Despite a peace agreement reached in May, civilians continue to die in Darfur. Three years of violence have displaced thousands of innocents in western Sudan.

The only solution is a robust response from the international community, Africans and Westerners alike.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the problems in Darfur.

Blame the intransigence of the Sudanese government, the recalcitrance of some rebel factions, the inadequacies of the African Union peacekeeping force and the glacially slow responses of the United Nations. Read more >>>

Darfur deserves more outrage, action

There is a disturbing difference between the global responses to two conflicts, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof noted. Israel’s monthlong bombardment of Lebanon has killed hundreds and could lead to 20,000 international peacekeepers. But "three years ago," he wrote, "Sudan began a genocide against African tribes in its Darfur region. That war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and it is now spreading. There is talk of U.N. peacekeepers someday, but none are anywhere in sight. The moral of the story? Never, ever be born to a tribe that is victim to genocide in Africa."
As for the Arab world, Kristof wrote, "I sympathize with their horror at what is happening in Lebanon, but I wish they were just as outraged when Muslims slaughter Muslims in Darfur."
Posted by Rhonda Holman