Recalling Lincoln in the Wake of Charlottesville

Most Americans are now struggling simply to make sense of the reality of a president who has conspicuously given encouragement to men and women who have in common an explicit racism and bigotry of the most extreme sort. The disparagement and hatred of African Americans and Jews has come to us in such brutal and unfiltered form in the wake of Charlottesville that our sense of outrage is overwhelmed, our ability to express fully our abhorrence is hobbled by the enormity of the hatred that has come into such sharp focus.

I offer no words of suitable outrage here, no expression of adequate abhorrence. But I would remind my fellow Americans lost in despair to recall a president who in his magnanimous and almost unimaginably courageous and tenacious determination to end slavery in our country demonstrated how great the American spirit can be when blessed with inspired leadership.

Abraham Lincoln is at once the archetypal American icon and a source of endless historical dispute. But I find no convincing argument that Lincoln was anything but ferociously committed to ending slavery in our country. Historians will debate endlessly the pragmatic and moral elements of his four years as president; but his Second Inaugural Address seems to me to have been precisely what Frederick Douglass described it as: a “sacred effort.” And it is worth our recalling that despite the omnipresence of contemptible and hateful words from our current president, his great predecessor still speaks more profoundly to us, perhaps even more so in our present grief and moral bewilderment. Read more>>>>>>>>>

The International Community is Playing Games with the Question of #Cholera_in_Sudan

By Eric Reeves


The International community is playing games with question of #cholera_in_Sudan. Almost a year into the epidemic, why have wee seen no laboratory tests confirming OR disconfirming the existence of cholera in Sudan? The UN’s World Health Organization in Geneva could quickly provide laboratory analysis of stool/fecal samples from Sudanese victims of what the Khartoum regime insists all must call “acute watery diarrhea.” Why is there only silence from the UN organizations most responsible: WHO, OCHA, and UNICEF? How can we not conclude that these agencies and the UN leadership have been threatened, and in turn intimidated, by the génocidaires who make up the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime?


Not to be outdone by the feckless UN agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development today (July 27, 2017) joins in the chorus that continues to say only “acute watery diarrhea,” thereby contributing to the delay of urgently needed medical supplies to Sudan’s stricken populations.


[ Concerning these supplies, see my July 24, 2017 “Open Letter to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the UN’s World Health Organization. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>

“Sudan is Poised to Explode: Not the moment for rapprochement with a genocidal regime”

Sudan is Poised to Explode: Not the moment for rapprochement with a genocidal regime”
Washington Post (“Global Opinions”), December 16, 2016 [final edits; URL not yet assigned]
By Eric Reeves

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama called Darfur a “stain on our souls.” As president, he re-iterated his charge that the regime in Khartoum was responsible for genocide. But in stark contrast to his rhetoric as a senator and a presidential candidate, President Obama's administration has sought rapprochement with the very same regime that he had long excoriated.

Indeed, all his moral indignation has mattered very little in the eight years during which U.S. policy toward the regime has been guided by the view of Obama’s former special envoy for Sudan, Princeton Lyman:

“We [the Obama administration] do not want to see the ouster of the [Khartoum] regime, nor regime change. We want to see the regime carrying out reform via constitutional democratic measures.” (Interview with Asharq al-Awsat, December 3, 2011)

These words—never disavowed—can make no sense in the context of continuing genocide in Darfur, including this year’s massive scorched earth campaign in Jebel Marra, the heart of Darfur.  They make no sense of continuing war against the civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, caught up in yet another “center-periphery” conflict that has defined the governing policies of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime since it came to power by military coup 27 years.  During that time, millions of Sudanese have been killed, displaced, or had their lives rendered horrors of mere survival.
The people of Sudan—all the people of Sudan not part of the regime’s gigantic kleptocracy—wish to see regime change.  Their views have been clear for years, however fractious the political parties and alliances, however troubled the coalition of armed opposition forces.  They live in an economy devastated by more than two decades of gross economic mismanagementthat has left the people of this potentially rich country living lives of destitution, facing soaring inflation, a lack of critical imported goods (including food, cooking oil, and essential medicines), water shortages, and crippling external debt.  That debt was $13 billion when the NIF/NCP came to power; it now exceeds $50 billion, an increase largely due to profligate military spending and the massive expansion of security services. 
An extraordinary popular uprising began in September 2013, extending to many of Sudan’s cities.  The regime’s response? Amnesty International established on the basis of morgue visits that “shoot to kill” orders had clearly been issued, given the disproportionate number of corpses with fatal bullet wounds to the head and torso.  Some 200 were murdered in Khartoum/Omdurman; more than twice that were killed elsewhere, although the regime has ensured we have no firm figures.

This coming Monday, December 19, will be a day of mass civil disobedience throughout Sudan; it has exploded through social media in a way I have not seen in 18 years of full-time research on Sudan and its multiple wars and crises.  Indeed, this “hash-tag” uprising (#Dec19Disobedience) gives all signs of being the moment in which we will see the outlines of Sudan’s “Arab Spring.”  

Belatedly recognizing what a threat the events of December 19 have become, President Omar al-Bashir—wanted by the International Criminal Court on multiple counts of genocide and massive crimes against humanity in Darfur—has issued a clear, unambiguous, and taunting warning:

“If you want to overthrow the regime, why don’t you criticise us in the streets? I will tell you why. We know that you will not come, as you know very well what happened in the past.” (December 12, 2016)

The “past” invoked here is al-Bashir’s decision in September 2013 to issue “shoot to kill” orders.
The Obama administration has one last opportunity to move beyond Lyman’s shamefully disingenuous assessment of the regime and its ambitions.  Too much has been sacrificed to this expedient view in the name of securing counter-terrorism cooperation from Khartoum, which hosted Osama bin Laden during al-Qaeda’s formative years (1992 – 1996).  The U.S. must issue—before December 19—a clear warning that disproportionate use of force will be a major obstacle to any improvement in relations between Washington and Khartoum.
On the other hand, if the Obama administration remains silent, it will be complicit in the large-scale bloodshed that looks increasingly likely come Monday.
[Eric Reeves has written extensively on Sudan for almost two decades; he is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights]

-- 

Eric Reeves, Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights

ereeves@smith.edu

www.sudanreeves.org

Twitter@SudanReeves

About Eric Reeves: http://sudanreeves.org/about-eric-reeves

South Africa’s Refusal To Arrest Sudan’s Al-Bashir Unlawful

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrives in Khartoum, Sudan from Johannesburg on June 15, 2015. South Africa's Supreme Court has ruled that Bashir should have been arrested when he visited South Africa.EBRAHIM HAMID/AFP/Getty Images

South Africa’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the government on Tuesday and ruled that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir should have been arrested in the country in 2015.

Bashir, who visited South Africa for an African Union summit in June 2015, is subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes linkedo the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. He denies the charges.

A court in the South African capital Pretoria ruled on June 14 that Bashir

should not be allowed to leave the country until an application calling for his arrest had been heard, but Bashir later left South Africa. The South African government had applied to the Supreme Court to have the ruling overturned, arguing that all delegates attending the summit were subject to diplomatic immunity.

Ruling on Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected the government’s appeal and said that its failure to arrest Bashir "was inconsistent with South Africa’s obligations in terms of the Rome Statute...and unlawful," according to Reuters. The Rome Statute is a treaty setting out the crimes that fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction, which South Africa signed in 1998. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Vast carnage in Jebel Marra (Central Darfur) fails to spur the international community

On February 11, 2016 the New York Times published my brief and summary account of the current crises in Darfur, most particularly the extension of Khartoum’s genocidal counter-insurgency campaign to the west—from “East Jebel Marra” in North Darfur to the Jebel Marra massif itself, in the very center of Darfur (the eastern tip of Jebel Marra juts far into North Darfur). Fighting today remains undiminished and some of the implications and consequences of this onslaught, which began in earnest in mid-January 2016, are already clear.

[A scalable map of Jebel Marra can be found here]

UN figures suggest that many tens of thousands of people—overwhelmingly children and women—have already been displaced, many to harsh areas with little or no humanitarian relief capacity. Some 40,000 have fled to East Jebel Marra, the site of so much genocidal violence over the past three years. Others have fled west and south. Radio Dabanga (see below) reports that by the third week of January, “At least 60,000 people from 40 villages around Soreng in Rokoro locality in Central Darfur, fled their homes.” The UN reports that altogether almost 50,000 civilians were displaced in January alone. We may be certain certain that well over 100,000 civilians will have been displaced by spring planting season, and thus unable to grow critically needed food. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sudan: United States Calls for End of Violence in Jebel Marra, Darfur

The United States is deeply concerned about the increased violence against civilians and the grave humanitarian situation in and around Jebel Marra, Darfur. Initial attacks by the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid opposition group on Sudanese armed forces prompted a response by Sudan’s military that included aerial bombardments despite the UN Security Council demand that Sudan cease offensive military flights over Darfur. These attacks have forced 73,000 people to flee their homes, and thousands more are trapped in the conflict zone of Jebel Marra without access to aid.

 

The United States calls on both the Government of Sudan and the armed movements of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) to re-commit to their cessation of hostilities declarations for Darfur and in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. We welcome the recent absence of major offensive action in South Kordofan and urge all parties to show the same restraint in Darfur and also in Blue Nile state, where government and opposition forces each carried out attacks last month.

 

There is no military solution to Sudan’s internal conflicts. We call on the Government of Sudan and the SRF to de-escalate the violence and work with the African Union and others to agree to a comprehensive cessation of hostilities agreement that will allow immediate and unfettered humanitarian access for Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile. We also urge the government to create an environment conducive to the participation of armed movements and other political opposition parties in a comprehensive and inclusive national dialogue that addresses systemic governance issues in Sudan.

The World’s Abandonment of Darfur,” The Washington Post, May 16, 2015

By Eric Reeves
The Darfur genocide in western Sudan—the first genocide of the 21st century and the longest one in more than a century—is about to achieve another distinction. It will be the first genocide in
which the victims are abandoned. An international peacekeeping force designed to halt violence against civilians and humanitarians—the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, or UNAMID—is on the verge of being gutted and perhaps eliminated altogether.
This is so despite the fact that some 3 million people have been internally displaced or turned into refugees; almost 500,000 were displaced last year alone. Mortality estimates vary, but we must of necessity speak of several hundred thousands of deaths—perhaps half a million—from violence and its consequences, and mortality rates are rising. The victims come overwhelmingly from the non-Arab tribal groups that have been targeted from the beginning of Khartoum’s brutal counter-insurgency against rebel forces.

Although it’s been reported on only fitfully, planning for UNAMID’S diminished future is well underway. Among the planners? The génocidaires of the regime in Khartoum, who insist that the “exit strategy”—agreed to in principle by the U.N. Security Council in August—be executed
as rapidly as possible. The force has already been cut by 10,000 and stands at approximately at 17,000 uniformed personnel. The regime wants another 15,000 gone this year.
Criticism of UNAMID is longstanding; indeed it preceded deployment of the civilian-protection mission in January 2008. For the mission was set up to fail, largely because Khartoum was given excessive control over the deployment of personnel and equipment. This led to poor troop quality, with the regime rejecting many highly qualified peacekeeping contributions (such as a Swedish-Norwegian engineering battalion). Essential weaponry and aircraft were also denied. Despite a status-of-forces agreement that was supposed to give UNAMID unrestricted access, Khartoum has systematically obstructed, delayed or compromised countless protection and monitoring missions.

As badly as UNAMID has performed, however, it is all that allows international humanitarian organizations to remain in Darfur. If UNAMID withdraws, or is hopelessly compromised, these organizations may well be forced to end their work. To date, some 25 to 30 international relief organizations have been expelled by Khartoum or withdrawn because of insecurity. This has occurred against a backdrop of extreme malnutrition in many locations, a desperate lack of clean water and sanitation, and a rapidly collapsing system for providing primary medical care.
Decisions about reconfiguring UNAMID are being made at this very moment, and yet we hear nothing of significance from the Obama administration about the urgency of preserving key elements of the force. Yes, a facile international chorus has declared “Darfur won’t be abandoned,” but there are reasons to be skeptical. Leading this chorus is the expedient Hervé Ladsous, head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, who not so long ago argued that a drawdown of UNAMID was justified by improved security conditions, even as violence has escalated for three years. Read more >>>>>>>>

Is Britain not bothered about raped children in Darfur?

Eight years ago, David Cameron said: 'We cannot remain silent in the face of this horror'

On 31 October, when most of our children were playing trick or treat, 200 women and girls (as young as seven) in Darfur were raped. According to locals, the perpetrators were the Sudanese Armed Forces. One month later, the victims of this egregious assault are no closer to justice.

Rape has been a weapon of war in Darfur for decades. The attack in the village of Tabit, however, is on an unprecedented scale. Despite numerous sources verifying it, the discredited hybrid United Nations/African Union force (Unamid) issued a press release that claimed: "None of those interviewed confirmed that any incident of rape took place in Tabit." What the release didn't say is that, according to a Unamid officer, military personnel accompanied the Unamid delegation so, "no one could speak freely".
Unamid's chicanery emerges at the same time as a UN investigation exonerated the force of previous allegations of cover-up. Despite finding instances in which Unamid officials withheld evidence indicating the culpability of Sudanese government forces in crimes against civilians and peacekeepers, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon concluded: "There was no evidence to support the allegation that Unamid intentionally sought to cover up crimes against civilians."
To the uninitiated, withholding evidence of crimes against civilians may sound like a cover-up. But in UN land, unless the scandalous event was the result of an intentional cover-up, and you can prove it, it doesn't count.
Where is the UK in all this? Instead of calling for an independent investigation into the mass rape in Tabit at the time, our government diverted attention away from it. Issuing a press release about food vouchers for displaced people in Darfur (440,000 beneficiaries over seven months) was, in my view, an act of either wilful obfuscation or gross ineptitude.
The cash/vouchers have been in place since 2011, but there's no evidence that I could find that anyone other than the government of Sudan benefits from the UK's £11m contribution. A local UN official told me he was unaware of the scheme. The three million Darfuris living in camps want reinstatement of the humanitarian organisations expelled by the genocidal regime in 2009. Not gimmicks. Read full story >>>>

Security Council Press Statement on Darfur

Security Council Press Release

19 November 2014

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Gary Quinlan (Australia):

 

The members of the Security Council expressed their concern at the allegations reported in the media of mass rape in Thabit, North Darfur, on 30 and 31 October 2014. They called on the Government of Sudan to conduct a thorough investigation into these allegations. They called on the Government of Sudan to fulfil its obligation to allow, in accordance with the Agreement between the United Nations, the African Union and the Government of Sudan concerning the status of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, the full and unrestricted freedom of movement without delay throughout Darfur to UNAMID, so as to enable them to conduct a full and transparent investigation, without interference, and verify whether these incidents have occurred. They further called on the Government of Sudan to ensure accountability, if the allegations are verified.
They noted that proper access to Thabit and its population for UNAMID is essential to conducting a full investigation into the allegations in order to determine their veracity and, if verified, to ensure accountability.
http://www.un.org/press/en/2014/sc11658.doc.htm

Darfur Crisis, a decade after! Where do we stand?

Darfur Crisis, a decade after! Where do we stand?

Darfur Union in The Netherlands will hold, on October 4th, 2014 at 13.00

hours a conference on Darfur under the title Darfur Crisis, a decade after!
Where do we stand?

Dr. Sharif Harir, a former teacher at Bergen University, civil society
organizations, individuals committed to peace and stability in Darfur and
representatives of Darfur movements will be attending the conference.

Place and address:
Potgieterstraat, 1053 XX, Amsterdam
By public Transport:

Tram 13, 14 and 17 from Amsterdam Centre Station

Darfur Union cordially invites you to attend the conference. Your presence
and input will contribute to the success of the conference.

For more info, please contact the following numbers:

+31 643663089

+31 642330058

+31 686300855

 

el-Bashir: We killed the peopleof Darfur for trival reason

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TJ2xJtwBr0&feature=player_detailpage

Colorado Groups Rally to Stop Genocide in Sudan

Friday, 30 May 2014 – Denver, the American center of the modern day abolition movement, is at the forefront of freeing thousands of people who are still living in slavery in Sudan. Over a dozen Colorado groups active in both Sudans, including the Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action, rally at a press conference and petition drive to pressure President Obama to free thousands of slaves and stop the genocide in Sudan. The event is in response to Sudanese communities requesting global support to end crimes against humanity, genocide, and slavery perpetrated by the Sudanese Islamist regime against indigenous Black Sudanese Africans.

Approximately 35,000 indigenous Black South Sudanese are still enslaved in both Sudans. Christian and Muslim peoples are subjected to an ongoing genocide by their government in Sudan's Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile regions. Bishop Acen Phillips remarks, “I don’t think anyone here left Sudan because they wanted to. Many refugees deeply miss their families.”

Emmy award winning journalist Tamara Banks emcees the event, and other speakers include refugees speaking about their stories of survival escaping genocide, and for justice and freedom in their former countries. Other speakers include Colorado citizens who are refugees from the genocides in Sudan (including Darfur), a Coloradan teen who is responsible for freeing hundreds of slaves, and representatives from 20 Colorado groups active in both Sudans.

The rally is fostering hope in both countries. Refugee speakers express appreciation to the support of Denver communities, saying they want their families at home to feel hopeful instead of abandoned or forgotten. George Tuto from the Nuba mountains, Omhagain Dayeen and Ahmed Ali (from Darfur), and Oja Gafour from the Nuba Mountains all spoke about escaping genocide.

The event organizer, Pastor Heidi McGinness, Director of Outreach for Christian Solidarity International (CSI), says, “We need to stop genocide and slavery; they are crimes against International Law and humanity.” CSI has been active in Sudan and South Sudan since 1995, delivering humanitarian aid to the victims of war and genocide, and assisting the South Sudanese Underground Railroad in bringing their family members out of slavery. Andrew Romanoff, former Speaker of the Colorado House, speaks about the successful petition launch to end slavery and the two genocides in Sudan. His legislative work has led to divestment of public pension funds that have done business with Sudan, a major victory in cutting one link to the genocide. Full story >>>>>>>https://www.freespeech.org/text/colorado-groups-rally-stop-genocide-sudan

Pretending Darfur Isn’t: the world continues to avert its eyes from accelerating human suffering and destruction

Eric Reeves, 31 May 2014

The international community is by now quite experienced in pretending that the massive humanitarian crisis in Darfur doesn’t really exist, or exists in some acceptable and remediable form, destined to improve with time. The world has been encouraged in this dangerously expedient ignorance by the likes of Ibrahim Gambari and Rodolphe Adada (both former special representatives of the UN and AU to UNAMID); U.S. special envoy Scott Gration; former UN humanitarian coordinator Georg Charpentier, and UNAMID spokesman Chris Cycmanick. All have suggested, some dismayingly recently, that things aren’t really so bad in Darfur. Charpentier and Cycmanick supported the claims by UNAMID as recently as 2011 that the fighting was minimal. Adada claimed at the end of his tenure in 2009 that there was merely “low intensity” fighting and some carjackings; Gambari claimed at the end of his tenure in September 2012 that he had “achieved all he set out to do” as special representative, and minimized fighting, mortality, displacement, and human suffering. Scott Gration was taken to task by an inter-agency humanitarian group for suggesting (July 2009) that conditions were ripe for returns by Darfuri IDPs.

The history of misrepresentation is long and ugly. Current U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (then Senator and unofficial presidential representative) declared in April 2009 that Khartoum’s expulsion of half the humanitarian capacity in Darfur—thirteen of the world’s finest humanitarian organizations—would be replaced in “a few weeks.” Cynically, he declared that he had Khartoum’s promise on the matter, as if the regime’s promises have somehow meant something in the past. This was an anticipation of the Obama administration’s subsequent “de-coupling” of Darfur from U.S. Sudan policy, and the appointment of a diplomatic lightweight as special envoy for the region (Dane Smith).
Some within the UN system have begun to speak out, and the truths at last spoken are terrifying in their implications:

“Entire generation may be lost in Darfur”: UNICEF Representative in Sudan (Radio Dabanga, KHARTOUM, 12 May 2014) – The UN children’s rights and relief organisation, UNICEF, has warned that an entire generation in Darfur may be lost as a result of more than ten years of violence in the region. “Life in the camps might produce a new generation without ambition,” the UNICEF Representative in Sudan, Geert Cappelaere, said in a press statement issued on Saturday. “In particular as about 60 percent of the displaced in Darfur are minors.”

 

It requires a willful blindness not to see what is occurring in Darfur, unless one is willing to dismiss entirely the reports that come from the ground—by way of Radio Dabanga, Sudan Tribune, and Radio Tamazuj, and the UN itself on notable occasions. But even the dismissing of these repeatedly confirmed and highly detailed accounts does not explain the silence that has followed the most dire warning from a range of humanitarian organizations still working in Darfur. It is a silence, or near silence, that accompanies even such extraordinary announcements as these about the work in Darfur and Sudan of the International Committee of the Red Cross:

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has expressed regret for Sudan’s suspension of its activities, saying it has led to negative humanitarian implications. ICRC also announced it is laying off 195 employees of its local staff while imploring on Khartoum to reverse its decision and allow it resume its work to help the affected population. Last February, the Sudanese government ordered the ICRC to halt its activities in the country saying that the aid organisation needs to comply with the humanitarian work guidelines and the voluntary work law in order to continue operating in the country.

 

 The fullstory  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Darfur: A Bibliography of Violence and International Indifference

By Eric Reeves

The accelerating avalanche of violence that continues to sweep across Darfur has finally compelled acknowledgement by the international community, which inevitably refers to this as a “recent” development. This is despicably disingenuous. UNAMID, the UN, and all international actors have long had available voluminous evidence of extreme violence in Darfur that goes back years. To be sure, we know from the superb account by Colum Lynch in Foreign Policy (April 7, 2014) that UNAMID and the UN did a great deal by way of obscuring, hiding, or failing to report the evidence of this violence that they had in hand. This is shameful beyond reckoning, and Part One of Lynch’s searing account of UNAMID (“They Just Stood Watching“) concludes with a quote that sums up the cynicism of UNAMID, in particular its special representatives for the UN and African Unity—Rodolphe Adada, Ibrahim Gambari, and currently Mohamed Ibn Chambas:

[Former UNAMID spokesperson Aicha] Elbasri says that she raised concerns about UNAMID’s refusal to acknowledge the government role with one of the peacekeepers’ local commanders, Maj. Gen. Wynjones Matthew Kisamba. She still remains shaken by his answer. The UNAMID forces, she recalls Kisamba saying, had to occasionally massage the truth. “You know, sometimes we have to behave like diplomats,” he told her. “We can’t say all what we see in Darfur.”

As culpable as such an attitude may be, responsibility also lies with news organizations that did not press UN and UNAMID officials nearly hard enough about the realities with which they were being presented. There is no other way to account for the grotesque caption to a photograph in a piece by the New York Times (“A Taste of Hope Sends Refugees Back to Darfur,” dateline: Nyuru, West Darfur; March 2, 2012): it reads in part, “peace has settled on the region.” The correspondent, according to all my Darfuri sources—some of them from this region of Darfur—was quite simply taken in by Khartoum’s and the UN/AU’s version of a “Potemkin Village” (see my account based on Darfuri sources and reports from Radio Dabanga at http://wp.me/p45rOG-Mb). Notably, this is the last dateline by a major news organization from an area significantly away from the urban areas and displaced persons camps—over two years ago.
There are notable exceptions: see below my discussion of the Reuters dispatch reporting on the massacre of non-Arab/African civilians at Tabarat (North Darfur) in September 2010. But since that time, reports of such honesty and detail have rarely been produced by journalists “covering” Darfur. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>

Activists strive to bring attention back to Darfur crisis

Editor's note: The following is Part 1 of a two-part series on decade-long humanitarian efforts in Sudan, a country plagued by war and other crises. The next part will focus on efforts in South Sudan.
Mukesh Kapila is as blunt as he is passionate.
Speaking to a group of Sudanese living in New York City, he urged them not to give up on pressuring the Sudanese government to end, after a decade, what he and others have called its genocidal policies in the province of Darfur.
"A lot of good ideas have come from diaspora and you can do a lot of good," Kapila said. "But are you doing enough? Are you doing enough?"
He added, his voice rising, "You, the Sudanese people, have a responsibility to your brothers and sisters in Darfur. It can't be Oxfam [the humanitarian group] or the U.N. They can only do small things."Kapila, speaking to a few dozen Sudanese at an event sponsored by the Darfur People's Association of New York, knows from personal experience these questions can become vexing.
An India-born U.K. citizen and a former diplomat whose stints include assignments with the United Nations in Sudan, Kapila has penned a memoir of his experiences in Darfur that he acknowledges is a "strident cri de coeur" and a "deeply personal account" of the early years of the unfolding Darfur crisis, which began in 2003.
The hallmark of his book, Against a Tide of Evil: How One Man Became the Whistleblower to the First Mass Murder of the Twenty-First Century, is his argument that the world was indifferent to the plight of Darfur, despite early -- and passionate -- warnings from Kapila (working for the U.N. at the time) and others about what was afoot there. The book does not spare the U.N. or other international groups from scathing criticism.
In a sort of preview of the book for his audience, meeting last October in Brooklyn, Kapila, who now teaches at the University of Manchester in England, stressed that, a decade after the events began, the Darfur crisis is far from over, despite attempts by the Sudanese government to minimize what has happened.
Niemat Ahmadi, president and founder of the Washington-based Darfur Women Action Group, was in the audience. She said later she could not agree more with Kapila.
"The situation in Darfur is really, really dire, and it's worsening every day," she said, citing recent reports of mass shootings, killings and systematic violence against women.
A statement on the website of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington said its government is committed to a peace settlement in Darfur. It also states the Sudanese government's belief that the Darfur crisis has been "manipulated and overblown by the media."
That, of course, doesn't surprise Kapila and others. "[Sudanese President Omar] al-Bashir wants to present the whole thing has gone away ... after so many years of advocacy," Kapila said. He was referring not only to action by the Sudanese diaspora but the remarkable advocacy coalitions -- many of them driven by partnerships between Christians, Jews and Muslims -- that, for a time, raised the profile of a little-known and marginalized region in western Sudan.
These energized activists launched a movement that put the issue of genocide front and center for the world to consider, along the way garnering support from celebrities like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.
That may have been the movement's greatest success -- as well as drawing attention to a situation that ultimately resulted in the 2008 indictment of al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the first time a sitting head of state was so charged.
But activists in the United States acknowledge that their work is far from over. "Justice is always costly and peace is always fragile, but both are worth working for," said activist Peggy Harris, a deacon in the Episcopal church who also assists in the resettlement of Sudanese refugees by working with Catholic Charities in Des Moines, Iowa.
Sharon Silber, active in the New York Coalition for Darfur and all Sudan, formerly the New York City Coalition for Darfur, agreed. "We're not going to abandon the issue even though it is frustrating work," she said, acknowledging that a decade-long commitment of activism has not always been easy to sustain. Yet, she said, it does continue for her and others, with regular demonstrations and vigils outside the Sudanese Consulate in New York and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Harris and Silber acknowledge the difficulties they and other activists face, given the intractable nature of the conflict, which in the last year has been overshadowed by events in the border state areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile and, more recently, by a political crisis in South Sudan. Southern Sudanese fought against the government of Sudan in a two-decade conflict that killed millions. South Sudan, as the new nation is called, was granted independence in 2011.
Activists are also fighting donor fatigue and the not-unexpected cycle of their fellows coming and going. "It's like a dance -- you move in and you move out," Harris said of fellow activists, acknowledging that "it's been tough" at times. Yet, core groups of people in their respective cities of New York and Des Moines keep the issue alive, Silber and Harris say. "We keep getting pushed to the back row. But activists keep climbing on the chairs to get attention," Harris said.
A key reason? The ongoing nature of the crisis, with reports of continued armed attacks and violence against civilians by the so-called Janjaweed militias, as well as increasing hunger and malnutrition throughout Darfur.
The recent violence, the activists argue, is the latest in a decade-plus conflict that has uprooted millions and has caused deaths that are estimated in the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands, from both direct violence and from illness or malnutrition. The displaced say they are victims of government-led efforts to drive them from their farms and villages, a charge the Sudanese government denies.
"Just because the international community is not focused on Darfur doesn't mean there is peace in Darfur," said Ahmed Adam, a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York and a co-chair of its Two Sudans Project. He is also a former spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement, known as JEM, one of the armed opposition groups that have been engaged with now-stalled peace negotiations with the Sudanese government.
In a statement summarizing recent events, the International Crisis Group, an independent advocacy and study organization committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts, said in January that violence in the region "spiked in 2013, as the mostly Arab militias initially armed by the government to contain the rebellion increasingly escaped [Sudanese capital] Khartoum's control and fought each other."
Recent fighting, the group said, "displaced nearly half a million additional civilians -- in all 3.2 million Darfurians need humanitarian help."
Carolyn Fanelli, Sudan country representative for Catholic Relief Services, confirmed the continuing depths of the problems. She told NCR the humanitarian situation worsened in 2013, largely due to new displacements of people in several parts of the region.
"Humanitarian actors, including CRS, have responded in the areas where we can reach, and we all hope and pray for an improving situation in 2014," she said. At the same time, Fanelli said, the operating environment in Darfur "is becoming increasingly complex."
She added: "The nature of the conflict in Darfur is changing -- in particular, there is now more intertribal conflict -- and this makes it a much more unpredictable landscape for humanitarian actors."
Another factor in the situation: the international landscape. "There have been so many new emergencies in the world since the Darfur crisis first grabbed headlines in 2003 and 2004 -- Haiti, Japan, Syria, the Philippines," Fanelli said. "It is very easy to forget about Darfur or to throw up our hands in frustration that humanitarian assistance is still needed more than 10 years after the conflict began."
That is a humanitarian perspective. From the related but different focus on human rights, the view can be even more frustrating. To a person, activists interviewed said they have been profoundly disappointed by what they see as Darfur's de-emphasis by both President Barack Obama and Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The activists' disappointment is keen. Power is a onetime Harvard professor and journalist who reported from Darfur. Her book "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide was a widely respected study that became a guiding text for activists involved in Darfur-related work.
"That book was a huge influence on activists and [Power] became a role model for them," said Ahmadi, who acknowledged that the roles of author and government leader differ.
But, she said, government leaders are judged by what they do -- and while Syria, for example, has consumed much attention, Darfur has apparently slid from sight on the U.S. agenda, with the Obama administration placing too much emphasis on engagement with the Sudanese government, Ahmadi argues. "When you're in government, you have the power to do certain things," she said. From the perspective of activists, she said, the Obama administration "has not done enough."
"We need to be tightening sanctions," added Silber, who thinks "the Obama administration has been played" by the Sudanese government, long spoken of, even by its critics, as a wily and adroit player of international politics.
As for Obama, the onetime U.S. senator from Illinois called genocide "a stain on our souls." But the lack of visibility on Darfur by his administration, activists argue, is prompting them to call for a more robust "civilian protection-oriented policy" on Darfur and Sudan. That is a cornerstone of a campaign the group Act for Sudan is calling "Obama's Stained Legacy."
The campaign argues that Obama's policy on Darfur "has failed to prevent the tragic loss of countless lives and the mass displacement and starvation of countless more innocent people." Unless Obama acts now "to protect innocent civilians from their genocidal government," the activist group said, "he will ultimately be remembered for his stained legacy on genocide."
Activists say it is up to them to keep the pressure on -- and that can be daunting work. "It's very frustrating," Adam said at a Columbia University coffee shop in late January. "We're not in a post-genocide, post-conflict situation."
He paused, looking out toward the campus. "Sometimes I understand the fatigue. But I tell people to refocus. 'It's not over,' I tell them. 'It's not over.' "
[Chris Herlinger has reported on Darfur for NCR and is the co-author of the book Where Mercy Fails: Darfur's Struggle to Survive. He is also the senior writer for the humanitarian agency Church World Service.]

http://ncronline.org/news/global/activists-strive-bring-attention-back-darfur-crisis

On Darfur, it’s shhh, don’t mention Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir who is accused of crimes against humanity

By Tess Finch-Lees

Remember Darfur? It’s a region the size of France in the western side of Sudan. In the past decade, an estimated 500,000 civilians have been slaughtered and four million forced into refugee camps.

Despite Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, being accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, the UN continues to treat this despot with deference. Its strategy of appeasement has been proven to prolong the agony of Darfuri and Southerners alike, but there has been no change of tack at the UN.
Those of us who have been involved in Sudan for a number of years will know that the ongoing violence in the South (it never stopped, the media just got bored) is the legacy of the botched comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in 2005. After 20 years and an estimated two million killed, President Bashir was forced to concede the South’s right to self-rule. The cost of so-called peace in the South, though, was silence on the oil rich region of Darfur.
This theory was confirmed by an Amnesty International representative. When I asked why Darfur seemed to be absent from the agenda, I was told that the UN had issued warnings to NGOs to be silent on Darfur. Why? So as not to upset Mr Bashir, therein risking the derailment of the CPA. To which I replied: “How can a human rights organisation agree to turn a blind eye to genocide in one part of the country in order to secure a Band-Aid peace agreement in another?” I never did get a reply.
The truth is that the CPA was ill conceived and bereft of detail (in terms of land ownership involving coveted oil, infrastructure and constitution). Alas, as everyone (except UN diplomats) knows, the devil is in the detail and the devil has been wreaking havoc in the region ever since.
Last month Aicha Elbasri, a former spokeswoman for the UN African Union Mission in Darfur (Unamid), told the Dutch newspaper Trouw of her dismay at the “lies” Unamid tells about itself. She expressed frustration at willingness of Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, to perpetuate what she described as an inherent misrepresentation of the reality on the ground.
According to the renowned US academic Eric Reeves, there were 100 eyewitness accounts of aerial attacks on civilians in Darfur. The Unamid report documented two. Despite rape and sexual violence being systematically used as a weapon of war in Darfur, the epidemic is airbrushed out of Mr Ban’s report. Carjacking and kidnapping are diligently recorded but rape is shamefully ignored.
In 2005 I attended a cross-party International Development Committee hearing on Darfur. Listening to Mukesh Kapila, a previous UN humanitarian co-ordinator in the region, give evidence, I was moved to tears. Despite his position of power, Dr Kapila’s absolute impotence resonated with me when he said: “To me, the greatest regret to my dying day will be that we failed in Darfur.” He added that UN member states, including Britain, had exerted pressure on him to downplay the severity of the Darfur crisis, which he believed amounted to genocide. When he refused to be silent, he was forced out of his job.
In order to understand the current crisis in the South, we must consider Sudan as a whole, as opposed to isolated regions and “complex ethnic tensions”. The elephant in the room that the UN (which some Sudanese officials believe to be controlled by the US) refuses to address is Mr Bashir. President Obama’s political sensitivity at being seen as anti-Muslim in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan takes precedence, it seems, over any moral obligation to the victims of genocide. Read the full story >>>>>>>>

UK calls on Sudan to cooperate with ICC

Statement delivered by UK Representative on ICC Darfur to UN Security Council

Thank you, Mr President.
I thank Ms Bensouda for her report and for the briefing today. Sadly, we have not seen an improvement in the situation in Darfur since she last addressed the Council in June.
The situation in Darfur remains a serious concern. Over the last six months we have continued to see heavy inter-communal fighting, sporadic clashes between Government and rebel forces and we have received reports of continued aerial strikes by the Government of Sudan. It has been reported that over 460,000 individuals have been newly displaced between January and November this year.
Mr President,
Humanitarian aid workers and peacekeepers continue to be attacked throughout Darfur. In particular we take this opportunity today to condemn the attack on UNAMID on 24 November which resulted in the death of one Rwandan peacekeeper bringing the total killed in the last year to 13. Many others were injured in that attack and we wish them a speedy and full recovery. Such attacks against UNAMID are unacceptable. We hope that the ongoing review of the mission will address the challenges facing UNAMID. And we call on all parties to ensure the mission is granted full and unfettered access across Darfur.
We thank the Prosecutor for her updates on the trial of Abdallah Banda, and on the termination of proceedings against Saleh Jerbo following reports of his death.
Mr President,
It remains deeply concerning, however, that the Government of Sudan continues to frustrate the pursuit of justice for the people of Darfur by shielding all of the others currently indicted by the ICC. The Government of Sudan has a clear and indisputable obligation to cooperate with the ICC, pursuant to Security Council resolution 1593. It has consistently and repeatedly failed to do so. We call once again on the Government of Sudan to meet its obligations and to cooperate with the ICC, including with respect to enforcement of the five separate arrest warrants issued by the Court.
Once again, in this reporting period we have seen some ICC States Parties regrettably fail to comply with their obligations under the Rome Statute by not implementing the arrest warrants when visited by someone indicted by the Court. The United Kingdom urges all ICC States Parties to meet their obligations under the Rome Statute with respect to the travel of fugitives from the Court.
The references in the report to crimes of sexual violence in Darfur are disturbing. We are grateful to the Office of the Prosecutor for its ongoing work in this regard. The United Kingdom believes that there is more that can – and must – be done to combat sexual violence and address the culture of impunity that has been allowed to develop for these crimes. This culture must be replaced with a culture of accountability. We encourage all states to cooperate with the Court to ensure that the alleged perpetrators of these and other serious crimes of concern against the people of Darfur are held accountable for their actions.
In a Presidential Statement in February this year, the Council reiterated its previous call on the importance of State cooperation with Courts and Tribunals and expressed its commitment to an effective follow up of Council decisions in that regard. It is now high time that the Council did so by looking urgently at what it can do to assist the Court so it can complete the task we gave it when we referred the situation in Darfur to the Court over 8 years ago.
Thank you, Mr President

Security Council hears criticism over ‘inaction and paralysis’ in Darfur crisis

11 December 2013 – It is “an understatement” to say the victims of Sudan’s Darfur conflict have lost all hope, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said today, reiterating her “frustration and despair” at the United Nations Security Council's “inaction and paralysis”, and urged it to take firm action to bring those indicted for war crimes to justice.
In its resolution 1593 (2005), the Council asked the Hague-based Court to investigate war crimes in Darfur, and in 2009, ICC judges issued arrest warrants against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and other top officials for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur.“The time has come for this Council and States Parties to seriously devise strategies for arresting those alleged to be responsible for these crimes,” Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the 15-member body during her office’s latest briefing on the conflict between the Government and various armed groups which led to the deaths hundreds of thousands of people and displaced two million more since it first erupted in early 2003.“This is the only way to stop the seemingly endless suffering of the Darfur victims,” she said, calling it a “serious indictment on this Council and on States Parties” that Mr. Bashir and others have been able to show “blatant disregard” for the Council’s resolutions and travel to various countries without fear of arrest.“The situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate and the plight of Darfur victims continues to go from bad to worse,” she stressed noting that this year alone 460,000 people have been newly displaced, with the numbers of people killed, abducted and displaced growing each year. “This Council's silence even when notified of clear failures and/or violations by UN Member States of their obligations to comply with this Council's resolutions only serves to add insult to the plight of Darfur's victims.”Giving an overview of alleged crimes which continue to be committed and “cry out for full investigations,” Ms. Bensouda cited allegations of Defence Ministry attacks targeting civilians as well as attacks by rebel movements; criminal acts against displaced persons and abductions of, and attacks on humanitarian aid workers and peacekeepers. She also noted aerial bombardments and “the pervasive and corrosive effect of organized sexual and gender-based violence” on women and girls, which remains seriously under-reported.Ms. Bensouda said Resolution 1593 represented hope for Darfur's victims: “hope that there would be an end for their suffering; hope that there would be accountability for crimes and that justice would not only be done but would be seen to be done; and above all, hope that lasting peace and security would return to Darfur.“That hope was strengthened even further when this Council mandated my Office to report on progress every six months to enable the Council to remain actively seized of their plight. Sadly, with each report provided by my Office to the Council, the hopes of the victims of Darfur have faded. With this eighteenth report, it would be an understatement to say that all hope is lost.”She noted that the 10-year conflict has cost UN and humanitarian aid organizations more than $10.5 billion and led to the deaths of 47 aid workers, with many more injured and abducted, and with attacks on peacekeepers appearing to become the norm, with a record number of 57 killings. “In spite of the frustrations, challenges and obstacles, my Office's determination to carry out the mandate given to it by Resolution 1593 has not and will not waver,” she stressed.But, she added, “Without stronger action by this Council and States Parties, the situation in the Sudan is unlikely to improve.”

Debt Relief for Sudan from The Netherlands: What Next?

 

Eric Reeves
The Enough Project, 5 December 2013
http://enoughproject.org/blogs/debt-relief-sudan-netherlands-what-next
[Arabic translation at: http://wp.me/p45rOG-19T]
Yesterday the Dutch government decided to offer debt relief to Sudan, an extraordinarily misguided action, the more so since Sudan was the only country favored by such relief. The decision is bad for many reasons, but most conspicuously because of the encouragement it gives the present regime in Khartoum to believe that other nations and institutions will offer similar relief; indeed, according to some observers this was the thinking on the part of some in the Dutch parliament. The amount to be forgiven is relatively small— €150 million or about $US200 million—given the massive debt that has accrued largely under the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime: some $45 billion, according to the IMF. Debt was only a fraction of this before the military coup that brought the NIF/NCP to power in 1989. And despite gross mismanagement of the economy, the regime now believes there is hope it will be given a lifeline by which to survive current civil unrest in the country.

Let’s be clear: There is simply no country in the world less deserving of debt relief than Sudan—not one. Coincidentally, two days earlier, Transparency International released the results of its Global Corruption Perceptions Index for 2013. Sudan ranked at 174 out of 177 countries surveyed, with only Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia faring worse in the Index. Moreover, Sudan’s score actually declined this past year; there is absolutely no sign of improvement.
This is important because many of the reasons for Sudan’s external indebtedness derive from corruption, which takes various forms: the vast system of cronyism that provides political support to the regime; the illegal appropriation and sale of valuable farmland to foreign companies; the impunity afforded to the security services in extortion and asset-stripping of humanitarian organizations and “non-Arab” Sudanese; and the monumental graft that has defined the regime for more than two decades—all of these have compelled unneeded or misdirected borrowing. Indeed, The Guardian (UK) reported in December 2010:

Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, has siphoned as much as $9bn out of his impoverished country, and much of it may be stashed in London banks, according to secret U.S. diplomatic cables that recount conversations with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. (December 17, 2010) Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>

KOSOK: The interwoven peaceful dance