Saturday, December 31, 2005

10 DAYS PROTEST TO STOP THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR


400, 000 Killed
2.5 million Displaced
10 Days Protest

Stop the genocide in Darfur

January 1-10, 2006, Outside the Embassy of Sudan



10 Days of Protest: A New Year’s Resolution for Darfur

From Sunday, January 1 – Tuesday, January 10, student groups, activist organizations, religious congregations and concerned individuals from Washington D.C. and all over the country will protest outside the Sudanese Embassy against the government-backed genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

WHY?
The Sudanese Embassy claims on its website that “Darfur wasn’t Genocide,”
BUT the violence in Darfur—responsible for 400,000 deaths, millions of displaced peoples, murder, rape and the destruction of 90% of the villages in Darfur—has been declared genocide by President Bush, Colin Powell, a unanimous House of Representative, and the National Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Sudanese Embassy asserts “No evidence Sudan’s government involved in Darfur raid,”
BUT the weaponry and aerial equipment of the Janjaweed are those of Khartoum, and all evidence indicates that government officials are directly supporting these militias. While the Sudanese Government denies responsibility, it refuses to prosecute the 51 suspects named by the UN for war crimes in Darfur and awaiting trial in the International Criminal Court.

The Sudanese Embassy declares Sudan’s “optimistic future,”
BUT North/South peace talks are being constantly postponed because of Janjaweed violence. Due to the violence, humanitarian aid threatens to leave, an action that would lead to a certain death for Darfurians. Moreover, the likely occurrence of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir becoming President of the African Union would transform Darfur’s last line of defense into an extension of Khartoum. The “optimistic future” includes the eradication of an entire population for Khartoum’s economic and political benefit.

Amidst this catastrophic scenario, the United States has become a complicit observer—and by extension, so has the American public. After Rwanda, George W. Bush infamously declared: “not on my watch.” Now, over a year after his government declared the situation in Darfur to be “genocide,” Bush and his administration have taken no real action for fear of upsetting the Sudanese government. Meanwhile, American newspapers and television have covered the crisis minimally or not at all, failing in their fundamental responsibility to educate the public.

Starting on New Year’s Day, we will stand outside the embassy for 4 hours each day from 11 am to 3 pm. For 10 days, we will pressure our politicians to take an aggressive stand against genocide. We will generate the kind of press that this crisis warrants, exposing the horrors that American media has cruelly neglected.

We demand:
· An end to Khartoum's support of the Janjaweed militias
· An expansion of the African Union mandate to protect civilians, and the involvement of UN or NATO multinational peace-keeping forces on the ground.
· Prosecution of Sudanese human rights violators in the International Criminal Court.

As many people as possible should be here each day; however, it is most important that the effort is sustained rather than large. A calendar is posted online to allow each group and individual to mark times of presence. Go to
www.calendar.yahoo.com. Username: Darfurprotest, Password: Darfur. Go to monthly calendar and click "add" on the dates you wish to participate. It will also allow you to specify hours. Please include a contact email address.

Compelling visuals will be provided, but any other images or information are encouraged. Wear your warmest green clothing! Remember, the goal of the project is gain media attention—the more people, the more organizations, the more buzz we can create!

The Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan is located at 2210 Massachusetts Ave. NW, in Washington, DC. Please join us in protest.
Phone: Sarah Reed, 610.283.1149
Email:
sreed@wesleyan.edu, akoch@wesleyan.edu and jboddum@wesleyan.edu for more information.

REMINDER: Don't Forget From Tomorrow, We Protest For Darfur

10 DAYS OF PROTEST: A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION FOR DARFUR

From Tomorrow Sunday, January 1 – Tuesday, January 10, student groups, activist organizations, religious congregations and concerned individuals from Washington D.C. and all over the country will protest outside the Sudanese Embassy against the government-backed genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Starting on New Year’s Day, we will stand outside the embassy for 4 hours each day from 11 am to 3 pm. For 10 days, we will pressure our politicians to take an aggressive stand against genocide.

We will generate the kind of press that this crisis warrants, exposing the horrors that American media has cruelly neglected.

We demand:
• An end to Khartoum\'s support of the Janjaweed militias
• An expansion of the African Union mandate to protect civilians, and the involvement of multinational peace-keeping forces on the ground.
• Prosecution of Sudanese human rights violators in the International Criminal Court.

As many people as possible should be here each day; however, it is most important that the effort is sustained rather than large.

A calendar is posted online to allow each group and individual to mark times of presence. Go to www.calendar.yahoo.com. Username: Darfurprotest, Password: Darfur. Go to monthly calendar and click \"add\" on the dates you wish to participate. It will also allow you to specify hours. Please include a contact email address. Compelling visuals will be provided, but any other images or information are encouraged.

Remember, the goal of the project is gain media attention—the more people, the more organizations, the more buzz we can create!

The Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan is located at 2210 Massachusetts Ave. NW, in Washington, DC. Please join us in protest.

Email: sreed@wesleyan.edu, akoch@wesleyan.edu and jboddum@wesleyan.edu for more information. Organizational Affiliation: STAND (Students Take Action Now: Darfur)Event type: PublicContact name: Alison Koch, Sarah ReedContact Info: Akoch@wesleyan.edu Sreed@wesleyan.edu

Friday, December 30, 2005

DARFUR: The UN and the US Are Guilty

Kofi Annan loves to talk and talk. But, he only barks like a toothless bulldog. Because, he has failed to act with expediency in response to the emergency in Darfur. Exactly, the same lack of expediency caused the extermination of millions of lives in the Rwanda Holocaust and the same lack of expediency was responsible for the genocide in Bosnia and now in Darfur.

The US is also guilty in this case and has fooled the majority of Americans into the futile war in Iraq. Because, the Al Qaida led by Osama bin Laden was not operating from Iraq, but from Somalia and Sudan
.

Now let me address the latest report on the situation in Darfur:
News Report: Attacks on villagers by government-backed militia of Arab heritage have raised the spectre of genocide in Sudan’s western Darfur region. In the south, the Khartoum government and southern rebels have officially ended Africa’s longest-running war -- a 21-year civil conflict that the United Nations estimates killed two million -- but the humanitarian crisis continues to fester, with more than 5.5 million people displaced from their homes. Simmering conflict in northeastern Sudan, the Nuba mountains of south Kordofan, the Southern Blue Nile and Abyei risk destabilising the country further.
My Commentary: The attacks on the innocent people in Sudan are masterminded by the Sudanese government and both the UN and the US can stop the genocide if they really want to. But, their inefficiency and lack of expediency have been exploited by the terrorist government of Sudan.

In a poll of "forgotten" emergencies released by AlertNet in March 2005, aid experts chose Sudan as the world's third-biggest neglected crisis. Here they explain why.

On the scale of the crisis in Darfur…

In nearly 40 years of traveling the world, I have not witnessed any crisis that so vividly combines the worst of everything -- armed conflict; acts of extreme violence; great tides of desperate refugees; hunger and disease combined with an unforgiving desert climate.
-Martin Bell British journalist, former lawmaker, UNICEF UK’s ambassador for humanitarian emergencies
On a U.N. panel’s finding there was no genocide in Darfur…

The Darfur situation is probably the more serious in that given what the U.N. Commission decided it is now open season and it is likely that the Janjaweed and the Sudan government may decide to continue to kill with impunity leaving the lives of 1.8 million people in absolute peril over the coming months.
-John O'SheaChief executive, GOAL, Ireland.

On media coverage…
I would like the media to continue to focus on Sudan. This seems to have fallen off the map a bit. It’s very telling how the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Sudan reached “only” £35 million -- perhaps this has not been as “real” to western public donors as the tsunami. Some human interest stories could help to refocus this.
-Juliette ProdhanActing regional humanitarian coordinator, Oxfam GB in East Asia

On the quality of life in southern Sudan…
"Southern Sudan," a U.N. official told me, "is still the worst place in the world to be born." The statistics do not contradict him. In education, literacy, and child malnutrition, southern Sudan ranks at the bottom of the world, and is near the bottom in all other social indicators. Most international attention is focused on Darfur, but southern Sudan suffers from a continuing humanitarian emergency.
-Larry ThompsonSenior advocate, Refugees International, USA
On the food crisis in southern Sudan…

Considerable diplomatic effort by the U.S., U.K., Norway and E.U. has gone into brokering the peace accord. Yet it will mean little to the people of Sudan unless they have enough to eat while they rebuild the war-ravaged south. Our operation there has just seven percent of the money it needs this year.
-James MorrisExecutive director, U.N. World Food Programme.

On Sudan’s other hotspots…
And if I can suggest another crisis, I'd be tempted to go for non-Darfur and non-SPLA parts of Sudan -- e.g., the Beja in the northeast and perhaps also Kordofan. A greater and more widespread understanding of groups such as these will be essential if the peace process is to achieve a lasting settlement in Sudan.
-George Graham Programme officer for East Africa, International Rescue Committee, UK .

My Commentary:
The Sudanese government is telling lies that the leaders of their Janjaweed militias or bandits cannot be identified. Because, the government is providing most of the arms and Thuraya phones the Janjaweed terrorists are using in their criminal operations in Darfur. Because, they are being used as mercenary guerillas against the rebels in Darfur and other areas of conflict in Sudan.

The African Union (AU) is ill-equipped to end the genocide in Darfur. So, the UN and the US should take over the peace keeping operations in Darfur to disarm both the rebels and the Janjaweed mercenaries of the government in Sudan.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The Worst Thing I Saw Came Last December

The Brian Steidle Eye Witness Account of Darfur :

The worst thing I saw came last December, when Labado, a village of 20,000 people, was burned to the ground. We rushed there after a rebel group contacted us, and we arrived while the attack was still in progress. At the edge of the village, I found a Sudanese general who explained why he was doing nothing to stop the looting and burning. He said his job was to protect civilians and keep the road open to commercial traffic and denied that his men were participating in the attack. Then a group of uniformed men drove by in a Toyota Land Cruiser. The general said they were just going to get water, but they stopped about 75 yards away, jumped out, looted a hut and burned it. The attacks continued for a week. We have no idea how many people died there but tribal leaders later said close to 100 were missing.

http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/alert/darfur/steidle/

Note: Brian Steidle, a former U.S. Marine, was a member of the African Union team monitoring the conflict in Darfur, where he took hundreds of photographs documenting atrocities.

DARFUR: PEACE TALKS RESUME IN ABUJA, NIGERIA, AFTER CHRISTMAS BREAK

Sudanese people and animals getting water from the same supply. Photo courtesy of CARE

Cecile,

The African Union (AU) Peace Talks on Sudan have resumed in our capital Abuja after the Christmas break.

Imagine that the delegates went on break for three whole days to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ! So, we should pat them on the back and commend them as good "Christians"?
What an irrational excuse.

Imagine medical doctors and nurses going on Christmas break whilst their patients in critical condition in the emergency ward are crying for help as they are writhening in pains and dying?
Do the millions of suffering and dying war-stricken refugees in Darfur know it was Christmas last Sunday?

The hypocrisy of our leaders is nothing but sheer ruthlessness and wickedness.
What is Christmas? Just another holiday and the biggest "christian" trade fair.
Did Jesus Christ tell us to celebrate his birth? Or to love our neighbours as we love ourselves?
Why do we like deceiving and fooling the ignorant and gullible populations of poor people in this world?

The sooner we stop giving excuses for our blunders, mistakes and failures the better we would be.

“We Christians in the U.S. have to use our resources not to build bigger churches, and not to be even more concerned with being pro-life, but to show how we value life by protecting the lives that are being lost every day because of war, disease, and starvation.” -Deborah Fikes

“Killing is wrong, whether you’re killing a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim.”
“I’m as concerned about what’s happening in Darfur as I am about what happened in southern Sudan. It’s evil. God made the people there in Darfur. For us to ignore them would be a sin.”
-Billy Graham.


“We acted too late to save millions of Jews during World War II.”
“We didn’t act at all when hundreds of thousands of innocents were slaughtered in Rwanda. We have the opportunity now to stop a genocide and we must act.”
-Charles Rangel, the New York City congressman.

Cecile,
Here is the latest news report on the Sudanese Peace Talks in Abuja.

27/12/2005 17:10 LAGOS, Dec 27 (AFP)
Darfur: peace talks resume in Abuja after Christmas break: official
The African Union (AU)-mediated Sudanese peace talks on the Darfur crisis resumed Tuesday in Nigeria's capital Abuja after Christmas break, AU spokesman told AFP.
Delegates to the talks observed a three-day recess which ended on Monday to enable them to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Noureddine Mezni said in an official statement which he read on telephone.
http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=051227171023.6fu1bema.php#

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

The US Must Spearhead the Rescue Mission To Darfur 2

Cecile,

This Darfuri boy reminds me of me during the civil war in Nigeria as I was once missing from our refugee camp. My mother had lost three children, she was nursing a year old baby and the oldest son my elder brother had gone to join the Biafran scouts called "Boys Company" used in spying on our enemies (The Nigerian Armed Forces).

The latest report on Darfur in the Washington Post of today was written by two US Senators calling for more US interventions in Darfur http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600547.html

(see the previous post below) and a popular blog http://www.independentconservative.com/ shared my views on why Sudan should have been invaded by the US instead of Iraq.

The Unicef reports that over a million children are in danger of dying in Sudan since the Sudanese Arab terrorists have prevented emergency Aid from reaching the refugee camps where these helpless children are suffering and dying everyday from malnutrition, diseases and violence.

UNICEF correspondent Chris Niles reports on child malnutrition in Darfur:

Malnutrition rates in the last year have been halved among children living in camps which provide food, shelter and medical care. But an estimated 2.5 million people are not receiving any help because they live in isolated and dangerous areas. Children in these groups are dying from malnutrition and other preventable diseases.

http://www.unicefusa.org/site/c.duLRI8O0H/b.50755/k.7A58/


I will keep you posted.

The US Must Spearhead the Rescue Mission To Darfur

The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur is the numbers involved of dead, tortured, and raped. This is ethnic cleansing, this is the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis, and I don’t know why the world is not doing more about it.”
- Mukesh Kapila, the former U.N.’s humanitarian coördinator for
Sudan.

Dear Cecile,

The reality of a human catastrophe as horrifying and terrifying as the Rwanda Holocaust repeating in Sudan is very frightening. Because, the UN, OAU, G-8 and other world bodies were all there when the massacres in Rwanda became a genocide and finally became another holocaust. And there was no excuse.


Those we thought could save us failed to save us in Rwanda. And they are failing to save us again in Sudan.

World leaders have failed us.

The UN and NATO should have a combined emergency intervention coalition force for the control and prevention of war crimes and wide spread violations of human rights.

By now, the UN should have sent a peace-keeping force of at least 500,000 armed soldiers to Sudan to disarm the lawless Janaweed terrorists without compromise.
The US should treat the Janaweed mass murderers as terrorists and I have already sent petitions to the office of the US Secretary of State on this note.

I don't believe in speeches at the UN, AU and G-8 while hundreds of thousands of armless and helpless civilian populations are being exterminated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe and the UN and world leaders are wasting time meeting over treaties instead of reacting as a matter of emergency to violations of international law, violations of human rights, and policies that do not respect the rule of law and democratic principles. To put Sudan immediately under arms and trade embargoes and ban the issuance of Foreign Visas to Sudanese officials.

I don't believe in White Collar diplomacy that has done us more harm than good.
If the UN, OAU and EU intervened without delay in Rwanda, millions of lives would have been saved. But they were busy globetrotting and hobnobbing with the "gobs and snobs" of governments in diplomatic chitchat in five star hotels, squandering hundreds of thousands of dollars in hotel bills and air fares while hundreds of thousands of poverty stricken and war ridden refugees are suffering and perishing everyday by day in Darfur and other regions of emergencies in the world.

I am saying this from my experience as a UNICEF Consultant for child survival and development when I was one of the national coordinators in Nigeria. I was lodged in a double suite at the five star Durbar Hotel in Kaduna. What do I need a double suite for? And room service? At over $200 per night in 1988. I was pissed. I protested. But, the others laughed at me and said why should I complain when it was not even my money and they filled their refrigerators with food and wine. They even had to come and use my own glasses. And we were meeting to discuss how to save poor children from preventable diseases? The amount of money spent on our hotel bills was more than the amount spent on the procurement of the drugs for the immunization of the children in Nigeria and whilst we were still studying modules of Informatio0n, Education and Communication (IEC) , thousands of children were dying daily.

I left the UNICEF and never sought for the appointment again. And even as a project artist for the USAID, the same bureaucratic misadministration made me to walk away and I became an independent producer and writer to address the needs of my people from public transport buses and at local markets for 11 years without any government or foreign grant.

The draconian Sudanese Government is taking advantage of the bureaucratic circumlocution of the UN, AU, EU and other global bodies and their inefficiency often leads to dormancy.

JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED.

Emergency demands Expediency.

If you have been a refugee child, you would have known why I am so concerned and the only weapon I have now is this Internet. If you are the only one I succeed in getting across my plea of angst I have not wasted my time.
No more, no less.

We can stop the holocaust in Darfur.

May God help us all before it too late.

Even Democratic Senator Barack Obama from Illinois and Republican Senator Sam Brownback from Kansas have finally given their verdict on the shortcomings of the US Policy in Sudan as it delays the progress in Darfur.

"The Bush administration has helped reduce suffering in Darfur, but the situation is dangerously adrift. And when the history of this tragedy is written, nobody will remember how many times officials visited the region or how much humanitarian aid was delivered. They will only remember the death toll."
-Barack Obama is a Democratic senator from Illinois.
Sam Brownback is a Republican senator from Kansas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600547_pf.html

Monday, December 26, 2005

The USAID Takes Over the Work of the UN in Darfur

The USAID is almost doing the work of the UN in Sudan. And I wonder if the UN has decided to pass the buck or to admit the shortcomings of the UN in responding to emergencies until it is too late?

Now read the comprehensive plan of the USAID in Sudan.

USAID Support to the Comprehensive Peace Plan in Sudan

Overview

With the peace agreement, long-isolated areas are now accessible. Roads and markets are improving, making trade more vibrant.

The Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement have signed a comprehensive peace agreement including fundamental changes in governance through power-sharing, wealth-sharing, security arrangements, and a formal ceasefire. It is hoped that these changes will provide a framework for resolving conflicts in other unstable areas outside of southern Sudan, most notably Darfur and Eastern Sudan. A peaceful Sudan is important to the United States to promote regional stability in the volatile horn of Africa. Current USAID programs focus on supporting the peace process, democracy and governance, education, health, economic growth, and humanitarian assistance.

Programs Support to the Peace Process

The war has been the central focus of political life throughout Sudan for more than 20 years. To support the peace process in Sudan, USAID activi-ties will seek to establish social and institutional foundations for stability and peacebuilding at the grassroots level in selected conflict-prone com-munities in Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and Equatoria provinces. This in-cludes increased access to information through the development of independent media and wide distribution of the peace protocol. Read more...

Responsive and Participatory Governance

Under the peace agreement, southern Sudan will have governing auton-omy within the context of a national unity government. USAID will seek to aid in the establishment of transparent and accountable government struc-tures in southern Sudan. Efforts will be made to support the development of civilian political parties and a vibrant civil society, including a network of organizations that are committed to the empowerment of women. Read more...

10 DAYS OF PROTEST FROM JANUARY 1, 2006

10 DAYS OF PROTEST: A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION FOR DARFUR

From Sunday, January 1 – Tuesday, January 10, student groups, activist organizations, religious congregations and concerned individuals from Washington D.C. and all over the country will protest outside the Sudanese Embassy against the government-backed genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Starting on New Year’s Day, we will stand outside the embassy for 4 hours each day from 11 am to 3 pm. For 10 days, we will pressure our politicians to take an aggressive stand against genocide.

We will generate the kind of press that this crisis warrants, exposing the horrors that American media has cruelly neglected.
We demand:
• An end to Khartoum\'s support of the Janjaweed militias
• An expansion of the African Union mandate to protect civilians, and the involvement of multinational peace-keeping forces on the ground.
• Prosecution of Sudanese human rights violators in the International Criminal Court.

As many people as possible should be here each day; however, it is most important that the effort is sustained rather than large.

A calendar is posted online to allow each group and individual to mark times of presence. Go to www.calendar.yahoo.com. Username: Darfurprotest, Password: Darfur. Go to monthly calendar and click \"add\" on the dates you wish to participate. It will also allow you to specify hours.

Please include a contact email address. Compelling visuals will be provided, but any other images or information are encouraged. Remember, the goal of the project is gain media attention—the more people, the more organizations, the more buzz we can create! The Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan is located at 2210 Massachusetts Ave. NW, in Washington, DC. Please join us in protest. Email: sreed@wesleyan.edu, akoch@wesleyan.edu and jboddum@wesleyan.edu for more information. Organizational Affiliation: STAND (Students Take Action Now: Darfur)Event type: PublicContact name: Alison Koch, Sarah Reed

Contact Info: Akoch@wesleyan.edu Sreed@wesleyan.edu

For more on Darfur, see http://www.sudanreeves.org

Bette Midler:From Me To You


Special Message To You From Bette Midler

Dear Friends,

Like many of you, I have recently been deeply affected by the terrible suffering of the people of Darfur, Sudan.

Over the last two years, over 380,000 people have died, and 2 million driven from their homes by a brutal campaign of repression by the Sudanese government. Darfur's women have been targeted for systematic rape and brutality. This terrible inhumanity must stop. It affects all of us, because we are all connected in one human family. But to stop it you and I need to rise up and be heard.

We CAN stop the killing, if we can persuade our government to put enough pressure on the Sudanese government and its allies to make them stop. Please take just 3 minutes today, right now, to send a strong message to President Bush, or donate money to advocacy or humanitarian aid.Click here to send a message to President Bush. Click here to sign a petition calling for humanitarian intervention.Click here to donate to advocacy or humanitarian aid.

Thanks so much for your time. There is always hope, let's keep it alive for our brothers and sisters in Darfur, and be their heroes.

Sincerely,
Bette Midler

Do They Know It's Christmas In Darfur?

Do they know it's Christmas? How many Christmas presents did you send to them?
Refugees in Darfur smiling from sharing the bowl of relief food and for them to have anything to eat and water to drink means more to them than any festivity.

The refugees don't know it is Christmas. Because, their fellow Sudanese kith and kindred are being massacred everyday before their very eyes. While they are still suffering and dying, the rest of the world is busy celebrating Christmas from London to New York City.
http://www.darfurgenocide.org/


When Bob Geldof in his Band Aid benefit recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

(http://www.80smusiclyrics.com/artists/bandaid.htm) in 1984 to raise funds for the victims of the famine in Ethiopia, the rest of the world woke up to the reality of the tragedies in that Ogaden region and in other regions in Africa. But, since Band Aid and recently Live Aid, do they still know it's Christmas in countless regions ravaged by ethnic conflicts and drought in Africa and Asia? And the worst emergency is in the Darfur region in Sudan.

As you dine and wine and rejoice over your Christmas gifts and presents today, remember that thousands of corpses are scattered all over Darfur. Corpses of thousands who were massacred by the blood-thirsty militias on rampage and thousands of others who starved to death before emergency relief could reach them.

Two pilots just died last Saturday as their plane crashed in Darfur whilst on a rescue mission for the African Union(AU).

The African Union says a plane crash in Sudan's Darfur region has killed a
Moldovan and Ukrainian working as pilots for the African Union.

An AU statement says the plane crashed late Saturday after taking off from the town of Zalingei.
It says there was no one other than the pilots aboard the plane, a
Russian-made Antonov 28 that was used to transport AU personnel around Darfur.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-12-25-voa25.cfm