BUSH IS HIDING THAT HE DOESN'T REALLY CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF DARFUR

THE MOVIE DARFUR NOW......
September 30, I was fortunate to see the United States premiere of the film DARFUR NOW as a part of the STAND* conference. I was one of several Save Darfur Coalition's Communities United Leaders who were invited and attended the conference regarding ending the Darfur genocide in Washingtion, D.C. Saturday's meetings were held at the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum. John Prendergast and Jerry Fowler were two of many presenters along with a survivor from Darfur. There were 400 students from across the United States that came together on a grim but real subject of genocide and to participate in ending genocide through educating those who don't know much about it and to pressure politicians. One of the residual benefits of such a gathering is to gain strength from others who have a passion to stop the madness and the thoughtless complicity of the US government. All day Sunday, we Community Leaders met with representatives from the Save Darfur Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network and STAND.

You can see a trailer to Darfur Now at this link:
http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=23052

Over four and a half years and beyond - blustery and empty talk from the President of the USA has manifested nothing close to finding an end to the genocide in Darfur. "We" just don't care unless it is happening to us.

The United States is complicit because we want to protect our connections with the Omar al-Bashir's government so that we can continue to get the intelligence from the Sudanese government about al-quaida.

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I caught on the news tonight that the United States is in Khartoum, Sudan. The reason is not to do with the Darfur genocide, but with the CIA getting intelligence information from the Sudanese goverment about al-quaida. This is the reason we are not doing anything about ending the genocide in Darfur. We don't want to stop the flow of information from Omar al-Bashir's administration about Osama bin Laden. I have known this for a long time. When the American newsman showed up at the meeting in Sudan, the American government official was not happy to be questioned by our newsman, said the newsman. I can't remember which network news station it was on. But he was surprised to see the US at the table along with France and I think it was also Great Britain. Here is an article, "So How Come We Haven't Stopped It?", by John Prendergast in The Washington Post http://www.africa.upenn.edu/afrfocus/afrfocus122906.html
and here is a portion of the article:

The answer is one of the great untold stories of this young century, one in which human rights principles clash with post-9/11 counterterrorism imperatives. During my visits to Darfur in the past few months, I've heard testimony from Darfurians that villages are still burned to the ground, women are still gang-raped by Janjaweed militias and civilians are still terrorized by the Sudanese air force's bombings. As Darfur descends further into hell, all signs explaining the United States' pathetic response point to one man: Osama bin Laden.

In the early 1990s, bin Laden lived in Sudan, the guest of the very regime responsible for the Darfur atrocities. At the time, bin Laden's main local interlocutor was an official named Salah Abdallah Gosh. After 9/11, however, Gosh became a more active counterterrorism partner: detaining terrorism suspects and turning them over to the United States; expelling Islamic extremists; and raiding suspected terrorists' homes and handing evidence to the FBI. Gosh's current job as head of security for the government also gives him a lead role in the regime's counterinsurgency strategy, which relies on the Janjaweed militias to destroy non-Arab villages in Darfur.

The deepening intelligence-sharing relationship between Washington and Khartoum blunted any U.S. response to the state-sponsored violence that exploded in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. U.S. officials have told my colleague Colin Thomas-Jensen and me that access to Gosh's information would be jeopardized if the Bush administration confronted Khartoum on Darfur. And since 2001, the administration had been pursuing a peace deal between southern Sudanese rebels and the regime in Khartoum -- a deal aimed at placating U.S. Christian groups that had long demanded action on behalf of Christian minorities in southern Sudan. The administration didn't want to undermine that process by hammering Khartoum over Darfur.

The people of Darfur never had a chance.

The End

RIGHTS-U.S.: Bush Accused of Complacency, Double-Dealing on Darfur
By Jim Lobe
Find article at this link:
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=28803
a portion of the article is as follows:
activists, who note that Bush himself has been silent on Darfur since the end of last year, are concerned that his reticence actually signals a policy shift spurred by growing covert cooperation between U.S. and Sudan's intelligence services in the so-called ''global war on terror''. Khartoum, which hosted al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden for several years in the 1990s, has tried to persuade Washington of its utility in that respect since shortly after the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had secretly flown Khartoum's intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh, to Washington for high-level meetings with his U.S. counterparts last month despite the fact that he has been accused of directing military attacks in Darfur, the Los Angeles Times reported recently.

The visit, which U.S. officials subsequently confirmed, outraged human rights and Africa activists.

''It's like bringing (Hitler's air force chief Hermann) Goehring and some of those Nazis here during World War Two while the genocide (against the Jews) was still going on,''. Donald Payne, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Africa subcommittee, said Tuesday.

''We've seen a shift in policy and it's very disturbing,'' he added, saying that the House leadership, acting at the administration's behest, had stripped from a 2005 spending bill bipartisan legislation that would have toughened U.S. sanctions against Sudan and called for Bush to seek multilateral sanctions, including an arms embargo, against the government at the United Nations.

End

* STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition – STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition (www.STANDnow.org) comprises more than 700 high school and college chapters throughout the United States and internationally. STAND mobilizes students to take action to stop and prevent genocide by educating, advocating, and fundraising for civilian protection. STAND is the student division of the Genocide Intervention Network.

WE ARE ALL THE KEEPERS OF JUSTICE

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IF OUR LEADERS WON'T LEAD

ON THE ULTIMATE RIGHT TO LIVING A LIFE

THEN WE MUST LEAD THEM.

STOPPING GENOCIDE IS A RESPONSITILITY FOR ALL OF US

Genocide flourishes when there is no accountability.

WE CAN’T SAY THAT WE CARE ABOUT JUSTICE

WHEN WE DO NOTHING TO STOP THE INJUSTICE

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"Bush is not a disaster waiting to happen.
He is a disaster that has already done enough damage."
My opinion