DYING TO LIVE in DARFUR

IS THERE A GENOCIDE GOING ON IF WE IGNORE IT?

YES!

AND IT IS IN ITS 6TH YEAR.

President Bush signed The Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (SADA) on December 31, 2007. While most of the provisions of SADA were enacted immediately, the law gave the Administration 120 days to implement the final provision that would prohibit federal contracts with foreign companies funding the genocide.

The 120 days have come and gone and the provision prohibiting federal contracts with foreign companies fueling the genocide has still not been implemented. President Bush has not Stuck to His Promises!

Director Jim Nussle's office oversees the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council, which is in charge of implementing the provision. Send a message to Director Nussle of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The US government has millions of dollars in contracts with a small group of foreign companies that support the genocidal regime in Sudan. We urgently need the OMB to prevent future contracts, and the renewal of existing contracts, with these companies. The lives of millions in Darfur depend on it. The OMB needs to make sure that the Bush Administration Stick to Its Promises!

Call Director Nussle's office today at 202-395-4840 and tell him he must ensure that companies funding genocide do not have the privilege of being awarded contracts with the United States.


The Darfur War Crimes Test
By MIA FARROW and ERIC REEVES
May 1, 2008; Page A15

This week marks a grim and largely unnoticed anniversary. On April 27, 2007, International Criminal Court judges issued arrest warrants for two men involved in the massive, ongoing atrocities in the Darfur region of western Sudan: Former state minister of the interior Ahmed Haroun, and Ali Kushayb, a key leader of the brutal Arab militia known as Janjaweed. Both are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Evidence in the ICC cases against both men is overwhelming, including numerous eyewitness accounts from victims as well as compelling documentary evidence. Yet Khartoum refuses to extradite or lift a finger in prosecuting either man.

No surprise there. Were Mr. Haroun and Mr. Kushayb to testify in the Hague, where the ICC is based, the most senior members of the Khartoum regime would be at obvious risk of indictment themselves. Mr. Haroun in particular could point far up the military and civilian chain of command.

In a grotesque irony, Mr. Haroun has even been promoted to the position of state minister for humanitarian affairs, with major responsibility for millions of desperate victims of the very crimes he orchestrated.

More than five years have passed since the Khartoum regime and its Janjaweed allies launched their campaign of destruction against the non-Arab populations of Darfur. The savagery of the attacks upon civilians, the torched villages, mass murders, rapes, abductions and mutilations have made the word Darfur synonymous with human suffering. More than 2.5 million people have fled from their burning homes in terror, seeking tenuous refuge in wretched camps across Darfur and eastern Chad.

The ICC is charged with investigating and prosecuting cases in which the national courts of a country cannot or will not render justice even in the face of the most horrific international crimes. The ICC, however, has no police force of its own, and so relies on others to execute its arrest warrants. In the case of Darfur, the ICC arrest warrants derive from a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Khartoum's refusal to arrest the suspects should be superseded by the Council's authority to act in the interests of international peace and security. But Security Council members have shown little interest in pressuring Sudan to comply with the resolution. As long as the Security Council continues in this vein, Mr. Haroun and Mr. Kushayb will operate with complete impunity in Sudan.

Those nations who have committed their support to the ICC must understand that a green light for the likes of such men is also a green light for Khartoum's defiance of other international demands. The large, U.N.-authorized protection force, for example, has for nine months been obstructed by this regime. If the international community lacks the will to confront Khartoum, the dying in Darfur will continue apace.

Last December, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor for the ICC, issued a devastating report to the Security Council. "We are witnessing a calculated, organized campaign by Sudanese officials to attack individuals and further destroy the social fabric of entire communities," he declared. "All information points not to chaotic and isolated acts, but to a pattern of attacks."

The Council failed to provide any support for Mr. Moreno-Ocampo and his terrifying indictment. The ICC must find a way to circumvent Security Council paralysis. International justice will only be served if, in the face of the most egregious international crimes, the nations of the world can place justice before sovereignty.

The United States should take the lead in reforming the Security Council to make it more effective, representative and committed to the ideals of international justice. Darfur is the test case - one year and counting.

Ms. Farrow is an actor and advocate. She has visited the Darfur region eight times. Mr. Reeves is author of "A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide" (The Key Publishing House, 2007).
Source: online.wsj.com/article

PRESIDENT BUSH'S COMMENT PHONE LINE IS
202-456-1111

Call
1-800-GENOCIDE
and ask your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators to fund the UN Peacekeepers.

Last week, the United Nations World Food Program announced that it will cut half its food supplies to the people of Darfur because of a lack of funds and relentless attacks on its convoys.

Millions of Darfuris depend on this food supply. Without it, they will be pushed even closer to the knife-sharp edge of starvation.

The only food at the camps is from aid.

Want to help? Action save Darfur campaign

There are five year olds who are in the refuge camps who have grown up in a refuge camp...no water, no bathrooms, no way to stop the genocide, the terror, the rapes. The government perpetuating the genocide is Sudanese. China supports the Sudanese government and its President Omar al-Bashir.