GENOCIDE IN SUDAN IS A WAY OF LIFE (AND DEATH) - THE REASON I BLOG FOR PEACE ~ #8

SUDAN AREAS WHERE GENOCIDE IS HAPPENING

BLUE NILE, DARFUR, EASTERN SUDAN, NUBA MOUNTAINS and SOUTH SUDAN

As a community leader in Rhode Island, who works with other community leaders across the USA, in order to bring needed attention to genocide, preventing and stopping it, I have worked specifically with the dire situation in Sudan.

Ethnic cleansing, genocide of about 3,000,000 bodies in South Sudan, Darfur, Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Eastern Sudan just since Bashir came into power is proof of the world, including the USA, turning a blind eye and making "never again" meaningless two words. Two words that we have used at the end of previous genocides. The current Government of Sudan supports Sudanese regional genocides/ethnic cleansings, which are focused on people who are black, have an African culture and those who've asked for government help. The victim targets' regions over the months and years have changed and multiplied in Sudan, however the strategy has not changed.

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One who worked in Sudan in a refugee camp (2005 to 2007), from 13:25 to 21:19.

John Prendergast of the Enough Project is introduced at 21:19 and speaks at 22:44 until 33:49.

Mohamed Yahya speaks at United Nations on the UN Webcast, Mohamed is from west Darfur, Sudan. His introduction and his comments are from 33:49 to 48:40.

51:48 begins the section of various contributions of "What You Wish For" book.

At 53:27 is a German author introduction via streaming by Skype at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium , followed by the introduction of each of the authors to speak.

At 1:00:13 the first author is supposed to be heard, but the audio is not audible for a while anyway.

Here is the explanation of the video above from the United Nations webcast ~

What You Wish For, a short story and poetry anthology for youth.

17 October 2011

Authors join Darfur experts and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) at the UN’s Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium from 3-5 PM in celebration of the launch of What You Wish For, a short story and poetry anthology for youth.

The event co-hosted by the United Nations Office for Partnerships will feature Darfur experts John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project and author of Unlikely Brothers: Our Story of Adventure, Loss, and Redemption, and Mohamed Yahya, co-founder of Damanga. The Director of UNHCR’s Executive Office in New York, Udo Janz, and Senior Policy Advisor Grainne O’Hara will also speak.

Running time: 02:02:05

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"They Bombed Everything that Moved"

Aerial military attacks on civilians and humanitarians in Sudan,

1999 - 2011

(report and data update as of October 15, 2011)

By Eric Reeves

www.sudanbombing.org

July 15 - October 15, 2011

Since this report and data spreadsheet were originally released on May 6, 2011, the Sudan Armed Forces---at the direction of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime in Khartoum---have continued their aerial onslaught against civilians in various regions of North Sudan. This savagery has now spread from South Kordofan to another northern border state, Blue Nile. At the same time, civilian villages in Darfur, without any military presence, continue to be targeted. I have argued that in aggregate, these many hundreds of confirmed, deliberate aerial attacks on civilians and humanitarians---going back more than a decade---constitute crimes against humanity. So, too, does the widespread, systematic denial of humanitarian access on an ethnic basis, something the UN first reported in Darfur in 2003 (in South Sudan the Nuba Mountains this had begun over a decade earlier). And yet these tactics, which have defined the military strategy of the Khartoum regime for so long, show no signs of being curtailed. Nor is there any sign that these atrocity crimes will confront meaningful action by international actors, who know full well their deadly consequences---and hence the consequences of their own acquiescence.

In South Kordofan the bombing continues to be particularly intense in the Nuba Mountains, and for months has prevented planting and tending of crops; continued bombing now endangers even a meager harvest. Khartoum has prevented all international humanitarian access to a vast population that is now squarely facing starvation. Many people have made the dangerous trek to South Sudan, some 8,000 as of mid-September, and the UN High Commission for Refugees estimated at the time that there were some 500 new arrivals per day.

Civilians in Blue Nile---another region with a long history of marginalization, violence, and tyranny at the hands of the NIF/NCP regime---are consistently reported as enduring daily bombing attacks. Civilian casualties have been high and the number of civilians displaced by bombardment is enormous. Elected governor Malik Agar estimates that half of Blue Nile's 1.2 million people are now on the move. This is harvest season and it appears increasingly unlikely that those forced from their lands by aerial military violence will be able to survive without international humanitarian aid---which Khartoum has again denied categorically.

Lacking food and humanitarian assistance, and facing increasing violence, civilians from Blue Nile have begun to pour into neighboring Ethiopia, with no end to the exodus in sight:

"The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says 27,500 people have fled the conflict in Blue Nile State to nearby Ethiopia since early September. The agency is due to open a second camp 200km from the border with a capacity of 3,000 people, as fighting and SAF aerial bombardments continue." (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [IRIN] [dateline: Kurmuk], October 13, 2011)

In South Kordofan, the SPLA/M-North leader Abdel Aziz el-Hilu reports that as many as 500,000 Nuba have been displaced, and he has assembled locality data to support this claim. The actual figure for displaced persons can't be known, but now---after more than four months of intense bombings---it is almost certainly more than 300,000, and the number of conflict-affected civilians much greater. Khartoum's military assaults on Abyei (May 20), South Kordofan (June 5), and Blue Nile (September 1) may now have displaced 1 million civilians.

Origins and character of conflict in Blue Nile

Violence in Blue Nile was initiated by Khartoum's Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) on September 1, 2011 in yet another well-prepared assault. Such an assault was predicted in a previous iteration of this update (July 15, 2011), as it was by the elected governor of Blue Nile, Malik Agar. Malik insisted to all who would listen that the longer conflict and ethnic targeting of civilians continued in South Kordofan, the more likely it was that Blue Nile would be drawn into the fighting. Unsurprisingly, Malik's residence in Damazine was the first target of SAF shelling. Such shelling has now extended southward toward Kurmuk as Khartoum increasingly engages in "stand-off" military actions against the forces so effectively led by Malik (the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement-North; SPLA/M-N). Large-scale, long-range, and indiscriminate shelling has many of the same effects as aerial bombardment by Antonov aircraft, which are inherently incapable of achieving bombing accuracy sufficient to be militarily effective. It is now the greatest fear of many on the ground in Blue Nile. UN IRIN reports from Kurmuk (October 12, 2011):

"The priority is to move patients from the hospital as quickly as possible, either back home or across the border to Ethiopia where other aid agencies can care for them. 'The fear that an Antonov might bomb [the hospital] is terrible,' [Dr. Evan] Atar said, adding: 'Most of the people who were injured are people who were running. The bomb usually explodes upwards in a conical form, so if you keep down you are fine.'"

But fear in such circumstances can be extremely difficult to control; and the fact that Khartoum is notorious for its deliberate bombing of hospitals is widely known among the people who endured more than 20 years of civil war (see original May 6 report, pp. 14 - 15, 23 - 24). Moreover, as Dr. Atar also notes:

"'In the [civil] war, there was peace in the villages; now they [the Antonovs] bomb even the villages---that's the problem; and the increasing accuracy of the bombing is leading to rising patient numbers as the weeks go by.'" (UN IRIN [dateline: Kurmuk], October 12, 2011)

While still not sufficiently accurate to be militarily effective, there have been repeated reports of Antonovs increasing their accuracy through crude bomb-sighting mechanisms, and their destructiveness by using bombs with greater explosive power.

Atar, who is the only doctor in Kurmuk, notes the connection between bombing and shelling by Khartoum's SAF and the looming food shortages: "Food would also become a problem [ ]. 'First of all the war will continue and the second thing is, now, hunger will come and it is not going to spare anyone unless the people go and become refugees to be helped, but for the people left within, it is going to be a big problem.' Artillery fire directed at rebels could be the last straw. 'For now it is the Antonov bombing, but I don't think I would be here if there is shelling ... and no patients could be brought here,' Atar said" (emphasis added) (UN IRIN October 12). And even now, a major SAF force is on the move toward Kurmuk. A highly alarming report from the Satellite Sentinel Project (September 23), based on substantial satellite photography, indicates a massive formation of armor, troops, and military aircraft: "heavily camouflaged, mechanized units comprising at least a brigade---3,000 troops or more"; "these forces appear to be equipped with heavy armor and artillery, supported by helicopter gunships." Once they are in artillery range, they will likely engage in annihilating shelling, which will compel the SPLA/N to withdraw or risk large numbers of casualties among civilians who have remained (a rapidly dwindling number).

The experience of civilians who are bombed and shelled is captured in an important dispatch from Agence France-Presse (also with a Kurmuk dateline, October 10):

"Anima's eyes flicker and weep as the doctor sews up the stump of his left arm, before he rolls back on the hospital bed, one of the latest victims in Sudan's relentless bombing campaign in Blue Nile state. Dr Evan Atar says he has done seven amputations since war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and fighters loyal to the SPLM-North in Blue Nile state last month. He has treated more than 600 others for shrapnel wounds. 'We are really now running out of supplies. We have been running here and there and crying.... But now where to get it from is really an issue,' he said. President Omar al-Bashir has blocked foreign aid agencies from entering Blue Nile and nearby South Kordofan state, where a separate conflict between the army and SPLM-North rebels has raged since June."

"Kurmuk's is the only hospital between neighbouring Ethiopia and Damazin ... and Dr Atar is the only doctor. He says the hospital will run out of vital supplies such as saline solution, cotton and gauze this week if no aid arrives, after using up six months' supplies in one [month]. In another hospital bed, 65-year-old Altom Osman is recovering from a deep shrapnel wound in his back and one in his arm after a bomb hit the village of Sali an hour north of Kurmuk. 'I was taking some sorghum flour to my wife. We were passing our farm and then the Antonov came immediately and bombed,' Osman whispered."

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THE REASON I BLOG FOR PEACE ❧ POST #4

SEE THE VIDEO AT THE LINK:

House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on Humanitarian Crisis in Sudan | C-SPAN

The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa held a hearing on ethnic cleansing and the continuing humanitarian crisis in Southern Sudan. The hearing comes one day after Southern Sudan’s largest rebel group declared a cease fire. Southern Sudan voted in January to split from the north, but rebel forces continued to fight with government in the new country.

At 14:50 US NJ Representative Donald Payne speaks of Darfur.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Link to CSPAN youtube channel by clicking the post title.

A VOTE FOR OBAMA WON'T EQUAL TRUST - WINNING AN ELECTION IS NOT A MANDATE

Photos of Bombardment killing Nuba Indigenous People in Kurchi village (Sudan).

Sudan ~ where President Obama once said the Darfur genocide must be stopped. Now, he supports those who commit the genocide (Khartoum), because of politics.

Photos received from Terry Nickelson of our humanity in the balance.org

Terry wrote this about the pictures ~

"These photos were taken on Sunday, 26th June, (2011) in Kurchi village in the Nuba Mountains by Younis Jamal, a field officer with Nuba Relief and Rehabilitation and Development Organization, the sister organization of the SPLA/M (NRRDO), who wants them to be circulated widely, so the world can see what the Sudanese military is doing to unarmed civilians in South Kordofan.

Sudan's Al-Bashir is distinguishing himself by conducting three ethnic cleansings simultaneously; Darfur, Abyei and South Kordofan. Nothing stops him."

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Our humanity in the balance.org

1-800 GENOCIDE

www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Comments for President Obama: 202-456-1111

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I sometimes write the President about genocide in Sudan. Three times I got a reply, but that was in the early days of his administration.

Tonight I wrote the letter below via www.whitehouse.gov/contact. Politicians claim that when you vote for them and they win that they have a mandate from the people. But assumption is presumptuous. So often, we vote against someone and not for someone.

July 4, 2011

Dear President Obama,

I believe compassion and empathy are the best of our human quallities As a human being who has worked since 2004 to bring attention to the Darfur genocide, I have watched as two USA administrations, the Bush and Obama, have stood idly by while Darfuris & now Sudanese in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan get bombed by Khartoum. Your administration has chosen to side with Khartoum. I want to let you know that your administration has left me thoroughly frustrated and angry.

Never before had I involved myself in a campaign until your first one for President. I gave money to your campaign repeatedly, though I could not afford it. I rented a car to drive from where I reside in Rhode Island to volunteer to go door-to-door in NH for the week running up to the NH primary. I worked here in RI doing the same, but more comprehensively. I phone banked for you in NJ.

I say all this to tell you this: I cannot vote for a Republican for President this next election. But I cannot do any of the things that I did previously for your campaign this time. Why? I hope you get this letter and wonder that very question. You had me believing that your word was dependable. You had me believing you would be a President that I could be proud of. But I no longer believe that. I have watched you very closely-what you have said and done and what you haven’t said and done. My feelings of being betrayed by you started soon after Scott Gration spoke once you appointed him Special Envoy to Sudan. He obviously spoke for you. And he chose supporting Khartoum over the people Khartoum systematically has been eliminating.

I will be forced to vote against the Republican Presidential candidate this time and that will mean I will have to vote for you. I want you to know though you will get my vote, however you have lost something more important. My respect for you. And my trust in what you say that you will do. I made a small film for a Compassion Film Festival, DARFUR – THE ABANDONED GENOCIDE, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YG-6mQx8jI

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and in the film, it has you saying over and over what led me to believe that you would not let the people down of Darfur. But you have done just that. No President that I can put my trust in would have done this.

The Darfur genocide “IS a stain on our souls”, as you said once. And genocide will go on as long as there is no accountability. Whenever you have a choice between right and wrong about genocide as a leader, there is only one that should allow you to sleep.

Sandra Hammel

This appears after you click "Send"~

Thank you for contacting the White House.

President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible Administration in history. That begins with taking comments and questions from you, the American people, through our website.

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Our humanity in the balance.org

1-800 GENOCIDE

www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Comments for President Obama: 202-456-1111

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At the link is a full article ~Jul-05, 2011 Probe-UN-neglect-in-South-Kordofan

Here is an excerpt:

The U.N. peacekeeping mission UNMIS has been a part of the problem in South Kordofan, where many Nuba, although northern Sudanese, joined south Sudan’s war for a democratic “New Sudan.” Established in March 2005, after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the 22-year civil war, the mission was headed until 2010 by a man who colleagues say was given to calling the Nuba “monkeys.” On his watch, the lack of initiative of UNMIS and perceived complicity with Khartoum was a cause of deep frustration, and anger, to its most committed staff. UNMIS was also spectacularly uninformed about the reality of South Kordofan.

In 2008, I published a report that detailed the resurgence of government-supported militias in South Kordofan – including in a village called Al-Fayd – and concluded that “many now view war in the Nuba Mountains as inevitable.” UNMIS pooh-poohed the report, which it said was “far from the reality on the ground.” Fast-forward to April this year, on the eve of war, and an attack by militia who, according to UNMIS, “killed … looted … burnt houses and raped.” The village? Al-Fayd.

How little UNMIS knew. How little it cared to know! And how it has come to haunt the mission now that its own men are, in its own words, facing increasing “intimidation and obstruction” in South Kordofan – including from the militias it said did not exist.

Source: Jul-05, 2011 Probe-UN-neglect-in-South-Kordofan

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Our humanity in the balance.org

1-800 GENOCIDE

www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Comments for President Obama : 202-456-1111

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Cold blooded mass murder in the Nuba Mountains

By Samuel Totten

July 3, 2011 — Over the past four weeks, Government of Sudan (GoS) troops and allied militia have carried out a vicious and murderous attack on the people of the Nuba Mountains in the Sudanese state of South Kordafan. This is the very same government that perpetrated genocide in Darfur and continues to carry out devastating attacks on the region. Tellingly, Sudan’s president, Omer Al-Bashir, is already wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur.

MIGs and Antonov bombers have created havoc in the Nuba Mountains; farms, tukuls, and churches have been burned to the ground; close to 100,000 people have been forced from their villages out into the wilderness and up into barren mountains; and untold numbers have been killed.

In Kadugli, the capital of South Kordafan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have gone door to door in search of suspected members and supporters of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) and executed them on the spot. GoS troops have also planted land mines throughout the area. In Dilling, GoS soldiers carried out their own search for members and supporters of the SPLM and upon locating them slit their throats.

While there are UN troops (United Nations Mission in Sudan or UNMIS) in the Nuba Mountains they have largely served no purpose. If truth be told, they are actually exacerbating the situation. First, they do little more than largely observe the violence and certainly nothing to attempt to halt it. Second, two sources inside the Nuba Mountains, both of whom must remain unnamed, reported that Egyptian soldiers with UNMIS were seen raping local women in Kadugli as the latter sought sanctuary from the surrounding violence. Third, when a massive group of civilians sought assistance at UNMIS headquarters in Kadugli they were purportedly told to leave and go to Dilling, some 120 miles away — a horrific journey on foot in the face of the ongoing attacks. Finally, there are reports that UNMIS personnel told people to head north when seeking safety, thus apparently leading them directly into the hands of the GoS troops. It is no wonder that rumors are afloat that those Egyptian soldiers with UNMIS are on the payroll of Khartoum.

Various reasons are aswirl as to why GoS troops attacked the people of the Nuba Mountains. First, some four weeks ago, Al-Bashir threatened that if the people of the region did not readily accept the newly elected Ahmed Haroun, who is wanted by the ICC on over 40 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the horrors perpetrated in Darfur, as their governor, they would suffer the consequences. In fact, in a speech in Kadugli, Al-Bashir stated that his soldiers would chase the Nuba people up into the mountains as they did in the 1990s, leaving them without food to starve to death once again. Second, when members of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), who, along with the vast majority of people in the Nuba Mountains, voiced their vast disappointment that Abdel Aziz, a popular and former commander of the SLPA, had been cheated out of the governorship as a result of a rigged election and also refused to take off their uniforms when ordered to do so, GoS troops attacked them. Third, many believe that the real reason behind the attack is that Al-Bashir wants to gain absolute control over South Kordafan and the border area with South Sudan in order to strengthen his hand in negotiations over Abeyi, a oil rich region straddling the border between the north and the south. Finally, there are rumors that Al-Bashir wishes to gain control of as much land as possible along the border, an area that is poorly demarcated, as he also prepares for future negotiations with the new state of South Sudan.

Al-Bashir’s propensity for killing those with whom he disagrees, who question his authority and/or policies, who challenge his dictates, whose land he desires, and/or who he looks upon with distain and wants gone is well documented. He’s done it previously in the Nuba Mountains (in the 1990s when he carried out genocidal acts and virtually starved people to death), in Darfur between 2003 and today during which over 400,000 blacks Africans perished, and he is back at it once again in the Nuba Mountains. And the world should never forget or overlook the fact that just because the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has been signed by the north and south, Al-Bashir, as president of Sudan, oversaw a large part of the north-south war that resulted in some two million deaths.

Clearly, Al-Bashir specializes in perpetrating crimes against humanity, genocidal actions, and genocide, and he does so whenever he wishes in the belief that he can do so with impunity — the ICC or any other court or tribunal be damned.

For the sake of the people of the Nuba Mountains, for the sake of civilization, for the sake of our own decency, we, and the rest of the world, must show Omar Al-Bashir that he is wrong — and that impunity does not reign.

Samuel Totten is a genocide scholar based at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He served as one of the 24 investigators with the U.S. Atrocities Documentation Project in eastern Chad. His most recent book is An Oral and Documentary History of the Darfur Genocide (Praeger Security International, 2010). He was last in the Nuba Mountains in January 2011 conducting research for a new book, Genocidal Actions Against the Nuba Mountains People: Interviews with Survivors of Mass Starvation and Other Atrocities.

Source: www.sudantribune.com/Cold-blooded-mass-murder-in-the,39420

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Sudan president to speak at S. Sudan independence

By MAGGIE FICK, Associated Press – Monday July 4, 8:45 am USA ET, 2011

JUBA, Sudan – Sudan's president will speak at independence celebrations in the south this weekend, officials said Monday, just days after he vowed to continue a military offensive in a border region.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir supported the January referendum that paved the way for the oil-rich south to secede and become the world's newest country on Saturday.

However, recent tensions in the border state of South Kordofan and the disputed region of Abyei have raised fears that the split could be a violent one.

The southern government said Monday that 30 African heads of state including al-Bashir will travel to Juba for this weekend's celebrations. British Foreign Secretary William Hague and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also are expected to attend.

Many issues remains unresolved around the split including oil rights and wealth sharing. Representatives from both sides spent have spent weeks negotiating in Ethiopia's capital.

Two decades of civil war with northern Sudan decimated the oil-rich south and left more than 2 million dead on both sides.

The south lacks infrastructure and basic services, is aid-dependent and suffers from frequent floods during its five-month-long rainy season.

Despite its rich oil reserves, the south has no refineries and must transport its oil through pipelines to a northern port on the Red Sea.

Al-Bashir said in a June 22 speech that he would block the south's access to the pipelines unless a favorable wealth-sharing agreement was reached.

U.N. peacekeepers are in the northern border state of South Kordofan, but a spokesman for the Sudanese government said Sunday they should leave immediately after the south becomes independent.

Such a move could leave tens of thousands of southern-supporting civilians without U.N. protection. A U.N. spokeswoman in Southern Sudan said any such decision would be made by the U.N. Security Council.

Tensions in the area have displaced more than 70,000 people.

Western advocacy groups have warned that al-Bashir's government is attempting ethnic cleansing and even genocide in the region against the Nuba people, a black African group targeted in the 1990s in government-sponsored violence that left as many 200,000 Nubans dead.

Source: Associated Press

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More about the Nuba Mountains at www.occasionalwitness.com

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Our humanity in the balance.org

1-800 GENOCIDE

www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Comments for President Obama: 202-456-1111

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My opinion: The Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama was premature, to say the least.

October 9, 2009

Obama: Nobel Peace Prize is 'call to action'

President Obama said Friday that he was "surprised and deeply humbled" by the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Obama said he viewed the decision less as a recognition of his own accomplishments and more as "a call to action."

The decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise. Nominations for the prize had to be postmarked by February 1, only 12 days after Obama took office. The committee sent out its solicitation for nominations last September, two months before Obama was elected president.

Source: Nobel.peace.prize norwegian-nobel-committee-international-diplomacy-and-cooperation-nuclear-weapons

WANTED! A WORLD OF PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO WHAT DEFINES HUMANITY....OR JUST A FEW GOOD LEADERS

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WHY THE WORLD MUST KNOW ABOUT THE NUBA PEOPLE – BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

Source:
2011/06/22/why-the-world-must-know-about-the-nuba-people-before-its-too-late/
June 22nd, 2011

The Nuba Mountains are situated in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan. A remote and beautiful place, the people suffered terrible atrocities by the forces of the Sudan Government during a 21 year civil war. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in 2005 with the help of the UK and US governments, gave South Kordofan and the Nuba people a degree of autonomy. Their traditions could continue even when Sudan split into two and they remained in the North after largely supporting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army of the South in the war.

The countries will split on 9th July 2011 - and the Sudan government has chosen the time before the split to carry out attacks on the Nuba people - clearly an attempt at ethnic cleansing.

The people living in South Kordofan comprise of Christians, Muslims and animist people who live side by side and who suffered so badly in the civil war that some families who fled high into the mountains have not dared to venture down in the past 6 years of peace.

Now the capital of South Kordofan, Kadugli, is a virtual ghost town, people have been executed on the spot and others have fled without belongings (for fear of being shot if found to be escaping) The SAF government forces are also fighting with the SPLA and the people, terrified, hungry and increasingly sick, are stuck in the middle. Many headed for the UN compound on the outskirts of Kadugli seeking shelter. The UN has been unable to step in because it “does not have the mandate” The UN is also due to leave Sudan once the new South Sudan comes into being. Leaving the Nuba people to their fate.

The international community helped broker the deal that has put the Nuba people where they are - it must take action now to stop the killing of peaceful innocent men, women and children. Please do whatever you can to raise awareness of this terrible situation. Thank you.

A father cradles his child, killed by Sudan Government bombing of Kurchi, Nuba Mountains 27th June 2011.

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Sudanese Struggle to Survive Endless Bombings Aimed to Quell Rebels

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

As the Sudan government bombs rebels, the Nuba people have been forced to spend much of their daily lives in the rocky caves far above the valley floor. More Photos »

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: July 3, 2011

Source: www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/world/africa/04sudan

LEWERE, Sudan — Fatima Ramadan, mother of six, froze, her eyes shooting up to the sky.

“Antonov!” she yelled.

Little girls threw down the pebbles they were playing with. Toddlers, sensing danger, started to wail. About two dozen people grabbed the young and dashed up the mountainside into a cave. It was hot and dark inside, and the children’s eyes were wide with fear.

“I don’t like this place,” said Kaka, a 10-year-old girl.

Nobody does. And yet thousands of people live like this.

As the July 9 division of Sudan nears, the government in Khartoum is scrambling to crush any rebellious chunks of the territory that will remain its own. Its forces have been relentlessly pounding the Nuba Mountains from Russian-made Antonov bombers for weeks, demanding that tens of thousands of rebel fighters dug in here disarm and drop their insistence on more autonomy for the distinctive Nuba people. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, including many children. Bombs have been dropped on huts, on farmers in the field, on girls fetching water together, slicing them in half with buckets in their hands.

As the area inches toward becoming fully engulfed in war, the Nuba caves offer a crucial refuge.

Every morning at sunup, Ms. Ramadan trudges up a hillside, about 1,000 feet high, lugging pots, water jugs, mats and blankets, the children huffing behind.

She nestles her cooking fire in a crack in the mountain wall, to conceal the smoke. The young mothers around her dangle their legs over ledges as they nurse. Older children play a game similar to jacks, using pebbles on the precarious heights. Old men just sit and stare. At dusk, which usually signals the end of the sorties, most descend. Very few young men are with them.

“These caves have saved my children’s life,” Ms. Ramadan said. A couple of hundreds yards below her is the evidence: jagged chunks of shrapnel, gaping bomb craters and a tree trunk with a huge hole blown straight through it. The bombings have shifted west in recent days, away from the Lewere Valley toward what is emerging as the front line in an area called Korchi. But the fear endures like a scar.

“Even the sound of a car sends us running,” Ms. Ramadan said.

In another time, perhaps, a hike up this mountain would be a treat. The views from the top are amazing. The undulating Nuba heartland stretches for miles into the hazy distance, the tawny hilltops clear save for some scratchy green brush and a few trees stubbornly clinging to the rocks. Down below, thatched-roof huts squat together. A few people swing hoes. A few women plant on their knees, as if they are praying. A tan stripe — the only road — slices across the valley floor.

“This is all about land,” said Saida Bakhait, who is also hiding in a cave with her children.

“Bashir,” she says, referring to Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, “needs our land and he wants to finish us off.”

But if war comes, it will not be an easy fight.

“Be tough! Be strong! Protect our land!” shout legions of young men — “freedom fighters” they call themselves — as they march through the mist-shrouded valleys at dawn to add to the rebels’ numbers. They do not have guns, so they train with sticks. Many are freshly carved, the wood still white.

Land is often code for identity and the Nuba see this as a fight for their cultural survival. These mountains are an outpost of traditional beliefs and Christianity (though there are Muslim Nuba, too) in northern Sudan. Many people here did not wear clothes until the 1970s, when the government passed laws forbidding nudity. Anthropologists have celebrated the Nuba for their singing, dancing, ferocious wrestling tournaments and dizzying number of languages, with nearly every major set of hills having its own tongue. Their land is among the most fertile in all of Sudan.

Because they had been subjugated by Sudan’s Arab rulers for generations, the Nuba sided with southern rebels during the latter half of Sudan’s north-south civil war, in the 1980s and ’90s. The government responded by bombing the hillsides, wiping out villages and incarcerating hundreds of thousands of Nuba in so-called peace camps where many were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint. People fled to caves then, too.

A peace treaty signed in 2004 called for Nuba to have a say in determining how much autonomy they would get — again, protecting their unique culture was a priority — but autonomy never came. Now, it seems, the government’s sudden interest in Nuba is timed to the south’s independence on Saturday. Khartoum may feel it has to send a signal that even after the south breaks off, the result of decades of struggle for liberation, it will not tolerate other secession movements.

“They lost southern Sudan with bitterness, and now they are projecting that bitterness on us,” said a Nuba man named Kuku.

In one place near Lewere, hundreds, perhaps thousands, are camped in caves. At least that is what some soldiers were saying. According to them, an entire village has uprooted itself to a mountaintop.

“But we can’t let you see it,” said a local elder at the foot of the mountain. He is sympathetic but firm.

“It’s the only place that hasn’t been bombed yet,” he said. “The last thing we want is for al-Bashir to know about it.”

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ourhumanityinthebalance.org

1-800 GENOCIDE

www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Comments for President Obama : 202-456-1111

My message to President Obama - you SAID you cared before you became President - now, you don't care ~ See the video

PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATIONS TO TAKE PLACE IN SUDAN JANUARY 30, 2011

Peaceful Demonstrations To Take Place In Sudan 30 January 2011

A Call To Action For Peaceful Demonstrations In Sudan

Source: peaceful-demonstrations-to-take-place-in-sudan-30-january-2011

Jan 28, 2011 – PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATIONS TO TAKE PLACE IN SUDAN
30 JANUARY 2011

Contact: Adil Abdel Aati, Liberal Democratic Party, abdelaati@gmail.com, +48 888524519

KHARTOUM, SUDAN —

A group of young Sudanese activists proclaim January 30, 2011 to be the beginning of peaceful demonstrations to bring down the military regime in Sudan. This campaign is calling on all sectors of Sudanese to get out January 30th and demonstrate in the streets of Sudan's most populated cities. The largest assembly and demonstration will take place on Palace Street, which is located a few meters from the presidential palace of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. The invitation for the demonstration excludes the leaders omef the traditional opposition parties who are not willing to confront the Islamic military regime, which has been ruling Sudan since 1989.

The call for this action came one day after the leader of the Umma Party, Mr. Alsadiq Al-mahdi, announced that he would continue peaceful dialogue with the current government. His speech is widely regarded by most young Sudanese, including members of the Umma party, as disappointing and lacking insight into the systematic destruction of the country by Al-Bashir`s government. His political views show that he continues to disengage himself from the issues vital to Sudanese activists. This call for demonstrations coincides with the 116th anniversary of the liberation of Khartoum by Imam Mohammed Ahmed al-Mahdi on January 26, 1885, great grandfather of Mr. Alsadiq Al-Mahdi. Their intent is to peacefully express anger at the decades of corruption, violence, and human right violations, which led to the separation of the South and which could lead to the potential separation of the West.

It is no secret that the young people who have called for the demonstration have seen what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt, where young generations have loudly spoken against unemployment and political marginalization.

We would like to be clear that this is a call for removal of this government.

In a statement, on its Facebook page, the Liberal Democratic Party, represented by Mr. Adel Abd Atti and Ms. Noor Tour, invite all members to participate in the demonstration, planned for January 30th.

It is time to change the face of Sudan and to end decades of injustice, marginalization, and corruption.


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ANALYSIS-Darfur: Africa's latest neglected conflict

Fri Jan 28, 2011
Source: reuters

* U.S., UN focus on south Sudan's independence

* Fighting between Darfur rebels, government escalates

* US envoy says UNAMID has been too timid in Darfur

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 28 (Reuters) - An eight-year struggle in Sudan's barren, remote western Darfur region has joined the ranks of Africa's neglected conflicts as the world shifts its attention to southern Sudan's independence drive.

Confirmation appeared to come last Tuesday, when U.S. President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address. He mentioned oil-rich south Sudan and its recent referendum on whether to secede from the Khartoum-led north and establish an independent state -- but not a word about Darfur.

U.S. officials officials deny that they are neglecting Darfur, where the United Nations believes that as many as 300,000 people died after mostly non-Arab rebels rose up against Khartoum in 2003, sparking a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by Sudan's army and Arab 'Janjaweed' militia.

But analysts and Darfur activists say the U.S. special envoy on Sudan, retired Air Force General Scott Gration, has largely ignored Darfur, where fighting between government and rebel forces has been escalating for months, while courting Khartoum with offers of incentives to let south Sudan secede.

This has not always been the case. For years Darfur got all the attention while the north-south conflict was ignored.

In 2004, the United States became the first to speak of "genocide" in Darfur, which became one of the most fashionable causes in Hollywood, pressuring Washington to get the U.N. Security Council in 2007 to approve a peacekeeping mission.

While actors like George Clooney and Mia Farrow have lobbied consistently for years for the United States and United Nations to get tougher on Khartoum over Darfur, most members of the Obama administration have said little about western Sudan over the last year as their interests shifted to the south.

Making matters worse, U.N. diplomats have complained privately for months that the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, has been far too timid, allowing Khartoum to bully it into submission and complacency.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, long one of Obama's closest foreign policy advisers, has pushed the administration to toughen its stance on Khartoum over Darfur, U.N. diplomats and U.S. officials told Reuters. But they said Gration's calls for "soft diplomacy" in Sudan won out.

Earlier this week, Rice went public with her misgivings about UNAMID's approach in Darfur, where government forces have been denying international peacekeepers and aid workers access to the camps where millions of displaced Darfuris face armed attacks, robbery, starvation, rape and disease.

"We expect UNAMID ... to be very active and, when necessary, aggressive in fulfilling its mandate to protect civilians," Rice said, adding that Washington has been "frustrated and dismayed by repeated instances of UNAMID being denied access and its freedom of movement restricted."

DARFUR POLICY SHOULD BE "WRECKED AND REBUILT"

Rice said UNAMID must stop asking permission for access to refugee camps from Khartoum, which has tried to limit the force's freedom of movement since it began deploying in 2007.

UNAMID's mandate gives it the right to unfettered access across Darfur. The civilian head of UNAMID, Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari, said he ordered his top military and police officers this month to stop creating the impression of seeking Khartoum's permission for access to refugee camps.

But he virtually confirmed Rice's complaints when he told U.N. Security Council members that UNAMID had backed down when the army stopped it from entering a Darfur camp on Jan. 22.

"This issue has been raised with the government authorities and we are awaiting their response," Gambari said.

John Prendergast, a former U.S. State Department official and co-founder of the Enough Project, an anti-genocide group, said the world's approach to Darfur needs a complete overhaul.

"The entire policy construct on Darfur has to be wrecked and rebuilt," he told Reuters. "The peace process has failed, and out of the ashes a new approach needs to be forged, one in which the U.S. is much more directly involved."

John Bradshaw, head of the Enough Project, said he hoped the recent appointment of Dane Smith as senior U.S. adviser for Darfur was "a positive sign" of a much-needed policy change.

Analysts and diplomats say tougher sanctions on Khartoum might help, though China would likely veto any attempt to get the U.N. Security Council to take new steps against Sudan.

Violence in Darfur is down from the mass killings seen earlier in the conflict but has risen over the last year after rebels walked out of floundering peace talks in Doha. One rebel force that had signed a deal with Khartoum resumed fighting.

"The world should stop looking only to the south while the conflict in Darfur is reigniting," said Philippe Bolopion of Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York. He also echoed Rice's criticisms of UNAMID and Gambari.

After Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir surprised U.S. and U.N. officials by peacefully accepting that south Sudan will likely secede, U.N. diplomats expressed the hope that Khartoum would opt for a negotiated peace in Darfur.

But Bashir, who is wanted for genocide and other crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court, appears determined to crush the Darfur insurgency with force, the diplomats said.

Bashir's change of heart on south Sudan came after Gration held out the prospects of normalizing U.S. ties with Khartoum, U.S. officials say. Foreign Minister Ali Karti seemed eager to collect Khartoum's prize while in Washington this week.

"Normalization of relations should not be held hostage by Darfur," Karti told a think-tank audience in the U.S. capital. (Additional reporting by Andrew Heavens in Khartoum; editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: reuters

US SENATOR OBAMA CARED ABOUT DARFUR ~ PRESIDENT OBAMA NEGLECTS DARFURIS

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A speech from the 2006 Rally for Darfur in Washington, D.C.

Million-Voices-Rally-Washington-D-C ~ Barack Obama, Elie Wiesel, Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney and others speak at the Rally for Darfur April 30, 2006 There is no embed for the video, only the link to the video. It is worth listening to. Hear Senator Obama take a stand that he hasn't taken since being President.

Amnesty calls on Sudan to tackle human rights abuses ahead of referendum

Source: Sudan Tribune

January 7, 2011 (NAIROBI) – Sudan must refrain from ramping up military attacks in Darfur and guard against human rights violations during and after the referendum on south Sudan’s independence, which is due to begin on Sunday, Amnesty International has demanded.

The vote on south Sudan independence is the final stipulation of the 2005’s peace deal that ended nearly two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan. South Sudan is largely expected to opt for secession.

The global human rights watchdog on Friday accused the Sudanese government of taking advantage of the fact that the world’s attention has shifted to south Sudan referendum to step up military operations in Darfur region.

According to Amnesty, more than 20,000 people were displaced in December last year by a spate of largely unreported attacks by government forces in several areas in Darfur region, including Dar Al Salam, Shangil Tobaya and Khor Abeche camps in north and south Darfur.

The conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur rumbles on despite numerous international efforts to broker a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and increasingly factionalized rebel groups.

In a media briefing received by Sudan Tribune on Friday, Amnesty said that the International Community had turned a blind eye on these attacks as its attention shifts towards south Sudan referendum.

Separately, Amnesty said that members of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Services are still abusing their massive powers, noting the arrest last November of 11 Darfuri activists who are still held in detention without charges or trial.

Amnesty further warned that the persecution of ethnic monitories in the north may increase during and after the referendum. It also noted that women in north Sudan still face “cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” under the Public Order Law which sanctions flogging and arrest of women on the basis of their clothing and public behavior.

On the north-south issue, Amnesty warned against the implosive nature of the citizenship issue, saying that failure to reach an agreement on the issue of citizenship could lead to “mass displacements, various human rights violations and the separation of families in both the north and south.”

North and south Sudan remain deadlocked over a host of post referendum arrangements, most notably is the issue of citizenship and the status of the contested oil-producing area of Abyei.

Amnesty called on the north and the south to allow people to choose which citizenship they wish to obtain, noting that the conditions for obtaining citizenship must not discriminate on the basis of birth, ethnic origin, religion, gender, marital status or similar other factors.

The organization also called on the authorities in the north and the south to tackle human rights violations effectively during the referendum and to instruct law-enforcement bodies to protect people from intimidation and harassment as a result of their choices in the referendum.

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"...Gration said last month that one crucial effort was to determine the future status of Abyei, a disputed, oil-rich region that will not be voting next week because of disagreements over voter eligibility and logistical delays. If the country splits, the north and the south could both claim ownership of Abyei, turning the region into a potential flashpoint for renewed conflict.

"We are working with both sides to calm the rhetoric and put a plan in place that will give both sides reassurances," Gration said about the Abyei situation. "This is probably not a situation where either side will be happy. We're looking for a solution that leaves both sides angry but neither side mad."

Source: thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/04/kerry_to_spend_week_in_

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Southern Sudan government orders Darfur rebels out of Juba prior to referendum

Source: www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/southern-sudan-government-orders-darfur-rebels-out-of-juba-prior-to-referendum-2011010566279.html

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Sudan’s FM warns of war with Juba over Darfur rebels

December 28, 2010 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan foreign minister Ali Karti warned today that South Sudan support to Darfur rebel groups will lead to war with the new country.

If the South Sudan government wants to start its new era with a war that will be the case if it harbors Darfur movements, said the Sudanese official in a press briefing in Khartoum with the visiting Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa.

“We want the South to have a healthy start, safe and stable and we do not want it to be a party to what is going on between the government and the Darfur movements,” Karti further said.

The minister pointed out to government allegations that the southern Sudan ruling SPLM harbors Darfur rebels groups and supports them with logistics and weapons. Since last November, Sudanese warplanes also bombed different areas in southern Sudan saying they hit Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) fighters.

Minni Minnawi, the sole signatory of Darfur Peace Agreement and former Senior Presidential Assistant is now based in Juba. His forces clashed with the Sudanese army recently in different areas in Darfur and he is considered as “legitimate target” by Khartoum.

The government says JEM rebels are now trained by the southern Sudan army SPLA and Ugandan army, but the rebels and Juba denied the allegations.

Southern Sudanese are expected to vote for secession in a referendum on self-determination scheduled to be held on 9 January. The ruling party in the semi-autonomous region called to vote for separation accusing the National Congress Party (NCP) of not making unity attractive.

Karti stressed that the self-determination right aims to realize peace and not war he also said that his government will respect the outcome of the vote.

Officials from the ruling NCP to begin by President Omer Al-Bashir repeated pledges today that Khartoum will respect the result of the referendum which is expected to be widely in favor of secession.

The visiting Amr Moussa said the Arab League said there was no indication that north and south would return to war.

“I don’t see any indication that the parties have the willingness to go back to war,” Moussa said, adding “What is going on between them is far away from war. There is a political good will.”

The Arab League chief who will dispatch some 87 observers to monitor the referendum said the regional organization will “respect the result of the referendum and what the voters decide,” he said.

Related posts ~

1. Sudan’s FM warns of war with Juba over Darfur rebels
2. Sudan’s spy chief demands Juba to arrest Darfur rebels in Southern Sudan
3. South Sudan army denies supporting Darfur rebels
4. Khartoum’s army bomb South Sudan, targeting Darfur rebels
5. JEM rebels deny accusations of being supported by South Sudan

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our humanity in the balance

WHAT WILL MATTER WHEN WE DIE?

In my opinion the only thing that will matter when we are dying or have died is ~ HOW we have treated one another while here...not the messy house, not the weeds in the flower beds, not the condensation between my double-paned windows, not the chore "to do" list, that eats into my time of doing what I really want to do.

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Source of the following: www.iactivism.org

The World

Source: www.iactivism.org/learn/the-world

Conflict Displaced Population: 43 million

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If they were a nation, the people that have been displaced by violence and conflict around the world would have a population larger than 85% of the countries around the world.

This population, after having more than likely experienced abuse and the loss of family, friends, and home are then exposed to more violence and abuse–as well as the ravages of hunger, disease, and natural forces–while living in areas that do not have the resources or access to support them.

Refugees, the displaced that have crossed an international border, are eligible to protection and assistance under international agreements and law, but the internally displaced do not officially enjoy that protection. They are at the mercy of the local government, and state sovereignty has ofter trumped the protection of citizens–who are often the victims of their own government.

Sudan Region

Conflict Displaced Population: Over 5 Million

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For over 40 years, Sudan has been a main producer of conflict displaced populations. The current numbers are staggering. In Darfur, some 2.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and over 270,000 as refugees on the Chad border. The capital, Khartoum, is “home” to approximately 30,000 urban refugees, and Khartoum State has a population of 1.7 million IDPs, with most living in unofficial squatter areas and with little to no assistance. After two decades of civil war with the North, the South has seen a return of refugees from surrounding countries over the last five years, but instability, tension, and occasional violence continue to contribute to a population living at grave risk.

In January, 2011 the South is scheduled to vote on a referendum that will decide whether it separates from the North. This could mean the birth of a new nation, but there is also the possibility of renewed civil war, which could result in millions of displaced people.

The Chad Camps

Population: 270,000

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There are twelve Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad, located up and down the border with Darfur, Sudan. Refugees fleeing the destruction of their villages started arriving at the border in 2003, most of them walking days across unforgiving terrain. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) deployed to the region, providing life saving aid and eventually setting up what was supposed to be temporary camps.

People from different tribes and from all areas of Darfur continued to pour in to Chad, fleeing to the closest border point, creating the necessity for the twelve camps that now exists. The greater bulk of the population comes from three main tribes: the Fur, the Masalit, and the Zaghawa. There are more than a dozen other smaller tribes represented in the camps.

UNHCR coordinates all activities in the camps, distributing the assistance responsibilities among different non-governmental organizations (NGOs), all partnering and with permission from the Chad government to provide as safe and as healthy an environment as possible. UNHCR depends on donations from nations, groups, and individuals to carry out its mission.

Sketches of Life

We were given these beautiful color pencil drawings yesterday during our tour of the only secondary school in camp Djabal. The artist told us of his long and dangerous journey to the camp Djabal. For me, his pieces speak of one man’s curiosity and fascination with life. He told us that the large tree in one of the drawings was of the same kind under which Darfuris meet to discuss village matters. These trees hold a sacred place in Darfuri culture and they hope to one day return to them. View Pictures

Picture credit to Darfuri Ahdulnhaim Hamid Mohamed

Communicate to the President
that he has a role to play

1-800-GENOCIDE
1-202-456-1111
www.whitehouse.gov/contact


Won't you use your voice?
Darfuris have been put on the back burner by our President
and many other leaders on the planet
and
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir
has put them on the front burner.