GENOCIDE FLOURISHES WHILE MEDIA NEGLECTS DARFUR

On April 8, 2009, it was reported that General Scott Gration, the US Special Envoy to Sudan, proposed a resolution to fill the gap left by the Government of Sudan's decision to expel 16 aid groups from Darfur. The purpose of this blog is to provide updates on how Darfuri lives are affected as they wait for aid to be restored.

Updates and comments about the crisis are provided by Mohamed Suleiman, a US-based Darfuri with a broad network of Darfuri contacts from the Diaspora and from IDP camps in Sudan and refugee camps in Chad. For additional information, visit www.whilewewaitsudan.org/

Day 551 was November 12th 2010

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Monday, December 27, 2010

Khor Abeche, a disaster in the making

By Mohamed Suleiman

Source: www.whilewewaitsudan.org/2010/12/day-551-november-12th-2010

While the world celebrates the holidays, Government of Sudan (GoS) has picked the right timing to turn Khor Abeche into a Srebrenica, not the Serbian style but Kahrtoum style: slow death through blockade and starvation.

Since December 10th 2010 (more than 2 weeks ago), GoS did not allow any vehicle to enter the town. The only western NGO, World vision, left Khor Abeche when areal bombings started on the 10th. No humanitarian aid (food, medicine, other life essentials) was allowed in. Trucks from Nyala that were sent by the relatives of the town residents desperately trying to help the trapped people in and around Khor Abbechi, were turned back by GoS troops and Janjaweed forces lead by Musa Galis.

I am in contact with some residents of the town of Khor Abbechi and some of their sons in Europe, and this what they told me:

- Khor Abeche is a town in South Darfur. It is about 55 miles north-east of Nyala (capital city of South Darfur). The town is inhabited now with about 11 thousand people.

- Musa Galis, a retired Police General who is now the Nazir (head of a tribe) of the Birgid tribe, said publicly in October 2010 that he odes not want certain tribes in the area. He specifically singled out a large population of the Zaghawa tribe (one of the tribes targeted by GoS in its campaign of ethnic cleansing). Musa Galis mentioned that he has the backing of GoS and " the Ababil jets are ready". Ababil is the biblical name the GoS uses to describe its air force power. (Ababil means the birds that drop fatal stones).

Musa Galis was promised by the GoS that he will be in charge of the area, including Khor Abeche, if he droves away the other tribes considered "enemy of the State".

- On December 10th and 11th of this month, government's jets, antonoves, and helicopters bombed Khor Abeche. Targets included anything that sustains the life of the local people: water sources, food storage huts, livestock, and the market. On the 12th and the following days, Musa Galis and his militia entered the the town marked looting and destroying crops and goods. The town just finished harvest after the farming season. Eyewitness said the destruction was deliberate. Many huts contain harvest of peanuts, sesame, and sorghum, were set on fire.
On Friday 17 and Friday 24th, more areal bombings were carried out by Ababils.

- About 1500 of the town residents sought refuge in UNAMID local post. More than 2500 fled to to Wadi Hariza (dry river) and some tried to escape the bombings by fleeing to the Mountain.

- Musa Galis is sending the messages to those who remained in the town (about 7000), that he will not harm them if they seek refuge in the IDP camps or any other place but not to remain in Khor Abeche. When the people refused to leave, his now message is: if Ababils do not force you out, hunger will.

DON'T FORGET DARFUR IN 2011 ~ GENOCIDE and HUMANITY ~ 8 LETTER WORDS

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I made this video a year ago and posted it on January 1, 2010. And this year, today, Darfur has been - and is - neglected as a humanity-story - a government killing its own people and we call ourselves "human".

Genocide and Humanity - 8 letter words

"There is no problem we cannot solve, there is no destiny that we cannot fulfill. We will restore our moral standing in the world..." Barack Obama "NEVER AGAIN" just doesn't mean a thing.

Genocide in our time is
worthy of being noticed,
worthy of being reported by our media,
worthy of having the leaders
of free nations use their political will
...to end the Darfur genocide
and put some meaning to the words
"Never Again"
. . . words we love to use
at the languishing end of each genocide
that this planet has hosted.

Click image to enlarge

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Air strike in Darfur kills 10, including 5 children

Source: Radio Dabanga

Date: 28 Dec 2010

KHAZAN JADEED (28 Dec .) - A government aircraft on Sunday conducted an air raid in Darfur that killed 10 people, including at least five children, and wounded many more. The attack occurred in the area of Abu Deimat, south of Khazan Jadeed in South Darfur. A witness told Radio Dabanga that the raid took place at 02:00 a.m. in the morning. Among the dead was the farmer Hamada Abdelrahman Dualbeit, 30 years of old, and with his wife and his three sons and Muriam Ismail Abakr, student at the University of Nyala, in addition to her son, and Nasreddin Ahmed Bushara, and his wife and baby.

Government troops rape 2 girls in Darfur camp, terrorize refugees

Source: Radio Dabanga

Date: 28 Dec 2010

TAWILA (28 Dec .) - Government forces stationed in the area of Rwanda camp in Tawila in North Darfur raped two girls, 15 and 19 years old.

Government forces stationed in the area of Rwanda camp in Tawila in North Darfur raped two girls, 15 and 19 years old. A witness said that the forces entered Rwanda camp on Saturday, firing heavily in the air, then began breaking into shops and looting. They wounded someone in the leg with gunfire and also killed a donkey. The witness said that the displaced heard there were 200 vehicles coming from Kebkabiya to the area and they fled for protection to UNAMID camp.

SUDAN TARGET OF LIVE SATELLITE STARTING DECEMBER 30, 2010

Click post title for Radio Dabanga news regarding Darfur - the neglected story of genocide

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Clooney's "Anti-Genocide Paparazzi": Watching Sudan From Above

By MARK BENJAMIN Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2010

George Clooney visits Sudan to draw attention to the dangers that could result should southern Sudan vote to separate from the north.

Tim Freccia / Enough Project

George Clooney and John Prendergast slumped down at a wooden table in a dusty school compound in southern Sudan. It was Oct. 4, and the two men were in the hometown of Valentino Achak Deng, whose experiences wandering the desert as a refugee during Sudan's last civil war were the basis for the best-selling book What Is the What.

Clooney, the actor, and Prendergast, a human-rights activist with 25 years of experience in Africa, had heard enough on their seven-day visit to know that a new round of atrocities could follow the January referendum on independence. If it did, the likelihood was that no one would be held accountable. Why not, Clooney asked, "work out some sort of a deal to spin a satellite" above southern Sudan and let the world watch to see what happens? (See photos of Clooney in Sudan.)

Three months later, Clooney's idea is about to go live. Starting Dec. 30, the Satellite Sentinel Project — a joint experiment by the U.N.'s Operational Satellite Applications Programme, Harvard University, the Enough Project and Clooney's posse of Hollywood funders — will hire private satellites to monitor troop movements starting with the oil-rich region of Abyei. The images will be analyzed and made public at www.satsentinel.org (which goes live on Dec. 29) within 24 hours of an event to remind the leaders of northern and southern Sudan that they are being watched. "We are the antigenocide paparazzi," Clooney tells TIME. "We want them to enjoy the level of celebrity attention that I usually get. If you know your actions are going to be covered, you tend to behave much differently than when you operate in a vacuum."

You don't have to be a spook to have an eye in the sky anymore. Private firms with names like GeoEye, DigitalGlobe and ImageSat International have a half-dozen "birds" circling the globe every 90 minutes in low-Earth orbit, about 297 miles (478 km) up. The best images from these satellites display about 8 sq. in. (50 sq. cm) of the ground in each pixel on a computer screen. That is not enough granularity to read a car's license plate or ID a person, but analysts can tell the difference between cars and trucks and track the movements of troops or horses. "It is Google Earth on lots of steroids," says Lars Bromley, a top U.N. imagery analyst. (See pictures of Southern Sudan preparing for nationhood.)

But you need money for it. A hurry-up order of what Bromley calls a "single shot" from a satellite covers an area of about 105 sq. mi. (272 sq. km) and costs $10,000. A rush job on a "full strip" image of land roughly 70 miles (115 km) long and 9 miles (14 km) wide could run nearly $70,000. Sentinel is launching with $750,000 in seed money from Not On Our Watch, the human rights organization Clooney founded along with Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, David Pressman and Jerry Weintraub. Clooney predicted he won't have much trouble raising more money once the project goes live. (See the top 10 world news stories of 2010.)

Prendergast's group, the Enough Project, is the human-rights arm of the liberal Center for American Progress; it recruited Bromley's team at the U.N. and brought in analysts from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to pore over the images as they arrive. "Generally, what we have done in the past is an after-the-fact documentation exercise," Bromley explains. "This is proactive, wide-area monitoring," he says.

Clooney, who has made four trips to Sudan since 2006, believes Sentinel might have applications in other global hot spots. "This is as if this were 1943 and we had a camera inside Auschwitz and we said, 'O.K., if you guys don't want to do anything about it, that's one thing,'" Clooney says. "But you can't say you did not know."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2039887,00.html#ixzz19RMuN0w4

JUSTICE DOESN'T JUST HAPPEN ~ GENOCIDE ENDS WHEN ENOUGH OF US STAND UP AGAINST IT

From the www.enoughproject.org website:

The People Speak

Posted by John Norris on Jan 22, 2009

We are pleased to announce that we have just delivered a petition to President Barack Obama – signed by more than 39,000 concerned Americans – asking him to take action on Congo. This is the largest ever call to action in the United States on Congo and underscores the growing strength of the Congo activist movement. You can read the press release here. This tremendous effort would not be possible without our friends and allies, including Oxfam America, Amnesty International, Bureau pour le Volontariat au Service de l’Enfance et de la Santé (BVES), Campus Progress at the Center for American Progress, Congo Global Action, CONGO/Women, Genocide Intervention Network, HEAL Africa, Human Rights Watch, Family Violence Prevention Fund, PAIF (Promotion et appui aux initiatives feminines), STAND, Synergie des Femmes pour les Victimes de Violences Sexuelles, The United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, V-Day, and Women Thrive Worldwide.

The thousands and thousands of individuals who signed their name to the petition are testament to the fact that the movement to end to the world’s deadliest war is growing in strength and numbers. Learn more and visit our RAISE Hope for Congo website.

Day Three

Posted by John Bagwell on Jan 22, 2009

Today marks Day Three of Barack Obama’s presidency. Enough is partnering with the Save Darfur Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network, and STAND for a new campaign to ensure that President Obama makes Darfur a top priority in his first days and weeks of office. In the midst of a financial crisis and wars on multiple fronts, it is more important than ever that we, as activists, make our voices heard on this issue – keeping the new administration’s feet to the fire to bring peace to Sudan, by immediately appointing a special envoy and launching a “peace surge.” A new day has undoubtedly dawned in Washington. Let’s work to make sure Sudan sees a new day as well. Check out more information on the campaign and a short video from STAND student activists below:

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WRITE A LETTER TO CONGRESS

Take just a few minutes to make your message heard on genocide and crimes against humanity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Genocide Ends

When Enough of Us

Stand Up Against It

JOIN US
1-800-GENOCIDE
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net
www.standnow.org

www.miafarrow.org

Write President Obama
www.whitehouse.gov

You can also call or write to the President:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments to President Obama: 202-456-1111

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LIVE WEBCAST HERE REGARDING DARFUR 2:00 P.M. JANUARY 22, 2009

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The link

to the webcast on Enough Project's website:

http://www.enoughproject.org/content/webcast-enough-project

UPDATE #1: Approximately, at 2:15 p.m. during the live webcast technical problems occurred and it went off air. I am sure that a video of the entire discussion will be available as soon as possible. And when it is, I will post it here on my blog.

UPDATE #2: Live webcast came back on at 2:28 p.m. But, again I presume the entire conversation about Darfur will be available later today or tomorrow. And I will post it when it becomes available.

Thank you for your interest in Darfuri families, human rights and justice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Genocide Ends

When Enough of Us

Stand Up Against It

JOIN US
1-800-GENOCIDE
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net
www.standnow.org

www.miafarrow.org
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PEOPLE, THEIR MONEY AND HELPING FUND A GENOCIDE...

...ALL IN A DAY'S WORK.

WHAT YOUR MONEY AND MY MONEY DOES WHEN WE LOOK THE OTHER WAY - CAN FUND A GENOCIDE. THOSE OF US WHO WANT THE HR 180 bill to pass the US Senate are once again betrayed by GW Bush. The man who wrote in the margins of the Rwandan genocide report, "Not On My Watch". And yet that is exactly what has been happening ever since Colin Powell called what is happening in Darfur, Sudan genocide. Genocide is systematic behavior that is killing off a group of people by means of murder, denial of food, justice and fair play, rape and torture with impunity.

Stolen from another:
So the world sat largely silently listening to a crazed little man rant about the abuses in the rest of the world. But his condemnation of the war in Sudan and the creation of refugees in Darfur could not blot out the reality of his war in Iraq and the millions who have fled that hell hole.

Bush declared:
Every civilized nation also has a responsibility to stand up for the people suffering under dictatorship," the president said. "In Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Iran, brutal regimes deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration" of the United Nations.

This was chutzpah. Just before Bush began speaking a series of car bombs swept Iraq killing and wounding hundreds. A country the United States has occupied for more than four years continues to be ravaged by violence. The Iraqi people themselves are denied the rights Bush extolled. Hell, the United States even protects mercenary armies--like Blackwater--who operate outside of any law and kill innocent civilians without any consequence.

The rest of the world sees and understands our hypocrisy. Unfortunately, many Americans share the ignorance and vacuity of George Bush and do not realize how foolish and stupid we look on the world stage. Today's performance by George Bush does nothing to win friends or influence enemies. It simply reinforces the notion that the United States is in the grips of a President who has fulfilled the prophecy of H.L. Mencken:

" . . . all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
http://austin.craigslist.org/pol/432467425.html

The Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act (H.R. 180) passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, July 31, by a vote of 418 to one. This important bill would create a list of foreign companies helping to fund the genocide, prohibit U.S. government contracts with these companies, and provide federal protection to states that choose to divest. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) plans to introduce the same bill in the Senate, but there is opposition to critical provisions of H.R. 180. We need your help to make sure this legislation passes in its current form. Please call your senators NOW and urge them to co-sponsor or support the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act (H.R. 180) CALL 1-800-GENOCIDE and talk to your Senator about this bill.
http://www.enoughproject.org/region/darfur/what-can-be-done.php

Bush Administration Opposes Sudan Divestment Bill

By REUTERS

Published: October 3, 2007

Filed at 4:19 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill that would allow U.S. states to divest from companies doing business in Sudan could hurt international efforts to end the violence in war-torn Darfur, Bush administration officials told a Senate panel on Wednesday.
The pending Senate bill aims to put economic pressure on Sudan to stop the violence in its western Darfur region, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.
Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the Bush administration was confident its sanctions were working and warned against legislative measures that might undo progress.
"We are concerned that some initiatives to increase economic pressure on Sudan will damage our relationship with our key partners rather than increase pressure in Khartoum," Frazer told the Senate Banking Committee hearing.
But several senators voiced support for the bill and said they would work to get it passed.
Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said he did not "understand how the State Department can come before committee and say this is inappropriate."
Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a bill co-sponsor and Republican presidential candidate, said: "We have a responsibility to ensure that genocide does not continue on our watch or on our dime."
In July, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would protect investment managers who pull money out of key sectors in Sudan from lawsuits from disgruntled investors. It also calls on the U.S. government to list companies whose business in Sudan supports "genocidal practices."
The companion Senate bill would allow state or local governments to adopt measures to prohibit any investment of state assets in the Sudanese government or in any company with a qualifying business relationship with Sudan.
That bill has yet to move out of the Senate Banking Committee, a crucial step in the legislative process.
DIVESTMENT
Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury's sanctions arm, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said a list would by nature consist of foreign companies whose activities in Sudan were most likely legal in their home countries.
"Such a list likely will be viewed by our allies as a U.S. government 'blacklist'... and therefore as an unwelcome effort by the United States to expand the scope of our sanctions," Szubin said in written testimony.
"Such a list seriously risks alienating the very countries whose assistance we need to maintain and increase international pressure on the Bashir regime," he said.
U.S. companies are generally prohibited from investing in and conducting business in Sudan without a license from OFAC. Creation of a list of companies would also impose ongoing burdens on the agency that would divert resources from other activities, Szubin said.
Since 2005, 20 states have adopted Sudan divestment policies, according to the Sudan Divestment Task Force.
Activists have pressured investors to divest their holdings in companies such as PetroChina Co Ltd, whose parent company, China National Petroleum Corp, is helping Sudan drill for oil. Malaysia's state-owned Petronas and India's ONGC are also targets.
(Additional reporting by David Lawder)

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

for the remainder of the article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html?