THIS IS THE YEAR THAT THE DARFUR GENOCIDE MUST STOP BUT IT WON'T unless you and I make it a PRIORITY

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE WORTH?

WHAT DOES YOUR FREEDOM ENABLE YOU TO DO?

MAKE IT WORTH MORE....

Dear Person of Conscience and reader of my post,

We CAN stop genocide. But doing nothing and saying nothing and not pressuring our elected politicians and other countries' politicians will guarantee one thing ~ Genocide will continue in our lifetime. And others' lifetimes will end.

Why not use your freedom to speak to your elected politicians?

CALL

1-800-GENOCIDE
and get connected

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Today marks the 14th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, a horrific event that claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people in just four months. Sadly, today we bring you new proof that genocide is not a problem of the past.

Compelling satellite images, obtained last month by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), evidence a renewed campaign of village bombings by the Sudanese government. The villages were attacked by the government just a few weeks ago, on February 8, using helicopters, MiG fighter jets and Antanov bomber planes, accompanied by uniformed Janjaweed.

The photo above shows the destruction of Abu Suruj, a once bustling village in West Darfur, now largely deserted. Note the small dark pixels around the market-like structures are people. Click here to view more images -- including those from Silea and Sirba -- two other villages in West Darfur that were also bombed and attacked by Janjaweed at the same time.

We failed to protect people in Rwanda 14 years ago. We don't have to make the same mistake now. You can make a difference for the people of Darfur, like the villagers of Abu Suruj, who have had their lives destroyed by the ongoing genocide. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution today in memory of the victims of Rwanda.

Will you help?

This is Fatimah*, a Darfurian woman who lives in a Displaced Persons Camp in Darfur, and who is a beneficiary of GI-Net's Civilian Protection Program. Thanks to contributions from individuals like you, GI-Net was able to purchase a small sewing machine shared by Fatimah and three other women, allowing her to make clothes to sell as a source of income for her family. With the money she earns from sewing, Fatimah is able to purchase firewood in the camp market rather than having to gather it in the unprotected areas outside the camp. Women who do not have enough money to buy firewood in the camp market must leave the relative safety of the camps to search for it -- sometimes 15 hours at a time -- exposing them to rape and attack by roving Janjaweed and militiamen.

GI-Net's Civilian Protection Program is the only program in Darfur that offers direct solutions to the problem of unprotected civilians. In the past eight months, GI-Net provided 500 displaced Darfurian women with income-generating projects, such as sewing machines, chickens and vegetable seeds, so that they could earn enough money to stay out of the unsafe areas beyond the camps. It costs just $16.50 to purchase one pair of chickens -- enough to increase a family's income by 15%. Click here to learn about this and our other civilian protection projects.

Over the next six months, GI-Net will provide income-generating activities to 1,000 more families like Fatimah's. We will also expand our protection program to include additional strategies. We are building propane-powered kitchens in the camps so women have an alternative to using firewood when they can't afford it. We are also working on training and development with the United Nations African Mission in Darfur to ensure the mission has the tools it needs to effectively protect civilians. But we cannot do this without your generosity.

Please help GI-Net protect civilians in Darfur by making a tax-deductible donation.

Today you can commemorate the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide by committing to take action. Join GI-Net in a National Week of Action for Darfur, starting today. Make a contribution to protect civilians in Darfur and check out the schedule of events happening all across the nation.

Thanks for all you do to help end genocide!

-- Janessa, Jess, Colin and the GI-Net team

I received the above email today from the Genocide Intervention Network which includes STAND.

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I received the following three emails today:

Email #1:

Dear all,

I got news via phone that the Janjaweed forces entered
Elfasher (where my mother, sisters, brothers) and
spread terror in the city. They gathered first at the
Military headquarters not far from the center of the
city. Then they moved with their arms towards the
market of the city where civilians fled in panic. Then
they entered some of the neighborhoods firing their
arms. So far more than ten people are killed and many
injured. Still I am trying to find out what is
happening to my family there. I will keep you posted.

Mohamed S...

Email #2:

Thank you all for your prayers.
My Family ( mother, sister, brothers) are OK for
now. but the whole City is tense. People locked in
their homes and stayed in. Some ventured today
(relatives of the killed individuals) for their
funerals to bury the dead. The Governor showed up to
calm the people but he was belted with stones. The
police intervened . We are waiting for more news.
The Janjaweed came from Kutum ( North) and other
locations protesting for delay in their payments from
the Government of Sudan. When they didn't get
satisfying answer they headed towards the market for
looting.

Mohamed S...

Email #3:

The latest news things are still tense in the City.
The Governor (pro-Khartoum) closed some main roads
and installed machine Guns at the corners. The
Janjaweed had murdered one rebel officials (the
faction that signed the peace agreement DPA). The
killers gunned him in his house and retreated to their
camps. The police said they have no jurisdiction on
the janjaweed. So far four names of the murdered
people revealed (including the rebel official and a
woman, plus two civilians). The total toll of the dead
is unknown. Here is an earlier report from Reuters: thenews

Mohamed S...

P.S. Forward this message to family and friends and help us grow the anti-genocide movement.

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MAKE IT THIS YEAR....

We CAN stop genocide. But doing nothing and saying nothing and not pressuring our elected politicians and other countries' politicians will guarantee one thing ~ Genocide will continue in our lifetime. And others' lifetimes will end.

Why not use your freedom to speak to your elected politicians?

CALL

1- 800 - GENOCIDE
and get connected

SPONSORING GENOCIDE OLYMPICS ~ ADIDAS, COCA COLA, McDONALD'S, KODAK, GE, MICROSOFT, STAPLES, UPS, VISA

GENOCIDE OLYMPICS, sponsored by:

COCA COLA
Adidas
Anheuser-Busch
Atos Origin
BHP Billiton
Eastman Kodak
General Electric
Johnson & Johnson
Lenovo
Manulife Financial
McDonald's
Microsoft
Panasonic
Samsung
Staples
Swatch
UPS
Visa
Volkswagen

* and our apathy

We Ask For So Little...
I'd like to say a bit more about the sponsors -- just how rotten to the core they all are. We didn't ask much. We didn't ask them to quit. We asked so little of them. When we initially approached them, asking if they could use their positions of leverage with their host, they had ALL replied (in similar language) "this is not our job, it's the UN's job". So then we asked them to write a joint letter to the members of the UN Security Council urging them to make good on UN Resolution 1769 which they all signed in July -- when China headed the S. C. It authorized the deployment of 26,000 peacekeepers into Darfur. Although it stated that the force should be "predominantly"of African origin, the Government of Sudan, perpetrators of the crimes in the region, continue to insist that the troops be EXCLUSIVELY African.

July was a very long time ago for Darfurians. How many people in Darfur have died -- of violence, of hunger, of disease -- since July ? How many have been driven from their homes? How many women and girls have been raped?

"Genocide by Attrition in Sudan"

By Eric Reeves
Sunday, April 6, 2008; B07

Sudan's National Islamic Front regime has begun its sixth year of genocidal counterinsurgency warfare in the vast western region of Darfur, targeting African civilian populations perceived as the primary support for fractious rebel groups. Given the length of the conflict, news reports have inevitably taken on a grimly familiar and repetitive character that obscures the impending cataclysm of human destruction.

Without significant improvement in security on the ground -- for civilians and the humanitarians upon whom they increasingly depend -- deaths in the coming months will reach a staggering total. What Khartoum was unable to accomplish with the massive violence of 2003-04, entailing wholesale destruction of African villages, will be achieved through a "genocide by attrition." Civilians displaced into camps or surviving precariously in rural areas will face unprecedented shortfalls in humanitarian assistance, primarily food and potable water.

A recent U.N. map indicating aid access throughout Darfur shows that a large majority of people in the region are in areas with highly limited humanitarian access or none at all. The consensus among nongovernmental aid organizations is that they have access to only 40 percent of the population in need; 2.5 million of the 4.3 million Darfuris affected by conflict -- primarily women and children -- can't be securely reached by those attempting to provide food, clean water, shelter and primary medical care.

And things are poised to get much worse.

Paralyzing seasonal rains begin in earnest in June throughout the region. In eastern Chad, an obscenely underreported humanitarian crisis has put half a million Darfuri refugees and Chadian displaced persons at acute risk because of insecurity spilling over from Darfur. A European Union force deploying to eastern Chad may provide some of the protection necessary to halt the most threatening violence, but much depends on whether the force is perceived as an extension of a long-term French military presence that has supported Chadian President Idriss Déby.

In Darfur itself, however, the protection force authorized by the U.N. Security Council last July has stalled badly. Little more than a slightly augmented version of the African Union mission, it risks failing soon if it cannot do much better than its weak and undermanned predecessor. Khartoum refuses to accept key contingents from non-African countries and obstructs force deployment and operations in a range of ways. Indeed, nothing contributes more to what Human Rights Watch recently described as "chaos by design." While a variety of rebel groups, bandits and opportunistic armed elements contribute to the violence that threatens humanitarians, Khartoum has invested virtually nothing in providing security for Darfuris or humanitarians. On the contrary, reports from the field make clear that a climate of hostility, obstruction and abuse defines the working environment for all aid organizations. Khartoum still refuses to disarm its brutal Arab militia forces, the Janjaweed. Recently, in a campaign reminiscent of the worst military violence of the genocide's early years, Khartoum's regular ground and air forces coordinated with the Janjaweed in massive scorched-earth assaults against civilian villages in West Darfur.

But it is the onset of this year's heavy rains that may well mark the tipping point. A great many people weakened by five years of conflict and deprivation won't make it through the traditional "hunger gap" -- the period between spring planting and fall harvest. Last fall's harvests were disastrous, especially in North and South Darfur. Food reserves have never been lower, and because of insecurity the U.N. World Food Program has not been able to position adequate food stocks in the areas least accessible during the rainy season. Once the rains come -- severing road corridors, turning dry river beds into impassable torrents and creating a terrain of mud -- it will be almost impossible to move in many areas. The insecurity preventing humanitarian access will give way to sheer physical impossibility.

The international community has waited far too long to come to terms with the brutal motives behind Khartoum's simultaneous blocking of a U.N.-authorized protection force and its unconstrained harassment of humanitarian operations. Nothing short of the most urgent deployment of security forces will allow food to be moved into areas of greatest need. And nothing less than an equally urgent commitment to protect aid operations will permit an expanded humanitarian reach in the critical three months before the start of the rainy season. If Khartoum is not confronted over its deadly policies of fostering insecurity while obstructing humanitarian operations, then we may measure the consequences in hundreds of thousands of lives lost. The choice is before us now.

Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College, is the author of "A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide." He is a consultant to several human rights and humanitarian organizations in Sudan.

"Violence targeting civilians, including women and girls, continues at alarming levels with no accountability, or end, in sight..."

UN Chief Urges Action on Darfur
By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored "alarming levels" of violence in Darfur Friday, saying that the suffering of millions in the Sudanese region may have gotten worse in recent years.

Ban said the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force now being deployed in Darfur "can only be effective when there is a peace to keep." He urged the Sudanese government, rebel groups and other interested party to immediately focus on what can be done to end the hostilities, protect civilians and start negotiations.

Recalling the Security Council's first meeting on Darfur in April 2004, the secretary-general said "the situation remains grim today, as then, if not worse."

"Violence targeting civilians, including women and girls, continues at alarming levels with no accountability, or end, in sight," Ban said in a statement.

"Some 4.27 million civilians, including 2.45 million internally displaced, continue to suffer," he said. "As a result of ongoing attacks by armed forces and groups, more than 100,000 civilians have been forced to flee from violence this year alone, at a rate of 1,000 per day."

In a monthly report, Ban cited a dramatic deterioration in the security situation in some areas and increased hostilities, especially in Western Darfur which led to the displacement of thousands and civilian deaths. The situation is complicated by the presence of rebels from neighboring Chad in Western Darfur "who continue to regroup," it said.

In the report, Ban called for "all means possible" to be used to deploy the AU-U.N. force quickly to protect the people of Darfur. Only 9,200 troops and police of the 26,000 authorized are on the ground and earlier this week the United States said it wants 3,600 new African troops in Darfur by June.

He said the U.N. is accelerating deployment but the Sudanese government has not yet given a green light for Thai and Nepalese troops, insisting it wants all African forces on the ground first.

He called on all parties trying to end the fighting to "immediately focus on what can be achieved by ending the hostilities, protecting civilians and coming to the negotiating table."

The U.N. believes that far more than 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Fighting has raged in Darfur since 2003, when ethnic African tribesman took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese Arab-dominated government. Khartoum has been accused of unleashing janjaweed militia forces to commit atrocities against ethnic African communities in the fight with rebel groups.

All of the above, including the cocoa cola logo was found posted at www.miafarrow.org

* my words

When they come for us who will care?