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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NO GOLD STAR FOR U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY GRATION - We're NOT Smiling

Cookies for General Scott Gration to give to the Government of Sudan
for implementation of his policy to end the genocide

The United States Special Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration in this article
U.S. Envoy's Outreach to Sudan is Criticized as Naive states, in regards Darfur, Sudan and the ongoing genocide since 2003, the following:

"We've got to think about giving out cookies (to the Government of Sudan)," said Gration, who was appointed in March. "Kids, countries -- they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."

The students from Stand Now took action on Wednesday of this week in relation to Special Envoy Gration's comment:

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Text from the youtube page:
"To draw attention to Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration's troubling strategy, students from STAND, the student-led division of Genocide Intervention Network, headed to the Sudanese embassy to present the Government of Sudan with a gold star and smiley face."
Uploaded by StandAntiGenocide

With a small gesture, citizens demonstrated how absurd Gration's Gold Star strategy is and how important it is for President Obama to make sure his Special Envoy is pursuing a balanced approached to Sudan that includes sticks – not just smiley faces and gold stars.

And Washington wasn't the only place where students took action this week. Activists across the country sent nearly 600 e-mail messages to President Obama regarding the troubling nature of the Special Envoy's remarks.

Source for the text below: Giving Sudan its Gold Star by Stand Now's High School National Outreach Coordinator, Mickey Jackson

I have to admit that until this week, I never dreamed that anything could possess me to trudge through the rain with a bunch of other DC-area students and lay a hastily-made cardboard-and-paper gold star against the door of the Sudanese embassy. But then again, I never dreamed that Scott Gration, the Obama Administration's special envoy to Sudan, would tell the Washington Post that we should try to end a genocide by "giving out cookies...gold stars, [and] smiley faces" to an indicted war criminal.

We are fully aware that Wednesday's action at the Sudanese embassy was a stunt. As a rule, STAND students do not rely on stunts to bring attention to the ongoing genocide in Darfur; we are known and renowned for our smart, targeted advocacy campaigns directed at our elected officials and executed by thousands of dedicated student activists nationwide. But this week, we felt the need to highlight the absurdity of General Gration's comments, and the Administration's highly conspicuous lack of a tough, coherent policy for addressing the ongoing atrocities and humanitarian crisis in Darfur. And so we took it upon ourselves to step up to the plate for General Gration and give the Sudanese government the gold star that they apparently have so richly earned.

Consider taking an extra minute to send a message to the President Obama. Tell him that eight months is too long to wait for a strong Sudan policy. Tell him that General Gration's comments do not reflect his own views on Sudan. Tell him to personally get involved and fulfill the promises that he has made to the anti-genocide constituency.

Another Washington Post Bombshell

Posted by John Norris on Sep 30, 2009

Another day, another disastrous news cycle for the administration on Sudan. As if yesterday’s story in the Post was not enough, a piece today delves into a fascinating and sordid web of connections between disgraced former U.S. National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane and the Sudanese government as part of an effort to improve Khartoum’s relationship with the Obama administration. McFarlane was apparently contracted by the Sudanese government – for $1.3 million channeled through Qatar – to lobby Obama administration officials.

This is a well reported story, and it is a tale full of very, very bad judgment by some key players: by McFarlane who did not disclose that he was employed to lobby at the behest of a foreign government that is still designated as a state sponsor of terror; by U.S. Special Envoy Major General Scott Gration and National Security Advisor Jim Jones, who not only met with McFarlane but appear to have found him a useful intermediary; and, by everyone else who thought that using Qatar as a front for payments to McFarlane to help obscure his direct links to Sudan’s National Congress Party was a clever idea. The insistence by the White House that McFarlane just wanted to come in and discuss “the urgent need to improve the security situation in Sudan and the need for development in southern Sudan" does not seem particularly credible. It is hard to imagine McFarlane being paid over a million dollars by the NCP to go to the White House and chat about development.

The only people who look sensible out of all this are some of the former U.S. officials who had a role in Sudan policy and were smart enough to stay miles away from a relationship that clearly stank to high heaven. As Bob Oakley, a former U.S. Ambassador describes in the article, McFarlane was "trying to broker some arrangements between the Sudanese government and the Obama administration." Oakley calls McFarlane "a wheeler-dealer," and added, "I remember him from Iran-contra and all the rest. I didn't get into it; I didn't want to, quite frankly."

Combined with yesterday’s story in the Post, it is becoming painfully clear that U.S. policy toward Sudan is threatening to become unglued. We are still awaiting word as to what came out of the yesterday’s policy review, but something has to change.

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No More Empty Promises

We are visitors on this planet.

We are here for ninety or one hundred years

at the very most.

During that period,

we must try to do something good,

something useful, with our lives.

If you contribute to other people’s happiness,

You will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.

H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama

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GENOCIDE WILL STOP WITH US

While We Wait Sudan

blogfordarfur.org

"The Most Important Office is That of Private Citizen"
Louis D. Brandeis

Comments to President Obama:
202-456-1111 or 1-800-GENOCIDE

Join the Fast for Darfuris

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed people could change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead

www.savedarfur.org

www.stopgenocidenow.org

Help - Use Your Voice

1-800-GENOCIDE

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

WE'VE HAD ENOUGH - BARACK OBAMA NEEDS TO SHOW RESOLVE ABOUT THE DEFINING ISSUE OF GENOCIDE WHILE PRESIDENT

This IS outrageous. U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, needs to spend some time with his family. And President Obama needs to find some resolve on this "Defining" Issue. We need some of the hope we all fought so hard to be manifested when we campaigned for our new President.


U.S. Envoy's Outreach to Sudan is Criticized as Naive

by Stephanie McCrummen

Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 29, 2009

EL FASHER, Sudan -- The volatility of this East African nation -- from the Darfur conflict to the threat of renewed civil war in the south -- is becoming a test of how President Obama will reconcile a policy of engagement with earlier statements blasting a government he said had "offended the standards of our common humanity."

Top administration officials are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss a major review of the United States' Sudan policy. But even as that document is being finalized, U.S. diplomacy has remained mostly in the hands of Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, who is pushing toward normalized relations with the only country in the world led by a president indicted on war-crimes charges.

Although Gration describes the approach as pragmatic and driven by a sense of urgency, his critics here and in the United States say it is dangerously, perhaps willfully, naive. During a recent five-day trip to Sudan, Gration heard from southern officials, displaced Darfurians, rebels and others who complained uniformly that he is being manipulated by government officials who talk peace even as they undermine it.

Still, at the end of the visit, Gration maintained a strikingly different perspective. He had seen signs of goodwill from the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, he said, and viewed many of the complaints as understandable yet knee-jerk reactions to a government he trusts is ready to change.

"We've got to think about giving out cookies," said Gration, who was appointed in March. "Kids, countries -- they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."

Gration's approach has supporters, including Eltyeb Hag Ateya, a Sudanese professor and critic of Bashir's ruling party. He said Gration is "completely different" from previous envoys, who succeeded only in alienating the people who hold the levers of power in Sudan.

Gration's detractors say his approach is based on a misunderstanding of how Bashir's ruling party works. John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough Project, a human rights group advocating tougher, multilateral sanctions against Sudan, said Bashir and his top advisers respond only to pressure. "They do not respond to nice guys coming over and saying, 'We have to be a good guest,' " he said. "They eat these people for dinner."

Adam Mudawi, a Sudanese human rights activist who has seen envoys come and go, put it more bluntly: "In six months, he'll find out," he said. "They are liars."

But in interviews during the trip, Gration said that Sudanese government officials have not lied to him. He spoke of new realities in Darfur, where a brutal government campaign has given way to banditry and fighting among rebel factions and tribes. Although many say the government has orchestrated the chaos, Gration spread the blame. Rebels have turned into criminal gangs and failed to unify for peace talks, he said. And many displaced Darfurians are dealing with "psychological stuff" that is leading to unhelpful mistrust of the government, he said.

Gration said that in his view, the ruling party deserves some credit lately for allowing some foreign aid groups to return after Bashir expelled others following his March indictment by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Darfur. Gration said economic sanctions, first imposed against Sudan in 1997, have thwarted development that would help marginalized parts of Sudan.

And as distasteful as it may seem, he said, engaging the ruling party is the only way to get a settlement in Darfur and to avert a potentially devastating war ahead of the semiautonomous southern region's 2011 vote on independence.

Ghazi Salahuddin, a close Bashir adviser, praised Gration for "trying to be evenhanded." During a stop in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur state, Gration was greeted like a rock star by hundreds of cheering Bashir supporters in a conference hall plastered with posters of Bashir and Obama, poorly photo-shopped together.

Read page 2 at www.washingtonpost.com

Read page 3 at www.washingtonpost.com

Darfur Conflict

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Remember Darfur

No More Empty Promises


Whatever you did for one of the least of these
I don't consider myself a religious person at all.
Spiritual person, yes. Religious, no.
However, I love this passage of the Bible at the above link.

We are visitors on this planet.

We are here for ninety or one hundred years

at the very most.

During that period,

we must try to do something good,

something useful, with our lives.

If you contribute to other people’s happiness,

You will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.

H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama

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GENOCIDE WILL STOP WITH US


"The Most Important Office is That of Private Citizen"
Louis D. Brandeis

Comments to President Obama:
202-456-1111 or 1-800-GENOCIDE

Dear President Obama - A letter sent March 12, 2009

Join the Fast for Darfuris

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed people could change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead

www.savedarfur.org

www.stopgenocidenow.org

WhileWeWaitSudan.blogspot.com

www.stopgenocidenow/campdarfur.org

Help - Use Your Voice

1-800-GENOCIDE

Click my post title for Human Rights First site

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

If We Only Have Love

DARFUR WITHOUT JUSTICE IS DARFUR WITHOUT PEACE

As the government of Sudan, keeps saying there never has been genocide on the Darfuri families, I always want to have this question answered:

So if you aren't perpetrating the burning of villages, the killing of thousands, raping the females, maming and gouging eyes out, why aren't you charging those who are? Where is the justice, President Omar al-Bashir?

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iACT 8, Day 9, June 23, 2009
There is so much joy in seeing our family in the camps, and also so much sadness that comes with knowing their stories. After all the crazy days to prepare for World Refugee Day events, we finally get to sit with our friends and enjoy the simple parts of life, like drawing pictures.
Uploaded by stopgenocidenow

Day 9 Action: Steps for Peace

Posted by Katie-Jay on June 22nd, 2009

This week the Obama Administration has brought together key signatories and over 30 countries in Washington to discuss the fate of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan. John Norris, Executive Director of ENOUGH Project, noted recently, “One of the key problems with the CPA to date has been the fact that the parties to the CPA, particularly President Bashir’s National Congress Party, have not faced any cost from the international community for a failure to implement key provisions of the agreement. Unless that changes, conflict in Sudan will only intensify.”

We cannot allow this to happen. The US must be a leader in the international community. After meeting the beautiful people of Darfur, we are responsible to act. While these important leaders are in Washington, take action:

1. Call you member of Congress through the Capitol switchboard at 202.225.3121.Urge them to hold hearings on Sudan and continue to make this issue a high priority for Congress.

2. Sign the open letter to President Obama encouraging his administration to address the immediate humanitarian crisis in Darfur and to achieve long term peace through a political solution for all of Sudan.

Read more about the CPA and Sudan by ENOUGH.

Four

Posted by Gabriel on June 22nd, 2009

I know the name of three. I feel bad that I did not ask the name of the fourth. Marymouda is the last one. The first and second were Issa and Abrahim. The third died on his mother’s back, as she, Adef and remaining siblings escaped from Darfur. They have lost four children in six years. Who’s counting? Someone should be held accountable.

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War ~ No More Trouble
Uploaded by PlayingForChange

Scars

Posted by Katie-Jay on June 22nd, 2009

We have a days rest in Abeche before three of our team members move on to Guereda where Camp Kounoungo is located, and one, Eric, begins is several day journey back to Los Angeles. It doesn’t seem like a break. I feel more restless today then any other day since our arrival in Chad. There are any number of tasks that I could be doing, but instead I click through pictures in iPhoto, allowing myself to be transported back to our friends in Camp Djabal.

Abdelmouni, now three years old, is Adef’s serious young man. The giggles and almost consistent smile Bashar, Bashir, and Guisma get from Achta. Adef and Abdelmouni, although they have great laughs too, are more serious and stern. In almost every picture Abdelmouni’s “look” is captured. Only a tickle on the neck or showing him his picture on the camera will get him to giggle. His three older siblings catch the contagious laughter. I wonder what Gbryl (prounounced Ge-briel) will be like. Will he too have a contagious laugh.

I think about the pain that Achta and Adef must feel after losing four of their children. Guisma is the only girl they have left; of nine children that she has birthed. Nine. Their oldest son, Abrahim, would be 18 years old, the next oldest would be 15. Instead, it is Bashar and Bashir at 8 years old. They were only 3 when they fled their homeland. I wonder what they remember, if anything.

Achta has a great scar on her arm. It is raised with two large oval scars meeting like tips of tear drops touching with another straight scar that is perpendicular. I slowly pass my fingers over them and ask her what happened. Our translator has not arrived. Adef simply points at his wife’s arm, makes a gesture like he shooting an AK-47, and says, “Janjaweed.” Today Achta’s arm still hurts as she bears the scars of gun shot wounds and perhaps more painful, the scars of losing four children.

I don’t know how Achta and Adef feel. But when we ask them what they hope for and what they need, it is always the same. They want justice in order for peace. And they want their children to be educated so Darfur and Sudan will be stronger because of the next generation.

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www.flickr.com/photos/stopgenocidenow
Link to pictures of June 23, 2009

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Write to President Obama
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You can also write to the President at:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

President Obama can be called:

202-456-1111
or
1-800-GENOCIDE

The White House comment line is available
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. weekdays

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Find USA elected politicians contact information at this link:
www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

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www.stopgenocidenow.org


www.enoughproject.org
www.savedarfur.org
www.eyesondarfur.org

whilewewaitsudan.blogspot.com

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OBAMA'S DARFUR PROMISE

By Susan Morgan

www.huffingtonpost.com

During the campaign, when asked about the genocide in Darfur, Candidate Obama said, "We can't say 'never again' and then allow it to happen again. And, as President of the United States, I don't intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter." The candidate also spoke of "ratcheting up sanctions" and "organizing the European Union to be a part of those sanctions." His campaign's policy paper, titled the "Obama-Biden Plan," stated, "As president, Obama will take immediate steps to end the genocide in Darfur by increasing pressure on the Sudanese and pressure the government to halt the killing and stop impeding the deployment of a robust international force."

Fast forward to June 2009. Thus far, President Obama and his Administration have displayed no "immediate" response to the Darfur crisis or any willingness to "pressure" the Sudanese government. Instead we have seen stalls, delays and a very worrisome conciliatory tone in the U.S. response to the ongoing genocide in Darfur. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, Obama's Special Envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, has advocated easing some American sanctions and upgrading U.S. diplomatic relations with Sudan's government to induce cooperation.

Many Darfur activists, whose votes for Obama were influenced by his impassioned statements about the responsibility to act in the face of genocide, feel betrayed. Darfuris, who named babies after Obama and waited hopefully for him to take office, feel understandably abandoned.

Concern amongst grassroots activists (aka voters) as well as amongst the Darfuri refugeesfirst press conference, Gration not only contradicted both the President's and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.'s assessment of the crisis in Darfur as an "ongoing genocide" but also the facts when he stated that the aid levels have returned to nearly 100% of their previous levels before the forced expulsion of 13 foreign aid groups by the Government of Sudan. reached its peak this week due to comments made by Special Envoy Gration. During his

In fact, according to John Holmes, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, the new aid workers "have not yet replaced, and cannot easily or rapidly replace, the capacity and skills lost." Gration's description of the crisis as the "remnants of genocide" was also disproven in the latest report by U.N. human rights investigator, Sima Samar, covering from last August to her visit to Sudan earlier this month. This report accused Sudanese forces of continuing to carry out land and air attacks against civilians in Darfur, in violation of the world body's resolutions during the reported period. She cited reports that Sudan's security forces have arrested and tortured human rights activists and aid workers.

As if to underscore the points made in the report, on the day it was issued, members of the government's National Congress Party (NCP) brutally attacked female students from Darfur who had convened a meeting in the dormitory at the University of Khartoum to discuss crimes of the government against the people of Darfur. Female NCP supporters accompanied by male security agents disguised in female attire attacked the Darfuri female students with iron bars, bats, and knives. Many were seriously injured.

Some grassroots activist leaders together with Darfuri leaders in IDP camps are calling for Gration's replacement. In a letter to President Obama, Martina Knee, a member of the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition writes:

"Since the appointment of General Gration, the Government of Sudan has bombed Darfuri villages and Chad, sentenced over 100 Darfuris to death after unfair trials, censored its media, and arrested and detained human rights activists in unknown locations. His approach to Sudan has emboldened this genocidal regime who he treats as rational actors. He ignores the 20-year history of tyranny, slaughter and broken agreements."

Whether Gration's statements represent a dramatic shift in the Administration's policy or were merely careless or misinformed, they indicate clearly that Obama's attention to the Darfur crisis is missing. It is hard to imagine such a serious misstep taking place in a press conference held by George Mitchell on the Middle East or by Richard Holbrooke on Afghanistan. Instead, when it comes to the Administration's response to the first genocide of the 21st century, the usually well-oiled machine seems to need a mechanical overhaul.

Five months into his presidency, the people of Darfur have waited long enough for Barack Obama to keep the promises of his candidacy. Victims of genocide deserve the immediate and direct involvement of the President himself. Many may argue correctly that the President has other pressing issues before him and cannot possibly engage with them all immediately. However, in his own words "ongoing genocide" carries with it the "moral imperative" to act.

The facts speak for themselves. Government of Sudan (GoS) planes are bombing defenseless Darfuri refugees in camps in Chad and its own citizens in IDP camps in Darfur. More than three months after the GoS expelled 13 foreign aid groups from the country, 1.5 million people are still waiting for adequate food, water, sanitation and medical care to be restored. Efforts to convene a civil society conference on Darfur with the aim of building what its organizers call "a mandate for peace" were derailed by the GoS. The GoS executed nine men on April 1, who may have been innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Over 70 more men await a similar fate. Their confessions were reported to have been extracted under torture.

Five months after the inauguration, the U.S. State Department, still hasn't completed its lengthy review or unveiled its long-awaited Sudan policy. And the Special Envoy, a man with no prior experience with Sudan or diplomacy, seems to be marching to his own conciliatory tune.

This disarray in policy could not come at a worse time. The Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has warned that a decision by the Court is imminent on whether to add a genocide charge against Sudan's president Omer al Bashir to the other already approved charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to experts at the Enough Project, "many fear the response from Khartoum, which could result in either a government seeking retribution or a government emboldened. As one source put it: 'I read this as a warning to the international community to get prepared.'"

Yet we are not prepared. President Obama -- it is time for you to step in. You must lead the United States and the international community to ensure peace in Darfur and in all of Sudan. You made a promise to the people of Darfur and to the many American voters who care about them. Please keep it. Otherwise, as you said during the campaign, it will be "a stain on all our souls."