ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO TOPPLE THE REGIME IN KHARTOUM, SUDAN ~ WILL USA MEDIA REPORT STORY?

Sudan: Youth Group Call for Fresh Protests On March 21

Posted February 28, 2011

Source: allafrica.com

Khartoum — A Sudanese organization called 'Youth for Change' made a call for demonstrations in all parts of Sudan on March 21st in a new bid to bring about a mass uprising similar to the ones in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The group's spokesperson Magdi Okasha said that their ultimate goal is to topple the regime.

This came as opposition parties launched a fierce attack on the Sudanese government and vowed to push for change by mobilizing their supporetrs to take the streets.

Leaders from the opposition parties convened at the headquarters of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) in which they saw a replay of a video showing a female activist recounting her alleged rape by agents from the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).

Police and NISS officers cordoned the PCP HQ as families of detainees and opposition supporters lifted banners and shouting anti-government slogans.

The leaders of the opposition parties who form the National Alliance Forces called for the release of PCP leader Hassan Al-Turabi who remains in jail since January with no formal charges being brought against him.

Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) leader Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud expressed solidarity with the PCP "despite past bitterness" in order to work on the issue of freedoms, calling for dispatching a delegation to hold meetings with the revolutionary forces in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt for coordination and exchange of ideas.

The deputy Secretary-General of the Sudan people Liberation Movement (SPLM) Yasser Arman, echoed Nugud's call and voiced rejection of the concept of politically motivated arrests and torture by the NISS.

Arman made a demand for spreading democracy to fight against corruption and tyranny, noting that the Sudanese state "is a failed and outdated one that needs update and renewal".

He further suggested establishing a new capital other Khartoum describing it as the source of the wars waged throughout the Sudan.

For his part, the chairman of the Alliance opposition Farouk Abu Issa said a commission would be formed that would work on spreading freedom and defending against torture and preventing it, stressing that crimes of torture is punishable without statute of limitations.

Sudanese youth have called for anti-government protests which were violently dispersed by security forces starting on January 30. The movement failed to take on mass appeal and dozens of activists remain detained without charge.

Sudanese President Omer Hassan al-Bashir has promised to step down at the next election in four years, after 26 years in power. His party took over in a 1989 bloodless coup.

But growing voices of dissent, even from within his ruling party, are calling for more immediate action to prevent the kind of popular uprising that toppled long-serving leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and has spread to other nations including Libya.

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The official You Tube channel for UNESCO,
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

www.unesco.org

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Our humanity in the balance

Radio Dabanga

"I DREAM THINGS THAT NEVER WERE AND SAY WHY NOT"

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I was called in by the principal for teaching this song to my students in my first few years as a public school music teacher: Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream. From then on, I was forbidden to teach this song to the children.
Above it is sung by Simon and Garfunkel. Uploaded by JudeOrEleanor
Sung here by John Denver

The lyrics

Last night I had the strangest dream,
I never dreamed before,
I dreamed the world had all agreed,
To put an end to war.

I dreamed I saw a mighty room,
The room was full of men,
And the paper they were signing said,
They'd never fight again.

And when the paper was all signed,
And a million copies made,
They all joined hands and bowed their heads,
And grateful prayers were prayed.

And the people in the streets below,
Were dancing around and around,
And swords and guns and uniforms,
Were scattered on the ground.

Last night I had the strangest dream,
I never dreamed before,
I dreamed the world had all agreed,
To put an end to war.

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Text at youtube by the singer derkman:
Recorded in 76 languages, this has become one of the most enduring and treasured peace songs. Possibly the very best anti-war song ever...a strong argument presented sweetly and with reason. This song was written in 1950 by Ed McCurdy and has been recorded by many artists over the years including The Weavers, John Denver, Simon and Garfunkel, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Garth Brooks.

"My brother (Robert F. Kennedy) need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be rememberd simply as a good decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. "Those of us, who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world. "As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.'" Edward Kennedy

IT IS A WISE PERSON WHO UNDERSTANDS OTHER CULTURES AND RESPECTS THE DIFFERENCES

After I read the article below, I had a better understanding how Darfuri's structure their communities, correct injustices within these communities. I already knew that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir cannot be trusted. I have watched his behavior regarding Darfuris and know he is not a man of his word. Justice is not important to him, unless it is his life he is saving.
When Obama's Special Envoy to Khartoum leaves his current postion, watch and see if he gets rich. Bashir could be paying him to throw the metaphorical softballs and to pedal lies to the world who doesn't want to hear about the story in the first place. Or he could be promising Gration how he will help him get rich one day.

Gration has not been clued into the Darfuri's problems with this wanted criminal, Bashir.

We need a special envoy we don't have to educate so much. One who isn't already off in a ditch with his thinking and with such a steep learning curve even if he were capable.

Darfur: Liquidation of Traditional Leaders in the Camps

by Mohamed E. Suleiman

categories: Darfur & Sudan, Darfuri Perspectives, Refugees and IDPs

Published August 08, 2009 @ 08:32AM PT

Source: genocide.change.org/blog/view/darfur_liquidation_of_traditional_leaders_in_the_camps

The Chief of the sheikhs (leaders) Omdah Omer Adam Ishag was killed last Sunday with his wife in their home in AbuShouk camp for internally displaced persons (IDP). Last year Omdah Ahmed Hagar Karam Eldin was murdered in the same camp. Similar killings of Omdas (tribal leaders) have occurred in IDP camps of Zalengie, Kassab, and El Geneina area in western Darfur, in addition to other camps in the past few years.Last year in August, Government troops attacked Kalma camp and killed 86 people.

These violence incidents are not random. They are designed to break the will of the Darfuri people so that the rulers in Khartoum can have their way in Darfur.

The regime of Khartoum is so cunning that it resorts to devious ways in carrying out its plans to further destroy the people of Darfur. You will hear innocent denials coming out from Khartoum. In the outset Khartoum looks far removed from these assassinations, violence incidents, kidnappings of humanitarian aids, lootings and terrorizing of the camps by armed militias, and banditry operations. Yet this chaotic security environment in Darfur is the creation of the regime in Khartoum. The Government of Sudan controls and manipulates the insecurity level in Darfur effectively, since it is the sole beneficial of such situation in Darfur.

Read more »

DOES OBAMA HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO REPLACE GRATION? - DEFINING MOMENT, DEFINING ISSUE

I remember when Barack Obama told us that Scott Gration was going to be great at his job as Special Envoy to Sudan. He was wrong.

It is well over due for President Obama to replace Gration.

IF our leader, President Obama, cared about Darfuris and Sudan, he would certainly get rid of the mealy-mouthed General Gration, who wants people to return to their scorched villages while nothing has changed to provide security for them to return.

Fire Gration or ask him to resign.

Obama is losing my support. Over this issue. And he needs people like me, who would be among his strongest supporters, if only he would act like he said he would act on this issue.

This is his defining moment with me.

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The Phony optimism on Darfur

By Eric Reeves | August 6, 2009

Boston Globe

Source:

www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/the_phony_optimism_on_darfur

IN SENATE testimony last week, the US special presidential envoy for Sudan offered a peculiarly upbeat assessment of the crisis in Darfur and the prospects for peace throughout Sudan. Envoy Scott Gration argued that the United States should move toward normalizing relations with the regime in Khartoum, including lifting sanctions and removing Sudan from the State Department list of terrorist-sponsoring nations. This would be a grave mistake - and would reward a regime comprising the very men who orchestrated genocide in Darfur and continue to renege on key elements of the 2005 north/south peace agreement.

There was little policy detail in Gration’s testimony because debate within the Obama administration continues to be intense. But Gration is close to Obama and seems determined to set the tone and establish the substance of US Sudan policy. He clearly went a step too far in June when he declared that genocide had ended in Darfur, and that there were only “remnants of genocide,’’ a characterization disowned by the State Department, the US ambassador to the United Nations, and President Obama, who used the word “genocide’’ in the present tense during recent speeches in Germany and Ghana.

More troubling, Gration has said too little about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and the consequences of Khartoum’s March 4 expulsion of 13 key international humanitarian organizations; he has demonstrated little appreciation for what was lost, and the difficulty in generating new capacity. Stop-gap measures are beginning to fail at the height of the rainy season, and a number of camps report grave health and sanitation crises.

Gration also appears excessively optimistic about the moribund Darfur peace process. He repeatedly declared to Darfuris and humanitarians during a recent trip to the region that peace in Darfur would be achieved by the end of this year. But any meaningful peace agreement will first require an effective cease-fire, with robust monitoring of a sort that cannot be provided by the current UN/African Union peacekeeping force, which is badly underequipped, undermanned, and has lost the confidence of most Darfuris.

Humanitarians were dismayed at Gration’s insistent talk about the “voluntary’’ return of some 2.7 million displaced persons languishing in camps throughout Darfur. There is no humanitarian capacity to oversee such returns and ensure their voluntary nature; Khartoum refuses to provide security in areas it controls; and Darfuris in the camps complain bitterly that they are being asked to return to lands without protection, and which have oftentimes been taken over by Arab tribal groups. The notorious Janjaweed have not been disarmed and pose a constant threat. Even in the camps themselves, security is tenuous; women still face rape, men are tortured and murdered, and looting is commonplace. In the past, it has been Khartoum that has pushed for returns under these conditions; now, perversely, it is the US special envoy.

In his Senate testimony, Gration suggests that his travels to Cairo and Beijing enabled him to meet “leaders who share our common concern and want to work together toward shared objectives.’’ This ignores the long and resolutely obstructionist role both Egypt and China have played in Sudan over many years. Shortly after Gration’s testimony, a senior Egyptian official described Darfur as an “artificial’’ crisis directed against the people of Sudan. Beijing’s continued shipment of advanced weaponry to Khartoum; its opposition to the role of the International Criminal Court in pursuing atrocity crimes in Darfur; and its relentless support of Khartoum at the Security Council leave one wondering what Gration means by “common concern.’’

Most disturbing, Gration gives no evidence in any of his public comments of understanding the ruthless nature of the security cabal that rules Sudan and is determined to retain its stranglehold on national wealth and power; like many before him, he is convinced that the National Islamic Front is controlled by men who can be reasoned with, cajoled, rewarded, made to do “the right thing.’’ He ignores the basic truth about these men: during their 20 years in power they have never abided by any agreement with any Sudanese party. Any rapprochement that is not preceded by clear and irreversible actions to establish unimpeded humanitarian access, create freedom of movement and deployment for peacekeepers, and meet the critical benchmarks of the north/south peace agreement is doomed to fail.

Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor, is author of “A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide.’’

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U.S. Backs Implementing U.N. Doctrine Against Genocide
Read at online.wsj.com/article

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Fast for Darfur

Contact Information for Key U.S. People
Regarding Darfur, Sudan

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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Vice President Biden

When I went to his link and contact information, it took me to this
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Vice President Biden's mailing address:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/vp_residence/

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Main address:
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Link to contact information:
http://contact-us.state.gov

Email form for Secretary of State Clinton:

http://contact-us.state.gov/
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UN Ambassador Susan Rice

• United States of AmericaUnited States of America

More information

www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/

140 East 45th Street, New York, NY 10017

(212) 415-4000

Link to contact information:
http://www.un.org/en/members/index.shtml

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Scott Gration

may not be worth the effort.

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Foreign Relations committee members

http://foreign.senate.gov/about.html

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

Senate Sub-Committee on African Affairs
At this link are the members' names, email addresses and phone numbers:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
Sub-Committees listed:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/committee_list.cgi?site=ctc