ABOUT GENOCIDE - DEAR MR. PRESIDENT - WHERE IS SENATOR OBAMA?

Here are three messages sent to President Obama recently

#9 email sent to President Obama during the grassroots Sudan Sham 2010 grassroots campaign

March 5, 2010

It is not that we can’t make a difference, it is that we choose not to make a difference. What will our legacy be? Will our legacy be any different than all the others that tolerated genocides that this planet has hosted? Sandra Hammel

Dear President Obama,

I have been working as a community organizer, leading my state regarding the issue of raising awareness and moving people to use their voices to get our leaders to have the political will to prevent and end genocide since 2004. I am frustrated with your administration’s placating words, promises, little proof of observable resolve and lack of leadership. From the rhetoric during your campaign, I expected much more. I have a Darfuri associate who like me works to bring awareness of what is going on, but he has actual daily contacts with Darfuris still in Sudan. The news has not been good leading up to these elections to take place in April. The intimidations being used by the government of Sudan is horrifying and certainly these elections are not going to be free and fair. Bashir will only “use” these elections to say to the world in effect “See, world, we had an election and I won, so I am legitimate.” Only we know different.

Mohamed Suleiman helped me with this translation:

If you want peace, work for justice

إذا كنت تريد السلام ، أعمل من أجل العدالة

Please, don’t forget the marginalized Darfuri people, Mr. President. They know everything you have ever said or neglected to say about their situation.

Here is a Darfuri saying, that Mohamed shared with me:

Nowhere to hide for those who take else's life

يا كاتل الروح وين بتروح

"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

Sincerely yours,

Sandra Hammel

Use Your Voice to Stop Genocide RI

Leading Rhode Island in Sudan Sham 2010 campaign

See 50 days of actions running up to the Sudan April 11, 2010 Elections at the website:

http://sudansham2010.org/

GENOCIDE WILL only STOP WITH US - Our leaders have taught us this

My twitter:

@ilovemylife5

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#7 email sent to President Obama

March 2, 2010

Dear President Obama,

With April elections fast approaching, it is clear that conditions on the ground are neither free nor fair. Please directly show us your leadership in the Sudan ongoing genocide. Fundamental human rights and civil rights have been violated and have escalated running up to the April 11, 2010 Sudan elections. There is a real danger for resumption of full-out war between the north and south, and the genocide in Darfur continues on your watch, with millions of people living in squalid camps and exposed to horrible violence. The time for credible multilateral consequences in support of genuine democratic processes and verifiable commitment to peace is now. The US must lead.

Furthermore, the types of situations such as in Sudan create the very places for terrorists to meet and organize, which means it is in our own interest to bring peace to this multi-year genocide.

Thank you for your political will to make a difference with this deeply defining issue.

Sincerely yours,

Sandra Hammel

Use Your Voice to Stop Genocide RI

Leading Rhode Island in Sudan Sham 2010 campaign

My twitter:

@ilovemylife5

Facebook: Sandra Hammel

the "Sandra Hammel" currently with the Red, White and Blue Sudan Sham Election 2010 avatar

GENOCIDE WILL only STOP WITH US - Our leaders have taught us this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVsvZPry_0Y

My January 1, 2010 video for the Darfuri people

INGREDIENTS OF A GENOCIDE - PERPETRATORS, UNARMED CITIZENS AND A WORLD THAT TURNS THE OTHER WAY

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

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#4 email sent to President Obama

February 27, 2010

Dear President Obama,

Enough Project's recent paper, A Peace Process Play-by-Play, includes the following two paragraphs that are very relevant to the USA grassroots Sudan Sham 2010 campaign that I am participating in daily:

President Bashir is also deeply focused on using the April 2010 national elections as a means to legitimize himself, help fend off war crimes charges from the International Criminal Court, and minimize threats to his rule within his own party. A “successful” election in Darfur, ironically financed in no small part by the international community, would allow Bashir to again argue that he should not be held accountable for his repeated and flagrant violations of international law.

It is also clear from comments of the U.S. special envoy that President Bashir hopes to use the JEM agreement to pave the way for lifting of U.S. sanctions. One can only hope that any consideration of altering the current sanctions regime is based on demonstrable changes on the ground, as per the U.S. policy on Sudan, not simply the willingness for Khartoum to sign a piece of paper.

To those of us citizens who are up-to-date of what takes place in Sudan, we feel we are more concerned than our leaders. “We ARE the ones we have been waiting for” as you said while campaigning to be our President, but we also need our leaders to lead in matters of such importance.

President Obama, I know you are working on many important issues. I support the “public option” in the health care reform. I am thoroughly appalled by the misbehaving congress people who are more inclined to “play games” than to do the work that we deserve to be done. And the media so often ill-informs us, when we so need to be informed. On and on. However, letting this issue regarding crimes against humanity, genocide and victims languishing for far too long - go on and on, while you are in a position that could make the difference is unacceptable.

Please, go into your heart and contemplate better ways to deal with this deeply defining issue. These are our brothers and sisters and we must not forget all of the genocides in the past that when we felt safe that we weren’t going to be asked to do anything about them any longer, we have always said “Never Again”. And we know we don’t mean that, because we are letting it happen again on our watch.

Shame on us.

It is time to be who we can be. We can stop genocide. Yes we CAN.

Sincerely yours,

Sandra Hammel

Use Your Voice to Stop Genocide RI

Leading Rhode Island Sudan Sham 2010 campaign

GENOCIDE WILL only STOP WITH US

I contacted the President using Organization form:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/organizations

STUDENTS LEADING THE WAY ON CAPITOL HILL TODAY - NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Today, a comment waited for my moderating to be posted at one of my past blog post. I have copied the comment below my introductory remarks, here.

I have been an activist to prevent and end genocide since 2004. And because I believed Presidential candidate, Barack Obama meant what he said in regards to Darfur, for the first time in my relatively long life, I went outside my comfort zone to knock on doors and phone bank for him last year. And during that time, was asked to introduce Senator John Kerry to other Obama for America volunteers in the Newport Obama campaign office during Rhode Island's primary. Most of what I said that day was how impressed I was and am with the young people of today. To those jammed into the small office space, I related my experience of the young people that I worked under and with in New Hampshire the week running up to that state's primary. How so impressed I was with the young people's organizing skills, patience, maturity, diligence and dedication. And how proud I was to work along side them. I know this meant a lot to at least one of the volunteers that day, because after he came up to me and told me so with so much appreciation in his body language that someone felt this way and said so. Barack Obama could not have been elected without the work, energy and dedication of the young people.

And I say the same things about the issue of preventing and ending genocide. There a lot of us in the older generation...I grew up in the 1960's, who work on this issue, but there are a lot of college and high school (and junior high) students who have been dedicated to this issue. They are in the forefront of activism to make sure that NEVER AGAIN is not a phrase we haul out at the end of a period of ethnic murders, maiming, rape victims to diffuse our guilt of not acting when the need was there earlier.

Perpetrating and allowing genocide is the ugliest behavior that we as forces of nature have turned our backs on and ignored since before the word genocide was formed to describe murder by association to a group of human beings.

Wrong One For The Job
I have said the United States Special Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, is the wrong person for the job and needs to be replaced ever since the first weeks of his appointment by President Obama on March 18, 2009. The Darfuri refugees and Sudanese dispora haved called for General Gration to be removed.

Post: The New Republic: Fire Our Darfur Envoy Now can be found at www.npr.org


I am a signatory to the Open Letter Sent to Sudan Special Envoy Scott Gration by Sudan Advocates From the U.S., Darfuri Dispora, and Southern Sudan
Read at allafrica.com

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The Comment I Promised

I get so few comments. And it is an honor to repost this one.

At November 9, 2009 1:52:00 PM EST , Ashley Patterson

said...

Today, over 800 student activists converged on Capitol Hill for the largest lobby day to prevent genocide in history.

The students were marching to the Hill at 8:30am to meet with their elected officials and to push Congress to implement the recommendations of the Genocide Prevention Task Force (GPTF) report. As part of an innovative partnership between STAND, the student led division of the Genocide Intervention Network, and WITNESS, the international human rights organization that pioneered video advocacy, the student activists collected 500 video messages from their student body and community. For the first time, these messages were edited to create individual videos for Senators, which the students began hand-delivering to them this morning. View personalized videos for Senators: hub.witness.org/STAND-STUDENT-VIDEOS

With this campaign we are seeing the ‘YouTube generation’ in action – and today, we're seeing them change how citizens are lobbying Congress. Less than a month after the Obama administration unveiled the Sudan policy review, these students are reminding their elected officials and President Obama of the moral and political imperative to bring peace in Sudan today and ensure that other similar conflicts don't occur in the future. End of comment

STAND's youtube channel: www.youtube.com/user/StandAntiGenocide

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Uploaded by StandAntiGenocide

Historic Lobby Day

Today, hundreds of activists are converging on Capitol Hill for the largest lobby day in the history of the anti-genocide movement. The lobby day and protest/rally caps off the last day of the Pledge2Protect conference. The central advocacy goals of today’s lobby day are support for measures aimed to enhance civilian protection in the focus areas and to push Congress to implement the recommendations of the Genocide Prevention Task Force (GPTF) report.

As part of this lobby day, activists from all over the country have prepared video appeals to their lawmakers to reinforce the message that their constituents favor strong action on genocide prevention. A few of the videos can be viewed here.

To view the press release, click here.

» email this page

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Standnow.org

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Source for post below: standnow.org/blog/pledge2protect-making-history

Submitted by janessa on 6 November 2009 - 8:24pm.

in From the ground

I have been to A LOT of of STAND conferences - no surprise since I first got involved in STAND in 2006, way back when I was a junior at Northwestern University in Chicago. Back then, STAND was a start-up run by students who were on fire about ending genocide, but who often didn't have the resources we needed to coordinate large-scale national events. Sitting here today, just three years later, it's crazy and inspiring to think about the differences. Pledge2Protect, which is a collaborative effort between STAND, STAND's parent organization Genocide Intervention Network, Save Darfur, Enough, US Campaign for Burma, and many more, demonstrates the strength and coordination of our movement. In just three years, we've grown and come together in ways I never would have thought possible when I was a student back in Chicago.

Of course, for a cause as urgent as ours, three years seems like an eternity. But let's take a moment to think about our beginnings...

In 2005, "genocide" was not considered a contemporary issue, but one of the past - Rwanda, the Holocaust - things to be memorialized, mourned and remembered, but not actively acted upon. Samantha Power wrote a book, called "A Problem from Hell," decrying the lack of an "anti-genocide constituency." Because there was none, she argued, genocide and mass atrocities had been allowed to unfold. If one could be built, she hypothesized, genocide in the future could be stopped and even prevented. The idea that Americans would rally to a cause thousands of miles from their own doorstep seemed a bit farfetched to many readers.

It's 2009, and 1,000 people are descending on the Capitol Hill to ensure their voices - and their commitment to ending genocide - registers in the halls of power. More than 1,000 active STAND chapters exist on high school and college campuses worldwide. Our president and Secretary of State have committed to fighting genocide with "unflinching resolve." Members of his senior team, including Samantha Power and Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration are hosting a meeting with STAND's Student Director, Layla Amjadi later this week. In three years, have we succeeded at bringing peace to Sudan? No. But we have made unprecedented leaps and bounds towards building a permanent anti-genocide constituency - and thereby, a world without genocide. It will be a long, hard fight, and this weekend we are going to learn more about the challenges we face in Darfur, Congo, Burma and elsewhere around the globe. But we can't forget where we came from just a few years ago, and what we have been able to build with our passion for justice, peace, and protection.

Janessa Goldbeck
Field Director
www.genocideintervention.net

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Turkey Says Bashir to Skip OIC Summit
Read the article at www.voanews.com

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GENOCIDE IS NOT OKAY

USE YOUR VOICE
TO CALL UPON OUR LEADERS
TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT
ABOUT SOMETHING THAT IS VERY WRONG

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

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Add Your Voice to Prevent Genocide
Uploaded by StandAntiGenocide

STAND DECEMBER 3RD TO HELP THOSE OF DARFUR AND BURMA

YOU CAN DO THIS

On December 3rd, students around the world will ask their peers, families, and communities to join them for STANDFast – a fundraising event where participants fast from one luxury item for the day and donate the money that they would have spent on those items to protecting civilians in Darfur and Burma.

Register today at StandNow.org to continue receiving important information about STANDFast. By registering, STAND will be able to help you get press at your event, tell community members in your area about your STANDFast event, and show your elected officials how stopping genocide and mass atrocities in Darfur and Burma needs to be a top priority!

Source: StandNow.org

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND DARFUR TORCH CEREMONY ON YOUTUBE

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Rhode Island Darfur Torch Relay & Ceremony October 27, 2007

Links about the Genocide of the People of Darfur and Why China Is Complicit in the Genocide:

http://www.enoughproject.org/node/658

http://www.standnow.org/

http://www.miafarrow.org/

http://www.darfurgenocide.org/

http://www.stopgenocidenow.org/resources

http://investorsagainstgenocide.googl...

"Why Target China?

While China continues to be Sudan's largest economic and diplomatic ally, the genocide in Darfur continues in Darfur. China has done very little to help end the suffering. China will host the 2008 Olympic Games in August 2008. In doing so, the Chinese government hopes to bask in the glow of the Olympic ideals of global peace and cooperation.

But China's efforts to polish its international image can't hide the fact that it has not done enough to stop genocide in Darfur. The games China is playing in Beijing cannot hide the games that China is playing in Darfur.

China is a rising global power and Sudan's close economic, military, and diplomatic partner. It is the one government in the world -- except Sudan itself -- that can bring an end to genocide in Darfur." Source: http://www.savedarfur.org/page/conten...

Rhode Island Dream for Darfur Torch Relay

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," (Martin Luther King Jr.)

On October 27, 2007, The Rhode Island Dream for Darfur Torch Relay and Ceremony took place in Providence. Ordinary people came together to stand united with others around the world with the unified message to bring the Beijing Olympics theme of "One World, One Dream" to Darfur. With our presence we said "'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.'* We were there to say we will not be silent about Darfur." *Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Keynote speakers were twin nineteen year old Rwandans, Edward and Edwin Mutanguha, freshmen at Salve Regina University in Newport.

Edwin said, "Today, we are all uniting for a common cause, all from different backgrounds, but with one thing in mind, to be responsible for each other and be conscious of what is going on around us. Our world is becoming a global village and it is no longer possible for us to live obliviously and inconsiderately."

Edward spoke from his heart "I would like to remind everybody about something that you have that the rest of the world envies: your FREEDOM. With this freedom, comes rights. I urge you to use your rights as citizens of a free nation to help the people of Darfur obtain their freedom and their right to live."

Music was provided by the Rhode Island Darfur Ensemble.

For photos of the Providence, Rhode Island Torch Relay and Ceremony:

http://ilovemylifebrothersandsisters....

http://ilovemylifebrothersandsisters....

http://ilovemylifebrothersandsisters....

http://ilovemylifebrothersandsisters....

http://ilovemylifebrothersandsisters....

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IF OUR LEADERS WON'T LEAD

ON THE ULTIMATE RIGHT TO LIVING A LIFE

THEN It is Our Torch to Carry

STOPPING GENOCIDE IS A RESPONSITILITY FOR ALL OF US

Genocide flourishes when there is no accountability.

WE CAN’T SAY THAT WE CARE ABOUT JUSTICE

WHEN WE DO NOTHING TO STOP THE INJUSTICE

The President's Comment Phone Line is open Monday through Friday
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
202 - 456 - 1111

email: president@whitehouse.gov

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Call your US Senators & Representatives at

1 - 800 - GENOCIDE

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We each have a voice.

We each have a presence.

We have been called to be human

 in the most basic way

 on this subject.  

Let Us Not Be Silent

Silence Kills  

We are each responsible for our personal silence.

If Peace never begins, Genocide will never end.

Where does Peace begin?

One humanity.

One Human Race.

BE INSPIRED

I CARRY THE TORCH FOR DARFUR

Some things in our lives become important enough to prioritize them. It may be sickness. It may be an accident. It may be sorrow.

But when our humanity can be questioned because we allow a genocide to go on year after year in Darfur ~ what amounts to be a silent screaming out for our attention and our souls needs to be given project status. In other words, genocide is one of those things that should be taken care of as a priority.

US RI Representative James Langevin

Scott Warren, Executive Director of STAND and junior at Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island

Rhode Island Darfur Ensemble

On a rainy day

Edward Mutanguaha, Freshman at Salve Regina University
and citizen of Kigali, Rwanda

Edward Mutanguaha

Edward Mutanguha
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youtube
"How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?...
How many deaths will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died?...
How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?...
How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see?"
Blowin' in the Wind
Sung by Katie Melua

Edward Mutanguha

Sandra Hammel introducing Edward Mutanguha

Rhode Island Darfur Ensemble

Rhode Island Darfur Ensemble

Rhode Island Darfur Ensemble

Torch Holder
Name requested

Torch Holder
Name requested

Salve Regina University students
from Newport, Rhode Island

Sandra Hammel
Organizer of the Dream for Darfur
I CARRY THE TORCH FOR DARFUR
Providence, Rhode Island event
October 27, 2007
Rhode Island Statehouse
Smith Street

This is the fourth batch of pictures of the Torch Relay event. I will be posting more.

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Call 1~800~GENOCIDE
and urge
your U.S. Representative and Senators
to pass the funding fully
for the UN Peacekeepers for Darfur

President Bush's Comment Phone Line
202-456-1111
He needs a push to do something right

save darfur
genocide intervention
darfur genocide

GENOCIDE STOPS WITH US

or it will go on forever

BUSH IS HIDING THAT HE DOESN'T REALLY CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF DARFUR

THE MOVIE DARFUR NOW......
September 30, I was fortunate to see the United States premiere of the film DARFUR NOW as a part of the STAND* conference. I was one of several Save Darfur Coalition's Communities United Leaders who were invited and attended the conference regarding ending the Darfur genocide in Washingtion, D.C. Saturday's meetings were held at the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum. John Prendergast and Jerry Fowler were two of many presenters along with a survivor from Darfur. There were 400 students from across the United States that came together on a grim but real subject of genocide and to participate in ending genocide through educating those who don't know much about it and to pressure politicians. One of the residual benefits of such a gathering is to gain strength from others who have a passion to stop the madness and the thoughtless complicity of the US government. All day Sunday, we Community Leaders met with representatives from the Save Darfur Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network and STAND.

You can see a trailer to Darfur Now at this link:
http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=23052

Over four and a half years and beyond - blustery and empty talk from the President of the USA has manifested nothing close to finding an end to the genocide in Darfur. "We" just don't care unless it is happening to us.

The United States is complicit because we want to protect our connections with the Omar al-Bashir's government so that we can continue to get the intelligence from the Sudanese government about al-quaida.

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I caught on the news tonight that the United States is in Khartoum, Sudan. The reason is not to do with the Darfur genocide, but with the CIA getting intelligence information from the Sudanese goverment about al-quaida. This is the reason we are not doing anything about ending the genocide in Darfur. We don't want to stop the flow of information from Omar al-Bashir's administration about Osama bin Laden. I have known this for a long time. When the American newsman showed up at the meeting in Sudan, the American government official was not happy to be questioned by our newsman, said the newsman. I can't remember which network news station it was on. But he was surprised to see the US at the table along with France and I think it was also Great Britain. Here is an article, "So How Come We Haven't Stopped It?", by John Prendergast in The Washington Post http://www.africa.upenn.edu/afrfocus/afrfocus122906.html
and here is a portion of the article:

The answer is one of the great untold stories of this young century, one in which human rights principles clash with post-9/11 counterterrorism imperatives. During my visits to Darfur in the past few months, I've heard testimony from Darfurians that villages are still burned to the ground, women are still gang-raped by Janjaweed militias and civilians are still terrorized by the Sudanese air force's bombings. As Darfur descends further into hell, all signs explaining the United States' pathetic response point to one man: Osama bin Laden.

In the early 1990s, bin Laden lived in Sudan, the guest of the very regime responsible for the Darfur atrocities. At the time, bin Laden's main local interlocutor was an official named Salah Abdallah Gosh. After 9/11, however, Gosh became a more active counterterrorism partner: detaining terrorism suspects and turning them over to the United States; expelling Islamic extremists; and raiding suspected terrorists' homes and handing evidence to the FBI. Gosh's current job as head of security for the government also gives him a lead role in the regime's counterinsurgency strategy, which relies on the Janjaweed militias to destroy non-Arab villages in Darfur.

The deepening intelligence-sharing relationship between Washington and Khartoum blunted any U.S. response to the state-sponsored violence that exploded in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. U.S. officials have told my colleague Colin Thomas-Jensen and me that access to Gosh's information would be jeopardized if the Bush administration confronted Khartoum on Darfur. And since 2001, the administration had been pursuing a peace deal between southern Sudanese rebels and the regime in Khartoum -- a deal aimed at placating U.S. Christian groups that had long demanded action on behalf of Christian minorities in southern Sudan. The administration didn't want to undermine that process by hammering Khartoum over Darfur.

The people of Darfur never had a chance.

The End

RIGHTS-U.S.: Bush Accused of Complacency, Double-Dealing on Darfur
By Jim Lobe
Find article at this link:
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=28803
a portion of the article is as follows:
activists, who note that Bush himself has been silent on Darfur since the end of last year, are concerned that his reticence actually signals a policy shift spurred by growing covert cooperation between U.S. and Sudan's intelligence services in the so-called ''global war on terror''. Khartoum, which hosted al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden for several years in the 1990s, has tried to persuade Washington of its utility in that respect since shortly after the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had secretly flown Khartoum's intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh, to Washington for high-level meetings with his U.S. counterparts last month despite the fact that he has been accused of directing military attacks in Darfur, the Los Angeles Times reported recently.

The visit, which U.S. officials subsequently confirmed, outraged human rights and Africa activists.

''It's like bringing (Hitler's air force chief Hermann) Goehring and some of those Nazis here during World War Two while the genocide (against the Jews) was still going on,''. Donald Payne, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Africa subcommittee, said Tuesday.

''We've seen a shift in policy and it's very disturbing,'' he added, saying that the House leadership, acting at the administration's behest, had stripped from a 2005 spending bill bipartisan legislation that would have toughened U.S. sanctions against Sudan and called for Bush to seek multilateral sanctions, including an arms embargo, against the government at the United Nations.

End

* STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition – STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition (www.STANDnow.org) comprises more than 700 high school and college chapters throughout the United States and internationally. STAND mobilizes students to take action to stop and prevent genocide by educating, advocating, and fundraising for civilian protection. STAND is the student division of the Genocide Intervention Network.

WE ARE ALL THE KEEPERS OF JUSTICE

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IF OUR LEADERS WON'T LEAD

ON THE ULTIMATE RIGHT TO LIVING A LIFE

THEN WE MUST LEAD THEM.

STOPPING GENOCIDE IS A RESPONSITILITY FOR ALL OF US

Genocide flourishes when there is no accountability.

WE CAN’T SAY THAT WE CARE ABOUT JUSTICE

WHEN WE DO NOTHING TO STOP THE INJUSTICE

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


The President's Comment Phone Line is open Monday through Friday

9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

202 - 456 - 1111

email: president@whitehouse.gov

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Call your US Senators & Representatives at

1 - 800 - GENOCIDE

Tell Your Senators to Get the Bill HR 180 Passed Over Bush's Threat to Veto It

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"Bush is not a disaster waiting to happen.
He is a disaster that has already done enough damage."
My opinion

WHEN TWO WORLDS ARE ONE

I never met him. He saw a flyer I posted on his small college’s campus, Salve Regina University, in Newport, Rhode Island. I was told the students don’t read flyers…not to expect anything from the posting of the Torch Relay that I was organizing for Darfur for our state. www.dreamfordarfur.org I wrote my email address on it and left it in the hands of the person in charge of bulletin boards.

Within a couple of days I received an email from a student. We talked and it was clear from the first sentence or two that the flyer was welcome by Edward. Edward and his twin brother were born in exile from their country of Rwanda in Kampala, Uganda, due to the unrest after the 1994 genocide. He now is attending college 20 minutes from my home. We talked several times on the phone. I went off to Washington, D.C. and Edward and I called each other trying to find funding for him to come to the www.standnow.org National Conference “Make This the Year” (to end genocide). Having failed at getting him funding, we continued until I met him Thursday evening with several socially and morally interested students in supporting efforts to educate about genocide and the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. Edward is totally committed to this.

After the meeting Edward stayed and we shared our views about the genocide, the US and the world. Here is a young man that is conversant in the world’s stage. I sat talking to someone that I had had several phone conversations with and email exchanges.

The difference in our ages is 40 years. But the importance of our meeting is that we can help each other in our similar dedication to educate and act to elevate the issue of man’s inhumanity to others. Here I was hearing a young man, who knew personally what it feels like to have the international community turn its back on a people who were being hacked to death...yes, while we just went about our daily lives’ routines. While we were being inundated with OJ and Monica Lewinsky’s dress stories, we pulled out of Rwanda just as it was getting worse. We abandoned people in dire need. We did the opposite of what we should have been doing.

Matthew 25:31-46

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

As Edward put it: This is a man-made problem so we can change it.”

Edward’s uncle is a high officer in the African Union troops in Darfur right now.

I am currently spending all of my waking hours on the “Carry the Torch for Darfur” event in Providence, Rhode Island for October 27, 2007. (Except for writing this post.) This event is a part of the international and national Dream for Darfur campaign.

After a rehearsal of young people this morning at my house for the Darfur event, I needed a break from all of the pressured concentration on the event preparation, so I sat here at my computer and watched YouTube. Beautiful ones. And the stark contrast was, here on my screen, this is what humans can do…this beautiful work and yet what is happening in Darfur and the complicity of the rest of the world is the other side of what humans can do. A view from a distance is always easier. But......but, as Edward and I sat there in agreement over the fact that we must, must get well-informed and stop avoiding the truth of these horrific stories of our inhumanity. Inhumanity that includes this shameful, ignorant behavior of leaving a desperate people languish because we’re okay, so that’s all we care about. As Edward says he believes in karma...that what we do and don’t do in the name of what is good and right will come back to haunt us. What we are doing in Iraq will have repercussions generations down the historical road. And we both agree that those consequences will not be the ones that we HOPE we will be getting. Ignorance is not bliss and we have a President who has taken us down a road that will not have a good “return”.

I love the arts. Music, drama, dance, art work. Beauty really that is created at the hands and the conceptions of humans. I find these Youtube submissions an example of “Wow…that is what we as humans can do that is extraordinarily awesome and inspiring." Go to links and watch them in full-screen by clicking at the lower right of the little YouTube screen.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOhb7uc8IGU
Let Me Fall
Cirque Du Soleil "Bungee" from the Saltimbanco spectacular, performed to Josh Groban's collaboration for Cirque

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4KQ1EUhjI8
Cirque du soleil Water Ballet

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhHixicVS4k
Cirque du soleil
Show: Varekai - Handbalancing on Canes by Olga Pikhienko

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The Beijing Summer 2008 Olympics theme is
ONE WORLD, ONE DREAM

Nice thought, but China needs to be responsive to the Dream for Darfuri families who have not only been having genocide perpetrated on them by Sudan's governmentally-sponsored janjaweed - but China has blocked action on the United Nations Security Council many, many times. The Security Council's unanimous vote on July 31, 2007 to send U.N. Peacekeepers into Darfur must receive continued leverage by all and especially by China.

wwww.dreamfordarfur.org