❧❧❧ Whatever you can do or dream, you can BEGIN IT. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Goethe ❧❧❧
❧❧❧ You were born whole, not broken. Sandra Hammel ❧❧❧
Monday, November 19, 2012
JUSTICE IS RESPONSIBILITY OF EVERYONE
This article is from the UU (Unitarian Universalist) World magazine
Winter 2012, Vol XXVI
www.uuworld.org
Full credit to the magazine and the author of the article: Tim DeChristopher
from page 32 of the article:
Cowardice invites just as many imitators as courage. If we believe that taking a courageous stand for justice has a deep spiritual resonance throughout humanity, then we must accept that cowering in the face of injustice has an impact just as profound. Every time we choose convenience over principle, we strengthen the status quo and reinforce the existing power structure. Every time we choose comfort over justice, we help build those walls of oppression. This means that we hold some degree of responsibility for the injustice around us.
Morally there are no sidelines in a struggle between oppressors and the oppressed. All that oppressors ask from the rest of us is to mind our own business, so by attempting neutrality we implicitly side with the oppressors. If we are truly an interconnected web, then we cannot simply blame the actions of the powerful for the injustice in our society; injustice is also the result of countless inactions by those with a responsibility to our fellow human beings."
Click on image to enlarge
Click on image to enlarge
The text on the picture: "Those who write the rules are those who profit from the status quo. If we want to change that status quo, we might have to work outside of those rules because the legal pathways available to us have been structured precisely to make sure we don't make any substantial change."
Photos of Bombardment killing Nuba Indigenous People in Kurchi village (Sudan).
Sudan ~ where President Obama once said the Darfur genocide must be stopped. Now, he supports those who commit the genocide (Khartoum), because of politics.
"These photos were taken on Sunday, 26th June, (2011) in Kurchi village in the Nuba Mountains by Younis Jamal, a field officer with Nuba Relief and Rehabilitation and Development Organization, the sister organization of the SPLA/M (NRRDO), who wants them to be circulated widely, so the world can see what the Sudanese military is doing to unarmed civilians in South Kordofan.
Sudan's Al-Bashir is distinguishing himself by conducting three ethnic cleansings simultaneously; Darfur, Abyei and South Kordofan. Nothing stops him."
I sometimes write the President about genocide in Sudan. Three times I got a reply, but that was in the early days of his administration.
Tonight I wrote the letter below via www.whitehouse.gov/contact. Politicians claim that when you vote for them and they win that they have a mandate from the people. But assumption is presumptuous. So often, we vote against someone and not for someone.
July 4, 2011
Dear President Obama,
I believe compassion and empathy are the best of our human quallities As a human being who has worked since 2004 to bring attention to the Darfur genocide, I have watched as two USA administrations, the Bush and Obama, have stood idly by while Darfuris & now Sudanese in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan get bombed by Khartoum. Your administration has chosen to side with Khartoum. I want to let you know that your administration has left me thoroughly frustrated and angry.
Never before had I involved myself in a campaign until your first one for President. I gave money to your campaign repeatedly, though I could not afford it. I rented a car to drive from where I reside in Rhode Island to volunteer to go door-to-door in NH for the week running up to the NH primary. I worked here in RI doing the same, but more comprehensively. I phone banked for you in NJ.
I say all this to tell you this: I cannot vote for a Republican for President this next election. But I cannot do any of the things that I did previously for your campaign this time. Why? I hope you get this letter and wonder that very question.You had me believing that your word was dependable. You had me believing you would be a President that I could be proud of.But I no longer believe that. I have watched you very closely-what you have said and done and what you haven’t said and done. My feelings of being betrayed by you started soon after Scott Gration spoke once you appointed him Special Envoy to Sudan. He obviously spoke for you. And he chose supporting Khartoum over the people Khartoum systematically has been eliminating.
I will be forced to vote against the Republican Presidential candidate this time and that will mean I will have to vote for you. I want you to know though you will get my vote, however you have lost something more important. My respect for you. And my trust in what you say that you will do. I made a small film for a Compassion Film Festival, DARFUR – THE ABANDONED GENOCIDE, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YG-6mQx8jI
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and in the film, it has you saying over and over what led me to believe that you would not let the people down of Darfur.But you have done just that. No President that I can put my trust in would have done this.
The Darfur genocide “IS a stain on our souls”, as you said once. And genocide will go on as long as there is no accountability. Whenever you have a choice between right and wrong about genocide as a leader, there is only one that should allow you to sleep.
Sandra Hammel
This appears after you click "Send"~
Thank you for contacting the White House.
President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible Administration in history. That begins with taking comments and questions from you, the American people, through our website.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission UNMIS has been a part of the problem in South Kordofan, where many Nuba, although northern Sudanese, joined south Sudan’s war for a democratic “New Sudan.” Established in March 2005, after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the 22-year civil war, the mission was headed until 2010 by a man who colleagues say was given to calling the Nuba “monkeys.” On his watch, the lack of initiative of UNMIS and perceived complicity with Khartoum was a cause of deep frustration, and anger, to its most committed staff. UNMIS was also spectacularly uninformed about the reality of South Kordofan.
In 2008, I published a report that detailed the resurgence of government-supported militias in South Kordofan – including in a village called Al-Fayd – and concluded that “many now view war in the Nuba Mountains as inevitable.” UNMIS pooh-poohed the report, which it said was “far from the reality on the ground.” Fast-forward to April this year, on the eve of war, and an attack by militia who, according to UNMIS, “killed … looted … burnt houses and raped.” The village? Al-Fayd.
How little UNMIS knew. How little it cared to know! And how it has come to haunt the mission now that its own men are, in its own words, facing increasing “intimidation and obstruction” in South Kordofan – including from the militias it said did not exist.
July 3, 2011 — Over the past four weeks, Government of Sudan (GoS) troops and allied militia have carried out a vicious and murderous attack on the people of the Nuba Mountains in the Sudanese state of South Kordafan. This is the very same government that perpetrated genocide in Darfur and continues to carry out devastating attacks on the region. Tellingly, Sudan’s president, Omer Al-Bashir, is already wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur.
MIGs and Antonov bombers have created havoc in the Nuba Mountains; farms, tukuls, and churches have been burned to the ground; close to 100,000 people have been forced from their villages out into the wilderness and up into barren mountains; and untold numbers have been killed.
In Kadugli, the capital of South Kordafan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have gone door to door in search of suspected members and supporters of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) and executed them on the spot. GoS troops have also planted land mines throughout the area. In Dilling, GoS soldiers carried out their own search for members and supporters of the SPLM and upon locating them slit their throats.
While there are UN troops (United Nations Mission in Sudan or UNMIS) in the Nuba Mountains they have largely served no purpose. If truth be told, they are actually exacerbating the situation. First, they do little more than largely observe the violence and certainly nothing to attempt to halt it. Second, two sources inside the Nuba Mountains, both of whom must remain unnamed, reported that Egyptian soldiers with UNMIS were seen raping local women in Kadugli as the latter sought sanctuary from the surrounding violence. Third, when a massive group of civilians sought assistance at UNMIS headquarters in Kadugli they were purportedly told to leave and go to Dilling, some 120 miles away — a horrific journey on foot in the face of the ongoing attacks. Finally, there are reports that UNMIS personnel told people to head north when seeking safety, thus apparently leading them directly into the hands of the GoS troops. It is no wonder that rumors are afloat that those Egyptian soldiers with UNMIS are on the payroll of Khartoum.
Various reasons are aswirl as to why GoS troops attacked the people of the Nuba Mountains. First, some four weeks ago, Al-Bashir threatened that if the people of the region did not readily accept the newly elected Ahmed Haroun, who is wanted by the ICC on over 40 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the horrors perpetrated in Darfur, as their governor, they would suffer the consequences. In fact, in a speech in Kadugli, Al-Bashir stated that his soldiers would chase the Nuba people up into the mountains as they did in the 1990s, leaving them without food to starve to death once again. Second, when members of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), who, along with the vast majority of people in the Nuba Mountains, voiced their vast disappointment that Abdel Aziz, a popular and former commander of the SLPA, had been cheated out of the governorship as a result of a rigged election and also refused to take off their uniforms when ordered to do so, GoS troops attacked them. Third, many believe that the real reason behind the attack is that Al-Bashir wants to gain absolute control over South Kordafan and the border area with South Sudan in order to strengthen his hand in negotiations over Abeyi, a oil rich region straddling the border between the north and the south. Finally, there are rumors that Al-Bashir wishes to gain control of as much land as possible along the border, an area that is poorly demarcated, as he also prepares for future negotiations with the new state of South Sudan.
Al-Bashir’s propensity for killing those with whom he disagrees, who question his authority and/or policies, who challenge his dictates, whose land he desires, and/or who he looks upon with distain and wants gone is well documented. He’s done it previously in the Nuba Mountains (in the 1990s when he carried out genocidal acts and virtually starved people to death), in Darfur between 2003 and today during which over 400,000 blacks Africans perished, and he is back at it once again in the Nuba Mountains. And the world should never forget or overlook the fact that just because the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has been signed by the north and south, Al-Bashir, as president of Sudan, oversaw a large part of the north-south war that resulted in some two million deaths.
Clearly, Al-Bashir specializes in perpetrating crimes against humanity, genocidal actions, and genocide, and he does so whenever he wishes in the belief that he can do so with impunity — the ICC or any other court or tribunal be damned.
For the sake of the people of the Nuba Mountains, for the sake of civilization, for the sake of our own decency, we, and the rest of the world, must show Omar Al-Bashir that he is wrong — and that impunity does not reign.
Samuel Totten is a genocide scholar based at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He served as one of the 24 investigators with the U.S. Atrocities Documentation Project in eastern Chad. His most recent book is An Oral and Documentary History of the Darfur Genocide (Praeger Security International, 2010). He was last in the Nuba Mountains in January 2011 conducting research for a new book, Genocidal Actions Against the Nuba Mountains People: Interviews with Survivors of Mass Starvation and Other Atrocities.
By MAGGIE FICK, Associated Press – Monday July 4, 8:45 am USA ET, 2011
JUBA, Sudan – Sudan's president will speak at independence celebrations in the south this weekend, officials said Monday, just days after he vowed to continue a military offensive in a border region.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir supported the January referendum that paved the way for the oil-rich south to secede and become the world's newest country on Saturday.
However, recent tensions in the border state of South Kordofan and the disputed region of Abyei have raised fears that the split could be a violent one.
The southern government said Monday that 30 African heads of state including al-Bashir will travel to Juba for this weekend's celebrations. British Foreign Secretary William Hague and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also are expected to attend.
Many issues remains unresolved around the split including oil rights and wealth sharing. Representatives from both sides spent have spent weeks negotiating in Ethiopia's capital.
Two decades of civil war with northern Sudan decimated the oil-rich south and left more than 2 million dead on both sides.
The south lacks infrastructure and basic services, is aid-dependent and suffers from frequent floods during its five-month-long rainy season.
Despite its rich oil reserves, the south has no refineries and must transport its oil through pipelines to a northern port on the Red Sea.
Al-Bashir said in a June 22 speech that he would block the south's access to the pipelines unless a favorable wealth-sharing agreement was reached.
U.N. peacekeepers are in the northern border state of South Kordofan, but a spokesman for the Sudanese government said Sunday they should leave immediately after the south becomes independent.
Such a move could leave tens of thousands of southern-supporting civilians without U.N. protection. A U.N. spokeswoman in Southern Sudan said any such decision would be made by the U.N. Security Council.
Tensions in the area have displaced more than 70,000 people.
Western advocacy groups have warned that al-Bashir's government is attempting ethnic cleansing and even genocide in the region against the Nuba people, a black African group targeted in the 1990s in government-sponsored violence that left as many 200,000 Nubans dead.
My opinion: The Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama was premature, to say the least.
October 9, 2009 Obama: Nobel Peace Prize is 'call to action'
President Obama said Friday that he was "surprised and deeply humbled" by the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
The committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
Obama said he viewed the decision less as a recognition of his own accomplishments and more as "a call to action."
The decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise. Nominations for the prize had to be postmarked by February 1, only 12 days after Obama took office. The committee sent out its solicitation for nominations last September, two months before Obama was elected president.
ILIGHT this candle for all Darfuris alive this first day of 2011. Genocide will only stop with us demanding it - Our leaders have taught us this.
Exclusive: Southern Sudanese Return Ahead of Referendum
12/2/10 | Matt Brown ....................................................................................................
The following is the first in a regular series of multimedia dispatches from veteran journalist Tim Freccia reporting from southern Sudan.
Tensions are rising along the border between North and South Sudan. Many feel that this oil-rich region could be the front lines of Sudan’s next civil war if an independence vote does not go smoothly.
With nearly a month to go before the South votes on independence from the North, thousands of southerners living in the North are flooding back to their southern homelands in convoys of ancient, dilapidated buses. The southerners are returning, they say, out of fear of potential reprisals in the North should the country split into two.
Veteran multimedia journalist, Tim Freccia, went to Abyei and Bentiu, towns near the volatile border, and documented the migration of southerners. In this first of a regular series of multimedia dispatches from Southern Sudan – exclusively for Enough and Not On Our Watch– Freccia covers a Government of Southern Sudan-organized effort to bus residents back home in time for the scheduled January 9 vote.
Many of the returnees are stuck in limbo in the administrative capitals of Bentiu and Abyei without the means to continue the journey to their home villages. In Bentiu, returnees have set up makeshift displacement camps in schools and churches. They lack basic needs such as food, water and health care.
Residents of Abyei, a contested border region, have reason to fear that they could be caught in the middle of a war. Clashes between the North and South in 2008 razed the town and sent thousands fleeing for their lives. They know what a return to war would look like.
The returnees have been away from the South for so long that many of them are finding it difficult to fit in, Taban Deng, the Governor of Unity State, said in an interview from Bentiu. Still, most are happy to be back in their homeland and reunited with family, despite the hardships they face.
“They see themselves as foreigners. They don’t see themselves as belonging to that place,” Deng said. “They are facing difficulties here but they are happy. They think this is just a temporary thing. This condition will disappear.”
Click post title to go to George Clooney: ‘The World is Watching’ – New Satellite Sentinel Project Aims to Deter War in Sudan
Use Your Voice to Stop Genocide RI
Genocide will only stop with us demanding it -Our leaders have taught us this
"The most important things belong first, not last or never."
Words of the Earth by Cedric Wright
If you want peace, work for justice إذا كنت تريد السلام ، أعمل من أجل العدالة
Amistad ~ a movie which partly was shot here in Rhode Island, Newport included. My favorite scene ~ ................................................
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"…The natural state of mankind is instead - and I know this is a controversial idea - is freedom.Is freedom.And the proof is the length to which a man, woman or child will go to regain it once taken.He will break loose his chains, he will decimate his enemies, he will try and try and try against all odds, against all prejudices to get home. …who we are is who we were…give us the courage to do what is right..."
Newport, Rhode Island played a leading role during the Colonial Period in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. By 1776, several thousand African slaves lived, work and eventually died in this New England seaport. At the peak of the Colonial Period they comprised nearly one third of the total town population with one in three Newport families owning at least one slave. Source: newport history
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Here in Newport, Rhode Island we have several physical ‘touch stones’ to remind us of the legacy left by those Africans and later African Americans who graced our city with their presence. From 1696 when the first documented slave ship, the ‘Sea Flower’, touched our shores, to the present, African Americans have worked, raised their families and prospered in the city by the sea.
The American Slave Trade and Newport share similar origins. Newport, the most prosperous of colonial American ports, saw unprecedented growth throughout the 18th century; mostly from the export and trade of rum, spermaceti candles and slaves. By 1784, the fledgling state government abolished slavery.
Many of the slaves that came to Newport’s shore would arrive, like most goods, at the Long Wharf. These slaves would be auctioned off to the highest bidders at the Granary (market), which is today known as the Brick Market at the foot of Washington Square.
If colonial Newport was known as one of America’s most active slave ports, it was equally known as one of the new country’s most liberal communities for the pursuit of religious freedom. This unique atmosphere of religious tolerance would lead to the demise of popular support of human bondage led by two of America’s first humanitarians and abolitionists; Reverend Samuel Hopkins and Reverend Ezra Stiles of the First and Second Congregational Churches. Both men preached fiery sermons from their pulpits against the evils of slavery. Because of the dedication and vision of these two men, and the decline of Newport as a major trading port after the Revolutionary War, slavery would end in Newport by the commencement of the 19th century.
Where did these slave and free Africans live and work in early Newport? What were they like? Do any of these sites exist in Newport today? Numerous sites exist today that were built, lived in, or in some way touched by Newport’s long history with the African and African American community. Source and for more information ~ www.eyesofglory
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“…unless we all have plenty
one of us will become a thief and the ghief will make you angry
you will hurt him
this will hurt his children
they will punish you
this will hurt your children
they will punish his children
and that’s how it begins
to believe in man is to know
peace will not work if just one man alive
is unjust
if one man alive
is ignorant
or hungry
or crazy
or ashamed
FOR we have seen if only one of us
decides to pull the plug, the millions of us can kiss
the world good-bye
whether we like it or not.
From Joseph Pintauro’s little book “to believe in man”
Illustrated by Sister Corita Kent
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Click the post title for Newport history regarding slavery
This is the most exciting link that I have ever posted....these young people - going to school in exile due to an on-going government sponsored genocide in their home country - have been provided video cameras and are showing us their resilience and their spirit which is nothing short of inspiring. Do NOT Miss This>iactivism
This is most likely the first time in history that the living survivors of an ongoing genocide have been able to freely communicate with the free world in their own words. No reporters, no government censorship. These are Darfur refugees writing in their own words, expressing their true feelings and sharing their amazing lives with us. May we listen, may we learn and may we act.
In the last two days, as part of the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools program school children from Darfur have connected to children and classrooms in Chicago, Hawaii, and Connecticut…LIVE! Gabriel tells us, “today the kids spend extended time reading and sending messages between them and the sister schools in the U.S.! They are learning the keyboard fast, and they know what they want to say. “
The team is on Day 7 of i-ACT 9. They have been answering the question, "Why Darfur?" with 100 answers throughout this trip. Follow along as Gabriel and KTJ give us inspiring reasons 42 through 55.
On behalf of the i-ACT team Jeremiah
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This is from Gabriel ~
DARFUR DREAM TEAM CONNECTS DARFURI AND U.S. STUDENTS
Posted by Enough Team on Dec 15, 2010 Darfuri students learn how to use CommKit to exchange video, photos and written messages with American students. (i-ACT). Photo credit: I-ACT, Gabriel Stauring
When we arrive at Djabal, just before sunset, we are welcomed as if we're returning home—word gets out fast! We have to leave within the hour, but before I get in the car, I hear, "Gabriel." Our good friend Rahma, a bright seventh grader, is there with his huge smile. This is our fifth trip to the camp, and spending time with Rahma is one of the highlights.
When walking through the camp and having conversations with refugees about our lives, it is sometimes easy to forget that the people here have experienced extreme violence and lost so much. Many of the children have seen things no child should ever witness. The horrors in their past is not helped by the uncertainty in their future. With all of these uncertainties and challenges in their past, present, and future, it is always surprising that, when asked about what they value the most and where they find hope, their answer is always: “Education!”
The beauty of the Sister Schools Program concept is that it creates a mutually beneficial relationship in which students learn from each other and expand their horizons. Schools in the United States engage in creative fundraising efforts to support their sister schools in the camps, but the program also allows students and communities halfway across the world to connect with the refugees at a very personal level, sharing information about their daily lives and becoming friends.
We already are seeing some of the results from the relationships. Two of the schools in Djabal have new classrooms, made of concrete blocks with concrete floors and doors and windows that actually lock. There are blackboards on the walls and desks are arriving soon, while much-needed teacher training and textbook purchases have taken place. And much more is being planned. There is already construction underway to complete more of these classrooms, with the end goal of completely renovating all six schools in Djabal.
Our current trip is ambitious. Even after we leave Djabal, a place with no infrastructure and a population with no experience in online technology, the refugee students and teachers will be able to connect to U.S. students through a simplified online social network. We've started using the technology "Commkit” with the refugee students and they are having a blast learning how to connect—from the basics of using a keyboard, to the idea of sending messages up through a satellite and down onto another continent. What we've seen is that the young Darfuris, just like young Americans, are eager and able to quickly take on the new technology in an almost organic way.
You can follow and participate in our current i-ACT Expedition to Djabal and Goz Amer refugee camps by visiting either the Darfur Dream Team website and Facebook page or the i-ACT website and Facebook page. Once you meet the people of the camps, I know that you will want to keep the conversation going. Katie-Jay, James, and I feel privileged to be able to visit the refugees and work with them on this program. Our team back home is amazing in keeping us connected. I hope that you're able to experience some of what we experience on this side.
Gabriel Stauring is the Co-Founder and Director of i-ACT, an advocacy organization that harnesses the power of video and the internet. They are currently in eastern Chad, visiting Darfuri refugee camps to reconnect with refugees and bring their stories back to the United States on behalf of Enough's Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program.
No one wants to eat the same thing for seven years.
Follow Jimiya as she collects rations for her family of 3 to last them a month. She gets sugar, cereal, oil, yellow split peas, grain and some soap. ....................................................
Won't you use your voice? Darfuris have been put on the back burner by our President and many other leaders on the planet and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has put them on the front burner.
GENOCIDE ISN'T A SUBJECT THAT PERPETRATORS WANT US TO BE CURIOUS ABOUT
AND THEY HAVE PRETTY MUCH HAD THEIR WAY
AND OUR COMPLICITY IS NECESSARY
AND OUR SILENCE IS NECESSARY
AND OUR NOT HOLDING PERPETRATORS ACCOUNTABLE IS NECESSARY
TO HAVE AN ON-GOING GENOCIDE FOR OVER FIVE YEARS
AND THAT IS WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON IN SUDAN
I am just a person who believes like most informed people of this planet that there is a genocide that has been going on for too long upon our brothers and sisters of Darfur, Sudan. The U.S. government has called it genocide since 2004. I most recently wrote about it at this post And We've Known It Is Genocide and Yet.
I am an ordinary person who has taken this human rights cause on since 2004. I give speeches about this issue in my state, have lobbied my U.S. Senators and Representatives and President Bush repeatedly about it, attended and volunteered at national rallies in Washington, D.C. and Central Park in New York City, organized a Rhode Island Dream For Darfur Torch Relay and Ceremony in conjunction with the International effort of Torch Relays in countries that have had and are having genocides reign over their people, as well as other countries around the world, written many letters to the editors published in my local newspaper in Rhode Island, The Newport Daily News, blogged about this on-going crime, been an active member of
and as a community activist leader of www.savedarfur.org I receive updated information almost daily from the non-profit organization, but also from a Darfuri man, Mohamed Suleiman who has daily contact with those on the ground in Sudan and Chad. He keeps me and other citizen activists informed about the current crimes and torture that we would otherwise not know. Today, I received this email from him:
I was asked to work as a Darfuri in Radio Afia Darfur in September 2008.
Radio Afia Darfur is operated from MBN (Middle East Broadcast Network) facility in Virginia. The Radio program is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department to the BBG (Broadcasting Board of Government - U.S. Congress).
I moved from California to Virginia while leaving my family and shutting down my business.
At work, I found out that the 2 editors, who are in the Darfur department are from the Nile North of Sudan: 1-Elzubair O. Altyeb (same tribe as Al-Bashir). 2- Zahrat Abuzeid (from the far Nile North).
Their region is very important when it comes to Darfur.
From day one and on following days and months they made it clear to us that:
1- Darfur is humanitarian problem, not genocide and no ethnic targeting.
2- IDP (internal displaced people) and the refugees when contacted should talk about peace and need for clothes, water, etc.. but not to voice their opinion about Sudan Governments actions ( this one and before). This is for them is propaganda.
3- Ocampo and International Criminal Court are out to destroy Sudan (which means to them Khartoum and North Sudan).
4- Save Darfur and other advcocacy organizations are seen as Jewish and Zionist organizations with Agendas in Sudan.
5- Reports and news should be dumbed down (focus on programs like culture and heritage).
6-We Darfurians are compelled to read news and reports in high level Arabic language. Arabic language in Sudan is symbol of the dominant culture.
We Darfurians, the three of us, were vocally critical of the blatant distortion. We were threatened that they can replace us with any Darfurians and there are tens of them lined for our jobs, then we were marginalized. Elzubair and Zaharat started to do almost everything and ignoring us. They work late and six to seven days per week just to render us useless. They decided to make an example of their control. On Tuesday December 16th ~ I was called to the new manager's office (William Sabatini- started December 1st) and there was Alzubair and Zaharat with the personnel manager and I was told that my employment is terminated effective immediately. I asked the reasons and he said this is the end of probation period and he retrieved recommendations (meaning Elzubair and Zahrat) to do that.
I said to him:
Firstly I need the reasons in writing in a letter.
Secondly, this termination is unfair and unjust and has nothing to do with the work here and has everything to do with what is going on in Darfur and Sudan.
I pointed to Zahart and AlZubair and said: These are from the North, they are protecting the status quo.
I asked Zaharat: how many people of your relative lost their lives in Darfur Genocide? She could not reply.
I said I know by name 31 of my relatives perished in this Genocide. The manager's demeanor changed and said: I apologize to hear about your loss there.
I said Genocide still is going on. Alzubair laughed. I said to the manager: you see - he is laughing! That is how insensitive they are to what is going in Darfur.
Again I asked about the written letter of termination. Already Alzubair and Zaharat had interviewed Darfuris from tribes not targeted by the government and Janjaweed. Those who can be as tokens to them.
I will never sell out those who are toiling in the camps in Darfur and eastern Chad. NEVER.
End of Mohamed's email.
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If you would like to get more information about Mohamed, please let me know.
This should not be happening here in the USA.
Join one of these groups to be a part of the answer to stopping genocide www.savedarfur.org
“We don’t have to wait for some great politician to be our champion.
We ARE the Champion we’ve been waiting for.
Let us Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make the Difference
Let us STOP “Waiting for the World to Change”.
Get Inspired
By
BEING the INSPIRED
The Sudanese self-appointed, President Omar al-Beshir has an ally, China
who has been in the business of supporting the al-Beshir regime in order to get Sudan’s oil.
The collaboration of the Sudanese government with the Arab Janjaweed have been targeting the Darfuri people - targeting that fits the definition of genocide - for six years this February.
The international community of governments has virtually done nothing affective to show that genocide is unacceptable.
And all genocide needs to thrive -
is what has been happening.No accountability.
Words with no integrity.
Words of care by President Bush have proven to be just words.
You and me.
If WE care – what difference can we make?
Plenty.
Get informed.
Be moral.
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CNN's Christiane Amanpour traveled to the world's killing fields to understand the world's indifference, even as courageous voices tried to "Scream Bloody Murder." A worldwide investigation and two-hour documentary, premiering on CNN/US at 9 p.m. ET/PT December 4 and on CNN International at 0200 GMT December 5.
Additional dates and times: • CNN/US: 8 p.m. December 6; 3 a.m. and 8 p.m. December 7; and 3 a.m. December 8 (All times ET) • CNN International: 1000, 1700 December 5; 1200, 2000 December 6; 0100, 0600, 2200 December 7 (All times GMT)
Additional dates and times: • CNN/US: 8 p.m. December 6; 3 a.m. and 8 p.m. December 7; and 3 a.m. December 8 (All times ET) • CNN International: 1000, 1700 December 5; 1200, 2000 December 6; 0100, 0600, 2200 December 7 (All times GMT)
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'Scream Bloody Murder': CNN's Unblinking Look at Genocide
Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 4, 2008; Page C03
Offered perhaps as a grim antidote to all the chirpy, cheery holiday specials glutting the airwaves this time of year, "CNN Presents: Scream Bloody Murder," a definitely unflinching history of genocide, premieres tonight on CNN. The network's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, conducts the class, calling genocide "the world's most feared crime."
Genocide might also be called the unthinkable inevitable, since it is always condemned when discovered and yet continues to recur, wiping out entire populations, entire generations, entire cultures. The word was not invented until 1944, Amanpour says, but of course, there were examples of genocide long before it was identified.
The vilest, most infamous and most organized commission of this ultimate crime was, inarguably, Adolf Hitler's attempt to eliminate all Jews from Europe during World War II. Amanpour says the United States and its allies were aware of the slaughter but "refused" to bomb the death camps or, as many people advocated, destroy the railroad tracks leading to them. A Holocaust survivor says Hitler's anti-Semitic rampage "wasn't a priority" for the Allies -- although after the war, the crime and some of the criminals were dealt with at Nuremberg.
Elie Wiesel is the world's best-known authority on the Holocaust, but he is also an advocate for other cultures wracked by genocide. He is seen early in the program during a segment on the genocide in Cambodia at the end of the Vietnam War. "Nobody believed us," an anguished priest laments, and Wiesel understands. "Better not to believe," Wiesel says, "because if you believe, you don't sleep nights." The nightmare that the Turks visited upon the Armenians is also covered, though briefly.
Later, Amanpour takes George Herbert Walker Bush and his administration to task for failing to intercede when Saddam Hussein rained terror down on Iraq's own citizens, the Kurds, in the late 1980s. Bush later turned the proverbial blind eye to mass murder in Bosnia, Amanpour says, with the president growling at a news conference that "we are not going to get bogged down in some guerrilla warfare."
Although Bush ignored the slaughter of the Kurds, he grabbed a saber and began rattling it when Saddam invaded Kuwait -- and thus threatened the flow of oil and wealth out of the Mideast. Now that was going too far! Oil-rich Kuwait plucked at Bush's heartstrings as the dying Kurds had not: "We're dealing with Hitler revisited," he declared, adding one of his trademark threats, "This will not stand."
But Amanpour is just as hard on Bill Clinton for his response to Rwanda when the military was found to have murdered "hundreds of thousands" of men, women and children there. The Clinton administration's policy was "a failure," Amanpour says, and she includes a scene from a Clinton news conference in which he treats one of her accusations snidely: "There have been no 'constant flip-flops,' Madame," he huffs. His indignation seems false and hollow now.
CNN is celebrating 25 years of reports by star reporter Amanpour, although to attach a documentary on genocide to anything resembling a "celebration" is not very good form. Nor is it encouraging to hear Amanpour implicitly praising herself and her own courage when dealing with genocide of recent years: "Day after day, I reported the story," she says of one crisis -- and later, she notes of the shelling of Sarajevo, "I was there, reporting on the scene."
The use of a dramatic musical score, though restrained, comes across as another unnecessary intrusion; pictures as dramatic as those showing the victims of genocide don't need any underscoring or audio hype.
Amanpour ends the program with a look at the United Nations and its role in preventing and condemning genocide throughout the world, a role she contends the organization has seldom embraced with zeal. In fact, Amanpour says, "the United Nations is powerless to force its members to act even in the face of mass murder." The special is timed to the upcoming 60th anniversary of the U.N. convention on genocide.
Some may find the program tough to take at holiday time, but in fact it seems especially powerful during a season in which "peace on Earth" and "good will toward men" are being extolled from street corners.
"Scream Bloody Murder" isn't subtle, but then the subject rather precludes subtlety -- and instead demands the kind of doggedly powerful approach that Amanpour brings to it.
CNN Presents: Scream Bloody Murder (two hours) airs tonight at 9 on CNN.
We have a moral obligation in this country to speak out against our government's actions if we believe in our hearts that something is wrong or if our government needs to take a stand when it refuses to. That is who we should be and what we should have the courage to live out. I believe - it's an unspoken creed of decency.
I love my life. I love where I live. And I am passionate about my passions. I love to dance. Necessary to live: music, piano, singing, writing, acting, painting.
I have been fighting for and supporting the arts all my adult life. Since 2004, I have been working with other activists to end the Darfur genocide.
I have traveled to Europe many times since my early twenties. Places I have been: many USA states including Hawaii, Montreal, Canada, Barbados, France, Spain, Luxembourg, England, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Germany - and have wonderful memories.
My last trip was in May - June 2013 to Spain.
I would like to travel to Europe and Kyoto, Japan.
I love the southwest where I have visited Hopi, Navajo, Zia and San Idlefonso potters.
Life is exciting and I intend to live it full-out to the end.
B.S. and M.M., both in music
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Khartoum, Sudan Stop Genocide Time
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RAFA NADAL -BRING BACK LONG PANTS - SLEEVELESS TOPS
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Darfur - The Abandoned Genocide - a video by Sandra Hammel
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Genocide is not only a word,
it is crying of the whole human race.
There is nothing redeeming about being silent
when speaking up is the humane thing to do.
The honor and integrity of the human race is at stake.
