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| June 24, 2008 |
MIA FARROW AND DREAM FOR DARFUR'S
POSITION ON MILITARY SECURITY FIRMS
June 24, 2008
There has been some press coverage about Darfur advocate Mia Farrow's interaction with Blackwater.
The Financial Times inaccurately reported on June 18, 2008 that Farrow met with Blackwater. [Read the inaccurate Financial Times <http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto061820082108315688> story; other media are now also misreporting this based on the Financial Times story.]
While Farrow has not met with Blackwater, Dream for Darfur has been in contact with the firm by email. The following is Mia Farrow's statement regarding contact with Blackwater and other military security firms:
Statement of Mia Farrow:
"In the face of the utter failure of world governments to protect defenseless civilians in Darfur, we feel a measure of the urgency and desperation of this abandoned population.
The Khartoum regime continues to place obstacles in the path of the full deployment of a protection force of 26,000 authorized by the UN last July. The 9,000 peacekeepers and civilian police currently on the ground in Darfur have been unable to provide protection for displaced civilians in camps, aid workers, or for humanitarian food convoys - the lifeline for 2.7 million people.
It is neither advisable nor possible for military contractors to enter Sudan. But at least one security firms has claimed that it can prepare UN battalions to protect camps and convoys with even fewer than the 9,000 troops already deployed. If this is so, then it would be remiss not to find out how."