MiaFarrow.org |
Humanitarian and Advocacy Information |
Archives
| October 31, 2009 |
This elusive, brutal guerrilla group led by Joseph kony continues to destroy villages, murder and mutilate civilians and steal hundreds of children. They are continually on the move, living deep in dense, remote forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and south Sudan. The LRA has no political agenda but is propelled by Kony-designed ‘religion’.
Earlier this year in south Sudan, members of the LRA killed hundreds of civilians and kidnapped children for use as soldiers, porters and sex-slaves. They forcing thousands of terrified villagers into Western Equatoria. Now, two incidents, possibly involving Kony's militia, have been reported in recent weeks in the south's Bahr al-Ghazal region, which is wedged between CAR and the Darfur region.
South Sudan's army accused the LRA of being responsible for the attack on Darfur refugees in a camp in western Bahr al-Ghazal that killed five people. Many express doubt that the LRA will venture any deeper into Sudan.
| October 27, 2009 |
(AFP) – Oct 6, 2009
CAIRO — A leading international rights watchdog, on Tuesday urged Sudan to rein in its forces in Darfur, saying renewed attacks in the restive region showed that the war was not over. Sudanese army attacks killed 16 civilians and destroyed several villages over two days last month, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report.
"Recent clashes between the governing party-led Sudan armed forces and rebels in September and the use of indiscriminate bombings demonstrate that the war is not over," the report said.
It quoted witnesses in North Darfur as saying that army attacks in May destroyed a town's water pumps and had killed or wounded dozens of civilians.
| October 24, 2009 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tGgCmTvU7o&feature=related
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nShrU9J34o <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nShrU9J34o>
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rqota5C6dQ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rqota5C6dQ>
| October 23, 2009 |
Call 1-800-GENOCIDE to tell the White House and your elected officials that the policy looks good on paper, but the people of Sudan can't afford a strategy that puts incentives ahead of real change on the ground.
Email or call your Senators and ask them to cosponsor the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009, S.891. This bipartisan bill is the strongest effort to date that addresses the scourge of conflict minerals in Congo.
Email or call your Senators and Member of Congress and ask them to cosponsor the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 (S.1067/HR 2478) to help end the 20-year reign of terror of the LRA.
Sign the Citizen's Arrest Warrant for Joseph Kony to help bring an end to the Lord's Resistance Army. Take part in Invisible Children's initiative and learn more about their fall campaign at http://www.invisiblechildren.com/obama.
| October 22, 2009 |
| October 20, 2009 |
Israel credits the barrier, which it began constructing in 2003, with helping to halt the wave of deadly suicide bombings unleashed on the Jewish state at the height of the latest Palestinian uprising in 2002.
The Palestinians view it as an “Apartheid Wall” that carves off large segments of the West Bank, splitting families, separating farmers from their land and slicing east Jerusalem off from their hoped-for future state.
Although Israel has long accused the United Nations of bias towards the Palestinians, the film has been praised as “ a very balanced piece of journalism.”
‘Walled Horizons’ includes footage of the aftermath of suicide attacks carried out prior to the wall being built. It features top Israeli security officials involved in the wall’s construction who present the project as a desperate response to the violence of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which erupted in 2000.
It is hoped that the virtual disappearance of such attacks in recent years might encourage Israel to rethink the barrier for continued construction comes at the expense of tens of thousands of Palestinians.”
According to UN figures, Israel has so far completed 256 miles of the planned 435-mile barrier, a network of walls, barbed-wire fences, trenches, and closed military roads. When completed, 85 percent of the wall will have been built inside the West Bank, leaving 9.5 percent of the territory and 35,000 Palestinians between the barrier and the Green Line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3vQ6DnRk_E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeyzOvWQzFI&feature=channel
Elie Wiesel Commemorating his Father
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_kuKXRLEnY&feature=channel
Elie Wiesel: Universal Lessons of the Holocaust
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogmBWA9Y7Bk&feature=channel
Survivor Testimony About Treblinka Death Camp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_PrWS51hmE&feature=channel
Child survivor-torn from his mother and sister
Auschwitz- Visual Evidence of Mass Murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG2QaN_LUao&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcfBTrNf2aI&feature=channel
Mordechai Eldar's Story
"thunder clouds" massing in North Darfur
Sudanese military forces are massing in North Darfur near the villages of Sortony and Kabkabiya. UNAMID communications chief Kemal Saiki told Reuters;"It is like when you look at the sky and see thunder clouds massing ... We have seen a build up in the number of troops, movements of troops."
THE FIERCE URGENCY OF IMPLEMENTATION:
Below find excerpts from John Prendergast's excellent analysis of the new U.S.Policy in Sudan. The piece in its entirety can be linked herehttp://www.enoughproject.org/
The ideals spelled out in the Obama administration's new paper on U.S. policy to Sudan are worthy of considerable support. The policy review represents a great deal of work inside the administration to learn lessons from past policy, to correct missteps of the administration over the past seven months, and to find a balanced approach that integrates peace, protection and accountability.
The policy paper, if translated into reality, suggests a series of subtle shifts in U.S. policy that will be crucial to supporting peace, human rights and justice in Sudan.
As stated, the policy as written is solid, but success requires a fierce urgency regarding implementation at the highest levels of the U.S. government, with the close involvement of Congress and civil society organizations.
U.S. officials must recognize that the status quo in Darfur, the South, and the transitional areas (Abyei <http://www.enoughproject.org/
Close to three million people remain displaced from their homes and living in camps suffering difficult conditions. No efforts have been made to disarm the janjaweed <http://www.enoughproject.org/
At best, the completed policy review is a chance to start anew, and get the policy and diplomacy back on track. At worst, it is an effort to rhetorically paper over an issue that has been treated as a fairly low foreign policy priority by the administration.
| October 18, 2009 |
What young Palestinian men want: in their own words
Ramallah is the headquarters of the Palestinean Authorities and the main city in the West Bank. While there I met with a group of about 15 teenage boys. I asked them, if I were to meet President Obama what would they want me to ask him. This was what they said;
Stop killing civilians
Stop attacking Mosques
Give us permission to pray in Jerusalem
Open access to Gaza
Remove illegal settlements
Give us back our land
I want my freedom
I want freedom for my country
We need an independent state
Remove the checkpoints
We need peace and safety
Tear down the wall
"First let me tell you about my city-Sderot. Sderot is a small nice city. But we live in a hard situation. We can't live normal life as children should live. We are afraid that the red alarm will work while we are outside. The minute we hear the red alarm if we are at school we get down on the floor. Some of us cry and our teachers try to relax us. If we are at school we pray to God that our family is safe and that no one was hurt from the kasam. (rocket)
And if we are at home we try to protect ourselves in a shelter or a safe room (home shelter) if we have one.
This is not a happy life.
We pray to God that the kasams will stop and that they will never come back and the whistle of the kasams will be replaced by the sound of birds and music.
We hope that peace will come soon and the world will be as one.
Thank you for listening. God bless you. "
Tami
Another child told me
"I am eleven years old. The kassams fell many times next to my school and we were very lucky that no one was hurt but you can imagine how worried and terrified we were. Its hard to learn in this situation but we are doing our best. "
Minister Isaac Herzog- better known here as ' Buji'- told me " The scars in the souls of human beings are terrible. Our main concern is the trauma of the children. "
Indeed the counselors spoke of children's trauma manifesting itself in sleeplessness, nightmares and bed wetting.
In the past 8 years 1200 rockets have been fired at Sderot. 7 civiians have been killed.
And so 'Operation Lead' was launched against Gaza on December 27, 2008.
During those awful 22 days, three Israeli civilians were killed. A school was partially damaged.
That operation left 1400 civilians dead in Gaza, including 353 children.
280 schools were destroyed.
" The scars in the souls of human beings are terrible"
| October 16, 2009 |
For eight years rockets have been fired from Gaza into this Israeli border city, most recent on Sept 20.
Internet access limited. More soon
A Poem for the Children in Gaza, by Michael Rosen, the British Children's Laureate.
In Gaza, children,
you learn that the sky kills
and that houses hurt.
You learn that your blanket is smoke
and breakfast is dirt.
You learn that cars do somersaults
clothes turn red,
friends become statues,
bakers don't sell bread.
You learn that the night is a gun,
that toys burn
breath can stop,
it could be your turn.
You learn:
if they send you fire
they couldn't guess:
not just the soldier dies -
it's you and the rest.
Nowhere to run,
nowhere to go,
nowhere to hide
in the home you know.
You learn that death isn't life,
the air isn't bread.
The land is for all - you have the right to be
not dead.
The land is for all - you have the right to be
not dead.
The land is for all - you have the right to be
not dead.
The land is for all -you have the right to be
not dead.
In Gaza, children,
you learn that the sky kills
and that houses hurt.
You learn that your blanket is smoke
and breakfast is dirt.
You learn that cars do somersaults
clothes turn red,
friends become statues,
bakers don't sell bread.
You learn that the night is a gun,
that toys burn
breath can stop,
it could be your turn.
You learn:
if they send you fire
they couldn't guess:
not just the soldier dies -
it's you and the rest.
Nowhere to run,
nowhere to go,
nowhere to hide
in the home you know.
You learn that death isn't life,
the air isn't bread.
The land is for all - you have the right to be
not dead.
The land is for all - you have the right to be
not dead.
The land is for all - you have the right to be
not dead.
The land is for all -you have the right to be
not dead.
But the sewage plant was bombed and raw sewage pours into the sea.
| October 15, 2009 |
Gaza: The Tunnels
Because so few supplies are permitted to enter through the four authorized 'crossings' and because these crossings are opened only on certain days, certain, yet to be determined hours, and for certain undisclosed purposes, the needs of the people in the confined Gaza strip cannot not be met.So tunnels have become the main supply routes for Gaza. There are between 300-800 tunnels running between Gaza at the Egyptian border near the town of Rafah. Everything comes through the tunnels: fuel, cattle, motor bikes,bread, gasoline -everything. Tunnel owners benefit hugely. They are about 30 meters -or 90 feet deep and about a mile in length.
Owners of the tunnels make a hefty profit but the children who work long hours in them are paid little And the tunnels are dangerous. I spoke with several child/workers who told me that the air is terrible to breathe and "so we smoke". The work is difficult and hours are long -often exceeding 16 hours,
They told me "the men who operate the tunnels use drugs and they give the children 'happy pills' to make them stay awake and feel better. Sometimes they also give us alchohol" they giggled. But their giggling ended and the boys became serious as they told me how they needed to work to help support their families.
"I am the eldest son so I work in the tunnels because I want my little brothers to go to school" one young boy told me.
The tunnels are bombed continually by Israeli forces and scores of tunnel- children have been killed. One child was killed just yesterday and 7 more were injured. When the bombs fall the boys sometimes flee through the tunnel to the Egyptian side "because they never bomb there". But they risk being apprehended by the Egyptian police who "beat us and use electric shocks to make us give them the names of the men who hire us. "
Shifa' Hospital
Incubators are not working. Since the January war, 8 children from this small hospital (which was partially destroyed) died from cancer and cardiac disease because the hospital lacks the ability to treat them and they did not receive the necessary permit to be treated in Israel.The doctors told me in the last 3 months the number of congenital abnormalities has doubled. "We don't know why" they said and they hope there will be an inquiry as to the long term effects of the '"white rain" or phosphorus that was dropped upon the people of Gaza. There is no question that the immediate effects were horrific. Terrible, agonizing injuries. It can't be washed off; it sticks and burns through the flesh.
From Gaza
The UN has called for a lifting of the blockage that isolates Gaza. "Protection, food, water, health care and shelter are basic human needs, not bargaining chips" said John Holmes, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.From Gaza
I'm still in Gaza with rare internet access. So much to say.On Dec 27th leaflets were dropped warning the 1.7 civilians here that the attacks would begin. But in Gaza there is nowhere to flee. The borders are sealed. Gunships patrol the shoreline. That evening an intense, 22 day assault Israel calls 'Operation Cast Lead' began- by air, sea and land. Schools,homes and hospitals were bombed and bulldozed. 1,400 civilians were killed; 350 were children.
256 schools, 7 hospitals and 20 medical clinics, 6000 buildings and 50,000 homes were bombed.
Many of the children here are traumatized. I visited a school where little girls told me they saw relatives shot, many of their homes were bombed, and one child said the soldiers dug a deep hole and ordered her family to get into it. She said she believed they would "cover us with earth". She survived and lived in a tent for months. "It's hard to study" she told me. "There is no electricity and it's hard anyway."
A teacher told me when the children hear a loud noise they jump and scream and watch the sky. They say they don't know what will happen next.
More later
| October 14, 2009 |
| October 10, 2009 |
"Would you represent Hitler?"
A prominent Democratic fundraiser and ally of Sen. John F. Kerry <http://projects.Robert B. Crowe, a partner at Atlanta-based Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, has met with special U.S. envoy J. Scott Gration and several Democratic lawmakers in recent weeks in an attempt to garner support for the deal, which would give the Khartoum government its first official U.S. representative in nearly four years.
A State Department official said Gration and his aides initially rejected the application but have since urged Crowe to seek support from Congress before they reconsider the proposal. Kerry's office said a staff member was briefed about Crowe's plans but that the senator, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was not aware of them.
The prospect of a lobbying deal for Sudan has alarmed human rights activists and lawmakers focused on the conflict in its Darfur region, where up to 300,000 people have been killed by government-backed militias as part of what the United States has called an ongoing genocide.
"They are on our sanctions list and have been for some time, and I see no reason to allow them to have a lobbyist," said Rep. Donald M. Payne <http://projects.
Rep. Frank R. Wolf <http://projects.
The lobbying discussions come as the Obama administration prepares to announce a new policy on Sudan after months of fierce internal debate between hard-liners such as U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, who favors keeping up pressure on Khartoum, and those such as Gration, who has endorsed a softer strategy.
Some State Department and White House officials are particularly uncomfortable with Gration's conciliatory approach to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been indicted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Gration has suggested easing sanctions on the regime and has likened such rewards to "giving out cookies" and "gold stars" to children.
Crowe declined to say how much the Sudanese regime would pay Nelson Mullins for its services. The last lobbyist to represent Sudan, Robert J. Cabelly of C/R International, had a $530,000 annual contract with the regime that ended in early 2006 amid an outcry in Congress.
Some of President Obama's Words on Accepting his Nobel Prize
"Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations."To be honest I do not feel I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize- men and woman who have inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
"Throughout history the Nobel Prize has not just been used to honor a specific achievement; it has also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.
"These challenges can't be met by any one leader or any one nation. And that is why my administration has worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek.
"We can't allow the differences between peoples to define the way that we see one another, and that is why we must pursue a new beginning among people of different faiths and races and religions, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect. "
| October 7, 2009 |
There is an answer to Sudan's agony. It is effective diplomacy in support of a just peace throughout the country. The biggest key to unlocking this outcome is held by the Obama administration. Let us keep demanding that it deploy that key properly and use its influence to help bring peace to all of Sudan.
John Prendergast is Co-Founder of Enough, the anti-genocide project at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-prendergast/the-war-in-darfur-is-not_b_312631.html
| October 4, 2009 |
Now, with the global economic recession bringing down oil prices, Sudan's Minister of Finance, Dr. Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz is in Istanbul asking for a debt-relief package from the IMF and the World Bank. The borrowed funds were used against the interest of the people of Darfur-to fund the violence in the south and the genocide in the Darfur region.
The international community should link Sudan’s economic issues with its human rights abuses. Unless the ruling party in Khartoum demonstrates a commitment to peace and justice.
The international community should insist that Sudan's debt can only be forgiven if there is significant progress toward:
Peace in Darfur, the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and significant structural reforms that change the repressive systems in Sudan.
| October 2, 2009 |
The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Ahmed Abdel Shafi said the government troops and militias in some 56 vehicles attacked on Tuesday . Four helicopter gunships and two Antonov bombers took part in the attack. Some 28 people among them nine children were killed. Most of the 2000 villagers have fled the area. Some 400,000 have been displaced since 2008. The rebel leader said the school and clinic had been destroyed.. "Also the militias looted goods and livestock of the villagers."
Holiday gifts can be meaningful
Choose a meaningful gift to give a loved one and help children and families around the world receive training and animal gifts that help them become self-reliant. Heifer provides both "no-interest living loans" in the form of livestock, as well as "small monetary" loans to help people start and expand businesses.Heifer's mission is:
To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.
Heifer's strategy is:
To pass on the gift. As people share their animals' offspring with others, along with their knowledge, resources, and skills, an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.
Heifer's History
This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for over 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.
(800) 422-0474
http://www.heifer.org/
A cow $500
Sheep or goat $120
Flock of geese or chicks $20
Honey bees $30.00
Help rape victims in Congo
http://www.healafrica.org/cms/I have visited the hospital in Goma where Heal Africa is funding fistulae surgery and providing support for rape victims as young as one year old. Victims also receive treatment for HIV/AIDS
HEAL Africa is connected to some of the major medical and educational centers as volunteer doctors and nurses, media specialists, come to Goma. Pediatricians from the University of California, San Francisco, and Harvard, have sent teams to teach for the past six years, to improve the quality of care for children of Goma and North Kivu. Doctors, pastors, lawyers and teachers from the US, UK, Australia and Europe have come to teach.
Community Focused. All of HEAL Africa's programs go out of the hospital grounds to community leaders, whether it's training widows to farm more efficiently or identifying children with disability who need surgical care, or foster families of HIV orphans who need help in order to provide care for their own families and those they've brought in.
In North Kivu province, HEAL Africa has received grants from UNICEF and other organizations to provide free health and psychosocial services to survivors of gender based violence. HEAL Africa has partnered with UNICEF since 2003, identifying and assisting 14,983 sexual violence survivors; providing medical care to more than 12,419 of them; repairing 1,625 fistulae and administering 3354 treatments for the prevention of the infection of HIV ('PEP kit' treatment).
HEAL Africa's hospital and community development work address the root causes of illness and poverty for the people of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The hospital and the 28 women's houses in Maniema and North Kivu have provided a safe place for many victims of the war.
| October 1, 2009 |
No place is safe for Darfur's refugees
The new Amnesty International report detailed something we all knew is happening, and which echoes the excellent report by Physicians for Human Rights. Women and girls who fled violence in Sudan's Darfur region are being regularly raped in the refugee camps in neighboring Chad, despite the presence of U.N.trained forces. The agency has called for increased protection of civilians in the country, an end to a prevailing culture of impunity, and sufficient funds for a fully operational United Nations mission.250,000 refugees fled Darfur seeking safety in camps across eastern Chad. But conditions inside the camps are deplorable and for the refugees, who are mainly women and children, there is no safety.
Comments of Damanga- a respected Darfuri human rights group in the US
Major General Scott Gration, the US Special Envoy for Sudan, stated that he plans to implement a "normative" relations policy to solve the Darfur crisis with the only war-crime indicted President in the world, Omar Al-Bashir. Gration believes that positive cooperation with the Sudanese government is the best way to end the genocide: "We've got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries, they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk," Gration stated.The Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy is extremely saddened by Gration's proposal and naive remarks about Darfur and the Sudanese government. It is clear that Gration and the Obama administration fail to realize or choose to ignore the severity of the genocide and rampant corruption within the Sudanese government. As fellow Darfur activist John Prendergast bluntly criticized Gration in the report, "They [The Sudanese Government] do not respond to nice guys [like Gration] coming over and saying, 'We have to be a good guest'. They eat these people for dinner."
It appears that Gration and the Obama administration have no plans to hold the Sudanese government and President Omar Al-Bashir accountable for their crimes against humanity-killing more than 450,000 innocent people thus far. As Gration begins his normative relations process with ICC-indicted Bashir, countless Darfuris will continue to be killed, detained, and raped while their villages, from Jabel Mara to Kornoy to El-geneina on the western border, are pillaged and destroyed. It is obvious now that Gration, who denied a full-fledged Darfuri genocide and merely called it "a remnant genocide," is paving the way for the Sudanese government to escape accountability and punishment for their crimes against humanity; it is shame that the U.S. seems to be working for the criminal government rather than protecting the victims of Darfur.