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| February 28, 2010 |
I'm going to Chad for Unicef this time. Polio vaccine campaign. There has been a polio epidemic in Chad with 65 cases last year alone.
But I will check on the artifacts from Darfur which are being housed temporarily at the Chadian Museum. If you would like to see pictures of them, or the photos I took while filming the traditional ceremonies, dances, songs, childrens stories, ways of making cloth, shoes, oil, a drum -just click on the blue FLICKR logo at the right on the home page.
I love Chad. I cannot wait to get back.
| February 27, 2010 |
| February 26, 2010 |
"It is simply impossible to know how many people are affected," he said. "The entire issue now is how to get access" to the civilians.
Some 3 million Darfuri civilians are already displaced and surviving in wretched camps across Darfur and eastern Chad. The attacks on Darfur’s people began in 2003
| February 25, 2010 |
"Heavy fighting was going until late into the night," said SLA rebel spokesman Ibrahim al-Hillu. "The government attacked in huge numbers backed up by Antonovs, helicopter gunships and MiGs (aircraft). This is the peace the government is offering."
The French aid group Medecins du Monde said late yesterday it has suspended operations because of the fighting in Jebel Marra.
These accounts, by both aid workers and rebels, raise serious questions about the sincerity of Khartoum's so called ceasefire and peace proposals.
In the past month more than 1,500 people had already been displaced by increased fighting in the western part of Darfur. Because of the violence few aid agencies have been able to reach them to provide desperately needed rations and supplies. According to the United Nations report, the displaced people have sought refuge in Thur, West Darfur, after violence forced them to flee from their villages.
| February 24, 2010 |
The Sudanese government and the JEM have agreed not only to a ceasefire but on "the participation of the JEM at all levels of power," according to a copy of the accord seen by AFP. The JEM will become "a political party as soon as the final agreement is signed between the two parties" by March 15.
Ibrahim and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will sign the ceasefire agreement next week and they have hashed out a broader plan for a peace accord. Chadian President Idriss Deby and Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki have been present at the meetings. The JEM leaders are of the Zaghawa ethnic group, however the Fur and Masalit tribes, comprise the majority of Darfuris, and they remain loyal to Abdel Wahiid al-Nur and his group, the SLA. Abdul Wahiid, who now lives in Paris, has refused to sign any agreement until security improves in Darfur, janjaweed are disarmed, and foreign tribes who settled on the land of displaced Darfuris are removed.
This agreement is the latest in a trail of broken promises and until Wahiid can be persuaded to come to the table, there will not be peace for Darfur's people.
| February 21, 2010 |
The LRA was founded by Joseph Kony in Uganda in1988. Without any political agenda, it is the most senselessly barbaric guerrilla army in the world. Although some LRA rebels have been disarmed by U.N.-backed Congolese soldiers, they continue to attack, plunder, mutilate, abduct and terrorize civilians in Congo, Sudan and CAR. This is the third LRA attack in the last two weeks.
http://www.miafarrow.org/ed_062107.html
Chadian President Idris Deby announced that the truce between the JEM and the Sudanese government will take effect immediately. The agreement will be formally signed in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday in the presence of Deby and the leaders of Sudan and Qatar.
In Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced the pardon of 105 members of JEM captured during the May 2008 assault on Khartoum's twin city, Omdurman. "I cancel all the sentences of hanging pronounced against members of the Justice and Equality Movement."
Al-Bashir said on state television: "Today we signed an agreement between the government and JEM in Ndjamena and in Ndjamena we heal the war in Darfur."
Sudan and Chad have been supporting the other's rebel groups but recently they have been working toward improving their relationship. Saturday's agreement is significant because it appears to have the solid support of Chad.
In 2008 on Al-Jazeera Arabic language television, Khalil Ibrahim leader of the JEM said, "All previous efforts for a ceasefire and reaching peace failed due to the stubbornness of the Sudanese government. Therefore the hope for achieving peace in Darfur and all over Sudan has faded. The government is totally unconcerned with what happens to the people of Darfur" .
But this week Khalil Ibrahim sounded more hopeful, telling Al Jazeera that JEM has agreed to the temporary ceasefire because without such an agreement, "nobody can guarantee a peaceful election in Darfur. "The government was quite worried about how these elections can be held in Darfur without a ceasefire. And they know that if JEM wanted to disrupt the elections it can do so." he told Al Jazeera, adding, "Any reduction of violence makes life easier ... People can enjoy security. There is a big difference. Of course."
Ahmed Hussein, a Jem spokesman, told the AFP news agency that the group would order its forces to stop military operations . "We have just initially signed the framework agreement," he said. "We will discuss many issues - return of the IDPs [internally displaced persons], power and wealth sharing, compensation, detainees.
"We are committed to a peaceful solution for Darfur."
Khalil Ibrahim said there must be a way to have the people of Darfur involved in the political process."This means that either there should be a special arrangement for Darfur concerning the election or the elections be postponed," he said.
Sudan is to hold its first multiparty elections in April for the first time in 24 years. A referendum to decide whether southern Sudan should become independent is to be held in 2011.
Darfur's other main rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), is refusing to participate in the negotiations. Many of the refugees and IDPs remain loyal to Abdul Wahiid who is the leader and founder of the SLA . But Wahiid moved to Paris in 2007. He will not return to negotiate with the Sudanese regime or participate in any peace talks until security improves in Darfur, janjaweed are disarmed, and foreign tribes who have come to Darfur and settled on the land of Darfuris who were displaced by violent attacks, are removed.
| February 18, 2010 |
Boston, MA
Following a well-publicized shareholder vote on genocide-free investing on November 24, American Funds has now become the largest mutual fund company to divest its holdings in PetroChina. A recent posting on the company’s website shows that American Funds sold virtually all their holdings in Petrochina, worth $190 million.
The investment landscape has changed dramatically in the last year. Investors, concerned about their savings being connected to genocide, now have clear, mainstream choices. The positive actions by American Funds and TIAA-CREF stand in stark contrast to Vanguard, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton for taking no action and continuing to hold large investments in companies, such as PetroChina, linked to an ongoing genocide.Here are links to two articles.
American Funds sells PetroChina as rights group claims victory <http://investorsagainstgenocide.net/page1001277>
-American Funds sells stock targeted by activists <http://investorsagainstgenocide.net/page1001276>
| February 15, 2010 |
| February 14, 2010 |
still outstanding: We are the World . Here's a link to the new version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glny4jSciVI| February 11, 2010 |
"One is 'autocannibalism', coined in French but equally appropriate in English. It describes what happens when a militia here in eastern Congo's endless war cuts flesh from living victims and forces them to eat it.
"Another is 're-rape'. The need for that term arose because doctors were seeing women and girls raped, re-raped and re-raped again, here in the world capital of murder, rape, mutilation."
Here is the link to his piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/opinion/11kristof.html?th&emc=th
What can we do? Nick suggests a four-step approach:
- Pressure on Rwanda to stop funding its pet Tutsi militia in Congo. Rwanda also should publish a list of those facing criminal charges for its 1994 genocide so that more Hutu militiamen not on the list might go back. A Rwandan war shouldn't be fought in Congo.
- An international regime to monitor mineral exports from Congo so that warlords do not monetize their militias by exporting minerals through Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Legislation to do this, backed by an advocacy group called the Enough Project, is pending in Congress.
- A major push to demobilize Rwandan Hutu fighters and return as many as possible to civilian life in Rwanda or settlements in Congo or Burundi. That should be coupled with a crackdown on leaders in Congo and those who direct action from Europe and the United States.
- A drive to professionalize the Congolese Army and end the impunity for murder, torture and rape, starting with the arrest of Jean Bosco Ntaganda on his warrant for war crimes.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to eastern Congo last year was a landmark, but it needs more follow-up from the Obama administration. What is required isn't some new formula but much greater political will. Otherwise, the fighting will go on for years to come - and this lovely, lush land will spawn even more horrific vocabulary.
Find out about the 'conflict minerals' that are fueling the violence in Congo. Here is the link;
<http://www.enoughproject.org/blogs/conflict-minerals-bill-round>
| February 7, 2010 |
The World Capital of Killing
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
BUKAVU, Congo
It’s easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better. But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.
What those numbers don’t capture is the way Congo has become the world capital of rape, torture and mutilation, in ways that sear survivors like Jeanne Mukuninwa, a beautiful, cheerful young woman of 19 who somehow musters the courage to giggle. Her parents disappeared in the fighting when she had just turned 14 — perhaps they were massacred, but their bodies never turned up — so she moved in with her uncle. A few months later, the extremist Hutu militia invaded the home. She remembers that it was the day of her very first menstrual period — the only one she has ever had “First, they tied up my uncle,” Jeanne said. “They cut off his hands, gouged out his eyes, cut off his feet, cut off his sex organs, and left him like that. He was still alive.
“His wife and his son were also there. Then they took all of us into the forest.” That militia is known for kidnapping people and enslaving them for months, even years. Men are turned into porters, and girls into sex slaves. Jeanne and other girls were regularly tied spread-eagle and gang-raped, and she soon became pregnant. The rapes continued, sometimes with sticks that tore apart her insides and left her dribbling wastes constantly. Somehow the fetus survived, but her pelvis was too immature to deliver the baby.
One of the people the militia had kidnapped was a doctor who was forced to treat the soldiers. The doctor, seeing that Jeanne was close to dying in obstructed childbirth, cut her open with an old knife, without anesthetic, and removed the stillborn baby. Jeanne was delirious and almost dead, so the militia dumped her beside a road.
“She was completely destroyed inside,” said another doctor, Denis Mukwege, who saved her life after she was brought here to Bukavu. Dr. Mukwege, 54, presides over the 400-bed Panzi Hospital <http://www.panzihospitalbukavu.org/> , supported by the European Union and private groups like the Fistula Foundation. He is sometimes mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize for his heroic efforts to fight the war and heal its victims.
Dr. Mukwege operated on Jeanne nine times over three years to repair the fistulas that were causing her to leak wastes. Finally he succeeded, and she returned to her village to live with her grandmother.
“He told me to stay away from men for three months,” Jeanne remembers, to give her body time to heal. But three days after she returned to the village, the militia came again and raped again. The fistula reopened. Jeanne, kept naked in the forest and stinking because her internal injuries had reopened, finally managed to escape and eventually found her way back to Panzi Hospital. Dr. Mukwege has already started a second round of surgeries on her, but there is so little tissue left that it is not clear she can ever be continent again.
About 12 percent of the raped women he treats have contracted syphilis, and 6 percent have H.I.V. He does what he can to repair their injuries and help them heal — until the next time.
“Sometimes I don’t know what I am doing here,” Dr. Mukwege said despairingly. “There is no medical solution.” The paramount need, he says, is not for more humanitarian aid for Congo, but for a much more vigorous international effort to end the war itself.
That means putting pressure on neighboring Rwanda, a country so widely admired for its good governance at home that it tends to get a pass for its possible role in war crimes next door <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/world/africa/04congo.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1> . We also need pressure on the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, to arrest Gen. Jean Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. And, as recommended by an advocacy organization called the Enough Project <http://www.enoughproject.org/conflict-minerals> , we need a U.S.-brokered effort to monitor the minerals trade from Congo so that warlords can no longer buy guns by exporting gold, tin or coltan.
Unless we see some leadership here, the fighting in Congo — fueled by profits from mineral exports — will continue indefinitely. So if we don’t act now, when will we? When the toll reaches 10 million deaths? When Jeanne is kidnapped and raped for a third time?
| February 5, 2010 |
the second photo is of a mother and child in north Kivu, eastern Congo. Another of the most dangerous places on earth for woman and children.
The United Nations Children's Fund is appealing for $1.2 billion to provide life saving emergency assistance to millions of children and women in dire need. UNICEF says earthquake-stricken Haiti is only one of 28 countries where children and women lack even the most basic means of survival.
Since the devastating earthquake struck, UNICEF has increased its efforts to restore shattered lives and protect children and women who are among the most vulnerable victims of this disaster. While Haiti remains a priority, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Hilde Johnson tells VOA there are many other emergencies that are critical and must be addressed.
"We need to scale up our efforts delivered in Haiti, but we also need to ensure that children all over the world-in the Horn of Africa, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan, in Chad-all these children deserve and have the right to the same assistance as children everywhere else," she said. "And, we must not now only be one-sided. We need to be able to show that we care and plan to assist all these children globally," said Johnson.
Johnson says children are always among the most severely affected, and disasters put them at increased risk of abuse and grave violations of their rights. She says children are at risk of sexual violence, killing and maiming, and forced recruitment into armed groups.
Every year, UNICEF responds to some 200 emergencies around the world. These crises are most acutely felt in the 28 countries that figure in the Humanitarian Action Report. The greatest needs are in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 24 million people in the Horn of Africa are being affected by drought, chronic food insecurity and armed conflict. UNICEF's three biggest operations are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia. Johnson says more than six million people in Ethiopia are going hungry because of drought and famine. She says children there are at risk of severe and acute malnutrition.
"In Sudan, the combination of conflict and drought, instability and the situation in Darfur, which is still difficult," she explained. "And, in south Sudan it is getting worse. In DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, we are well familiar with challenges in the eastern part of the country, where we still have thousands and thousands of people on the move. And, where women and children and girls are subject to sexual violence."
While the crises in these three countries are relatively well known, there are a number of countries that remain largely forgotten. Johnson cites the Central African Republic as one country where children suffer from instability and lack of basic services. Yet, she notes little is ever heard about what is happening there.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Children-Women-In-28-Countries-in-Desperate-Need-of-Aid-83545362.html
Since the devastating earthquake struck, UNICEF has increased its efforts to restore shattered lives and protect children and women who are among the most vulnerable victims of this disaster. While Haiti remains a priority, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Hilde Johnson tells VOA there are many other emergencies that are critical and must be addressed.
"We need to scale up our efforts delivered in Haiti, but we also need to ensure that children all over the world-in the Horn of Africa, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan, in Chad-all these children deserve and have the right to the same assistance as children everywhere else," she said. "And, we must not now only be one-sided. We need to be able to show that we care and plan to assist all these children globally," said Johnson.
Johnson says children are always among the most severely affected, and disasters put them at increased risk of abuse and grave violations of their rights. She says children are at risk of sexual violence, killing and maiming, and forced recruitment into armed groups.
Every year, UNICEF responds to some 200 emergencies around the world. These crises are most acutely felt in the 28 countries that figure in the Humanitarian Action Report. The greatest needs are in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 24 million people in the Horn of Africa are being affected by drought, chronic food insecurity and armed conflict. UNICEF's three biggest operations are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia. Johnson says more than six million people in Ethiopia are going hungry because of drought and famine. She says children there are at risk of severe and acute malnutrition.
"In Sudan, the combination of conflict and drought, instability and the situation in Darfur, which is still difficult," she explained. "And, in south Sudan it is getting worse. In DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, we are well familiar with challenges in the eastern part of the country, where we still have thousands and thousands of people on the move. And, where women and children and girls are subject to sexual violence."
While the crises in these three countries are relatively well known, there are a number of countries that remain largely forgotten. Johnson cites the Central African Republic as one country where children suffer from instability and lack of basic services. Yet, she notes little is ever heard about what is happening there.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Children-Women-In-28-Countries-in-Desperate-Need-of-Aid-83545362.html
| February 3, 2010 |
The LRA is not the only group preying upon on the Congolese population. Terrified civilians in eastern Congo told me the Congolese Army attacks them regularly, raping women and girls, stealing possessions and obstructing aid to displaced people. Other militia include the Maimai-un official followers of the Congolese army, Tutsi rebels from Rwanda and according to the women I spoke with, the most brutal of all, are the marauding Hutu genocidaires from Rwanda.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. It is an independent body, not a U.N. court.
ESTABLISHMENT - The Rome Statute creating the ICC was adopted in Italy July 17, 1998. It came into force in July 2002 after ratification by 60 countries. Neither the United States nor Sudan are among the 110 countries which have endorsed the treaty to date.
JURISDICTION - A court of last resort, the ICC acts only when member countries are "unwilling or unable" to dispense justice themselves. It may prosecute individuals responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed after July 2002. The U.N. Security Council may ask the court to open an investigation.
CASES - The prosecutor has opened investigations in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan and Central African Republic.
SUSPECTS - The court has four suspects in custody, all of them alleged war lords from Congo. One of them, former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba is charged with crimes allegedly committed in Central African Republic.
TRIALS - The court is currently trying three Congolese warlords in two separate cases.
FUGITIVES - The court has issued arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, one of his government's ministers, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, and Ali Kushayb, a commander of the government-backed janjaweed militia. All are wanted for crimes allegedly committed in Darfur. Arrest warrants also have been issued for four leaders of the Ugandan rebel group Lord's Resistance Army and for another Congolese warlord, Bosco Ntaganda.
COMPOSITION - Its 18 judges are elected for terms of three to nine years. The chief prosecutor is Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina. The president is South Korean judge Song Sang-hyun.
U.S. POSITION - The United States voted against the Rome treaty in 1998. But then-President Bill Clinton signed it on Dec. 31, 2000. Former President George W. Bush, citing fears Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons, renounced the signature and initiated bilateral immunity deals with dozens of countries, barring them from handing U.S. citizens to the court's jurisdiction. It is unclear how the U.S. relationship with the court will change under President Barack Obama.
BUDGET - The court had a 2009 budget of just over euro101 million ($140 million), that is paid by the countries in the ICC's governing body, the Assembly of States Parties.
Link to article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020300255_pf.html
| February 2, 2010 |
Enough’s Co-founder, John Prendergast took some issue with the president’s statement:
"President Obama's response is missing two elements. First, there is no full-time field-based diplomatic presence in Sudan and the surrounding region working on both Darfur and the North-South issues to make sure peace efforts have a chance of success. So we would like to see him deploy that diplomatic capacity and challenge other nations with influence to do the same. Without that kind of on the ground U.S. leadership, the kind that led to the 2005 North-South peace deal, the risk of further conflict is very high. Second, diplomatic engagement should be backed by real and immediate pressures on the Sudanese government. It is not a case of engagement versus pressure as the president seems to imply. The U.S. should be working to build a coalition of countries willing to escalate pressures in support of peace – pressures that would include targeted asset freezes and travel bans, expansion of the arms embargo, denial of debt relief, and suspension of aid to the deeply flawed election. Introducing these consequences into the equation would influence the calculations of the parties and help move them toward lasting peace."
Since President Obama took office, an estimated 2,500 people have been killed in violent clashes in southern Sudan <http://www.enoughproject.org/glossary/term/109?Array> . Here's our petition to President Obama that we hope you'll sign as well:
"Thank you for responding to our question about the crisis in Sudan. We agree with you, Mr. President, that there is an acute threat of violence during the upcoming elections and referendum period. We respectfully disagree, however, that our government has made the progress necessary to broker agreements in Sudan that will stabilize the country. We therefore urge you, Mr. President, to lead other counties willing to escalate pressures on the parties in support of peace. Only with increased pressures and a full-time field-based diplomatic presence in Sudan, working on both Darfur <http://www.enoughproject.org/glossary/term/102?Array> and the North-South issues, will peace efforts have a chance of success."
Add your name to the petition
http://www.enoughproject.org/YouTube