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| April 30, 2010 |
Meanwhile, on April 27th 2010 it was business as usual. Al-Bashir's forces bombed Khazzan Wergeniga, a major water reservoir where many civilians had gathered with their livestock. Phone contacts report at least 25 civilians were killed, and many more were wounded. The dead were 8 shepherds, 9 women, and 8 children.
| April 29, 2010 |
Now, almost six months after the Obama administration’s initial Sudan policy review, which promised an assessment of certain leading indicators of progress – or lack thereof – the Obama administration has yet to deliver its evaluation and recommendations. To that end, an eight-member coalition of Sudan advocacy organizations has released an independent accounting and action plan, entitled "Grading the Benchmarks" <http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/grading-benchmarks>
| April 25, 2010 |
http://rcpt.yousendit.com/857704867/cd617e0498bbc8d1fcf46b7a9834db3f
| April 22, 2010 |
"According to reports from our commanders on ground, an offensive is being prepared against our forces in the north and east of Darfur," JEM (rebel) spokesman Ahmed Hussein Adam told AFP. "Armoured tanks and government troops are moving towards JEM strongholds right at this moment," he added.
| April 20, 2010 |
Early results from the election, the oil-producing nation's first in 24 years, suggest President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his party are headed for a strong win in presidential and parliamentary polls marred by boycotts and alleged fraud. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to face charges of war crimes in the Darfur region.
Much of the opposition boycotted the proceedings before voting started, citing irregularities, and observers have already said the elections did not meet international standards.
"Political rights and freedoms were circumscribed throughout the electoral process, there were reports of intimidation and threats of violence in South Sudan, ongoing conflict in Darfur did not permit an environment conducive to acceptable elections, and inadequacies in technical preparations for the vote resulted in serious irregularities," the White House said in a statement.
"The United States regrets that Sudan's National Elections Commission did not do more to prevent and address such problems prior to voting," it said.
Link to article:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/04/20/us/politics/politics-us-sudan-elections-usa.html?_r=1
| April 17, 2010 |
| April 10, 2010 |
Ntarama church where 5000 people were killed
David Mugiraneza age 10
Enjoyed Making people laugh
Dream: Becoming a doctor
Last word "UNAMIR (United Nations Mission in Rwanda) will come for us"
Cause of death: Tortured to death
Yvonne and Yves Mugisha
Yvonne age 3, Daddy's girl
Yves age 5 Mummy's boy
Cause of death: Hacked by machete at Grandma's house
This spare account is displayed on the walls of the Memorial:
There was a lot of talk about "something very big" happening in both the intelligence community and in the national press.
Then on April 6 1994 the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were flying into Kigali when at 20:23 the plane was shot down on its approach to Kigali airport.
By 21:15 road blocks had been constructed throughout Kigali and houses were being searched.
Shooting began to be heard within one hour. The death lists had been prepared in advance
Genocide was instant. Roadblocks sprang up right across the city with militia armed with one intent- to identify and kill Tutsis. At the same time Interahamwe (Hutu militia) began house to house searches. The people on the death lists were the first to be visited and slaughtered in their own homes.
The perpetrators had promised an apocalypse and the operation which emerged was a devastating frenzy of violence, bloodshed and merciless killing. The murders used machetes, clubs and any blunt tool they could find to inflict as much pain on their victims as possible.
It was genocide from the first day. No Tutsi was exempt.
Shortly after the plane was shot down, Commander of the UN Peacekeeeping force in Rwanda General Romeo Dallaire's faxed plea to "give me the means and I can do more" was denied.
Then under secretary general for peacekeeping operations, Kofi Annan replied, "No reconnaissance or other action including response to request for protection should be taken by UNAMIR until clear guidance is received from HQ".
Many families were totally wiped out with no one to remember or document their deaths. The streets were littered with corpses. Dogs were eating the rotting flesh of their owners.
The genocidaires had been more successful in their evil aims than anyone would have dared to believe.
Rwanda was dead.
| April 9, 2010 |
Dr John Garangs grave site
US Congressman Donald Payne, one of our finest, speaking with a group of elders in remote South Sudan
child in south Sudan
President of South Sudan, Salva Kir with me in his office in Juba
'Barring war, famine or genocide - and all are possible - in 10 months this sweltering, malarial shantytown will become the world's newest capital city in the world's newest country, South Sudan."
'The CPA correctly identified the key issue at the heart of both the Darfur conflict and many of Sudan's other internal divisions. Darfur is not, as Western campaigners often have it, a war by Arabs on Africans - or not exactly. There is a racial dimension to the conflict, but Sudan's mixed mosaic of ethnicities and tribes makes a nonsense of a clear-cut partition. Rather, the war in Darfur is symptomatic of a fundamental division that has plagued Sudan since independence: center versus periphery. For more than half a century, a dominant Khartoum elite has marginalized and repressed all others - Kordofanis and Darfuris, Christians and followers of traditional beliefs, the uneducated and poor, western, eastern and southern Sudanese alike. The CPA's authors understood that the way to a united, peaceful Sudan was to remake it as a place where all Sudanese had a say. They planned to achieve this through a national election on April 11, which, if free and fair and inclusive, would weaken Khartoum's grip. The south, which suffered most from Khartoum's discrimination, would also be granted a referendum on secession.
When the CPA was signed, few took seriously the possibility of southern separation. That was partly because the south's leader, John Garang, was a committed unionist. But six months after negotiating the deal, Garang died in a helicopter crash , and his vision for autonomy within Sudan died with him. With the West preoccupied with a high-volume campaign over Darfur, Khartoum was able to drag its feet on the implementation of a deal with the south that offered it only loss of territory and oil. That bad faith reinforced enthusiasm for separation in the south. "People felt they would remain second-class citizens inside Sudan forever", says Ann Itto, deputy general secretary of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). Independence became the official southern goal. Under the CPA, it was also an option. Which is how, by backing a peace deal, the world now finds itself also supporting the breakup of Sudan by default.'
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1978708,00.html
| April 7, 2010 |
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sudan's Sham Election Has U.S. Support
Barack Obama once called Darfur's genocide a 'stain on our souls.' Has he changed his mind?
By MIA FARROW
In Khartoum this past weekend, U.S. Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration expressed his confidence that the April 11 elections in that country-the first since 1986-will be as "free and fair as possible."
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir should be plastering "We Love Gration" posters all over the capital. No one in Sudan believes the elections will be anything approaching free or fair.
Intimidation, vote rigging, manipulation of the census, and bribing of tribal leaders are rampant. Most of the 2.7 million displaced Darfuris are living in refugee camps. They are unable or unwilling to be counted at all. All of this, plus the ongoing violence in Darfur, have caused key opposition candidates including Yassir Arman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement to withdraw from the election.
The Carter Center, the only international observer mission in Sudan, announced that the election process is "at risk on multiple fronts" and requested a modest delay of the election. Mr. Bashir threatened to oust the observers, saying on state TV last month: "if they interfere in our affairs, we will cut their fingers off, put them under our shoes and throw them out."
Taking an unusually edgy stance, the Save Darfur Coalition -an alliance of more than 190 faith-based, advocacy and human-rights organizations-is urging the U.S. and the international community not to legitimize Sudan's presidential election. "We believe the election is not going to be free and fair, and it's not even going to be credible," said Robert Lawrence, the Coalition's director of policy. "The last thing we want is for the results to legitimize the dictatorial rule of President al-Bashir."
Hope is rare in Darfur, but when Barack Obama became president the refugees had reason to be hopeful. As a junior senator in 2006, Mr. Obama made his feelings about the evils in Darfur quite clear. "Today we know what is right, and today we know what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong. Two million people driven from their homes is wrong. Women gang raped while gathering firewood is wrong. And silence, acquiescence and paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong."
A year later, then-candidate Barack Obama said: "When you see a genocide, whether it's in Rwanda or Bosnia or in Darfur, that's a stain on all of us. That's a stain on our souls."
Darfuris were listening, and they hoped anew when President Obama said the Sudanese regime "offended the standards of our common humanity." They believed he would appoint an envoy who would take their plight seriously and serve as an honest broker between warring rebel groups and the Sudanese regime.
And how is his appointed envoy dealing with the perpetrators of those atrocities that have stained our souls? "We've got to think about giving out cookies," Mr. Gration told the Washington Post last fall. "Kids, countries-they react to gold stars, smiley faces . . ."
Cookies for a regime that is as savvy as it is cruel? Smiley faces for a thug who seized power by coup in 1989 and has retained it only through iron-fisted brutality? Gold stars for an indicted war criminal responsible for the murder, rape and displacement of millions?
This spectacularly naive perspective-and accompanying policy of appeasement-has further terrified Darfur's refugees, who feel increasingly abandoned by the U.S. and marginalized within their country.
With the support of Mr. Gration and the U.S., the bogus Sudanese elections will move forward with what the International Crisis Group has labeled "catastrophic consequences."
"Since the April vote will impose illegitimate officials through rigged polls, Darfuris will be left with little or no hope of a peaceful change in the status quo," warns EJ Hogendoorn, the Crisis Group's Horn of Africa project director. "Instead many will look to rebel groups to fight and win back their lost rights and lands."
Following this Sunday's election, there is little doubt as to who will be the president of Sudan. So it is crucial that international observers, world governments, the African Union and the U.N. Security Council acknowledge the deeply corrupt voting process that will reinstate President Omar al-Bashir. They should declare publicly that Mr. Bashir, a man indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, will rule without a genuine democratic mandate.
His regime must not be granted the legitimacy he craves.
Ms. Farrow has visited Darfur and Eastern Chad 13 times since 2004.