The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) ripped the new government strategy to address the issue of Darfur, reiterating its rejection of the strategy altogether. The movement now joins other opposition forces including the Umma Party and the rebels in rejecting the strategy
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| September 26, 2010 |
One day, I know already to expect it, you will lay your curly head in my lap and ask, “Why am I not named for my father?” And I will wrap you in beautiful lies. Yes, I will tell you my husband was everything to me, the night sky specked with the most dazzling stars. I will tell you he was the desert, dusty and immense. I will tell you his love scorched and burned like the sun. I will tell you an army of men on horseback kicked my husband to the ground and shot him seven times. The first was in the leg, so he could not run. The second was in his groin so he could not spread his seed. The third in his heart so he could not love. The fourth in his heart so he could not breathe. The fifth in his heart to hear him cry for mercy. The sixth in his heart to silence him. The seventh was in the middle of his forehead, for good measure.
But listen my son, for these are words I have never spoken and I will never speak them again so long as I live.
Your father, all six of him, dragged me through dust, my head bobbing over stones. When my dress tore, just as I would, he gripped my hair, pulling me like a fallen goat. Your father, all six of him, threw me face down in the dirt. As I choked sand, your father, all six of him, cut my clothes off with a knife. One by one, all six of him entered me.
I did not make a sound.
Your father, all six of him, called me “African slave” as he spattered his seed in me. Your father, all six of him, said “this land belongs to Arabs now, this cattle belongs to us,” and slashed my right thigh with his blade. (So I would remember him), your father, all six of him said.
Alone at last, in a pool of my own blood, I looked up at the wide sky above and prayed to die. When I awoke the village pyre had dwindled to embers.
Your relatives are nameless corpses shoved in wells. My home is a pile of black ash and a stray teapot. There is no one and nothing to go back to, there is only going forward. I will not speak to you of the past. I will teach you not to ask.
This child was living in an abandoned schoolhouse. but even that is temporary. the 'front lines' are ever changing in Congo
this mother gave birth fleeing.
someone got left behind
these families were living in an abandoned schoolhouse.
A place where armed groups are on the rampage, raping women, girls, boys and babies.
A place where 5 million people have perished since 1994- as a result of the violence.
A place which is rich in minerals-tin, tungsten, tantalum (3T's), and gold.
A place where rebels control mines.
The violence in eastern Congo is fueled by a multi-million dollar trade in minerals - - which power our cell phones, laptops, and other electronics. Urge the biggest buyers-- major electronics companies-– to produce conflict-free products.
Please take two minutes to send an e-mail now to the 21 biggest electronics companies . Here is a sample email, or use your own words
| Subject: Make our products conflict free To Whom It May Concern: I am writing today with a pledge to purchase your conflict free electronics product once it becomes available. I want the death, rape and violence in Congo being driven by the illicit trade in conflict minerals to stop. If your company leads to produce a verifiably conflict-free product, I as a consumer will find your product far more attractive. If you take conflict out of your electronics, I will buy it. Sincerely, We will add your signature from the information you provide. http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6265 |
We need your help to increase demand for conflict-free electronics products. As a consumer, you can influence electronics industry leaders as they weigh whether or not to invest in making their supply chains transparent and producing verifiably conflict-free products. It's important to let companies know that if they take conflict out of their products, you'll buy them.
Everyone is using them. Despite recent legislation, no one has committed to going conflict free yet. Here is a list of the 21 leading electronics companies and a way to email them. But they all procure their raw materials in the same way.
These are just some of the top offenders. Here is a link to the site.
http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1684/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6265
NINTENDO
DELL
HP
TOSHIBA
LENOVO
IBM
SAMSUNG
SHARP
MOTOROLA
SONY ERICSSON
RIM BLACKBERRY
DELL
APPLE
PHILIPS
MICROSOFT
INTEL
CANON
PANASONIC
Labels: Congo where people are continually on the run, I took these photos North Kivu
The UN's human rights chief, Navi Pillay says the "scale and viciousness" of mass rapes in DR Congo "defy belief", as a report on the attack was released.
Navi Pillay said that, even for the region, the incident stood out because of the "extraordinarily cold-blooded and systematic way" it was carried out.
Lat month 200 armed militia entered a cluster of villages and cut off phone lines and exit paths. 235 women, 52 girls, 13 men and three boys - were raped "multiple times" - more than than 900 homes were looted, and 116 people were abducted. Those numbers are likely to rise because the UN investigating team has says 6 of the 13 villages are inaccessible because of "serious security problems". UN spokesperson Rupert Colville said that attacks were still going on in some regions. The UN peacekeeping force has been severely criticized for its failure to protect the villagers. But if the attacks are ongoing why aren't they going in NOW?
The rebel groups responsible
- Mai Mai Cheka: Small rebel group commanded by Col Cheka and based around Mubi and Njigala, Walikale
- Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR): Group of mostly ethnic Hutus opposed to Tutsi rule and influence in the region
- Col Emmanuel Nsengiyumva: A Tutsi officer who used to be in the CNDP rebel group and defected in 2009, starting his own small armed group
| September 24, 2010 |
SLA spokesperson reports that since Wednesday, Sudanese warplanes have bombed several area in Jebel Marra and burned the village of Harika and Draibat in South Darfur. villages in southern and eastern Jebel Marra. At least 18 people were killed including three children, four women and eight elderly men.
I wrote the following piece about the Kalma attack two years ago. The situation in Darfur has not improved- in fact it is dramatically worsening in recent months. Many more civilians have been killed and thousands more displaced. The camps are more dangerous, more squalid and with increasingly restricted access to drinkable water, food and any kind of medicines. Security is non-existent. Humanitarian aid capacity is being strangled by the Khartoum regime. Vital aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, Oxfam and others were accused of being spies and were expelled. We aren't hearing much about Darfur these days because reporters aren't permitted in, and the UN submits its reports to the Sudanese government - the perpetrators- to be vetted before any information is released to the press.
At 6 a.m. on Aug. 25, Kalma camp, home to 90,000 displaced Darfuris, was surrounded by Sudanese government forces. By 7 a.m., 60 heavily armed military vehicles had entered the camp, shooting and setting straw huts ablaze. Terrified civilians - who had previously fled their burning villages after being attacked by this same government and its proxy killers the janjaweed - hastily armed themselves with sticks, spears and knives. Of course, these were no match for machine guns and automatic weapons. By 9 a.m., the worst of the brutal assault was over. The vehicles rolled out leaving scores dead and more than 100 wounded. Most were women and children. The early-morning time of the attack ensured no aid workers were present as witnesses. Doctors Without Borders did, however, manage to negotiate the transportation of 49 of the most severely wounded to a hospital in the nearby town of Nyala.
How can such brazen cruelty be inflicted upon our fellow human beings? How is it that a military assault on displaced civilians in a refugee camp creates barely a ripple in the news cycle? How does such outrageous human destruction prompt so little outrage? How is it that those who have been tasked with protecting the world's most vulnerable population have failed - and failed, and then failed yet again - in their central responsibility? What does this say about the United Nations and the powerful member states? How have we come to such a moment?
Such questions can be answered by looking at our response to Darfur's agony over the past six years. Any honest assessment would be as shocking and dispiriting as the assault on Kalma itself. The international response to massive crimes by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his cabal has been simply this: We accommodate and acquiesce, with the contrived hope that these tyrants might grow weary of their task, or that paper agreements can somehow have meaning without a sustained and powerful international commitment backing them.
The Kalma massacre is a part of Khartoum's larger genocidal campaign. Since 2003, 80 to 90 per cent of Darfur's African villages have been destroyed, and more than 2.5 million survivors have fled to squalid camps across Darfur, eastern Chad and the Central African Republic. Hundreds of thousands have died. Khartoum's next goal may well be to shut down camps in Darfur and force people out into the desert where they cannot survive. The homes and fields that once sustained so many of Darfur's people are ashes now, or they have new occupants - Arab tribes from Darfur and as far away as Chad, Niger and Mali.
The message of the Kalma massacre is chillingly clear for Darfuris. But this assault on civilians in full view of the international community raises the question of what the massacre says about the rest of us. The only message we have sent to the Sudanese government is that they can now attack refugee camps and the world will watch and do nothing.
Smoothly, many in the international community lament Darfur's genocide but say that its solutions are beyond the boundaries of national interests and they invoke the concept of "national sovereignty." I contest that statement. The United Nations has, in 2006, clearly stated that the international community, through the United Nations, has the responsibility to "protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity."
"Responsibility to protect" means the international community must "react" when states are unable or unwilling to protect those living within their borders. The international action can be political, diplomatic, economic or military. The latter should be at the ready in "extreme and exceptional cases," which it defines as "cases of violence which ... shock the conscience of mankind."
The responsibility to protect has redefined the concept of sovereignty by clearly stating that it involves not only the rights of nation states, but theresponsibilities of civilian protection they bear. The responsibility to protect marks the end of centuries of inviolate borders and impunity within them. In principle.
The reality is something else. Over my 10 trips to the Darfur region since 2004, I have seen men, women and children fleeing for their lives. In terror they fled their burning homes, in terror they endured the rapes and unthinkable atrocities. In terror and dread they await the next attacks. In terror they have waited for more than five unthinkable years for protection that has not come.
three excerpts:
"Largely lost amid the welter of issues that define this vast and accelerating crisis are the actual mechanics of the referendum voting, and in particular the requirements for the southern referendum to achieve electoral legitimacy. Ominously in the case of Abyei, the Abyei Referendum Commission still has not been assembled, ensuring that voter registration will be largely unguided and extremely contentious, especially given Khartoum's "settling" of Misseriya Arabs in the region for the purpose of voting in the referendum. But it is in the details of voting and tabulation in the South that we may see the most potent weapon the Khartoum regime wields in denying legitimacy to the referendum results."
"-while the referendum for the South will pass with 50 percent of the vote plus one, the vote will be binding only if 60 percent of the registered voters do in fact vote"
"And of course the means of voter suppression are everywhere. John Ashworth, in a superb overview of the current standing of CPA implementation, points out not only the difficulties faced by southern Sudanese (as many as 2 million) trying to register in northern Sudan, but how much easier it will be to rig the quorum numbers than the percentage voting for secession:
"Rigging the simple majority would be extremely difficult, as all indications are that a huge majority of voters will choose secession. However, the 60% quorum would be easier to rig. One tactic would be to make it difficult for registered voters to turn out, due to insecurity, transport and other problems. During the elections in April 2010 many voters found it difficult to cast their vote due to incomplete lists, lists being sent to the wrong polling stations, and other bureaucratic and logistical issues. These could conceivably be deliberately exacerbated in the referendum."
http://www.enoughproject.org/blogs/khartoum-electoral-strategy-or-how-fix-referendum| September 23, 2010 |
By Omerongo Dibinga
5 million screams falling on deaf ears
Fatherless children fathered by foreign soldiers
Homes with no husbands
Husbands with no honor
Rape as a tool for much more than power
Pregnant women's legs spread
Aborted by their own community
Thus another rape committed
Another violation unforgiven
Another lifeless life lived by abandoned women
But on behalf of men worldwide
I ask you to stand with pride
Because your screams were never silent
We were never compliant in these acts so violent
Across oceans we cried for you when you ran out of tears
Incapable of international intervention to assuage your fears
Your stories became our poems
Your horrors inhabited our homes
But now you must hear that we are here for you
I implore you to forgive the world for having ignored you
As they raped you they said " today you will have husbands..."
but as we embrace you I say " sisters, today you will have brothers"
For all of my Congolese sisters,daughters, and mothers
Your perseverance is appreciated
Your persistence is respected
Though human interest has depreciated
I'll ensure you're no longer neglected
Let the world be your pillow to comfort your despair
And let love of this one man show you that men do care
Why not throw a great fundraiser and raise awareness at your school, contact the Darfur Dream Team atsisterschools@enoughproject.org. To learn more about the Sister Schools Program or to get your school involved, please visit www.darfurdreamteam.org.
By Radio Dabanga -- KALMA CAMP (22 Sep.) - Kalma Camp, which was completely blockaded to aid groups during part of August, is still under tight restrictions. New regulations imposed by the Humanitarian Aid Commission allow health organizations just two hours to enter the camp and depart, according to the internally displaced (IDPs) in the camp.
A sheikh from the camp said that the government commission requires the organizations to go through procedures at night in order to get authorization to visit Kalma. He noted that most of the two hours expires on the way to and from the camp. He claimed that this has resulted in the deterioration of the health situation in the camp. He warned of a health disaster if the conditions do not change. Between 17 and 19 September, eleven (11) children in the camp died of causes that nobody had been able to diagnose because of the absence of health organizations.
SPLM rejects the new government strategy for Darfur
By Radio Dabanga -- KHARTOUM
(
23 Sep
.) -
Dr. Keji Roman, the spokesman for SPLM Northern Sector, spoke about the strategy at a joint news conference on Wednesday with the SPLM leaders in the three Darfur states, who were visiting the headquarters of the movement in Khartoum. Dr. Roman said that the new strategy belongs solely to the National Congress, which is attempting to take the initiative in resolving the issue away from the armed movements, the national political forces and the civil society in Darfur. He said that the solutions recommended by the National Conference in the new strategy are very far from resolving the case.
| September 21, 2010 |
The oumdas, elected leaders of Otash Camp in South Darfur, told Radio Dabanga they need more security. They also emphasized the current food shortage. In camps across Darfur, the priorities are food, water and security as well as education for the children, along with continuing hopes for justice, including the arrest of al Bashir and individual and collective compensation for their losses.
The marketplace in Tabara in north Darfur is the site of the recent massacre of some 50 civilians..Witnesses say that militia forced people to lie on the ground, then shot them in the head. Dozens of survivors fled to Tawila where " some arrived without clothes or shoes" The perpetrators are still in the region.
The Justice and Equality Movement says that the massacre was carried out by militias of the Sudanese government.
| September 18, 2010 |
Educated women use health services more and often make better choices re hygiene, parenting and nutrition.
In these six counties women attend school for less that one year: Chad , Niger, Mali, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, and Yemen.
Some criticize the study saying the focus should be on economic development rather than on health or education. I say the focus must be on all three.
| September 17, 2010 |
September 16, 2010 (KHARTOUM) - A meeting of the Arab league foreign ministers today endorsed a resolution reaffirming its position in rejecting the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir for war crimes and genocide allegedly committed in Darfur.
An Arab Ministerial Committee on the affairs of the Sudan expressed solidarity with Sudan in the face of the ICC's decisions and called for annulling the warrants, noting that Sudan is not a member of this Court.
The committee, which is comprised of Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Qatar, Sudan, UAE, Oman and Syria,slammed "attempts to politicize the principles of international justice and used in the erosion of State sovereignty , unity and stability".
The ICC's first-ever warrant against a sitting head of state was issued for Bashir in March 2009 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The second was issued in July 2010 on charges of genocide.
(ST)
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 16 -- From Sudan, last month multiple sources told Inner City Press that the United Nations system's Humanitarian Coordinator Georg Charpentier had started to show previews of the UN's press releases to the Omar al Bashir regime's "ministry of humanitarian affairs" before making them public.
Inner City Press asked the UN to deny or confirm and explain this. Days later on September 2 UN acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said that coordinator Charpentier "works with the government and opposition" but "does not submit press statements to the government for approval, with the exception of joint press statements on joint initiatives."
But on September 16, a better placed UN official confirmed to Inner City Press that Charpentier has of late been showing his releases to the Sudanese government, "during this period of tension."
Later on September 16, Inner City Press asked the US Permanent Representative Susan Rice about this UN practice. In a comment vetted and approved by the US Mission, Ambassador Rice replied, "I'm not aware of that, but it would be disturbing."
| September 16, 2010 |
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 16 (APP) - President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday appreciated the U.S.leadership for the humanitarian gesture and the assistance for supporting the people of Pakistan who suffered great losses in devastating floods.The U.S. government had provided $217 million to support immediate relief and initial recovery through National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the United Nations emergency response plan and many other local and international organizations, the President said while talking to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke who called on him at Aiwan-e-Sadr. Anne W. Patterson, U.S. Ambassador, Merry Beth Goodman, Economic Advisor to USSRAP,Timothy Lender King, Director of Pakistan Affairs, State Department, Maureen White, Special Advisor for Refugees & IDPs, Ronan Farrow, Special Advisor on Humanitarian & NGOs, were also present during the meeting.--- Briefing the media Spokesperson to the President Farhatullah Babar said that the in-kind assistance from the U.S. included provision of halal meals, pre-fabricated steel bridges, infrastructure and air support for transportation of goods and rescue of stranded people, plastic sheets to provide shelter for water treatment plants, 30 helicopters, rescue boats, food assistance worth $51.5 million besides launching of a programme to provide 4,800 households in Swat. The President also appreciated the contributions and the donations from the private sector for the flood affected people of Pakistan. The President said that the Government of Pakistan was appreciative of the role of the U.S. government in garnering the international support for the people in distress. |
| September 11, 2010 |
| September 10, 2010 |
It is an outrage that the United Nations is currently sending their statements to the Sudanese government to be vetted before they are released to the press.
Journalists are not being granted permits into the Darfur region and are therefore reliant on the UNs vetted statements.
Unbelievable that this is happening while the world watches. Americans, Call 1 800 genocide. Tell our government to ditch its current policy of complicity and, in the name of the hundreds of thousands who have perished thus far and in the names if the millions who wait for justice and a safe return home, be even a fraction as courageous, clear and strong as Adam Bush. God grant him peace. We live with our shame
This is very, very sad news. I have in my cell phone log a missed call from Adam on the day he died. When I returned the call a couple of hours later, there was no answer. After receiving your email, I now believe that Adam or another resident of the camp must have been trying to alert me (and thereby others) of this terrible event.
When I spoke to Adam some months ago, he thanked me profusely for the work that I am doing and asked me to communicate his thanks to all those in America who are trying to help the IDPs and refugees of Darfur. He then passed the phone around because several other camp leaders also wanted to thank us. I was incredibly humbled by the experience and ashamed that we have been so ineffective in helping the people of Darfur return to the lives they once knew.
Now Adam and so many like him are dead and many more deaths may soon follow.
I hope with all my heart that we can somehow use the news of this terrible tragedy toward a redoubled effort to help the people of Darfur.
Susan Morgan
Adam Bush was an eloquent voice from the Hamidiya camp in Zalengi - West Darfur, familiar to listeners of Radio Dabanga and the BBC. He was elected by the IDPs in Zalengi as their spokesperson. But Mr Bush was assassinated a few days ago by GoS special forces (death squads) as per the "New Strategy" in Darfur: to silence the outspoken voices, especially in the camps. Some members of the Zalengi Camp Council, a body formed by the IDPs, were also murdered.
Residents in Darfur's camps for the displaced report this new government tactic of sending squads in civilian cloths into the camps to assassinate the leaders among the IDPs.
Eyewitnesses to the murder of Adam Bush and his colleagues said that a group of armed men in plain cloths entered the camp, headed straight to the leaders, murdered them, and retreated swiftly.
Link to comments from Radio Dabanga:
http://www.radiodabanga.org/node/3680
http://www.radiodabanga.org/node/3680
| September 8, 2010 |
UN peacekeepers have "failed" the victims of mass rape in eastern DR Congo, a senior UN official has said.
Atul Khare told the Security Council that the scale of systematic rape by armed rebels was far worse than feared.
He said that up to 500 women and children were now believed raped in recent weeks - more than double the previously reported figure.
He called for the prosecution of Rwandan and Congolese rebels who are blamed for many of the attacks.
"At the same time a concerted response from the government, from the international community is needed to maintain pressure on the perpetrators of these rapes and to bring them to justice," he told the BBC's World Today programme.
| September 2, 2010 |
The UN is sending press releases to the Khartoum govt for censorship before publishing.