Genocide update: "NATO on alert to provide help in Darfur" (Bush silent)

[Nothing Without Hope]

The Canadians have already offered to provide helicopters to assist in the urgently needed airlift operations. The United States HAS NOT. The best that could be said of our oh-so-moral, “culture-of-life” government in this article is that a “British official said that if the US also offered to help with the airlift, that should be taken up.” For more on the continuing US silence on the ongoing genocide, in which an estimated 400,000 people have already died, see the info on the blistering May 3 Kristoff NYT article "Day 113 of the President's Silence" below.

Here's the latest update on the Darfur situation from the Guardian (UK):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1487084,00.html

Nato on alert to provide help in Darfur

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Thursday May 19, 2005

Nato ordered its planners yesterday to begin urgently drawing up proposals to help out in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than a million displaced.

Nato's 26 ambassadors, meeting in Brussels, approved a request for help from the African Union, the pan-continental organisation, which has 2,600 troops on the ground.

This is the African Union's first peace operation and it is struggling, partly because of the scale of the crisis, partly because of a lack of experience, but mainly because of a lack of logistical support.

(snip)

The AU has also asked the EU to help, but the British official said yesterday that it did not have the heavy airlifting capacity that Nato has. Details are to be worked out at a meeting next Thursday in Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia, attended by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and representatives of the AU, Nato and the EU.

(snip)

The US position – or rather, NONposition – in the Darfur genocide is laid out in all its sorry squalor in the May 3 NYT article by Nicholas Kristoff. I couldn’t find a full-length copy of the article on the web that did not require a subscription, but here is a site that has a fairly full accounting of it:

http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2005/05/day_113_of_the_.html
(snip)

Incredibly, the Bush administration is fighting to kill the Darfur Accountability Act, which would be the most forceful step the U.S. has taken so far against the genocide. The bill, passed by the Senate, calls for such steps as freezing assets of the genocide's leaders and imposing an internationally backed no-fly zone to stop Sudan's Army from strafing villages.

The White House was roused from its stupor of indifference on Darfur to send a letter, a copy of which I have in my hand, to Congressional leaders, instructing them to delete provisions about Darfur from the legislation.

(snip)

Aside from the effort to block Congressional action, there are other signs that the administration is trying to backtrack on Darfur. The first sign came when Condoleezza Rice gave an interview to The Washington Post in which she deflected questions about Darfur and low-balled the number of African Union troops needed there.

Then, in Sudan, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick pointedly refused to repeat the administration's past judgment that the killings amount to genocide. Mr. Zoellick also cited an absurdly low estimate of Darfur's total death toll: 60,000 to 160,000. Every other serious estimate is many times as high. The latest, from the Coalition for International Justice, is nearly 400,000, and rising by 500 a day.

(snip)

And here is the “official” NYT abstract of it from the archive search:

http://tinyurl.com/7ga25
EDITORIAL DESK | May 3, 2005, Tuesday

Day 113 of the President's Silence

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NYT) Op-Ed 785 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 25 , Column 1
ABSTRACT - Nicholas D Kristof Op-Ed column says today marks Day 113 of Pres Bush's silence about genocide in Darfur unfolding on his watch; notes his administration is fighting to kill Darfur Accountability Act, which would be most forceful step United States has taken so far against genocide; suspects that Bush is reluctant to do more to save perhaps several hundred thousand lives for three reasons: he sees no neat solution, he is concerned that pressuring Sudan on Darfur might disrupt separate peace accord he brokered between northern and southern Sudan, and because Sudan's leaders are increasing their cooperation with CIA

Let’s collect the best sites for information and activism on the Sudan/Darfur genocide. Here is one to start – it has a frequently updated news page, links to information and video, and more:

www.darfurgenocide.org

I do not know the best place for donations for Darfur/Sudan relief – places where you can be sure the money will go to actually help the people who need it. I HOPE READERS OF THIS THREAD WILL COMMENT ON THIS POINT – WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE TO DONATE? PLEASE GIVE INFO AND LINKS.