We must act to save those who are dying in DarFur.

[Cuban_Liberal]

Over 200 people of many faiths gathered Wednesday at the First Christian Church in Charleston, IL to voice our concerns for those who are dying in Sudan's Darfur region. Muslims, Christians and Jews gathered for the "Sudan Day of Conscience" , sponsored by the Charleston Ministerial Alliance. Its purpose was to "call attention to the plight of the people of Sudan" and to "call people of faith to action, to stand up and say this is wrong," said the Rev. Joe Ring, of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church.

Fr. Ring, president of the Ministerial Alliance, termed the conflict in Sudan a "genocide emergency" and said as many as one million people could perish in the near future after being driven from their homes by fighting between African rebel groups and government-supported Arab militia. More than 30,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million forced to flee in the 18 months of fighting. The refugees are in camps without adequate food, water or shelter, where people are dying daily from severe malnutrition. Some 50,000 have died so far in the camps.

He urged those attending to sign a statement of concern for the million people driven from their homes in Sudan; after the service all those present filed to the altar to sign the petition. The Rev. Patrick Murphy of the First Baptist Church read a quote from one refugee: "We walked from nowhere to nowhere -- and then walked some more." True compassion, he said, means acknowledging our own vulnerability, to recognize ourselves in those in need. He then read scriptures encouraging compassion -- and action -- to right the wrongs done to the weak, the helpless and the oppressed.

Dr. Herbert Lasky of Mattoon Jewish Community Center said the Ten Commandments remain as the "fundamentals of civilized behavior" -- adding that "Thou shall not kill" is based on the tenet that we are all created in the image of God. Further, he said, the Torah says that those who stand idly by and do nothing to prevent a murder are as guilty as those who commit the crime.

Imam Sayeed Saveri of the Champaign Muslim community said the Koran teaches "if you kill one innocent person, it's as if you have killed all of humanity, and if you save one innocent person, you've saved all of humanity." He urged "all people of good will, no matter what their faith, to act today".

Fr. Ring gave the benediction, using a Franciscan prayer he found on the Save Darfur Coalition Web site:

"May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

"May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

"May God bless you with tears, to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.

"And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done."

More information on the Save Darfur Coalition is available on its Web site, www.savedarfur.org

Contributions may be sent to: Sudan-Darfur Crisis Appeal #640B, Church World Service, PO. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515.

[1monster]

1. .

:kick:

[Padraig18]

2. If Danny Glover merits a kick, so does this thread!

:dem:

[histohoney]

3. Lets

keep these people in our prayers and work to end their nightmare.:kick:

[Padraig18]

4. Amen!

From your lips, to God's ears!

:hi:

[jukes]

5. kick

for C/L. :kick:

[progressivebydesign]

6. I don't understand why this crisis is being ignored by most..

.. I just don't understand how American can turn a blind eye to this, while trying to reason that we somehow saved the Iraqis by killing tens of thousands of them. Where are we now? I have NO doubt that Clinton and Gore would be all over this right now. Kerry would, too. THat's what America SHOULD use it's might for.. Sudan must not have oil, or perhaps the powers that be are in the diamond or gold business with too many of Bush's friends or preachers. Makes you wonder why images of Sudan are not dominating the tv news, instead we have Scott Peterson and the Swift Boat liars.

[Padraig18]

7. Unfortunately for them, they're oil-poor and dark-skinned.

As far as the Bush* (mal)administration is concerned, that eliminates them from any sort of meaningful consideration...

[progressivebydesign]

30. that makes me ill, because it's true.

Bush cares nothing for those he cannot exploit or convert. "Godly man", my ass!

[theboss]

33. Right...Because Clinton and Gore were such heroes with Rwanda

I honestly have no idea how you stop these periodic disasters in Africa without going in militarily and killing those who are doing the killing. And I don't think that's going to end well for anyone either.

[Blue Wally]

36. ummmmmmm

"I have NO doubt that Clinton and Gore would be all over this right now."

Rwanda-Burundi???

[PATRICK]

8. We gave up the leadership of this nation to Bush

like some idiotic act of bowing to royalty. He doesn't care. the lousy leaders overseas are not much better. The media follows his indolent lead.

Mostly we can suffer along with the dying and try to remind the Congressmen- who WERE actually voted for- that covert murder by impotent indifference is not an American virtue we expect them to practice.

[Padraig18]

10. Sadly, churches and the UN are the only ones doing anything...

That millions could die simply because no government can be bothered to officially care is shocking beyond words...

[charlie105]

9. Kick

[jonnyblitz]

11. kick n/t

[Hell Hath No Fury]

12. Kick!

eom

[Padraig18]

13. Another kick

:dem:

[Pallas180]

14. I'd like to know why the UN refuses

to call it genocide and move in to help.

I think it's societal engineering....

the same way they did nothing in Rwanda...

the same way 1/2 the African continent is decimated by AIDS - because
of refusal to sell-ship affordable medicines for 15 years.

easy solution to over-population ; do nothing to stop the killing.

except that it's suspect when it's always people of color or the "wrong" religion or nationality.

[Padraig18]

15. I wonder the same thing.

In the UN's defense, I would point out that they are at least (belatedly) trying to help.

[Rowdyboy]

16. The situation there is so horrific....but our news is SOOO busy with Kobe,

Scott, Michael etc that there's no time for stories like this to be heard. It says much about our society.

[Padraig18]

18. Indeed, a sad commentary on our society.

*sigh*

[Rowdyboy]

17. kick

[Classical_Liberal]

19. I don't completely trust the medias reporting in Durfur

They have misreported so much in Iraq and Venezuala and this smells Chalabi-ish to me. It is primarily fundamentalist and neocons that are hyped up about it, and an interview they did recently in the New Yorker seemed smelly to me. A refugee begged: "White people to come and save them!" This is being used to demonize the french and the UN, not to mention governments in developing countries. That smells of proimperialist agitprop to me! I am not the only one that is suspicious.


The Other Side in Darfur
August 26, 2004



The rampages of the Sudan government-backed Janjaweed in Darfur, that country’s unfortunate Western province, have been widely reported. Usually the coverage of Darfur, however, provides no clue about why it’s happening. It condescends to Africa: Oh well, it must be another one of those African things that make no sense, just evil Africans out to kill. But a recent New York Times piece sheds a little—just a little—light on the crisis.

It seems that the Muslim Brotherhood, in the person of Hassan Turabi, is backing the fighters on the other side of the crisis in Darfur, playing out a power struggle with the Bashir government in Khartoum:

Some trace the conflict in Darfur to a power struggle among top Muslim leaders in Khartoum.

In 1999, Mr. Bashir stripped his rival, Hassan al-Turabi, an Islamic hard-liner, of his positions as speaker of the Parliament and leader of the governing party. Two years later, Mr. Turabi was arrested and charged with being a threat to national security for signing a peace deal with the southern rebels.

After his release, Mr. Turabi founded the Popular Congress Party and reached out for support to the Muslim black African populations of Darfur. Before being jailed again in March, he acknowledged supporting the rebels of Darfur. "We support the cause, no doubt about it," he told the United Nations news agency in December. "I didn't say I'm involved with the fighting," he added. "I said we have relations with some of the leadership."......

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_other_side_in_darfur.php

[Cuban_Liberal]

40. There's always 2 sides, BUT....

... there are also always innocents, which is who this post refers to.

[gottaB]

41. Darfur atrocities: by any other name...

Darfur atrocities: by any other name....

How is it -- better still -- why is it, that some people are still in denial about the atrocities that have been committed in Sudan's Darfur province? The statements by a group of members of Arab professional unions and political activists who recently returned from a visit to Darfur contend that the crisis in western Sudan is being blown out of proportion. They point to the usual "culprits" -- the West -- as making a mountain out of a molehill for their own political and economic gain.

Is humanity never going to learn from the dark and horrific days of past genocides? In the second half of the 19th century, when there was no e-mail, an Irish-American journalist named Janaurius Aloysius MacGahan was commissioned by London's liberal paper, the Daily News, to go to Bulgaria to investigate reports of atrocities committed by Turkish troops against the Christian population of the south. His first discovery, in his own words, was "a heap of skulls intermingled with bones from all parts of the human body, skeletons, nearly entire, rotting clothing, human hair, and putrid flesh lying there in one foul heap, around which the grass was growing luxuriantly."

Around 12,000 men, women and children had been butchered by Turkish forces. His telegraph dispatches to the Daily News forced the pro-Turkish Premier Benjamin Disraeli and his government to concede their error in denying the earlier reports of a genocide, and the world's outrage brought on calls for military intervention. Several months later, in the spring of 1877, Russia launched a war against Turkey.

And that is how it has been with so many other genocides. There are always those who will, for some reason or another, deny these occurrences. But in today's age of high speed information technology and several internationally reputable human rights watchdog organisations, such atrocities are brought to the fore quickly. The hindrances to putting a stop to genocide or exacting punishment for its perpetrators are always political.

***

So you're suspicious of the media? Let's break it down. The editors of TomPaine criticize the reporting of the New York Times' Mark Lacey, yet if they had really been following Lacey's reporting the questions they raise would have been answered for them. I have posted many of Lacey's stories in lbn. They are also republished all over the net. I would encourage anybody who seeks the truth to review those.

You have cited an opinion piece published in the Guardian. The Guardian has published numerous opinion pieces, mostly critical of the government of Sudan, and some stories from its own correspondent Jeevan Vasagar. I would strongly urge seekers of the truth to read Vasagar's reporting.

De Waal is an oft quoted expert. Surely, the situation is complex and experts like de Waal help us appreciate that. De Waal, however, has described the mass murder in Darfur as rather like "genocide by force of habit," a viewpoint which doesn't lend support to those who would deny that a genocide is occuring. Yes, it is rather complex. Seekers of the truth will want to study de Waal's views, alongside of those of other experts.

You have pointed to an opinion piece that was carried by the Indepenent, by a writer whose main interest does not seem to be African affairs. And yet the Independent has carried many editorials and stories that would tend to dispel your suspicions. Seekers of the truth will want to read reporting by Independent correspondents Kim Sengupta in Darfur and Meera Selva reporting from Chad.

There are many other reporters who have courageously reported from Darfur. Stephanie Nolan for the Globe and Mail, Emily Wax for the Washington Post, Sudarsan Raghavan for Knight-Ridder, Hilary Andersson for the BBC. (Al Jazeera's reporters have unfortunately been expelled from Sudan, a fact which is mentioned in the latest report from Amnesty International.)

For your suspicions to be correct, we would have to believe that the Independent, the Guardian, the BBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Knight-Ridder and other reporting agencies, together with NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Justice Africa, et al, together with certain UN agencies and also religious groups from all over the political (and theological) spectrum (follow the links to savedarfur.org presented in Cuban Liberal's post to see who's involved), all have conspired or been infiltrated and/or undermined so as to be tools of a vast proimperialist agitprop campaign. Oh, that sounds reasonable. On the other hand, as the Jordan Times opines, "Perhaps all those who still shy from calling it as it is should do some more fact-finding."

***

The only story from the New Yorker I'm aware of: Dying in Darfur.

[Classical_Liberal]

43. I'll see if I can find things in the Britiish media

but the New York Times and the Washington Post don't help your cause at all. They helped Bush and Chalabi lie about Iraq. Needless to say, because we are quagmired in Iraq there isn't a whole lot we can do anyway. Not my fault. I didn't push that war.

[gottaB]

45. If you wanted to argue that Lacey and Wax were spreading agitprop

and to rebut that, I argued that their reporting was consistent with other objective observers, and cited as evidence reports from USAID, Voice of America, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the Telegraph, the Economist, the Financial Times, and the Scotsman, all of which have reported on Darfur, then I should agree with you that I haven't made a very good case. As it is, I find it telling that the Independent and the Washington Post, who took opposite views with regard to the invasion of Iraq, report similar facts and views on Darfur. (NB, WaPo, in addition to presenting its own view, has published opeds opposed to intervention.)

It is possible that the Guardian and Independent have been infiltrated. It is possible that Stephanie Nolan is a spy--after all she critized Saddam Hussein at time when such criticisms were welcome by US warmongers. I happen to think she's filing better reports than Levon Sevunts, working for the Toronto Star, but Sevunts' reports are informative as well.

We might also consider Al Ahram. Despite their explicit editorial position, which is largely that of the Egyptian government, they have published reports from journalists with firsthand knowledge of the situation in Sudan, and aired various critical viewpoints.

There are many, many examples of people using Darfur to stab at their political enemies. That doesn't alter the basic facts. To be sure, Iraq's nuclear weapons were a phantasm. The killing in Sudan is not such a phantasm. There is a body count. Bashir challenged the world to show the graves. Reporters have found the graves, and the victims who weren't even buried. I don't see how, given the state of medical science, reported rates of acute malnutrition could not lead to a body count that approaches USAID's projections. Call it what you will. I stand with John Kerry in calling it by its rightful name: "genocide."

[Classical_Liberal]

48. I never said the deaths were a phantom

. I said I don't trust the arab vs blacks take. Both sides are black and muslim. I also don't trust the idea that large percentages of Sudanese want white people to take over their country. That sounds like neocon spin. Like how the Iraqies would welcome us with roses. Actions may need to be taken by different groups. The AU is sending in peace keeper. I personally think that those actions should be based on a realistic assessment of what is going on, and no American Paper provides any background info on anything.

Needless to say, what in hell do you expect us to do? We're bogged down in Iraq, and that is the fault of most of the people calling for action in Darfur.

[gottaB]

49. "Both sides are black"

The government of Sudan is the entity primarily responsible for extreme polarization of racial identites which has been abundantly attested to in Darfur.

My most recent musings on the matter:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=116x7107

This morning I read an interesting view from Mahgoub El-Tigani, a Sudanese human rights activist residing in Cairo: Negating ethnicity abuses in Darfur is equally accountable. By "accountable" he means morally responsible for the genocidal destruction of non-Arab Darfuris:

The Arab-oriented central government's biased policies vis-à-vis the DarFur non-Arab African Sudanese is a major source of the problem. Equally important, the writers who negate the ethnic component of the Crisis are squarely responsible for the guilt of irresponsibly falsifying or obliterating the painful realities; thus escalating the impact of racism in the DarFur scourge.

I wouldn't expect you to embrace El-Tigani's conclusions, but I commend his viewpoint to you for your edification.

Well, we could talk more about US Christians' interest in and knowledge of Sudan, and how that community intersects with Bush's Christian fundamentalist base on the one hand, and Neocons on the other; the perpective of people from the left who also happened to oppose the Iraq war, such as Charles Rangel, Howard Dean, and Jesse Jackson; the role of the AU and how the success of Obasanjo's diplomacy depends upon US and international support and pressure on Khartoum; the calls for intervention by Darfuris, including organized, armed resistence movements, and what obligations if any such calls place upon Western powers; and so on. These are all complicated topics. If you would like to argue that the government of Sudan isn't a militant racist regime which has committed itself to the genocidal destruction of non-Arabs in Darfur, I will argue that point with you.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

20. has any government officials anywhere said anything about this?

i feel like it is an issue no one is interested it, yet it is very important and needs to be dealt with.

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. Colin Powell went to Sudan last month to try to get action

Jack Straw (British Foreign Secretary) went a couple of days ago. The French Foreign Minister went too, recently. The US was the country that pushed to get a UN resolution saying the Sudanese government must stop the violence and allow aid agencies in (the Chinese watered it down). If the killings haven't stopped by the end of this month, 'further action' will be taken - if the Chinese don't veto it.

http://www.economist.com/world/worldthisweek/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3123877

[Cuban_Liberal]

38. The Chinese want Sudan's oil.

The Chinese would strangle their own mothers, if it would get them cheap oil...

[SheepyMcSheepster]

47. thanks for the info

i wish the media thought this story was as important as scott peterson or michael jackson :eyes:

[phillybri]

21. Kick

:kick:

[Classical_Liberal]

22. Sudan authority Alex de Waal, the crisis is far more complex than claimed

Darfur's deep grievances defy all hopes for an easy solution

The world is waking to the human disaster in Sudan. But, argues writer and world authority on the country, Alex de Waal, the crisis is far more complex than some claim - and cannot be resolved by a quick fix

Sunday July 25, 2004
The Observer

Darfur, the war-torn province in western Sudan where a terrible humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding, has yet more awful secrets to divulge.

In addition to 1.2 million displaced people living and dying in refugee camps in the region and across the border in neighbouring Chad, there are hundreds of thousands more struggling to survive in their homes in the vast areas held by the rebel movements fighting against the Khartoum government.

They are far from any TV cameras, and far from the comfort of aid agencies. They are surviving as their parents and grandparents did, through hardiness and skill..........

Characterising the Darfur war as 'Arabs' versus 'Africans' obscures the reality. Darfur's Arabs are black, indigenous, African and Muslim - just like Darfur's non-Arabs, who hail from the Fur, Masalit, Zaghawa and a dozen smaller tribes.......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1268773,00.html

[jukes]

23. EXTREMELY important issue;

hence, another kick: :kick:

[renegade000]

24. kick

:kick:

[Classical_Liberal]

25. The Independent: Threatening The Sudan Government Won't Help Darfur

Now that international public opinion has been aroused over Darfur, there has been a sudden rush to diplomatic activity, but with little overall sense of objective and only paltry resources. Threats and deadlines by the UN have become not a means to an end, but almost an end in themselves, an answer not to the needs of the starving and brutalised civilians in the area but a response to the public demand in Western countries that their leaders "do something about it".

Part of the problem, of course, is the structure of the UN itself, its lack of permanent security and aid facilities and its dependence on consensus for any action. But those difficulties have been compounded by the Iraq war. In the most practical sense, the war in Iraq has diverted attention away from Sudan at the critical time when the UN and the major powers might otherwise have concentrated their minds on Darfur.

But in a deeper sense, Iraq has made consensual solutions to crises such as Sudan a great deal more difficult. All the discussions that might have taken place in the grey areas of pressure and persuasion have been made impossible by an international discourse that can only see crises in terms of intervention or non-intervention, regime-change or appeasement. Such is the sense of a "battle of civilisations" engendered by the invasion of Iraq that Muslims are reluctant to see any action taken against Khartoum for fear that it is part of a Western war against their confreres, while African and other Third World countries oppose it on the grounds that it opens up the way to more general Western intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.

Grandstanding is the last thing that the poor people of Darfur need. Nor, I think, would it help much to declare their plight a "genocide", for all that this would force the UN to take action. What is happening in western Sudan is not the same as Kosovo or Rwanda, nor is it, strictly speaking, a genocide. It is the kind of messy local, tribalised tragedy bred on deprivation and a lack of resources, and fuelled by outside interference, too many guns and a government that has used the local Arab Janjaweed forces as its surrogates for its own political ends. Bombing Khartoum won't make the situation better. Nor will walking away from it.........

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=5992

[MissMarple]

26. Just helping keep this on the front page.

[mitchum]

27. kick

[redqueen]

28. Kick

:kick:

[redqueen]

29. .

.

[tom_paine]

31. Imperial Amerika can't even save itself...

[GreenPartyVoter]

32. Thanks! Will put a link to this on my site

[Cuban_Liberal]

39. Thank you!

The world needs to know.

:)

[Darranar]

34. The slaughter in Darfur is despicable and atrocious...

the ignorance of most of the international community towards it, beyond politically-beneficial gestures, is disgusting.

[BlueHandDuo]

35. First I heard of this...

...and I read "top news" every day.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

[Valerie5555]

42. Meaning no disrespect to either the OLYMPICS, the athletes that compete in

them or the people that had even the slightest interest in them, but how telling that the media and most people were sidetracked by things like the Olympic Games in Athens as of late.

On edit It is kind of maddening or frustrating or :grr:, :mad:, or :argh: that the only thing most people could do is make contributions to groups such as Amnesty International.

[Darranar]

44. Kick. n/t

[AmyDeLune]

46. Refugees International

has been trying to publicize this for quite awhile...good articles here.
http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/3078?PHPSESSID=4a75e3f733d2947f689ec9447bc8d8de