Bob Geldof urges tough EU sanctions against Sudan | The text of the letter urging Darfur Action

[Sapphire Blue]

*****************************************************************************

Tell Bush: No More Delays on 'Plan B'; sign the petition:

http://action.savedarfur.org/dia/organizationsORG/darfur/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6716

*****************************************************************************

Bob Geldof urges tough EU sanctions against Sudan
AFP
March 25, 2007

BERLIN -- Irish rocker and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof Sunday urged EU leaders to toughen sanctions against the Sudanese government in a bid to stop the civil war in Darfur.

The call to slap a travel embargo and an asset freeze on Sudanese leaders came as EU leaders gathered in Berlin to mark the 50th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaty.

(snip)

The United Nations estimates 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced since February 2003 when rebels from minority tribes in the vast western province took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

An under-funded and ill-equipped African Union force of 7,000 men has been unable to halt the violence.

Geldof called the conflict a genocide, and said it was shameful that the European Union was not doing more to stop the killing, pointing out that the bloc was born in response to World War II, which saw the murder of 6 million Jews.

"It is a spurious idea that we have lots to celebrate, the sense of betrayal is much greater. The EU arose out of genocide and we have failed to honor that shared value," he said.

Ten leading European writers, including Nobel literature laureates Harold Pinter and Gunter Grass, called on EU leaders in an open letter Saturday to interrupt the anniversary celebrations and act to stop the bloodshed in Darfur.

Continued @ http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070325-095905-9634r

Tell Bush: No More Delays on 'Plan B'; sign the petition: http://action.savedarfur.org/dia/organizationsORG/darfur/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6716

The text of the letter urging Darfur Action

How dare we Europeans celebrate this weekend while, on a continent some few miles south of us, the most defenceless, dispossessed and weak are murdered in Sudan?

Has the European Union - born of atrocity to unite against further atrocity - no word to utter, no principle to act on, no action to take, in order to prevent these massacres in Darfur? Is the cowardliness over Srebrenica to be repeated? If so, what do we celebrate? The thin skin of our political join? The futile posturings of our political class? The impotent nullities of our bureaucracies?

The Europe which allowed Auschwitz and failed in Bosnia must not tolerate the murder in Darfur. Europe is more that a network of the political classes, more than a first-world economic club and a bureaucratic excrescence. It is an inherited culture which sustains our shared belief in the value and dignity of the human being.

In the name of that common culture and those shared values, we call upon the 27 leaders to impose immediately the most stringent sanctions upon the leaders of the Sudanese regime. Forbid them our shores, our health service and our luxury goods. Freeze their assets in our banks and move immediately to involve other concerned countries.

We must not once again betray our European civilisation by watching and waiting while another civilisation in Africa is destroyed. Let this action be our gift to ourselves and our proof of ourselves. When it is done, then let us celebrate together with pride.

Umberto Eco, Dario Fo, Gunter Grass, Jurgen Habermas, Vaclav Havel, Seamus Heaney, Bernard Henri-Levy, Harold Pinter, Franca Rame, Tom Stoppard

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042211,00.html

*****************************************************************************

Tell Bush: No More Delays on 'Plan B'; sign the petition:

http://action.savedarfur.org/dia/organizationsORG/darfur/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6716

*****************************************************************************

[Sapphire Blue]

1. ...

:kick: in case anyone cares.

[bobbolink]

2. It's a sad day when a ROCKER cares so much more than "progressives"

Geee, I keep hearing how much all these various candidates *CARE* about poverty.

Where are their supporters????

[Sapphire Blue]

4. You know what's REALLY sad? When Bill Frist shows more compassion about Darfur than 'liberals'.

What's sad is that when I posted Frist's Darfur appeal, I received the most replies on any Darfur thread I've ever posted here... not responses from people willing to call bush to launch Plan B, but posts slamming Frist, posts slamming me for posting something positive about Frist's efforts on Darfur, and posts lecturing me about how they don't need Frist to make them aware of the genocide in Darfur and care about it, posts asking why I posted Frist's appeal instead of someone else's appeal. Well, Bob Geldof is someone else, and a liberal. So, where are all the replies?

Oh, yeah, people here really care about Darfur.
:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[bobbolink]

5. Yet, I've been blasted for saying that Kucinich supporters are no more compassionate

about poverty than ......

[Jcrowley]

3. Some background

Blair threatens force over Darfur

Julian Borger
Tuesday March 27, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Tony Blair is pushing the United Nations to declare a no-fly zone over Darfur, enforced if necessary by the bombing of Sudanese military airfields used for raids on the province, the Guardian has learned.
The controversial initiative comes as a classified new report by a UN panel of experts alleges Sudan has violated UN resolutions by moving arms into Darfur, conducting overflights and disguising its military planes as UN humanitarian aircraft.

Mr Blair has been pushing for much tougher international action against Sudan since President Omar Hassan al-Bashir reneged earlier this month on last November's agreement to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur to protect civilians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,,2044116,00.html

A must read here:
The U.S. Role in Darfur, Sudan
Oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia?

by Sara Flounders

http://www.williambowles.info/africa/us_darfur.html

And this:
Oil in Darfur

Other credible sources that clearly see the evidence of oil in Darfur include AlertNet, a syndicated on-line journal which positions itself as a leader in "alerting humanitarians to emergencies." Published in London by the highly respected Reuters Foundation, the award-winning AlertNet was launched in 1997 "to provide support services for aid agencies," and it reports current membership of over 300 leading agencies in some 80 countries.

"London (AlertNet): The existence of big oilfields in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region has added a new twist to a bloody, two-year-old conflict, potentially turning the quest for peace into a tussle over resources."

"Sudan announced in April <2005> that its ABCO corporation, which is 37 percent owned by Swiss company Clivenden, had begun drilling for oil in Darfur, where preliminary studies showed there were "abundant" quantities of oil."

"The issue of oil in Darfur isn’t very different from the issue of oil anywhere else," said Mike Aaronson, director general of British NGO Save the Children. "It’s potentially a tremendous blessing, and potentially a tremendous handicap."

According to Ken Bacon, President of the non-profit U.S. advocacy organization Refugees International, petroleum is a central issue behind the war in Darfur. In an interview with AlertNet media, Bacon was repeatedly quoted for his comments about oil in Darfur in the context of its importance to external governments and corporations. Bacon went on to describe the conflict as a "land grab" by powerful economic interests. The displacement of populations, he said, was a means to access and control the land they live on.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20SN20070207&articleId=4717

And this:

A Warning to Africa: The New U.S. Imperial Grand Strategy
by John Bellamy Foster

John Bellamy Foster’s most recent book is Naked Imperialism: The U.S. Pursuit of Global Dominance (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006). This is an updated and revised version of a talk delivered at the World Social Forum in Bamako, Mali on January 20, 2006.

Imperialism is constant for capitalism. But it passes through various phases as the system evolves. At present the world is experiencing a new age of imperialism marked by a U.S. grand strategy of global domination. One indication of how things have changed is that the U.S. military is now truly global in its operations with permanent bases on every continent, including Africa, where a new scramble for control is taking place focused on oil.

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0606jbf.htm

[Behind the Aegis]

6. Thank you! K&R