U.S. Disappointed on Sudanese Attitude to Darfur

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By Saul Hudson
EL FASHER, Sudan (Reuters) - The Sudanese government has disappointed Secretary of State Colin Powell in talks on the crisis in the troubled western region of Darfur, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

Powell, on the second day of a visit to Sudan, arrived in Darfur Wednesday for a first-hand look at some of the million people displaced by marauding Arab militias in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

He has threatened unspecified U.N. Security Council action if Khartoum does not crack down on the militias, known locally as the Janjaweed, and streamline relief work in the region.

But a senior U.S. official said that in Powell's initial talks the Sudanese did not realize the gravity of the crisis.

"They are in a state of denial. They are in a state of avoidance. They are trying to obfuscate and avoid any consequences," said the official, who asked not to be named.

more
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5553154


Analysis: Defining genocide


Black Africans say they are being driven from their homes in Darfur
Human rights campaigners accuse Sudan's pro-government Arab militia of carrying out genocide against black African residents of the Darfur region.
They are accused of forcing some one million people from their homes and killing at least 10,000.

Many thousands more are at risk of starving due to a lack of food in the camps where they have fled.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has refused to use the term genocide, which would carry a legal obligation to act.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "We see indicators and elements that would start to move you toward a genocidal conclusion but we're not there yet."

But what is genocide and when can it be applied? Some argue that the definition is too narrow and others that the term is devalued by misuse.
more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3853157.stm

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1. Kofi Annan has refused to use the term genocide

I don't think it's in his vocab.

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2. Screams of Sudan's starving refugees

The 15-month long conflict in Sudan's western province of Darfur has produced what the United Nations is calling "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world".
A pro-government Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, is accused of carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the black African population there. Hilary Andersson has been to one of the Darfur refugee camps.


Children are starving in Darfur's refugee camps
It is very disturbing to be a me or a you and to see what is happening in Darfur.

To see humanity stripped to its barest bones. To see people so traumatised that they stutter from their memories, or wail at night, and now so destitute that they simply have nothing.

Not a blanket, not shelter, not water, not food, not basic health. Nothing. And the prospect of things getting worse.

I spoke to so many displaced Darfurians that my notebook is jammed with endless identifying scribbles like woman in red headdress; starving child with crinkled face like old man; pathetic-looking child leaning against mother - and next to them name after name.

Stories that relay horror piled on horror. And stories that are all very similar.

more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3840427.stm

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3. Darfur aid worker's diary

Marcus Prior: 'The scale of the need... is overwhelming.
1230: After a quick late breakfast of beans and local bread, shaped like a camel's foot, our three-car convoy sets out for Kutum, 98km to the north. Even in our desert-eating land-cruisers, the journey takes three hours. WFP trucks laden with food take an entire day to reach Kutum from El Fasher. And that's before the rains arrive to turn the road to muddy mayhem. Before we had even reached the trench that surrounds El Fasher to prevent rebel attacks, the road was already impassable in a two-wheel drive vehicle. Sudan's desert, with its golden sand streaked with red, broken only by the odd village, would be breathtaking were it not for the dark shadow of human rights abuses that hangs over it.

1545: We arrive at Kutum. It is set on the banks of a river that flows for a few days each year if the residents are lucky. Some irrigation is possible and small plots along the riverbank hold the promise of a healthy harvest. Like El Fasher, Kutum has been a magnet for those fleeing the militia attacks in North Darfur.

Over 10,000 people now live in the Kasab camp, a short distance out of town.

more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3840151.stm

[Mistress Quickly]

4. The UN needs to act

and now. This would be a great chance for them to do something to rub in the face of dubya, plus SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE AND NOW!

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6. Allowed to die

1 million Rwandans 1994
4 million in Congo since 1998

We are arming both sides

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7. Fuckity fuck fuck

cheneity cheney cheney

The whole world is going to hell in a handbasket, enjoy the ride.

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10. We must be truthful then we must fight

for the rest of our lives. And we must teach our children the truth so they will fight for the rest of their lives.

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5. In pictures: Fighting for Sudan

The government responded with massive force - and has been accused of "ethnic cleansing". Some one million people have fled Darfur and 10,000 have been killed.

Khamis Ahmad Osman joined the SLA after government forces destroyed his village, killing 21 people including his brother.

The government denies backing the Arab militia. Refugees say their villages are first bombed by government planes, then the militia ride in on horses and camels, killing, raping and looting

more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/3714877.stm

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8. U2spirit Disappointed on Bush Attitude to earth

EOM

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9. BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...

HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...

BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html WATCH THIS VIDEO

[MetaTrope]

11. The Sudanese conflict in its current form was instigated by the U.S.

As oil companies provided munitions to Christian warlords in the south, bartering for mineral rights claimed by the Islamic Sudanese government in the north.

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12. The Role of the U.S.

Under the George W. Bush administration starting in January 2001, two domestic U.S. lobbies flexed their muscles in seeking to influence U.S. policy toward Sudan: one extremely powerful—the oil industry—and one just beginning to test its foreign policy strength, on Sudan—a conservative religious grouping concerned about treatment of Christians. This conservative religious lobby scored a victory over the oil and business community when the Sudan Peace Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives by 422-2 on June 13, 2001. This act contained an amendment imposing capital market sanctions on foreign companies doing oil business in Sudan, prohibiting them from any access to U.S. capital markets. This would have required that Talisman Energy be de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange.

The oil and financial industries prevailed, however. The Senate subsequently passed a version of the bill lacking these capital market sanctions. In October 2002, in light of Bush administration hostility to any capital market sanctions, the House passed another version of the Sudan Peace Act, one which omitted such controversial sanctions. This passed the Senate also and was signed by the president.

more
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/sudan1103/8.htm#_Toc54492561

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13. Sudan Genocide Continues; Protesters on the March

June 30, 2004

Sudan Genocide Continues; Protesters on the March
by Keith Peters, Washington, D.C., correspondent


Calls come for end to abuse and genocide in the Sudan.

There were protests in Washington recently aimed at the government of Sudan. Protesters charged the Khartoum government with continuing genocide against its own people. About 100 demonstrators marched outside the Sudanese embassy in northwest Washington, D.C., calling for an end to the genocide they say is going on in the Darfur region right now.

One of the protestors, Nina Shea of Freedom House, said this is the same type of "scorched earth" policy that Khartoum used for over a decade in Southern Sudan, where two million African Christians died.

"The government (has been) withholding food aid — internationally donated food aid — after they've driven the people off the land through militias to create a situation of mass starvation," Shea said.

She said tens of thousands have already died this year in the western Darfur region, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is predicting that a million more will perish if the abuse doesn't stop.

more
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0032718.cfm

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14. Sudan villagers recount harrowing ordeal

By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
The Associated Press
7/1/2004, 1:57 p.m. ET


EL-FASHIR, Sudan (AP) — First come the airplanes. Then the horsemen who burn, rape and kill.


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Over and over, terrified villagers told the same story Thursday as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan got a firsthand look at the crisis engulfing Sudan's Darfur region.

Annan, accompanied by government ministers and senior U.N. staff, toured one of the 137 camps where more than 1 million people chased from their homes over the past 16 months have sought shelter.

Sitting on mats shaded by trees, he chatted with camp elders and women who described the waves of attacks humanitarian workers have likened to ethnic cleansing.

Human rights groups accuse the Sudanese government of backing militias of Arab herders, known as the Janjaweed, in a campaign to forcibly remove African farming communities from the vast western region where they have coexisted, and in some cases intermarried, for centuries. Camp residents echoed their accounts Thursday.

"First the planes were flying over us and bombing us. Then the Janjaweed came," said a 20-year-old woman, who gave her name only as Zahara. "They started to shoot and burn. They took all our belongings. They took men and slit their throats with swords. The women they took as concubines."

more
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/lateststories/index.ssf?/base/international-15/1088705040228340.xml

[gottaB]

15. Nigeria to send troops to Sudan

Lagos - Nigeria is to send troops to assist in the peace process in southern Sudan, where Africa's longest running civil war appears to be on the brink of being resolved, an army spokesperson told reporters on Thursday.

"The request was made by the African Union (AU) and it has been considered. We are sending a company of soldiers, about 120, to Sudan. They are currently undergoing training for the assignment," Colonel Emeka Onwuamaegbu said.

He said the defence authorities have yet to decide whether the troops will be under the auspices of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, currently overseeing the peace process in the south of the country.

"No decision on that yet to the best of my knowledge. But it is not unlikely the troops will be under the United Nations," he added.

Nigeria to send troops to Sudan....

[gottaB]

16. Annan reassures Darfur refugees

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said refugees from Sudan's troubled Darfur region will not have to return home without guarantees of protection.

"Nobody is going to force you to go home," Mr Annan said during a visit to a refugee camp in northern Darfur.

His visit came shortly after Sudan pledged to reimpose order in Darfur, where pro-government Arab militia have been accused of ethnic cleansing.

Earlier, the US said Sudan must act now or face UN Security Council action.

Annan reassures Darfur refugees....