US House taking action on Darfur
I just got an email from my Rep. detailing her ideas on stopping the genocide in Darfur and wanted to pass the info along. The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), will be voted on as soon as next week. The bill will appoint a U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, provide $514 million for security and humanitarian assistance and urge NATO and the UN to send forces.
Look your congressman or woman up and send them an email, call them, or mail them a letter urging them to support the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act (House Resolution 3127/Senate Resolution 1462).
The Darfur crisis is expanding. Two hundred thousand refugees have crossed the border into Chad, attracting the attention of the Janjaweed militia across the border. A domestic conflict is becoming international.
African Union leaders told our delegation that their 7,000 troops cannot provide security in a territory the size of France and they need double that number, though the Brookings Institution estimates that it will take at least 20,000 AU troops to secure the region. The budget for the African Union's Mission in Sudan will run out by the end of March.
The United States must urge the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution giving AU troops the backing of the United Nations. Additionally, the United States should encourage NATO to deploy a peacekeeping force to Darfur. The security of the civilian population depends on it. - read the full article at the Chicago Sun Times
Iraq: 3 years down 3 more to go?
How Long will we be in Iraq? President Bush said today that there
may still be troops in Iraq when he leaves office in three years. While Bush continues his pr tour to raise support for the war, the 2,319 American servicemember was killed in Iraq today. Bush continues to skirt the issue of withdrawal, saying "That will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
Furthermore, the Bush administration refuses to acknowledge that a civil war is emerging in Iraq, even with more than 1,000 Iraqis killed since the bombing last month of a Shiite shrine (including 39 just yesterday). With grizzly discoveries of tortured, blindfolded corpses occurring almost daily in Iraq, former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared,
"If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." After the much touted elections in Iraq, no government has yet been formed. Despite all of the growing problems with no end in sight, Bush remains "optimistic" saying
"We've got a strategy for victory, and we're making progress." Really? What exactly is our strategy in Iraq? Stay the Course?
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
--Winston ChurchillIt's time for a new strategy.
Darfur - You CAN do something today
Human Rights First has put together a petition calling for a dedicated UN Diplomat to work for peace in Darfur.
Sign the petition and stand up for the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 people who have been murdered and over 2 million who have been subjected to violence, rape and forced to flee their homes. More on this over at the
Coalition for Darfur.
Darfur in the News - Rape as a Weapon of War
I was watching the Today show this morning and was delightfully surprised to see they are addressing the crisis in Darfur. They had an expert on this morning discussing one of the tactics being used in the war, the use of gang rape as a weapon.
Two hundred Senate and House staffers held their breath as Suad Mansour, a native of Darfur now working for the group Darfur Peace and Development, shared the story of eight women who were raped and abducted by members of a government-backed Janjaweed militia while collecting firewood one night. The militiamen told the women, who included a 9-year-old girl, that they were to be their wives. The women were found in the militia’s compound two days later by African Union peacekeepers and taken to a hospital where the young girl later died. When their families tried to speak out, they were threatened into silence by the government.
Stories like this are all too common in Darfur, where rape is the signature crime of the genocide. The UN has said that rape is used as a “systematic weapon of war.” Attacks are not isolated crimes of opportunity but part of a deliberate campaign to destroy the social fabric of the entire community. Women face rape not only during Janjaweed attacks on their homes, but even after they reach the relative safety of the displaced-persons camps. In the camps, where women make up 80% of the inhabitants, they face rape every time they venture out in search of water or firewood.
...Rape is used as a weapon in Darfur to destroy the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of not only women but also their families and friends. Dr. Reeves noted that the UN Genocide Convention “specifies, among other genocidal acts: ‘Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,’ and, ‘Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.’” He stated that the “systematic” and “racialized” nature of sexual violence by the militias “compel[s] the conclusion that sexual violence against women is genocidal in nature.”
Haroun noted that “[t]he abuse of women in Darfur has continued to reach the highest levels. Rapes are so violent some women are left physically destroyed or even die. Women are attacked on a daily basis. They are attacked when they are alone or in groups. The hospitals are full of rape victims that are in unbelievable shape and many now have sexual transmitted diseases. And they are considered lucky because they didn’t die.”
The assault on women occurs within an atmosphere of complete impunity for their assailants. A report by Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) indicates that 81% of rapes perpetrated by the Janjaweed militias occur with government military personnel present. (Rather than address the systematic violence described in the report, the Sudanese government simply arrested the MSF workers who released it.) Nor can victims expect justice after the fact; women who report that they have been raped often face not only ostracism but also reprisal by the authorities. - Genocide Intervention Network
The Today show sent Ann Curry to Chad to bring coverage of the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and the violence spilling into neighboring Chad. If you have a moment,
take a look at her photo journals.
If you are not aware of what is happening in Darfur, the report offers a
basic explination of the atrocities.
The Latest on Darfur
The
US Senate voted unanimously on a resolution urging Pres. Bush to take action on Darfur. They are urging him to push NATO to take action and the UN Security Council to provide peacekeeping forces. The UN has already started planning for sending 7,000 troops.
This all sounds well and good, but it seems to be too little and way overdue. I'm inclined to think it's an election year maneuver instead of a genuine effort by congress to address a bloody genocide that we have sat back and watched as an estimated thousands of people have been murdered and over 2 million displaced and subjected to rape and violence. Why am I so skeptical about this? To begin with, this same "unanimous" congress
failed to give the Sec. Of State the money she begged for to fund actions in Darfur. On top of the fact that Pres. Bush has already urged the UN and NATO to send peacekeepers, this is hardly a novel move from the congress. If anything, it's the US congress that has been dragging the US response to Darfur.
Also, consider that the UN has been working on sanctions for over a year and are
still deadlocked because of countries with oil interests in Sudan holding out. With
China increasing it's economic power in Africa, including sending tanks and bombs to the Sudanese government fueling the genocide in Darfur, it's hard to see anything coming out of the UN security council that will stop the violence.
Sanctions face resistance from Russia and China, which have strong economic ties to Sudan. But they will be essential to ending the chaos in Darfur. Peace talks will never be productive against a backdrop of violence, plunder and suffering.
The promise of peacekeepers could prove to be empty too. The UN still has to persuade nations to contribute troops to such a force. The U.S., which has difficult missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, is likely to provide backup support but not frontline peacekeeping troops for Darfur.
The U.S., which holds the temporary presidency of the Security Council this month, has succeeded in bringing Darfur to the top of the agenda. Millions of displaced civilians, mostly farmers, are living in refugee camps. They are not likely to return to their land in time for the next planting season, almost assuring a famine. Thousands already have died of disease and malnutrition. Foreign money to feed and shelter the refugees is drying up and increased violence in recent weeks has forced more than 100 aid workers to evacuate. As the situation becomes more desperate, even more are likely to take up arms.
Add to all of this the emerging threat coming out of Darfur - Al Qaeda. That's right, the terrorist group that brought you 9/11 has
threatened the top UN Envoy in the region and any troops from outside of Africa. "We are strongly opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan, and Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops venturing to enter," warned the President of Sudan.
We need real action and real funding - not just lip service from a congress who would rather feed their own pork bellies than stop a genocide.
