Mia Farrow's Writings, Photos and Information on the Growing Crisis in Darfur (Sudan), Chad and Central African Republic (CAR)

I first met Abdullah Idriss Zaid in 2006 as he lay in the tiny Goz Beida medical center. His eyes had been cut out by janjaweed knives. I could do nothing but hold his hand. On my next visit to Chad, I found Abdullah in a nearby camp for displaced persons. He told me he was 27 years old. He had been a farmer and was tending his fields when the janjaweed arrived on horseback. Hc ran as fast as he could but they caught him, held him down and cut out his eyes. Hewas sure his attackers were not Chadians. He had never seen them before. He believes they came from Sudan. The Darfur border is about 35 miles from here. He told me he lives in fear that they will return.

Hell is a blind man in a lawless land waiting for his attackers to return.

Today Goz Beida is quiet. Peaceful. I asked Abdullah if he feels safe now. He said, " I feel safe only because Minurcat is here". He was referring to the United Nations peacekeeping force which has a base nearby. The soldiers at this base are Irish, Russian and Finnish. Abdullah added, "if Minurcat leaves they must take me with them. The Janjaweed will return and they will kill me."

He doesn't know yet that Chadian President Deby has decided to oust the international peacekeepers before the end of April.

Enroute to Chad

I'm at the Paris airport heading for Chad. Many flights including mine have been delayed because of wild weather everywhere-even here.
I'm going to Chad for Unicef this time. Polio vaccine campaign. There has been a polio epidemic in Chad with 65 cases last year alone.
But I will check on the artifacts from Darfur which are being housed temporarily at the Chadian Museum. If you would like to see pictures of them, or the photos I took while filming the traditional ceremonies, dances, songs, childrens stories, ways of making cloth, shoes, oil, a drum -just click on the blue FLICKR logo at the right on the home page.

I love Chad. I cannot wait to get back.

Jebel Marra

The beautiful Jebel Marra mountains rise in the center of Darfur. They are a strong hold of the SLA the rebel group loyal to Abdul Wahid. I took these photo in 2006. As Sudanese government attacks including aerial bombardments upon Jebel Marra’s village intensify, President Omer Al-Bashir loudly proclaims that peace has come to Darfur

Al-Bashir's latest cruel deception -and 100,000 more civilians flee

As Omer al-Bashir boasts that peace has come to Darfur, and even as he is signing a very public ceasefire and a proposed peace agreement with one of Darfur’s rebel groups, his forces continue to pound Jebel Marra in the center of Darfur. In the past two weeks the attacks and bombings have displaced at least 100,000 more Darfuris. United Nations official Samuel Hendricks said humanitarian access to the area has been impossible,. He is appealing for a cease-fire to allow aid to reach people displaced by the fighting.
"It is simply impossible to know how many people are affected," he said. "The entire issue now is how to get access" to the civilians.
Some 3 million Darfuri civilians are already displaced and surviving in wretched camps across Darfur and eastern Chad. The attacks on Darfur’s people began in 2003

International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma-March 2, 2010

http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/blogs/burmatribunal/post/mia-farrow

What peace?

While the world celebrates a "ceasefire" agreement between the Sudanese Government and the JEM rebel group, and President Omer al-Bashir loudly claims that "war is over" in Darfur, aid workers report a different story. There has been a surge of fighting in the Jebel Marra region in the center of Darfur which had has caused at least 100,000 people to flee.

"Heavy fighting was going until late into the night," said SLA rebel spokesman Ibrahim al-Hillu. "The government attacked in huge numbers backed up by Antonovs, helicopter gunships and MiGs (aircraft). This is the peace the government is offering."
The French aid group Medecins du Monde said late yesterday it has suspended operations because of the fighting in Jebel Marra.

These accounts, by both aid workers and rebels, raise serious questions about the sincerity of Khartoum's so called ceasefire and peace proposals.

In the past month more than 1,500 people had already been displaced by increased fighting in the western part of Darfur. Because of the violence few aid agencies have been able to reach them to provide desperately needed rations and supplies. According to the United Nations report, the displaced people have sought refuge in Thur, West Darfur, after violence forced them to flee from their villages.

Until the other groups can be brought into the agreement, a true peace accord cannot be implemented

Khalil Ibrahim, leader of most powerful rebel group in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) is calling upon 'my brothers in the other movements to (come together) in an overall partnership in the service of our country and say, let us unite and commit ourselves together and at the same time to peace."
The Sudanese government and the JEM have agreed not only to a ceasefire but on "the participation of the JEM at all levels of power," according to a copy of the accord seen by AFP. The JEM will become "a political party as soon as the final agreement is signed between the two parties" by March 15.

Ibrahim and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will sign the ceasefire agreement next week and they have hashed out a broader plan for a peace accord. Chadian President Idriss Deby and Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki have been present at the meetings. The JEM leaders are of the Zaghawa ethnic group, however the Fur and Masalit tribes, comprise the majority of Darfuris, and they remain loyal to Abdel Wahiid al-Nur and his group, the SLA. Abdul Wahiid, who now lives in Paris, has refused to sign any agreement until security improves in Darfur, janjaweed are disarmed, and foreign tribes who settled on the land of displaced Darfuris are removed.

This agreement is the latest in a trail of broken promises and until Wahiid can be persuaded to come to the table, there will not be peace for Darfur's people.

I met these women in the Central African Republic. After their village was attacked they fled deep into the bush.

Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army have struck again in the Central African Republic . Witnesses in the remote eastern town of Rafai report that on Friday at nightfall, at least 40 armed men raided a Catholic church. "Two people were murdered with machetes and clubs and 14 people were severely wounded", Desire Gassi, a local resident, told Reuters by telephone Saturday. A radio broadcaster, Clement Loutemboli said the rebels had used machetes and clubs instead of guns to avoid alerting an army base several miles away. They abducted about 30 hostages and used them to carry their spoils into the brush. They are believed to be heading for Baroua, 147 km from Rafai.

The LRA was founded by Joseph Kony in Uganda in1988. Without any political agenda, it is the most senselessly barbaric guerrilla army in the world. Although some LRA rebels have been disarmed by U.N.-backed Congolese soldiers, they continue to attack, plunder, mutilate, abduct and terrorize civilians in Congo, Sudan and CAR. This is the third LRA attack in the last two weeks.

Respected rebel leader Suleiman Jamous and me

Read about Mr Jamous in a Wall St Journal piece by my son Ronan Farrow
http://www.miafarrow.org/ed_062107.html

members of the JEM trying to send email. Note screen saver

Darfur's most powerful rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, has agreed to a truce with the Sudanese government and will now return to the table for peace talks aimed at ending the Darfur conflict.

Chadian President Idris Deby announced that the truce between the JEM and the Sudanese government will take effect immediately. The agreement will be formally signed in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday in the presence of Deby and the leaders of Sudan and Qatar.

In Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced the pardon of 105 members of JEM captured during the May 2008 assault on Khartoum's twin city, Omdurman. "I cancel all the sentences of hanging pronounced against members of the Justice and Equality Movement."

Al-Bashir said on state television: "Today we signed an agreement between the government and JEM in Ndjamena and in Ndjamena we heal the war in Darfur."

Sudan and Chad have been supporting the other's rebel groups but recently they have been working toward improving their relationship. Saturday's agreement is significant because it appears to have the solid support of Chad.

In 2008 on Al-Jazeera Arabic language television, Khalil Ibrahim leader of the JEM said, "All previous efforts for a ceasefire and reaching peace failed due to the stubbornness of the Sudanese government. Therefore the hope for achieving peace in Darfur and all over Sudan has faded. The government is totally unconcerned with what happens to the people of Darfur" .

But this week Khalil Ibrahim sounded more hopeful, telling Al Jazeera that JEM has agreed to the temporary ceasefire because without such an agreement, "nobody can guarantee a peaceful election in Darfur. "The government was quite worried about how these elections can be held in Darfur without a ceasefire. And they know that if JEM wanted to disrupt the elections it can do so." he told Al Jazeera, adding, "Any reduction of violence makes life easier ... People can enjoy security. There is a big difference. Of course."

Ahmed Hussein, a Jem spokesman, told the AFP news agency that the group would order its forces to stop military operations . "We have just initially signed the framework agreement," he said. "We will discuss many issues - return of the IDPs [internally displaced persons], power and wealth sharing, compensation, detainees.

"We are committed to a peaceful solution for Darfur."

Khalil Ibrahim said there must be a way to have the people of Darfur involved in the political process."This means that either there should be a special arrangement for Darfur concerning the election or the elections be postponed," he said.

Sudan is to hold its first multiparty elections in April for the first time in 24 years. A referendum to decide whether southern Sudan should become independent is to be held in 2011.

Darfur's other main rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), is refusing to participate in the negotiations. Many of the refugees and IDPs remain loyal to Abdul Wahiid who is the leader and founder of the SLA . But Wahiid moved to Paris in 2007. He will not return to negotiate with the Sudanese regime or participate in any peace talks until security improves in Darfur, janjaweed are disarmed, and foreign tribes who have come to Darfur and settled on the land of Darfuris who were displaced by violent attacks, are removed.

AMERICAN FUNDS SELLS PETROCHINA AFTER SHAREHOLDER MEETING

Acting in the face of genocide
Boston, MA
Following a well-publicized shareholder vote on genocide-free investing on November 24, American Funds has now become the largest mutual fund company to divest its holdings in PetroChina. A recent posting on the company’s website shows that American Funds sold virtually all their holdings in Petrochina, worth $190 million.

The investment landscape has changed dramatically in the last year. Investors, concerned about their savings being connected to genocide, now have clear, mainstream choices. The positive actions by American Funds and TIAA-CREF stand in stark contrast to Vanguard, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton for taking no action and continuing to hold large investments in companies, such as PetroChina, linked to an ongoing genocide.

Here are links to two articles.
American Funds sells PetroChina as rights group claims victory <http://investorsagainstgenocide.net/page1001277>
-American Funds sells stock targeted by activists <http://investorsagainstgenocide.net/page1001276>

Hutu militia continue their rampage of murder, rape and mutilations in eastern Congo

A UN-run radio station says Rwandan Hutu militia have killed at least 27 villagers and abducted 100 in eastern Congo this month. These same Hutus are responsible for the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Since entering Congo they have participated in the deaths of at least 5 million people.

still outstanding: We are the World . Here's a link to the new version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glny4jSciVI

Nick's new words

Nick Kristof, writing from Congo, says he has learned some new words.

"One is 'autocannibalism', coined in French but equally appropriate in English. It describes what happens when a militia here in eastern Congo's endless war cuts flesh from living victims and forces them to eat it.

"Another is 're-rape'. The need for that term arose because doctors were seeing women and girls raped, re-raped and re-raped again, here in the world capital of murder, rape, mutilation."

Here is the link to his piece.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/opinion/11kristof.html?th&emc=th

What can we do? Nick suggests a four-step approach:

- Pressure on Rwanda to stop funding its pet Tutsi militia in Congo. Rwanda also should publish a list of those facing criminal charges for its 1994 genocide so that more Hutu militiamen not on the list might go back. A Rwandan war shouldn't be fought in Congo.

- An international regime to monitor mineral exports from Congo so that warlords do not monetize their militias by exporting minerals through Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Legislation to do this, backed by an advocacy group called the Enough Project, is pending in Congress.

- A major push to demobilize Rwandan Hutu fighters and return as many as possible to civilian life in Rwanda or settlements in Congo or Burundi. That should be coupled with a crackdown on leaders in Congo and those who direct action from Europe and the United States.

- A drive to professionalize the Congolese Army and end the impunity for murder, torture and rape, starting with the arrest of Jean Bosco Ntaganda on his warrant for war crimes.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to eastern Congo last year was a landmark, but it needs more follow-up from the Obama administration. What is required isn't some new formula but much greater political will. Otherwise, the fighting will go on for years to come - and this lovely, lush land will spawn even more horrific vocabulary.

Find out about the 'conflict minerals' that are fueling the violence in Congo. Here is the link;
<http://www.enoughproject.org/blogs/conflict-minerals-bill-round>

Getting water is not easy for everyone

So many people asked me about the woman getting water, I decided to show you the whole series of photos.. There were two women at the water hole. One had a baby tied to her back. I watched her climb down into the hole. Frogs plopped into the muddy water. She filled her bucket. It was not easy for her to climb out. Both women drank the filthy water immediately then went on their ways.

Bush schools

By the time Ester and I returned to CAR in 2008, 22 ngo’s had arrived. But because of the violence , there were many places they could not go. The people were still too terrified to leave the bush, so Unicef, in partnership with Coopi built ‘bush schools’. People have built new shelters but far from each other for fear they would appear to be a village and be discovered by marauding militia and attacked again. We walked into the brush for about 40 minutes to this bush school. It is treasured by the community and the children were eager to learn.

The most abandoned people on earth

In 2007 only two aid organizations were working in the lawless and extremely perilous northeast and northwest of Central African Republic. Various armed groups were (and are) killing, raping, destroying villages, tearing peoples lives apart. I was traveling with UNICEF regional director, my friend Esther Guluma. At one point we had been driving for about 3 days in the northwest, passing the charred remains of village, after village after village. It was numbing. We didn’t see a soul. At one point we stopped the car and just waited. We had been told that people, those who survived the attacks upon their villages, were living in the brush,. They are profoundly traumatized. Maybe, if we waited long enough and if they saw that we were not armed, maybe they would come out. So we stopped the car and waited. After some 20 minutes emerged two, ten, then 50, then 100 or more people. They were emaciated and caked in dust, were wearing rags or no clothes at all. They greeted us warmly and asked for news-”did we know where the militia are?” and for food. They told me they had been eating leaves and roots and drinking swamp water. Many of the children looked ill, they had skin and eye infections and their teeth were rotting out of their mouths.

CONGO- The World Capital of Killing By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07kristof.html?th&emc=th
The World Capital of Killing
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
BUKAVU, Congo

It’s easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better. But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.

What those numbers don’t capture is the way Congo has become the world capital of rape, torture and mutilation, in ways that sear survivors like Jeanne Mukuninwa, a beautiful, cheerful young woman of 19 who somehow musters the courage to giggle. Her parents disappeared in the fighting when she had just turned 14 — perhaps they were massacred, but their bodies never turned up — so she moved in with her uncle. A few months later, the extremist Hutu militia invaded the home. She remembers that it was the day of her very first menstrual period — the only one she has ever had “First, they tied up my uncle,” Jeanne said. “They cut off his hands, gouged out his eyes, cut off his feet, cut off his sex organs, and left him like that. He was still alive.

“His wife and his son were also there. Then they took all of us into the forest.” That militia is known for kidnapping people and enslaving them for months, even years. Men are turned into porters, and girls into sex slaves. Jeanne and other girls were regularly tied spread-eagle and gang-raped, and she soon became pregnant. The rapes continued, sometimes with sticks that tore apart her insides and left her dribbling wastes constantly. Somehow the fetus survived, but her pelvis was too immature to deliver the baby.

One of the people the militia had kidnapped was a doctor who was forced to treat the soldiers. The doctor, seeing that Jeanne was close to dying in obstructed childbirth, cut her open with an old knife, without anesthetic, and removed the stillborn baby. Jeanne was delirious and almost dead, so the militia dumped her beside a road.

“She was completely destroyed inside,” said another doctor, Denis Mukwege, who saved her life after she was brought here to Bukavu. Dr. Mukwege, 54, presides over the 400-bed Panzi Hospital <http://www.panzihospitalbukavu.org/> , supported by the European Union and private groups like the Fistula Foundation. He is sometimes mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize for his heroic efforts to fight the war and heal its victims.

Dr. Mukwege operated on Jeanne nine times over three years to repair the fistulas that were causing her to leak wastes. Finally he succeeded, and she returned to her village to live with her grandmother.

“He told me to stay away from men for three months,” Jeanne remembers, to give her body time to heal. But three days after she returned to the village, the militia came again and raped again. The fistula reopened. Jeanne, kept naked in the forest and stinking because her internal injuries had reopened, finally managed to escape and eventually found her way back to Panzi Hospital. Dr. Mukwege has already started a second round of surgeries on her, but there is so little tissue left that it is not clear she can ever be continent again.

About 12 percent of the raped women he treats have contracted syphilis, and 6 percent have H.I.V. He does what he can to repair their injuries and help them heal — until the next time.

“Sometimes I don’t know what I am doing here,” Dr. Mukwege said despairingly. “There is no medical solution.” The paramount need, he says, is not for more humanitarian aid for Congo, but for a much more vigorous international effort to end the war itself.

That means putting pressure on neighboring Rwanda, a country so widely admired for its good governance at home that it tends to get a pass for its possible role in war crimes next door <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/world/africa/04congo.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1> . We also need pressure on the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, to arrest Gen. Jean Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. And, as recommended by an advocacy organization called the Enough Project <http://www.enoughproject.org/conflict-minerals> , we need a U.S.-brokered effort to monitor the minerals trade from Congo so that warlords can no longer buy guns by exporting gold, tin or coltan.

Unless we see some leadership here, the fighting in Congo — fueled by profits from mineral exports — will continue indefinitely. So if we don’t act now, when will we? When the toll reaches 10 million deaths? When Jeanne is kidnapped and raped for a third time?

Women and children in desperate need of aid-UNICEF appeal

I took the top photo in Central African Republic. After her village was attacked and destroyed by armed militia, this woman fled into the bush. She survives eating roots and leaves. I took this picture as she, with her baby tied to her back, was climbing out of a deep hole with her bowl of muddy water.

the second photo is of a mother and child in north Kivu, eastern Congo. Another of the most dangerous places on earth for woman and children.

The United Nations Children's Fund is appealing for $1.2 billion to provide life saving emergency assistance to millions of children and women in dire need. UNICEF says earthquake-stricken Haiti is only one of 28 countries where children and women lack even the most basic means of survival.
Since the devastating earthquake struck, UNICEF has increased its efforts to restore shattered lives and protect children and women who are among the most vulnerable victims of this disaster. While Haiti remains a priority, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Hilde Johnson tells VOA there are many other emergencies that are critical and must be addressed.
"We need to scale up our efforts delivered in Haiti, but we also need to ensure that children all over the world-in the Horn of Africa, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan, in Chad-all these children deserve and have the right to the same assistance as children everywhere else," she said. "And, we must not now only be one-sided. We need to be able to show that we care and plan to assist all these children globally," said Johnson.

Johnson says children are always among the most severely affected, and disasters put them at increased risk of abuse and grave violations of their rights. She says children are at risk of sexual violence, killing and maiming, and forced recruitment into armed groups.

Every year, UNICEF responds to some 200 emergencies around the world. These crises are most acutely felt in the 28 countries that figure in the Humanitarian Action Report. The greatest needs are in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 24 million people in the Horn of Africa are being affected by drought, chronic food insecurity and armed conflict. UNICEF's three biggest operations are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia. Johnson says more than six million people in Ethiopia are going hungry because of drought and famine. She says children there are at risk of severe and acute malnutrition.
"In Sudan, the combination of conflict and drought, instability and the situation in Darfur, which is still difficult," she explained. "And, in south Sudan it is getting worse. In DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, we are well familiar with challenges in the eastern part of the country, where we still have thousands and thousands of people on the move. And, where women and children and girls are subject to sexual violence."

While the crises in these three countries are relatively well known, there are a number of countries that remain largely forgotten. Johnson cites the Central African Republic as one country where children suffer from instability and lack of basic services. Yet, she notes little is ever heard about what is happening there.

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Children-Women-In-28-Countries-in-Desperate-Need-of-Aid-83545362.html

Multiple predators stalk civilians in Congo

Recently the governments of Uganda, Congo and Southern Sudan launched a joint offensive against the LRA rebels, but they have failed to capture or kill the group's commander Joseph Kony. And so the violence has continued, with civilians as targets for abductions, rape, mutilations and murder.

The LRA is not the only group preying upon on the Congolese population. Terrified civilians in eastern Congo told me the Congolese Army attacks them regularly, raping women and girls, stealing possessions and obstructing aid to displaced people. Other militia include the Maimai-un official followers of the Congolese army, Tutsi rebels from Rwanda and according to the women I spoke with, the most brutal of all, are the marauding Hutu genocidaires from Rwanda.

A look at the International Criminal Court

By The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. It is an independent body, not a U.N. court.

ESTABLISHMENT - The Rome Statute creating the ICC was adopted in Italy July 17, 1998. It came into force in July 2002 after ratification by 60 countries. Neither the United States nor Sudan are among the 110 countries which have endorsed the treaty to date.

JURISDICTION - A court of last resort, the ICC acts only when member countries are "unwilling or unable" to dispense justice themselves. It may prosecute individuals responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed after July 2002. The U.N. Security Council may ask the court to open an investigation.

CASES - The prosecutor has opened investigations in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan and Central African Republic.

SUSPECTS - The court has four suspects in custody, all of them alleged war lords from Congo. One of them, former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba is charged with crimes allegedly committed in Central African Republic.

TRIALS - The court is currently trying three Congolese warlords in two separate cases.

FUGITIVES - The court has issued arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, one of his government's ministers, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, and Ali Kushayb, a commander of the government-backed janjaweed militia. All are wanted for crimes allegedly committed in Darfur. Arrest warrants also have been issued for four leaders of the Ugandan rebel group Lord's Resistance Army and for another Congolese warlord, Bosco Ntaganda.

COMPOSITION - Its 18 judges are elected for terms of three to nine years. The chief prosecutor is Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina. The president is South Korean judge Song Sang-hyun.

U.S. POSITION - The United States voted against the Rome treaty in 1998. But then-President Bill Clinton signed it on Dec. 31, 2000. Former President George W. Bush, citing fears Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons, renounced the signature and initiated bilateral immunity deals with dozens of countries, barring them from handing U.S. citizens to the court's jurisdiction. It is unclear how the U.S. relationship with the court will change under President Barack Obama.

BUDGET - The court had a 2009 budget of just over euro101 million ($140 million), that is paid by the countries in the ICC's governing body, the Assembly of States Parties.

Link to article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020300255_pf.html

ICC to reconsider whether to add genocide to charges against Omer al-Bashir with

The appeals chamber at the International Criminal Court has ordered the court to reconsider its decision to omit genocide from the arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, The Netherlands-based ICC indicted al-Bashir on seven charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity last March, but said there was not enough evidence to charge him with three counts of genocide. Erkki Kourula, an ICC judge, said the "decision by the pre-trial chamber not to issue a warrant in the respect of the charge of genocide was materially affected by an error of law". The court's pre-trial judges will now have to rule again on whether to add genocide to list of charges against al-Bashir.

You asked. President Obama responds.

Yesterday, President Obama responded to a question on Sudan submitted by Enough Project and voted by the general public as the most popular foreign policy question. Thanks to a dynamic social media campaign, online voters made clear they wanted the president to better explain what he is doing to avert a resumption of widespread bloodshed in Sudan. The outpouring of support for a query on Sudan is all the more impressive given that some 14,000 potential questions were submitted for the online interview. Watch what President Obama had to say on Sudan, and read his remarks. http://www.enoughproject.org/YouTube

Enough’s Co-founder, John Prendergast took some issue with the president’s statement:
"President Obama's response is missing two elements. First, there is no full-time field-based diplomatic presence in Sudan and the surrounding region working on both Darfur and the North-South issues to make sure peace efforts have a chance of success. So we would like to see him deploy that diplomatic capacity and challenge other nations with influence to do the same. Without that kind of on the ground U.S. leadership, the kind that led to the 2005 North-South peace deal, the risk of further conflict is very high. Second, diplomatic engagement should be backed by real and immediate pressures on the Sudanese government. It is not a case of engagement versus pressure as the president seems to imply. The U.S. should be working to build a coalition of countries willing to escalate pressures in support of peace – pressures that would include targeted asset freezes and travel bans, expansion of the arms embargo, denial of debt relief, and suspension of aid to the deeply flawed election. Introducing these consequences into the equation would influence the calculations of the parties and help move them toward lasting peace."

Since President Obama took office, an estimated 2,500 people have been killed in violent clashes in southern Sudan <http://www.enoughproject.org/glossary/term/109?Array> . Here's our petition to President Obama that we hope you'll sign as well:
"Thank you for responding to our question about the crisis in Sudan. We agree with you, Mr. President, that there is an acute threat of violence during the upcoming elections and referendum period. We respectfully disagree, however, that our government has made the progress necessary to broker agreements in Sudan that will stabilize the country. We therefore urge you, Mr. President, to lead other counties willing to escalate pressures on the parties in support of peace. Only with increased pressures and a full-time field-based diplomatic presence in Sudan, working on both Darfur <http://www.enoughproject.org/glossary/term/102?Array> and the North-South issues, will peace efforts have a chance of success."

Add your name to the petition
http://www.enoughproject.org/YouTube

Congo's Forgotten War in Congo-watch this video. Meet Chance, one courageous little girl

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/30/opinion/1247466767698/congo-s-forgotten-war.html?th&emc=th

Make your voices heard to help stem the atrocities in Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo's mineral wealth continues to fuel the armed groups that commit the atrocities in eastern Congo. Despite the upsurge in atrocities during 2009 and more than a million people on the run from armed groups,, multinational companies continue to purchase minerals such as gold, tin and tungsten from the Congo.

Urge your Representative to support legislation for conflict-free cell phones, laptops and other electronics by cosponsoring the Congo Conflict Minerals Trade Act of 2009 (HR 4128) <http://www.enoughproject.org/conflict_minerals_trade_act> . The bill will indentify any conflict minerals from Congo imported into the United States. It is the strongest effort to stop the scourge of conflict minerals in Congo.

Contact Your Own Representative Urge him or her to support conflict mineral legislation (HR 4128)
Dial 1-800-GENOCIDE. By entering your zip code, you will have access to the contact information for elected officials ranging from your state Governor
to your Senator to the President.

Take Action: Urge Industry Leaders to Make Conflict-Free Products
   We need your help to increase demand for conflict-free electronics products. As a consumer, we can influence electronics industry leaders as they weigh whether or not to invest in making their supply chains transparent and producing verifiably conflict-free products. Tell companies that if they take conflict out of their products, you'll buy them.
Go to this website and through them you make your voice heard at Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, Canon, IBM,Intel Apple, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo. Rim,Nintendo, Phillips, Panasonic
http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6265

Write to President Obama and ask him to make finding a non-military solution to the war in Congo a priority in his foreign policy agenda:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

Educate yourself about how conflict minerals are illegally and inhumanely pillaged from the Congo and make their way into your cell phones and the computer you are using to read this post right now. Demand that electronics companies alter their mining and trade policies so that conflict-free minerals are used in our electronics. Until this happens, we all literally have blood on our hands.

You can inform yourselves on the sites listed here and let your voices be heard
ttp://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/conflictminerals_faq <http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/conflictminerals_faq>

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/27/news/international/congo.fortune/

Orphaned, Raped and Ignored-Nicholas Kristof reporting from Congo

Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs. The barbaric civil war being waged here is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake. Yet no humanitarian crisis generates so little attention per million corpses, or such a pathetic international response.

That's why I'm here in the lovely, lush and threatening hills west of Lake Kivu, where militias rape, mutilate and kill civilians with a savagery that is almost incomprehensible. I'm talking to a 9-year-old girl, Chance Tombola, an orphan whose eyes are luminous with fear. For Chance, the war arrived one evening last May when armed soldiers from an extremist Hutu militia - remnants of those who committed the Rwandan genocide - burst into her home. They killed her parents in front of her. Chance ran away, but the soldiers seized her two sisters, ages 6 and 12, and carried them away into the forest, presumably to be turned into "wives" of soldiers. No one has seen Chance's sisters since.

Chance moved in with her aunt and uncle and their two teenage daughters. Two months later, the same militia invaded the aunt's house and held everyone at gunpoint. Chance says she recognized some of the soldiers as the same ones who had killed her parents. This time, no one could escape. The soldiers first shot her uncle, and then, as the terrified family members sobbed, they pulled out a large knife.

"They sliced his belly so that the intestines fell out" said his widow, Jeanne Birengenyi, 34, Chance's aunt. "Then they cut his heart out and showed it to me." The soldiers continued to mutilate the body, while others began to rape Jeanne.

"One takes a leg, one takes the other leg" Jeanne said dully. "Others grab the arms while one just starts raping. They don't care if children are watching." Chance added softly: "There were six who raped her. One raped me, too." The soldiers left Jeanne and Chance, tightly tied up, and marched off into the forest with Jeanne's two daughters as prisoners. One daughter is 14, the other 16, and they have not been heard from since.

"They kill, they rape, burn houses and take people's belongings" Jeanne said. "When they come with their guns, i'ss as if they have a project to eliminate the local population."

A peer-reviewed study <http://www.theirc.org/special-reports/congo-forgotten-crisis> found that 5.4 million people had already died in this war as of April 2007, and hundreds of thousands more have died as the situation has deteriorated since then. A catastrophically planned military offensive last year, backed by the governments of Congo and Rwanda as well as the United Nations force here, made some headway against Hutu militias but also led to increased predation on civilians from all sides.

This is a pointless war - now a dozen years old - driven by warlords, greed for minerals, ethnic tensions and complete impunity. While there is plenty of fault to go around, Rwanda has long played a particularly troubling role in many ways, including support for one of the militias. Rwanda's government is dazzlingly successful at home, but next door in Congo, it appears complicit in war crimes.

Jeanne and Chance contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Like other survivors in areas that are accessible, they receive help from the International Rescue Committee, but Chance still suffers pain when she urinates.

It takes astonishing courage for Jeanne and Chance to tell their stories (including in a video posted with the on-line version of this column). I'll be reporting more from eastern Congo in the coming days, hoping that the fortitude of survivors like them can inspire world leaders to step forward to stop this slaughter. It's time to show the same compassion toward Congo that we have toward Haiti.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/opinion/31kristof.html?th&emc=th
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And from Nick's blog
There are of course many problems in the world, many demands on our conscience. But the Congo war seems to me particularly important because of the death toll (already 5.4 million as of April 2007); the savagery or rape and mutilation directed at civilians; and the prospect that some pressure and heavy diplomacy could resolve it. Moreover, without that pressure and diplomacy, it will continue unabated for years to come. I do think that the news media have dropped the ball on this one, but that may reflect the new media realities in which television reporting in particular from abroad just falls off the map.

I was last in Congo in 2007, and so it was dispiriting to see that while some parts of Congo are better off, the situation has worsened in the Kivus. Last year was a particularly bad year, because of the catastrophic military offensive, and more than 1 million people were newly displaced in 2009 in the Kivus alone. With 45,000 people dying unnecessarily every month, this should be a priority. I'll talk more in later columns about what is to be done, but here's a preview: pressure on Rwanda, pressure on Congo's president, pressure on the Congolese minerals that finance conflict, and efforts to professionalize Congo's army and end the impunity for rape and murder. Your thoughts?
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/your-comments-on-my-congo-column-2/

WILL THE ICC CHARGE AL-BASHIR WITH THE ULTIMATE HUMAN CRIME

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Thursday he expects ICC judges to add the charge of genocide against Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Last March the ICC issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir last March on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and torture, and displacement of millions, but said it lacked evidence to prosecute al-Bashir for the crime of genocide. Moreno-Ocampo appealed the ruling, arguing that nearly 3 million people languishing in Darfur s camps, itself justifies the label of genocide.
"The people in the camps are still suffering what I consider genocide," he said. "And in a few weeks the appeal chairman will rule on my request to include genocide charges. I think I will win." Moreno-Ocampo said conditions in the camps amounted to a "slow death" which the world has lost interest in.
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HAS GENOCIDE OCCURRED IN DARFUR?

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 defines genocide as any -not all- of the following acts with intent ---
It is clear to me that ALL of the elements listed below were at play during 2003-2004 rampage when 80-90% of Darfurs villages were destroyed. The Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa tribes were targeted by the Khartoum regime and its entire apparatus in coordination with the Janjaweed, .

Some question whether the genocide continues today. For seven years, nearly three million people primarily of the Fur, Zaghawa, Masalit tribes are barely surviving in refugee camps. I think the genocide is in fact complete-the culture and the villages of these three tribes are memories. Traditional tribal life is no more. It is doubtful that it can ever be reclaimed. People are dying of disease and hunger now, they lack basic necessities such as clean water, sanitation, sufficient food, tents, education and medicines. Genocide by attrition.

Excerpt from the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide (For full text click here <http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/index.htm#text> )

"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Darfur refugees in desperate need of food and water

UN says Darfur refugees desperately short of food and water
UNAMID UN Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur) said a joint assessment mission with UN agencies had found worrying signs of shortages around the North Darfur settlements of Dar El Salaam and Shangil Tobay and their surrounding displacement camps. "IDPs (Internally displaced persons) in both regions were found to be in desperate need of food and water," it said.

Thu Jan 28, 2010
By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Refugees in parts of Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region are desperately short of food and water due to a lack of rain, and problems have been exacerbated in at least one area by Khartoum's expulsion of aid groups, officials said on Thursday.

An estimated 4.7 million people rely on humanitarian aid in Darfur -

UNAMID said a joint assessment mission with UN agencies had found worrying signs of shortages around the North Darfur settlements of Dar El Salaam and Shangil Tobay and their surrounding displacement camps. "IDPs in both regions were found to be in desperate need of food and water," it said.

A U.N. official, who asked not to be named, said the aid group Oxfam had provided water services in Shangil Tobay before it was expelled last year. "That gap has not been properly filled," said the official.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ordered 13 foreign aid agencies to leave north Sudan in March, and closed three local groups, after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him to face charges of war crimes in Darfur. Bashir accused the groups of passing information to the Hague-based court, an accusation they denied.
Link to complete article
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE60R0HQ20100128

An Article on Bono's Blog

magical kids

Goz Beida

Goz Beida, meeting friends