Author: DWAG Communication

Become an Advocate for Change in Darfur: Join the Rapid Response Network

Raise your hand if you bought a green “Save Darfur” magnetic ribbon for your car. What about a Save Darfur shirt or rubber bracelet? How many articles about the genocide in Darfur did you share in 2007 compared to how many you share today? Many US citizens were once poised to respond to the genocide in Darfur, but compassion fatigue set in and the many people who were once vocal about ending the genocide in Darfur have fallen silent.

Today the violence in Darfur continues, and the fighting has spread to other areas such as Blue Nile, South Kordofan, and the Nuba Mountains. The notorious Janjaweed continue to perpetuate violence in communities throughout Sudan—all on the orders of the central Sudanese government in Khartoum. The President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir has severely restricted humanitarian aid from reaching people in dire need of life-saving supplies; while other aid organizations have been expelled from Sudan all together. Most recently Human Rights Watch reported that mass rapes were committed during the fall of 2014. More than 200 women and girls were raped and tortured by the Sudanese army in the town of Tabit over a three day period. It is clear that the violence in Sudan continues to grow worse each day despite the lack of media attention.

If the current news coming out of Sudan isn’t enough, the numbers are staggering: more than 450,000 people have died and 2.8 million have been displaced from their homes since the violence began. Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, yet he remains a free man due to the international community’s indifference.

The violence in Darfur and in other regions of Sudan can seem overwhelming, but there is something you can do. Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) advocates for the people in Darfur and DWAG has a unique opportunity for you to make a difference. Join their Rapid Response Network and be on the forefront of change. As a Rapid Responder you will receive the most up to date information about the situation in Darfur; you will be included in monthly conference calls with anti-genocide activists and be well-positioned to hold community events and lobby Congress for change to the way the US handles situations of mass atrocities. Darfur Women Action Group launches this Rapid Response Network with urgency as the situation on the ground in Darfur continues to deteriorate. You have the power to become an advocate for change in Sudan.

JOIN OUR RAPID RESPONSE NETWORK AND BECOME A VOICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF DARFUR!

JOIN OUR RAPID RESPONSE NETWORK AND BECOME A VOICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF DARFUR!

You may have heard about the genocide in Darfur, but what you may not know is that it still continues. Hundreds of thousands of women, men, and children have been brutally murdered, displaced, or stranded without any humanitarian aid. Rape and sexual violence remain prevalent and are systematically used to terrorize young girls and women. These massive human rights abuses are sponsored and committed by the government of Sudan, led by President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Most of the world is unaware of what is happening in Darfur, however, some of those who are knowledgeable on the issue and are in position of power choose to turn a blind eye to the devastation and do nothing to stop it. Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) is determined to both raise awareness about the horrific human rights abuses occurring daily in Darfur and change the way the international community addresses genocide, in general. An example – in October, 2014, over 200 young girls and women were gang raped in a village in Darfur by government forces over a period of several hours, yet few people either know or have responded to this horrifying atrocity. So few people speak out and demand action; we want to change that. However, we cannot do it alone, which is why we are asking you to join us as a Rapid Responder.

We are inviting individuals from all over the United States who want to be inspired and inspire others to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most. As a Rapid Responder, you will receive up-to-date information about the situation in Darfur, allowing you to educate yourself and those around you about the Darfur genocide. You can also post this information on social media to increase the scope of your influence. For example, you can post links to news articles on your Facebook wall or tweet special alerts using our hashtag #Respond2Darfur. Through social media attention, we can increase awareness and work towards ending this long-standing genocide.

With our assistance and resources, you can also:
• Organize movie screenings of survivors’ stories and see how genocide has devastated people’s lives and the region as a whole.
• Send letters or make appointments to speak to your elected representatives to express your concerns about the situation in Darfur.
• Participate in DWAG’s monthly conference calls to receive information on Darfur and upcoming events, as well as train to become an anti-genocide activist.
• Hand out DWAG’s educational materials to family, friends, classmates, co-workers, and anyone else who might be interested in learning about this genocide and helping the people of Darfur.

If you would like to participate in any of the aforementioned events, DWAG members will assist you every step of the way. We will provide materials, resources, and any additional assistance you may need. We are also available 24/7 to answer any questions you may have. We want to help you in every possible way so that together we can raise awareness to ultimately end the first genocide of the 21st century – the longest genocide in history.

Since the Holocaust, modern world leaders have failed to respond to genocide, when and where it occurs. Genocide is the ugliest form of humanity and we aim to change how the world reacts to it. Every action, big or small, makes a difference for the women, men, and children living in these horrific conditions. Thank you for choosing to help the millions of suffering Darfuris by taking action and joining the Rapid Response Network. Please e-mail Maggie Costello at outreach@darfurwomenaction.org with your name, city, and state to become a Rapid Responder for Darfur Women Action Group today.

Sincerely,
Maggie Costello
National Coordinator, DWAG Rapid Responder Network
Outreach@darfurwomenation.org

Twitter: @DWAG6
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DWAGRapidResponseNetwork
Website: http://www.darfurwomenaction.org/
No personal information gathered from Rapid Responders will be shared or sold. All personal information will be kept by DWAG and only be used within the organization communication
Darfur Women Action Group © 2015

The Armenian Genocide, the Khartoum Regime, and the National Prayer Breakfast

The Armenian Genocide, the Khartoum Regime, and the National Prayer Breakfast | 4 February 2015

Eric Reeves

The “National Prayer Breakfast”—a sixty-two year tradition in Washington, held annually on the first Friday in February—will this year commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Bringing together a wide range of guests from all fifty states and more than 100 countries, the event is hosted by the U.S. Congress and is designed to facilitate engagement between various social and religious groups. This year President Obama and the Dalai Lama are headline guests.

karti Khartoum’s Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti

But we must wonder about the appropriateness of one of those invited, Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime in Khartoum, Sudan. Any perusal of Karti’s “record of service” to this cabal of génocidaires should make all in attendance uneasy, particularly given the terrible genocide of a century ago that is being commemorated on this occasion. For Karti has long been a key member of the regime and done some of its dirtiest work, particularly as head of the Popular Defense Forces (PDF)—a militia organization notorious for its savage attacks on civilians (Karti was appointed in 1997). The PDF were particularly active in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, where the Nuba people were targeted for most of the 1990s in a brutal campaign of extermination. No student of the period characterizes the actions by Khartoum and its military and militia forces in the Nuba Mountains as anything other than genocide.

And Karti is presently the international face of a regime that remains committed to genocidal counter-insurgency in Darfur. Indeed, efforts to destroy the lives and livelihoods of the non-Arab or African tribal populations of Darfur have accelerated dramatically over the past three years, particularly in 2014, when some 500,000 people were newly displaced. The UN Panel of Experts on Darfur has recently reported that in the first five months of 2014, more than 3,300 villages were destroyed—overwhelmingly those of the region’s African tribal groups. As has long been the case, displacement and violence in Darfur correlate extremely highly. North Darfur is presently the region that is enduring the worst atrocities committed against civilians, including mass rape, indiscriminate bombardment of civilian targets, village destruction, land appropriation, and murder on a large scale. Again, the targets are inevitably the African tribal groups of the region perceived as supporting the longstanding rebellion; and Khartoum is using not only its regular Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), but the new Arab militia force known as the Rapid Response Forces (RSF), a part of the legacy of the PDF that Ali Karti once headed.

Currently some 3 million Darfuris are internally displaced or refugees in eastern Chad; many more are in critical need of relief efforts, efforts by distinguished international humanitarian organizations that Khartoum has, for more than a decade, systematically obstructed, harassed, expelled, and intimidated.

And yet Karti has attempted during his tenure as Foreign Minister—he was appointed in January 2010—to minimize the genocidal destruction in Darfur. In August 2011, speaking to a pending UN resolution—Karti’s office declared at his behest:

“The resolution is full of negative and obsolete references to be resolved within the framework of the tripartite mechanism, such as visa problems and allegations of aerial bombardment and the violation of human rights,” the foreign ministry said. (Agence France-Presse [Khartoum], 2 August 2011.

In fact, what Karti referred to as “allegations” had for years been substantiated by every human rights group working on Darfur (until they were all expelled, along with all independent journalists). These include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights. The civilian bombings were and have continued to be verified by the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur. To refer to confirmed atrocity crimes as mere “allegations” tells us that above all, Karti represents the NIF/NCP regime, not the people of Sudan. And there is nothing “obsolete” about the daily reports of atrocity crimes committed in Darfur.

In short, Khartoum continues to wage genocidal counter-insurgency war in Darfur, and efforts by Karti to minimize these realities make him deeply complicit.

The regime Karti represents to the world also continues its campaign of more than three years against the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State. Relentless aerial and ground assaults in the two areas have left more than one million people displaced and without humanitarian resources; many are close to starvation because Khartoum has imposed an embargo on all relief efforts in areas controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-N). It is nothing less than a repeat of the genocidal campaign of the 1990s in the Nuba. And for this, too, Karti makes no apology—even when SAF combat aircraft deliberately strike at hospitals, as has been the case at the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidel and the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Frandala, South Kordofan. The latter, winner of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, has been attacked twice in the past year, despite apprising Khartoum of their location.

Because Karti is well-spoken, and has made some of the right noises for Western audiences, he is the point-person in Khartoum’s present charm offensive, particularly as it is addressed to the U.S. and the Obama administration. Karti has met with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and twice with current Secretary of State John Kerry. The effort, evidently encouraged by the Obama administration, is to achieve a détente between Washington and Khartoum. So lustful for counter-terrorism intelligence is the Obama administration that it is willing to overlook all the crimes this regime must answer for. Notably, for example, at a meeting on October 1, 2013,

Secretary of State John Kerry met his Sudanese counterpart [Karti] for talks on Monday on the South Sudan peace process and conflict-hit areas like Darfur, but did not raise U.S. concerns over the government’s crackdown on protesters, the State Department said. (Reuters [UN/New York], 1 October 2013)

This meeting followed immediately upon an extraordinarily bloody effort by the regime to put down a popular uprising over rapidly declining economic conditions. Amnesty International reported at the time that security personnel had been given “shoot to kill” orders in dealing with demonstrators, and many hundreds were killed or wounded in Khartoum, Omdurman, and other major towns in Sudan. Kerry knew this, but chose not to raise the issue with Karti. Karti for his part would have subsequently reported to the génocidaires in Khartoum that the U.S. was not inclined to press the regime on human rights abuses of the worst sort, this in exchange for putative counter-terrorism intelligence provided by Khartoum (which hosted Osama bin Laden from 1992 – 1996, the years during which al-Qaeda came to fruition).

Nor has the Obama administration pushed for a humanitarian corridor to be opened to the people of the Nuba or Blue Nile; indeed, the administration never speaks about these scenes of terrible human suffering and destruction. Thousands have already died from malnutrition and disease, and some 200,000 have fled to Ethiopia or South Sudan. People have fled their homes and villages to live in caves or ravines—desperate to escape the shrapnel-loaded barrel bombs that are a daily reality, particularly in the Nuba. For this Karti makes no apology; indeed, he and other civilians in the regime have long ceded decisions about war and peace to senior military officials. One of these men, Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has been indicted by the international Criminal Court for massive crimes against humanity in Darfur; President and Field Marshal Omar al-Bashir has been indicted by the Court on multiple counts of crimes against humanity and genocide.

The failure of the Obama administration to push hard and publicly for a humanitarian corridor to provide food, medicine, and shelter to many hundreds of thousands of human beings gives us all too clear a picture of the cost of doing business with the regime Karti represents.

Karti has arrived in the U.S. for the National Prayer Breakfast with a visa issued by the Obama administration’s State Department. He is accompanied by a less conspicuous but no less savage regime survivalist, political secretary of the NIF/NCP Ibrahim Ghandour, who was also issued a visa by the State Department. Ghandour’s views are revealed in the leaked minutes of a secret August 31, 2014 meeting of the most senior military and security officials, where he reveals his support for (among other policies) a scorched-earth campaign in the Nuba Mountains, designed to “starve”—the word accurately translates the Arabic—the Nuba people by burning their fall sorghum crop, the staple grain of the region. His comments from the minutes are excerpted and annotated at http://wp.me/p45rOG-1AO . His main task is clearly to rig the “re-election” of President al-Bashir; and the lengths to which the regime is prepared to go to orchestrate a “legitimizing” electoral process are both extraordinary and extraordinarily comprehensive—and completely corrupt.

The Obama administration has already declared its willingness to stand by the regime despite its record of serial genocides, which includes the massive human destruction and displacement of the Nuer people during the “oil war” (1997 – 2002) in what was then Western Upper Nile, now Unity State. Karti’s PDF militias were active participants in the conflict at this point. Former special presidential envoy for Sudan, Princeton Lyman, declared in late 2011—after the campaigns of annihilation were well underway in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and continuing in Darfur:

“We do not want to see the ouster of the [Khartoum] regime, nor regime change. We want to see the regime carrying out reform via constitutional democratic measures.” (Asharq Al-Awsat, 3 December 2011 | http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=3&id=27543

By “we” Lyman meant the Obama administration, which has expediently indulged this preposterous political scenario. This is the same administration that decided to “de-couple” Darfur from the issue of real strategic interest: counter-terrorism cooperation with Khartoum. The word “de-couple” was used by an unnamed senior State Department official, but was reported in the official transcript.

The Armenian genocide should be commemorated at a National Prayer Breakfast; the refusal to recognize this genocide—and the belated recognition by much of the world—is a failure to acknowledge the terrible suffering and destruction of the Armenian people a century ago—it remains a “stain on our soul.” But this is the same phrase that candidate Obama used to describe Darfur in 2007:

“When you see a genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia or in Darfur, that is a stain on all of us, a stain on our souls …. We can’t say ‘never again’ and then allow it to happen again, and as a president of the United States I don’t intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEd583-fA8M#t=15 )

Obama’s attendance at this year’s National Prayer Breakfast, in the company of Khartoum’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti, signals precisely that he is “turning a blind eye” to realities in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile—that he has “abandoned” them to on the going slaughter in which Ali Karti is deeply complicit.

It is a day of national disgrace.

Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@smith.edu
Skype: ReevesSudan
Website: www.sudanreeves.org

Completing the Darfur Genocide: Khartoum’s Renewed Ambition

The Darfur region in the west of Sudan was once a focus of extraordinary American civil society activism; there was also once regular international news and human rights reporting from Darfur. None of this is true now. Moreover, despite the morally high-minded rhetoric from candidate and President Obama, proclaiming Darfur to be the site of “genocide” and a “stain on our souls,” almost none of this rhetoric informs his administration’s Sudan policies. Indeed, a senior State Department official proclaimed on the record (November 2010) that the U.S. had “de-coupled” Darfur from the bilateral issues between Washington and Khartoum that matter most: the regime’s anger at its continuing presence on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Washington’s lust for the putatively valuable counter-terrorism intelligence can Khartoum provide: it is an ongoing and cynical quid pro quonegotiation. Troublingly, this policy originates not with the State Department but rather with the various agencies that make up the U.S. “intelligence community” (a powerful oxymoron if one credits various reports of in-house fighting between the various agencies).

The regime in Khartoum, always quick to exploit weaknesses or hesitation, saw this “de-coupling” as a signal from the Obama administration that they could “finish business” in Darfur without de-railing negotiations on issues of terrorism or indeed affecting any other feature of U.S policy in greater Sudan. And now, with much heightened military actions, completion of the genocide that began in 2003 is well underway. In fact, Darfur may present us with the first large-scale genocide in modern history that has a “sequel”; this “sequel,” however, relies on essentially the same plot, the same tools, the same goals, and the same victims as the “original”: non-Arab/African farmers, almost 3 million of whom have been driven from their homes by the Khartoum-orchestrated violence of the past decade, including half a million who are refugees in eastern Chad or who haven’t made it to a camp.

The main difference is Khartoum’s replacement of the notorious Janjaweed, Arab militia forces that worked in concert with Khartoum in the early years of the genocide, but then increasingly on a “free-lance” basis, often fighting among themselves.Khartoum has reconstituted these brutal militia forces as the Rapid Response Forces (RSF), and in the main they are same men, though augmented by recruits from Chad, Niger, and other countries to the west of Sudan. What is different, however, is as important as the similarity in their “services rendered” to the regime.

The RSF are much more heavily armed than the Janjaweed, with weapons considerably more powerful and lethal. Khartoum intends for the RSF to finish the job in Darfur, and no expense will be spared in ensuring that they have superior firepower in fighting the Darfuri rebels. The RSF are more cohesive than the Janjaweed ever were, and represent a critical component of the Khartoum regime’s military power. This is made clear at various moments in the minutes recording a secret meeting on August 31, 2014, involving the top military and security officials of the regime (the minutes were leaked to me by a Sudanese source of unqualified honesty and integrity, and have been judged almost universally as authentic).

The RSF are the shock troops for the regular forces — Khartoum’s Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) — who are battle-weary, with some mid-level officers close to deserting. What is particularly dismaying to some professional soldiers in the SAF is that this time around the men in Khartoum haven’t even bothered to deny their connection to these paramilitary units; rather, the regime has openly welcomed the RSF at all stages of recruitment, training, and deployment. No matter that many are driven solely by the desire for booty and have no true military training, and know nothing about international law governing the conduct of war.

With the RSF — more potent, more cohesive, and more tightly bound to the regime — Khartoum’s génocidaires have a weapon that is providing a decisive military edge. The evidence of the past few months has repeatedly links the RSF to large-scale atrocity crimes throughout Darfur; this information comes to us by way of Darfuris speaking to Radio Dabanga, far and away our best and most detailed source of information from the ground in Darfur. The bloated, ineffective UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has failed dismally in fulfilling its civilian protection mandate, and has done little to provide security. As a consequence more than 2 million Darfuris have been newly displaced — most by violence — since UNAMID assumed its mandate in January 2008. Nor does UNAMID gather evidence about the endless bombing attacks on civilian targets, the epidemic of rape that defines life for many hundreds of thousands of Darfuri girls and women, or the increasingly numerous and violent military assaults on camps and villages near camps. Large new swathes of African agricultural land have recently been lost to the RSF and other opportunistic Arab militia.

In short, RSF violence is re-enacting the early years of the genocide, when many thousands of villages were burned or destroyed. Moreover, Khartoum is again coordinating militarily (now openly) with the RSF in attacks, often using aerial assets that range from the highly advanced Russian-built MiG-29 to helicopter gunships to the clumsily retrofitted cargo planes (also Russian-made) called Antonovs. Crude, shrapnel-loaded barrel bombs are simply pushed out the cargo bay from high altitudes, ensuring that they have no militarily useful accuracy but an immensely destructive effective on civilians. All such flights violate UN Security CouncilResolution 1591 (March 2005).

The reports we have been getting from Radio Dabanga for the past couple of months reveal a large convergence of RSF elements in North Darfur, particular in the area of eastern Jebel Marra and regions immediately to the east of the massif (and to the west of the capital of North Darfur, el-Fasher). Many scores of villages have been burned or destroyed, hundreds of people killed, and hundreds of women and girls raped. These are conservative figures; if we had a fully effective and mobile professional reporting force on the ground, we might discover that these figures drastically understate the destruction and violence.

At the same time, in a year during which almost half a million Darfuris were newly displaced, the camps to which they flee have become increasingly limited in services they are able to provide (e.g., young children in North Darfur are experiencing acute malnutrition at three times the emergency threshold). International nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, and even the UN itself, are being roughly muscled by Khartoum through its security services and the absurdly named Humanitarian Aid Commission. There have been many expulsions of organizations and individuals over the years, and this past year was especially depleting. In addition to other UN officials,Ali Ala’atari of Jordan — head of the UN’s humanitarian mission in Sudan — was expelled on preposterous charges in late December 2014. Ominously, UNAMID’s current authorization runs only through June 30, 2015; it is unlikely to be renewed because of the threat of a Russian or Chinese veto. It will certainly be gutted in any event.

In August 2004 the notorious Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal articulated Khartoum’s genocidal ambitions in a memo originating in North Darfur: “change of the demography of Darfur” and “empty it of all African tribes.” Success for this brutal regime is closer than it has ever been, and comes closer by the day.