Sudan Prepares For Split Referendum

Sudan's southern provinces are preparing for a referendum that, if passed, would create an independent country in the south largely composed of animists and Christians, while the rest of Sudan would become an Islamist state under existing ruler Omar al-Bashir (who is facing additional pressure from Islamists to go even further than he already has).



It's hoped that this may end the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide due to ongoing fighting for more than 20 years throughout Sudan. I'm not so sure, but it will likely embolden the Islamists to continue pursuing their violent tactics in the region.

Other observers think that the partition may fuel separatist movements elsewhere in Africa and the rest of the world - a Balkinization of interests. That is a distinct possibility, but the actions in Sudan are a step in correcting longstanding colonial impacts - when the Europeans carved up much of Africa, they did so without regard to existing tribal lines and established arbitrary boundaries that separated tribes among multiple countries or paired longstanding enemies under one country's rule. That's led to conflicts throughout Africa, including the Rwandan and Congolese genocides.

Meanwhile, neighboring Kenya is gearing up for potential problems even as polling centers open for displaced Sudanese.

This will not directly affect the ongoing human rights crisis in Darfur, where Sudanese forces continue operating.

Relishing Trips To Dictatorships, Sen. Kerry To Visit Darfur

To what end is Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) planning on visiting Darfur, Sudan?

US Democratic Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will visit Darfur next week, a US official said on Monday, amid signs of thawing US-Sudan relations.

"John Kerry will arrive in the middle of next week, he will visit Darfur and meet with officials in the country. His visit will last a few days," the official said, requesting anonymity.

US President Barack Obama's new Sudan envoy Scott Gration is currently in Sudan, where he appealed for stronger relations with Khartoum and met several Sudanese officials.

Gration was in south Sudan on Monday and might meet President Omar al-Beshir in Khartoum before returning to the United States at the end of the week.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Beshir last month for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the six-year conflict in Darfur.

Beshir's regime has since expelled many international aid organisations working in Darfur, where Gration has said the humanitarian crisis is "on the brink of deepening."

It's being billed as a fact-finding mission, but we already know the facts. There's no way that the US is going to take action against Sudan to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur, and the Sudanese government in Khartoum is well on the way to finishing the job.

What makes little sense is the claim that the US-Sudanese relations are thawing, or that there is any reason to believe that they should thaw. Sudanese President Bashir has been indicted on war crimes and genocide charges, and this is a regime that the Obama Administration wants closer ties with? In what bizarro world is this Administration living in? This isn't a regime to have closer ties with. It's one to be even more wary of given that al Qaeda has been active in Sudan and the Darfur genocide shows just how far the regime is willing to go to carry out its destructive policies.

Kerry has been quite busy visiting despots and dictators, having just been to Syria to take the pulse of the Syrian dictator Assad, whose regime has been supporting Hizbullah and Hamas in its war against Israel and has been repeatedly engaging in destabilizing activities in Lebanon. Kerry is the Administration's frontman in dealing with these odious regimes, and he seems to relish the opportunity.

Audacious Stupidity by Bill Keller

Bill Keller is the editor of the New York Times. This nitwit has the audacity to claim that the dire fiscal situation of the Times (whose stock price is on life support and the company has most of its value since Keller took over), is in the same ballpark as a campaign to save Darfur refugees.

Leave it to the New York Times editor to make that comparison.

NEW York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller equated the Gray Lady to a PBS pledge drive, claiming readers have offered to donate money to keep the Times alive.

Keller was speaking at Stanford University to dedicate a new building for the campus newspaper -- an event he likened to a "ribbon-cutting" for "a new Pontiac dealership."

The bombastic broadsheet editor went on to equate the keep-the-Times-alive movement to the cause of starving African refugees, saying, "Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause."

Keller said he had little use for Web sites like Google and Drudge Report: "If you're inclined to trust Google as your source for news -- Google yourself."

Keller's comments come as the Times sat down with the Newspaper Guild Wednesday in their first serious bargaining session to figure out how to extract $4.5 million in savings from the newspaper company's unionized workforce.

Well, given the way that newspapers are folding all over the country and that General Motors is on the verge of bankruptcy, Keller's comparison between the opening of the new newspaper and a Pontiac dealership is an apt on. Both aren't likely to survive given the business climate.

Comparing saving the newspaper to the Darfur situation is audacious stupidity, although one notes that for all the talk about saving Darfur refugees, few on the left are willing to put US military power on the line to insure that Darfur refugees are actually saved. It's all so much lip service, and if the Times is relying on the same kind of campaign to save the paper, he's much dumber than he lets on since the money is harder to come by these days.

The Times can't afford its newspaper publishing business, and its value is derived more from one-shot leasing deals for its Manhattan headquarters building than for the revenue derived from selling leftist newsprint.

UPDATE:
Hot Air notes that Keller fired off an email to clarify his statement, and attacks those who read it as a literal equivocation between Darfur and saving newspapers:

“I think it’s pretty obviously a reflection of my mild astonishment at the earnest fervor with which some people have suddenly embraced the cause of saving newspapers,” Keller wrote. “That’s matched only by my mild astonishment at the silly literal-mindedness with which some people read my occasional public comments.”

Funny, but I don't hear too many people calling for newspaper bailouts other than newspaper people themselves. Many bloggers are more than comfortable letting papers die, even if it means they lose the very reporting that provides plenty of blogging fodder.

What's silly is that someone who is supposedly so precise with words as an editor of the New York Times could be so imprecise so as to garner the response he now derides.

Sudan Wants All Aid Groups Out Of Country By End of Year

The Sudanese government in Khartoum cares less about its citizens and the untold misery and mayhem they endure than the aid groups that work tirelessly to improve their condition under the worst of circumstances.

The government now demands that all aid groups cease their work by the end of the year and leave the country. The government, including President Bashir, claim that the aid groups have been talking with the International Criminal Court and assisting in the preparation of war crimes and ethnic cleansing charges against the thug in Khartoum.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir expelled 13 international aid groups this month, accusing them of helping the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him of orchestrating atrocities in Darfur. Aid groups deny working with the court.

In an emotional speech to thousands of soldiers and police, Bashir said he had ordered Sudanese aid groups to take over the distribution of all relief inside the country — a move that could freeze the work of more than 70 foreign organizations still operating in Darfur and other strife-torn areas.

He warned aid groups to respect Sudan's sovereignty or "pay the price." He didn't elaborate.

If carried out, the order will also create a dilemma for international donors, including the governments of the United States and Britain, over whether they will be able to continue to pour millions into projects across the underdeveloped country without full control over how their aid is distributed.

Respect Sudan's sovereignty - but ignore Sudan's incessant war crimes and human rights abuses. Sadly, Sudan is right about the sovereignty issue and the fact that the world regularly turns a blind eye to war crimes and genocide and human rights abuses except when such charges are lobbed against either the US or Israel. Since Sudan isn't Israel or the US, they're expecting that this will all boil over without any lasting effect.

The only people who will truly pay the price for Sudan's criminality are its citizens, especially those who are left in Darfur.

Arrest Warrant Issued For Sudan's Thuggish President

This should have happened years ago, but it is a step in the right direction. Sudan's regime in Khartoum has been a willing and capable participant and enabler of the Darfur genocide and ethnic cleansing. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has repeatedly thwarted international efforts to assist the millions of Darfur refugees, whether it was the United Nations or the African Union. An arrest warrant was issued for Bashir.

The Netherlands-based International Criminal Court on Wednesday announced an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Darfur region — a move that could provoke a violent backlash.

But the three-judge panel said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide.

"He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said.
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Many observers are nervous about the fallout over the ICC's first warrant against a sitting head of state since it started work in 2002.

ICC prosecutors accuse al-Bashir of ordering war crimes in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where the Arab-led government is trying to put down a rebellion by the ethnic African population. At least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million driven from their homes in fighting since 2003.

The arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands but it falls short of indicting him on charges of genocide. I don't see much coming from it and the Sudanese thug will simply shrug this off, just as he has watched hundreds of thousands murdered and millions displaced by the janjaweed and his own militias throughout Western Sudan. Sudan doesn't recognize the court's jurisdiction.

Actually, Bashir did more than just shrug it off. He said that the ICC could eat it.

Campaigning for his National Congress Party (NCP) outside Khartoum on Tuesday, President Bashir discounted the importance of the ICC's looming decision, saying that the Court could "eat" the indictment. Vice President Salva Kiir, a former southern rebel leader who now shares power with Bashir in a coalition government, struck a more conciliatory line.

"In the event of the court agreeing with the chief prosecutor," Mr. Kiir said on Tuesday, "the [Sudan People's Liberation Movement] will work with its partners in the NCP on how to politically and diplomatically handle the decision of the court." He urged the international community to remain engaged in Sudan, whatever the decision, warning, "The collapse of peace in Sudan shall not only hurt the Sudan itself, but shall also have serious repercussions in the region."

In Khartoum, some foreign embassies beefed up security for fear that Sudanese thugs might engage in some kind of demonstration or violence against governments that back the ICC efforts to bring the murderous thugs in Sudan to justice.

Sudan has done little to provide stability in the region, and the Darfur genocide and ethnic cleansing has meant that there are more than 2 million refugees scattered in the region and neighboring countries that are ill equipped to deal with the situation.

Of course, there are others who think that the ICC indictment will actually lead to greater woes for Darfur and Sudan. They're worried that it might lead to a renewal of the civil war that resulted in more than 2 million dead.

UPDATE:
Sudan expels an aid group that was helping Darfur refugees. Classy.

Sudanese Genocide Continues In Darfur

The Sudanese military continues its campaign in Darfur, bombing civilian homes perilously close to a UN/African Union peacekeeping force.

SUDANESE government planes bombed a key town in south Darfur today, a week after it was seized by Darfuri JEM rebels.

Bombs landed close to a base run by the joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force, UNAMID, in the town of Muhajiriya and destroyed houses, a UN official said.

The attack marked an escalation in recent clashes between government troops and forces from Darfur's Justice And Equality Movement (JEM).

JEM has seized control of Muhajiriya from forces led by Minni Arcua Minnawi, the only Darfur rebel leader to have signed a peace deal with the government in 2006.

Tensions have been rising in Darfur as all sides of a nearly six-year-old conflict are waiting for the International Criminal Court to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes.

The UN official, who asked not to be named, said government planes had bombed Muhajiriya today.

"Some bombs landed near the UNAMID compound and some houses have been burned," he said.

China Yanks Visa of Olympic Gold Medalist Over Darfur Activism

Joey Cheek, who won a gold medal for speed skating at the Torino Olympics two years ago found out that China revoked his visa to attend the Beijing games just two days before the games were scheduled to open.

Olympic gold medalist and outspoken Darfur activist Joey Cheek has had his visa revoked by the Chinese embassy, hours before the speedskating champion was set to fly to China. And he wasn't even planning on wearing a mask when he got there.

Chinese officials don't need a reason to revoke anyone's visa but, in their eyes, they had plenty of reasons to snatch Cheek's. He is the founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes whose goal it is to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan. China's military, economic and diplomatic ties to Sudan have been well-publicized in the lead-up to the Games.

China is doing its best to silence debate about its odious positions on humanitarian crises around the world and its support for regimes like Sudan that have engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide. (HT: 2blue4u at LGF)

So, what was Cheek proposing China do? Honor the Olympic truce, a concept that dates back to ancient times. China responded by yanking his visa.

Yet, what this has done is actually raise Cheek's profile and that of his organization because the Chinese have actually drawn attention to their ongoing policies to silence criticism of the regime. It once again reinforces that the Chinese government has no interest in free speech.

The White House has protested the Chinese actions, but President Bush will still go ahead with attending the opening ceremonies. He should have sent someone else in his stead, rather than lend the prestige of the President of the United States to the regime in Beijing.

China Fueling War In Darfur

China is busy propping up the Sudanese regime. This isn't surprising given the way the Chinese communists have been busy running interference for Africa's thugs, including Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

The Panorama TV programme tracked down Chinese army lorries in the Sudanese province that came from a batch exported from China to Sudan in 2005.

The BBC was also told that China was training fighter pilots who fly Chinese A5 Fantan fighter jets in Darfur.

China's government has declined to comment on the BBC's findings, which contravene a UN arms embargo on Darfur.

The embargo requires foreign nations to take measures to ensure they do not militarily assist anyone in the conflict in Darfur, in which the UN estimates that about 300,000 people have died.

More than two million people are also believed to have fled their villages in Darfur, destroyed by pro-government Arab Janjaweed militia.

This shows that the Chinese are circumventing the embargo and the Sudanese regime in Khartoum is able to continue its deadly ways with the support of the Chinese government.

International Criminal Court To Seek Genocide Charges Against Sudanese Leader

The situation in Darfur was a genocide, and the world refused to act. Now, years after the genocide, the International Criminal Court looks to bring the Sudanese leader to justice.

Too little. Too late.

Hundreds of thousands were killed as a result of the Sudanese regime's policy in Darfur.

The chief prosecutor of the Internationals Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the orchestration of a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation's Darfur region during the past five years, according to U.N. officials and diplomats.

The action by the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, will mark the first time that the tribunal in The Hague charges a sitting head of state with such crimes, and represents a major step by the court to implicate the highest levels of the Sudanese government for the atrocities in Darfur.

Some U.N. officials raised concerns Thursday that the decision would complicate the peace process in Darfur, possibly triggering a military response by Sudanese forces or proxies against the nearly 10,000 U.N. and African Union peacekeepers located there. At least seven peacekeepers were killed and 22 were injured Tuesday during an ambush by a well-organized and unidentified armed group.

The UN did nothing at the height of the carnage. The African Union did little to stop the violence until the region was decimated and ethnic cleansing resulted in a barren wasteland.

The survivors are in camps, which are still threatened by militias and the UN is ill equipped to protect itself, let alone the refugees from ongoing violence.

This goes back to the whole notion of peacekeeping versus peacemaking. Peacekeeping involves maintaining the status quo, while peacemaking requires imposing a new situation. Here, the status quo means the Sudanese regime gets to continue its ethnic cleansing and destructive policies, while the UN can do little under its rules of engagement except perhaps protect itself from attack. Peacemaking means that not only can the peacemakers defend themselves, but can actively go after those militias and put a stop to the violence by eliminating the source of the violence.

UN Counts Butchers Bill On Darfur

300,000 dead on its watch, and the number keeps on rising.

The conflict in Darfur is deteriorating, with full deployment of a new peacekeeping force delayed until 2009 and no prospect of a political settlement for a war that has killed perhaps 300,000 people in five years, U.N. officials said Tuesday.
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In grim reports to the Security Council, the United Nations aid chief and the representative of the peacekeeping mission said suffering in the Sudanese region is worsening. Tens of thousands more have been uprooted from their homes and food rations to the needy are about to be cut in half, they said.

"We continue to see the goal posts receding, to the point where peace in Darfur seems further away today than ever," said John Holmes, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

The conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Many of the worst atrocities in the war have been blamed on the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads allied with the government.

The UN has done nothing to deal with the Islamists in Khartoum because the regime has support from the likes of China and Russia who thwart any effort to bring relief to hundreds of thousands of displaced Darfur refugees to say nothing of the relentless campaign to dispossess them of their lands.

Chad Sentences Zoe's Ark Six To Hard Labor

A Chadian court sentenced six French aid workers to eight years of forced labor Wednesday after finding them guilty of trying to kidnap 103 African children and bring them to Europe.

The sentence was announced on the fourth day of the trial.

The defendants, who work for the French aid group Zoe's Ark, maintain they were driven by compassion to help orphans in Darfur, which borders Chad.

That was quick. After four days at trial, the six were found guilty. Hard labor just doesn't seem sufficient for these six miscreants who claimed that they were just trying to help rescue Darfurian refugees.

These aid workers claimed that they were helping rescue orphans from the Darfur genocide when they were stopped by Chadian authorities in October, but it turned out that many of the children they were taking were actually Chadian children with families. They dressed up the kids in fake bandages to make them look like orphans in need of medical attention.

They took advantage of a human rights catastrophe, took advantage of families in Chad, and then took advantage of families in France who thought that they were going to be helping Darfurian refugees start a new life.

UN Failing Darfur Again

The left always likes to say that the world's ills can be solved by the United Nations. Here's a clue. It can't. It wont.

And those most in need of assistance suffer as a result.

Darfur is exhibit A:

Facing its most ambitious peacekeeping deployment ever in Darfur, the United Nations soon might face "humiliation" — as the Sudanese government, rebel groups, troop- and equipment-contributing countries, the U.N.'s own peacekeeping department, and the General Assembly's budgetary organ blame each other for the force's failure, officials say.

The head of the U.N. peacekeeping department, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, yesterday said that beyond such humiliation in Darfur, all U.N. peacekeeping may face a "setback" if the mission there fails. Speaking at the Security Council, he detailed the hardships in deploying 26,000 troops under the joint command of the U.N. and the African Union. The mission lacks critical equipment, such as at least 18 helicopters to move the troops around in the vast Darfur area, and no contributors have offered any. Khartoum, meanwhile, has banned several countries from contributing troops and know-how. Also, Darfur rebels told engineers from Sudan's ally China that they were unwelcome.

American officials privately are expressing frustration at the slow pace of peacekeeping department's planning and execution of the Darfur deployment. But on the General Assembly's budget committee, some criticized a $250 million contract that was awarded to a California-based subsidiary of Lockheed Martin to build infrastructure for the mission — which U.N. officials say they needed to award on a no-bid basis to hasten the deployment at Darfur.

Meanwhile, in Darfur, little hope exists that on January 1 — when the so-called "hybrid force" is scheduled to replace an 8000-troop force under sole command of the African Union — it will have the capacity to do much better in protecting civilians than its "inadequate" predecessor.

Scum of the Earth Identified: Zoe's Ark "Charity"

A few days ago, I noted reports about how Chadian authorities arrested a whole bunch of people involved with a French charity, accusing them of taking Chadian children from their homes. Those associated with the charity claim that they were Darfurian orphans.

Chadian officals have been investigating matters further, as have a bunch of independent human rights groups, and they've found plenty of evidence showing that the kids are indeed Chadian and that they were taken from their families.

The International Red Cross Committee, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF said most of the children were living with their families before the French charity, Zoe's Ark, took them to the eastern city of Abeche, in Chad. The charity said the children were Sudanese orphans that it was trying to rescue from a war-torn nation.

The agencies said most of the children also "probably" come from Chadian villages along Chad's border with Sudan.

The children have been living in an orphanage in Abeche while authorities and aid agencies try to determine their identities.

Six members of Zoe's Ark were arrested last week as they tried to put the children on a plane to France, where the charity said host families were waiting to take the children in.

Three French journalists, a seven-member Spanish flight crew and one Belgian were also arrested.

Chadian authorities immediately accused the charity of kidnapping and of concealing the children's identities. Chad's interior minister said Zoe's Ark even dressed the children in bandages and fake intravenous drips to make them look more like refugees in need of medical help.

Scum of the earth doesn't begin to describe what this "charity" has been up to. I can only hope that they get locked up for a good long time.

This group was hoping to take advantage of a desperate situation in Darfur and the sympathies of a French public that was looking to help orphans from the Darfur genocide, and instead the group appears to have engaged in kidnapping children from their homes or other illicit behavior.

UPDATE:
Some of the reports are suggesting that two of the journalists arrested accompanying the charity were doing their job in reporting on the charity's efforts, but a third journalist was actively involved. Their disposition will come soon enough, as the French and Chadian governments are engaging in high level diplomacy over this mess.

Also victims in all this are the French families who thought that they would be helping Darfurian refugee orphans. This is also causing a diplomatic mess for the French government, which is set to take over peacekeeping responsibilities:

Would-be foster parents in France had paid several thousand dollars each to receive a child and some have expressed anger at the child trafficking charges, hurt at the outrage and hope that any trial will take place in France.

The government is in the firing line for failing to prevent the operation after it emerged the French army provided the charity members, who include a doctor and volunteer firefighters, with assistance in Chad.

Apart from the 17 Europeans, a Chadian deputy district administrator and a community chief have been arrested and charged with complicity in alleged abductions.

The case ignited tension with Paris, which is about to take the helm of a European peacekeeping force in Chad to protect hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees and Chadians displaced by rebel insurgency and ethnic strife.

Taking Advantage

You have got to be kidding me.

A French based charity had a whole bunch of its members arrested in Chad - including three journalists - for kidnapping more than 100 kids who they claim were orphans from the Darfur genocide/ethnic cleansing, but which Chad thinks may have been Chadian. Those journalists were not simply bystanders either - they were deeply involved in the whole thing.

Authorities in Chad have charged nine French nationals with kidnapping after they attempted to fly out of Chad with more than 100 children the group claimed were orphans from Sudan.

Members of the French aid group L'Arche de Zoe were detained and handcuffed in Abeche, Chad.

The charges were confirmed by Leonard Vincent, who heads the Africa desk at Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Three French journalists are among those charged.

In addition, Vincent said, seven crew members of a Spanish charter company were charged with complicity.

The 16 were being held in the eastern Chadian city of Abeche and were expected to be transferred to the capital, N'Djamena, later in the week, Vincent said.

The group was arrested last week as they tried to put 103 children on a plane to France. The "rescue mission" was organized by L'Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark), a Paris-based charity which said the children were orphans from the Darfur crisis and were being taken to foster families in France.

The Chadian government disputed that, and a spokeswoman for the UNHCR said that based on preliminary interviews with the children, they "most probably" are from Chad.

The arrested French nationals include six members of Zoe's Ark and three French journalists, Vincent said. Two of the journalists were on assignment for independent media outlets, while the third was on humanitarian leave from her job, he said.

"Her editor gave her a camera because she wanted to cover the operation," Vincent said, "but she was also sympathetic to the association as she wanted to host one of the kids."

Nothing quite like people trying to take advantage of a human rights crisis and getting themselves involved in a human rights mess of their own.

Another Day at the Office

Yet again, we find that Darfur is still the locus of violence and genocide, and yet no one at the UN seems to think it serious enough to warrant calling it genocide or that the Sudanese government was once again responsible for the carnage:

According to several residents of Muhagiriya, a small town in southern Darfur, two columns of uniformed government troops, along with dozens of militiamen not in uniform, surrounded the town around noon on Oct. 8 and stormed the market. Muhagiriya was a stronghold of one of Darfur’s many rebel factions, but witnesses said there were few rebels there at the time and that government forces turned their guns — and knives — on civilians.

Ayoub Jalal, a mechanic, said his father was praying at a mosque when soldiers burst in. “They dragged my father and the others out of the mosque and slashed their throats,” said Mr. Jalal, who was interviewed by telephone.

Both the United Nations and the African Union confirmed that dozens of civilians had been killed and that witnesses consistently identified the attackers as government soldiers and allied gunmen. However, neither entity said it could independently verify who was responsible.

The Sudanese government denied any involvement, but witnesses said uniformed troops methodically mowed down anyone who tried to escape, including a group of fleeing children.

“The youngest child, a 5-year-old boy, I knew well,” said Sultan Marko Niaw, a tribal elder, who also spoke by phone. He said the boy’s name was Guran Avium: “A soldier had shot him in the back.”

Locals are loath to trust the UN because they see it siding with the Sudanese government and its passive/inactive approach just gets more Darfurians killed. The UN thinks that even that approach is far too much, and stonewalled until Darfur was pretty much ethnically cleansed of all opposition.

Those that are left are still under threat of continuing violence, and the UN will take its time in determining who was responsible even as all fingers point towards the Sudanese government.

All the witnesses seem to corroborate each other and the report that the Sudanese militias were involved in the slaughter.

I guess we'll get a shrug and a nod.

Had this been in Iraq and US forces alleged to have been involved, this would be splashed all over the front pages of all papers and media outlets, investigations would be demanded, and heads would roll. The media would have gone out of its way to portray this as a savage slaughter by US forces against hapless and defenseless civilians.

Here? Not so much. After all, it's only Darfurians, and the US can't be directly blamed for the ongoing bloodshed. The UN stands in the way of greater action, especially because Sudan and its foreign backers prevent more strenuous actions against those responsible for the genocide (which the UN continues to refuse to call as such) and ethnic cleansing.

Jimmy Carter Comes Face To Face With Darfur Mess

The 83-year-old Carter walked into this highly volatile pro-Sudanese government town to meet refugees too frightened to attend a scheduled meeting at a nearby compound. He was able to make it to a school where he met with one tribal representative and was preparing to go further into the town when Sudanese security officers stopped him.

"You can't go. It's not on the program!" the local security chief, who only gave his first name as Omar, yelled at Carter, who is in Darfur as part of a delegation of respected international figures known as "The Elders."

"We're going to anyway!" an angry Carter retorted as a crowd began to gather. "You don't have the power to stop me."

U.N. officials told Carter's entourage the Sudanese state police could bar his way. Carter's traveling companions, billionaire businessman Richard Branson and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, tried to ease his frustration and his Secret Service detail urged him to get into a car and leave.

"I'll tell President Bashir about this," Carter said, referring to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Carter later agreed to a compromise by which tribal representatives would be brought to him at another location later Wednesday. But the refugee delegates never showed up.

Carter really is clueless about the situation in Darfur. The Sudanese government had no intention of ever letting Carter see what is really going on there. Carter thinks that talking things through with the regime in Khartoum will fix matters?

That compromise really worked out well, don't you think? The refugee delegates never showed.

The Darfur genocide has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and more than 2 million have been displaced. New fighting among various militias, including the janjaweed that was responsible for much of the ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity are involved in the ongoing violence and human rights abuses. Carter thinks talking with these folks will solve matters.

All that the talking does is extend the time during which the militias can secure territory and eliminate rivals and displace those who live on the land in Darfur. The crisis will end when one side is eliminated.

Darfur Peacekeeper Base Attacked; 12+ Killed, Dozens Missing

The African Union has been trying to restore peace to the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese government in Khartoum continues to provide support to militias, and opposition groups aren't taking too kindly to the AU presence either, believing that the AU is supporting the government position.

It's a no-win situation for the AU, which now finds itself in the middle of a conflict on the heels of the Darfur genocide.

More than 50 AU peacekeepers and support personnel are missing in action since the attack on the base in northern Darfur just after sunset on Saturday.

"This is the heaviest loss of life and the biggest attack on the African Union mission," said AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni, who could not confirm the casualty figures because the fighting was ongoing.

Officers in the AU force said that a force of 1,000 rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army stormed the AU base in the town of Haskanita just after the sunset fastbreaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"There is a war going on between the rebels and the government, and the AU is crunched in the middle," said a senior AU officer who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Darfur rebels have grown increasingly hostile to the AU peacekeepers saying the force is not neutral and is favoring the government side. There have been several ambushes of AU forces in the past year on AU force blamed on rebels.

U.N. approves up to 26,000 troops, police for Darfur

This is a story that Lawhawk has been all over the past year or even more. However, he probably missed this as it came out while was probably on his way home. I am sure you will see a whole article from him on this shortly. So here is the teaser article:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council authorized on Tuesday up to 26,000 troops and police for Darfur and approved the use of force to protect civilians in Sudan's arid western region.

Expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, the combined "hybrid" U.N.-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million people have been driven into camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the past four years.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who conducted months of talks with Khartoum, described the resolution as "historic and unprecedented" and said the mission would "make a clear and positive difference."

The resolution, number 1769, invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, under which the United Nations can authorize force. The measure allows the use of force for self-defense, to ensure the free movement of humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack, but acknowledges Sudan's sovereignty.

But the resolution, which has been watered down several times, no longer allows the new force to seize and dispose of illegal arms. Now it can only monitor such weapons.

I am not sure that this is anything more than symbolism over substance. The U.N. is not sending a peace keeping force, it is sending a baby sitting squad with power to observe. They can't seize and dispose of illegal weapons, only monitor them? Monitor them doing what...shooting and killing innocent civilians. "Yup, that was an illegal weapon that killed that baby over there...good monitoring troops!"

I am tired of this. The U.N. is a useless agency that is mired in its own mediocrity and irrelevance. U.N. peace keeping forces have failed to keep peace since its founding. U.N. peace keepers themselves have been almost as bad as the forces they are supposed to protecting civilians from.

Its about time the United Nations authorizes a peace keeping force with authority to actually keep the peace. Who will actually make a difference rather than "monitor" illegal weapons. Take the illegal weapons! They don't want to give them up, use force. Monitoring the situation is only going to allow the status quo to continue. All we will be left with is another acronym, UNAMID or the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, and another failed peace initiative, more innocent lives lost and a bad situation made worse by inaction and failed action.

Obama Has No Problem With Genocide

Next time you hear Sen. Barack Obama (D-IN), presidential candidate, talk about human rights and bringing an end to genocide and other human rights crises, remember the following:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

"Well, look, if that's the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven't done," Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea," he said.

Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, said it's likely there would be increased bloodshed if U.S. forces left Iraq.

"Nobody is proposing we leave precipitously. There are still going to be U.S. forces in the region that could intercede, with an international force, on an emergency basis," Obama said between stops on the first of two days scheduled on the New Hampshire campaign trail. "There's no doubt there are risks of increased bloodshed in Iraq without a continuing U.S. presence there."

Military action would have put an end to the Darfur genocide because the janjaweed and Sudanese military would be stopped from further carnage and harming civilian populations. The failure to deploy military forces - peace makers or even United Nations peacekeepers in force - allowed multiple genocides and ethnic cleansing events to occur around the world, from Rwanda to Congo to Kosovo and Iraq.

Sen. Obama also hasn't a clue as to the number of US forces available or even involved in operations. Right now, we've got about 150,000 troops in Iraq. We haven't massed 300,000 troops for any operation since Gulf War I, and President Clinton clipped the size of the military considerably in the peace dividend of the 1990s.

I've long argued that failed states and regions are a persistent and ongoing threat to national security. Such regions include areas that have seen genocides and ethnic cleansing, like Sudan and Darfur, lawless regions like Somalia and Warizistan along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Wishful thinking will not make those areas any less lawless. Diplomacy will not make them less lawless. Military force will eliminate the threat, imposing order on those regions, and deny terrorists like al Qaeda an area of operations from which to launch operations.

Obama thinks that talking about stopping genocide is the same about actually stopping it. World War II proved that the only way to stop genocide is to depose those regimes responsible for it. The same went for Kosovo.

Saddam Hussein murdered hundreds of thousands during his reign of terror, and the Iraqi government rightfully hung him for his crimes against the Iraqi people. That would not have happened had the US not deposed him.

Obama would much rather let millions die than take actions that would prevent such events from occurring.

Obama would like people to believe that we're at greater risk if we stay in Iraq. That couldn't be further from the truth. Al Qaeda is in Iraq, and where exactly does Obama propose we fight them? He's willing to cede that field of battle to al Qaeda?

If we withdraw, where will al Qaeda go next? Western Europe? Africa? The US?

We know where al Qaeda is now - and we're fighting them now. In Iraq.

And our presence in Iraq is also a stabilizing influence because we're able to give the Iraqis time to get their own house in order. We know what the alternatives look like - the millions dead in the Killing Fields of Southeast Asia.

24 Hours For Darfur

24 Hours for Darfur is a grassroots video advocacy campaign dedicated to ending the conflict in Darfur and promoting peace and security for the people living there. I received the following via email and thought it worth sharing. The Darfur genocide is far from over, and people living in the region continue to be hounded by the Janjaweed and Sudanese government forces. The African Union has been stretched to the limit and the UN has been ineffectual at stopping the violence.

Our primary initiative is to collect thousands of personal video appeals from people all over the world. All appeals will be displayed on our website and sent directly to participant's political representatives. On September 16, 2007 we will screen 24 hours of rolling footage at a rally in front of the UN headquarters and at smaller events at halls of power throughout the world - all connected through a real-time online broadcast.

US Presidential candidate John Edwards, Author Samantha Power, Actress Mia Farrow, two former United Nations Deputy Secretaries-General, two former United States Deputy Secretaries of State, and hundreds of private citizens from around the world have already submitted videos. Please join us in speaking out against genocide by submitting a video appeal of your own. Use a webcam to record a video right in your web browser, or upload a video you've recorded offline.

We have also been working with scholars, practitioners, journalists and Darfuris to compile an online video library of educational material related to the conflict. Nicholas Kristof, John Prendergast, several Human Rights Watch researchers, and many others have already contributed educational videos. You can check it out by visiting our website's education section: http://www.24hoursfordarfur.org/education.php.

For this campaign to make a significant contribution to Darfur advocacy, it needs to be truly global in scope. We hope you'll lend your voice to the effort.