Syrian Rebel Groups Clamor For Weapons To Finish Assad While Assad's Security Forces Continue Homs Assault

The diplomatic efforts to force Bashar al-Assad continue. Friends of Syria met to discuss efforts, including the United States, European and Arab nations, and have indicated that they're willing to expand sanctions and other efforts to stop the murderous rampage that Assad's security forces have been conducting to end protests against the regime. The brutal crackdown has resulted in thousands dead, including hundreds in the past three weeks in the City of Homs. They're calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Rebel groups, realizing that the diplomatic efforts have gone nowhere and haven't forced Assad to scale back his crackdown, are now clamoring for weapons and the means to topple Assad directly.

The main opposition Syrian National Council outlined on Friday its vision for a post-Assad Syria, and appealed for the weapons required to make that happen.

The SNC announced it was proposing an interim presidential council of national leaders and a truth and reconciliation committee at a meeting of the “Friends of Syria” group of 70 Western and Arab nations in Tunisia Friday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said ahead of the meeting that rebel fighters would become “increasingly capable,” saying they will “from somewhere, somehow, find the means to defend themselves as well as begin offensive measures."

And, in her opening remarks to the conference, Clinton said the regime of President Bashar Assad had "ignored every warning, squandered every opportunity and broken every agreement."

With any kind of effort akin to the NATO air mission over Libya all but dead given Russian and Chinese threatened and actual vetoes in the UN Security Council, the diplomatic efforts are reduced to strongly worded letters and condemnation. Action is far harder to come by.

At the same time, efforts to create a humanitarian corridor to allow food and vital supplies to cities like Homs aren't going to go anywhere. Assad is engaging in crimes against humanity and collective punishment by going after not only the rebel forces arrayed against him (including the many defectors from his security forces), but after the cities where protests have been most active.

Assad doesn't care about appearances. He is fighting for his regime's survival and that means crushing the ongoing rebellion against his rule. His security forces aren't going to permit humanitarian aid to flow into places like Homs despite the crushing toll a lack of medicine and food has on the civilian populations. They've got nowhere to turn.

Yet, Assad probably doesn't quite realize just how far the opposition has come and that he's likely fighting a losing battle to stay in power. The tighter he grasps that power, the more people rally against his regime. Syrians are realizing just how evil the regime truly is and with the Internet and its myriad communications streams (Twitter, YouTube, blogging, etc.) allows people to get the message out. They are seeing that their fellow countrymen are being slaughtered in places like Homs for merely speaking out against the ongoing violence - let alone against the regime. Far from silencing the opposition, Assad's brutal crackdown is having the opposite effect. The opposition is growing larger and bolder with each passing day and despite the regime's loyalists' advantages in military capabilities, seeing the streets run red with the blood of civilians - including women and children - is enough to convince Syrians that Assad's regime must come to an end.

Watch for yet another round of attempts to convince Assad to take the golden parachute to exile - but those will fall on deaf ears.

UPDATE:
Red Cross efforts to get injured journalists out of Homs, along with the remains of American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, have thus far been met with static from Assad's regime. Assad's regime takes no responsibility in the artillery attacks resulting in their deaths and the journalists' injuries, and instead blames the journalists themselves for being in harms way by not partaking in the clown circus of official propaganda channels.

UPDATE:
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Hamas is backing the rebel opposition groups arrayed against Assad. That follows moves by Hamas leaders over the past several months to find other safe havens besides their longstanding relationship with the Assad leadership in Damascus. It's interesting that they're not only opposing Assad, but are publicly stating their intentions to block Hizbullah and Iran from taking advantage of the situation.

Hamas went public after nearly a year of equivocating as Assad's army, largely led by fellow members of the president's Alawite sect, has crushed mainly Sunni protesters and rebels.

In a Middle East split along sectarian lines between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam, the public abandonment of Assad casts immediate questions over Hamas's future ties with its principal backer Iran, which has stuck by its ally Assad, as well as with Iran's fellow Shi'ite allies in Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

"I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Egypt from the Gaza Strip, told thousands of Friday worshipers at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque.

"We are marching towards Syria, with millions of martyrs," chanted worshipers at al-Azhar, home to one of the Sunni world's highest seats of learning. "No Hezbollah and no Iran. The Syrian revolution is an Arab revolution."

Not only is Haniyeh turning his back on Assad, but is also spitting in the face of the Iranian regime that has backed the terror group from the outset.

It also raises new questions about whether the fight in Syria may break down along sectarian lines with Hamas and Hizbullah fight amongst each other for primacy to dominate what may come after Assad.

Homs Remains Under Artillery Assault For 20th Day; Assad's Crackdown Continues

The City of Homs has now been under constant artillery barrages and attacks by Bashar al-Assad's security forces for 20 days and there's no sign of any letup. Assad's forces are intensifying their attacks, and the body count continues rising on a daily basis.

The UN no longer keeps track of the casualty figures because their officials can't guarantee their own safety, so casualty figures are derived from news reports (both the official government propaganda type and the opposition Twitter, blog, and satellite report chatter), human rights groups that operate in the country, and the only thing that is certain is that civilians continue being murdered by the regime.

The attacks on Homs are not precision attacks against military targets, but are instead attacks that hit civilians all too frequently. Civilians are the targets, which means that Assad's regime is engaging in crimes against humanity and war crimes in violation of Geneva Conventions and other international law. Even the United Nations Secretary General and other top human rights officials at the UN are cognizant of the criminal acts by the Assad regime.

The report, handed to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was compiled by a panel of three investigators who said that they had not been allowed to enter Syria to conduct their inquiries at first hand but had relied on a total of 369 interviews with victims, witnesses, defectors and other people with “inside knowledge” of the situation. They had also examined photographs, video recordings and satellite imagery to corroborate some witness accounts.

The report was published as Syrian security forces continued their shelling of besieged areas of the central city of Homs for a 20th successive day on Thursday, despite a growing outcry and international calls for the creation of humanitarian corridors to reach the sick, the wounded and the frail.

The newest bombardment, reported by activists, came on the eve of a major international gathering Tunisia to seek a way out of the crisis. Some reports from Homs said government forces in tanks had pressed into contested areas where opponents of the government say hundreds of trapped civilians have died in one of the deadliest campaigns in nearly a year of violent repression by the government of President Assad. The United Nations report seemed likely to add weight to those conclusions, arguing that Syria was now “on the brink” of civil war and “the continuation of the crisis carries the risk of radicalizing the population, deepening inter-communal tensions and eroding the fabric of society.”

The document spoke of torture and killing of civilians.

“The commission received credible and consistent evidence identifying high- and mid-ranking members of the armed forces who ordered their subordinates to shoot at unarmed protesters, kill soldiers who refused to obey such orders, arrest persons without cause, mistreat detained persons and attack civilian neighborhoods with indiscriminate tanks and machine gun fire,” the investigators said.

Yet, the UN is powerless to do anything more than write a strongly worded letter because Russia and China continue to hold a veto threat against any action in the Security Council that might even provide the option to use military action to force Assad to stop his brutal crackdown. That's despite the fact that the recognition of war crimes and crimes against humanity demands that the UN act under the terms of international law, including the Genocide Convention and Geneva Conventions.

There are also accusations by French leader Nicholas Sarkozy that the Syrian military deliberately targeted journalists, including the attacks that killed American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Wounded protesters brought to hospitals are reportedly being tortured, and children are among those killed.

While Russia and China are the most important backers to Assad's regime, they're not alone. Besides Iran, it appears that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has decided to throw his support behind Assad and his brutal regime.

UPDATE:
The UN has gone beyond what it has previously state in regards to crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria to say that the actions are being directed by the highest levels of Assad's government.

"The commission is satisfied that a reliable body of evidence exists that, consistent with other verified circumstances, provides reasonable grounds to believe that particular individuals, including commanding officers and officials at the highest levels of government, bear responsibility for crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations," the report said.

In other words, these aren't the actions of rogue local security forces run amok but rather the coordinated actions of a government engaging in crimes against their own countrymen.

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.

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.

Former Nazi John Demjanjuk Charged With 29,000 Counts of Accessory To Murder

John Demjanjuk is alleged to be a Nazi war criminal who was a guard at Sobibor and was previously convicted for being Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka death camp. German authorities have charged him with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder.

Demjanjuk is accused of participating in the murders while he was a guard at the Nazi camp in occupied Poland between March and September 1943.

"In this capacity, he participated in the accessory to murder of at least 29,000 people of the Jewish faith," Munich prosecutors said in a statement.

The 88-year-old Demjanjuk, who lives in a Cleveland suburb, denies involvement.

Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said in an e-mailed statement to the AP in Cleveland that his father is suffering from a blood disorder and acute kidney failure, and is not fit for international travel.

"Whatever the Germans decide to do, we will continue to fight for justice in this sad case as there has never been any credible evidence of his personal involvement in even one murder, let alone thousands," Demjanjuk Jr. said. "He has never hurt anyone — before, during or after the war. He is a good person as his family, grandchildren, friends and neighbors have always maintained."

Demjanjuk has previously been found guilty of being a Nazi war criminal in Israel, but that verdict (and the attached death penalty) were overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court because of the spoliation of evidence. Witnesses misidentified him as Ivan the Terrible from the Treblinka camp.

Legalbgl wonders if Demjanjuk is deported from the US (again), can Ford stop paying his union benefits? Demjanjuk was an engineer for Ford at one of Ford's Ohio factories.

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.

Ahmadinejad Rants On To Receptive Audience

Once again, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is busy calling for the putting to death of Israeli leaders and the destruction of Israel.

The legal measures will bear results and the criminals of the Zionist regime will eventually be put to death, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.

Speaking at a Tehran conference in support of the Palestinians, Ahmadinejad called for "a global front against Zionism which would work to support the people in Gaza and in Palestine on the one hand, and work to punish the Zionist criminals on the other hand."

The conference was attended by senior members of the Palestinian terror organizations. According to one report, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah headed the Lebanese delegation to the event.

Let me repeat that last bit: according to a report, Hizbullah's Nasrallah was the head of the Lebanese delegation. Also attending this hatefest: Palestinian terrorist Samir Kuntar, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar and Moussa Abu Marzouk, Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Salah, and Fatah's Farouk Kadumi, the PLO leader in Tunisia.

These terrorists and thugs are united in seeing Israel's destruction and Iran continues to stoke genocidal and apocalyptic visions for the destruction of Israel and destruction of the Jews living there. There's no talk of conciliation or common ground; it's all about death to Jews and Israel.

Iran is busy putting money where it's mouth is as well; it's busy funding Hizbullah to the tune of $1 billion.

The UN Admits Hamas Stealing Its Supplies

It's not the first time this has happened, but when Hamas comes in and raids entire warehouses of humanitarian aid, the UN is going to have to say something.

Hamas police in Gaza have seized thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents, UN spokesman Chris Gunness said Wednesday.
A Pelestinian man carrying a...

A Pelestinian man carrying a bag of flour given through UNRWA's aid program [illustrative].
Photo: AP
Slideshow: Pictures of the week

Gunness said the policemen raided a UN warehouse in Gaza City, snatching 3,500 blankets and over 400 food parcels - supplies meant for 500 Palestinian families. He said the incident took place on Tuesday evening and that it marked the first time Hamas had seized UN aid.

In a statement released Wednesday, UNRWA condemned the theft "in the strongest terms," and demanded that it be "returned immediately." The statement added that the organization "has a strict system of monitoring aid delivery and ensuring that its assistance reaches only the intended beneficiaries," and that officials were present "taking all possible steps to avoid its diversion."

Israel has charged that Hamas routinely confiscates supplies meant for needy Gazans.

A Hamas government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Gunness has repeatedly sided with Hamas and claimed that Hamas didn't steal supplies in the past and that Israel had regularly targeted civilians and UNRWA facilities. This puts his prior statements at odds with the facts.

Hamas has been stealing supplies all along and reselling them to Gazans so that the terrorist group can raise money for its war against Israel.

A number of reports from the Strip paint a picture of very difficult humanitarian conditions, not least because of Hamas itself. The suspicion is that the group's operatives have seized control of any supplies passing through the crossings – including those sent by Israel and international organizations.

Reports say Hamas takes a cut out of all aid that arrives, including flour and medicine. Supplies intended to be distributed without gain among the population is seized by the group and sold to the residents, at a profit to the Hamas government.

One such incident was recorded Monday, when a convoy of trucks carrying supplies through the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened fire upon and seized by Hamas gunmen. Similar incidents occurred with trucks carrying fuel.

This is what you get when you provide humanitarian aid to a terrorist group who controls a region with an iron fist and which considers its jihad against Israel paramount over any humanitarian concerns.

The situation in Gaza is dire because Hamas makes it so, and UNRWA facilitates such actions by looking the other way as the terrorist group operates freely in the refugee camps, hires Hamas thugs as support staff, and is so thoroughly penetrated by Hamas, that it is not much more than a propaganda outfit for Hamas.

As much as the UN would protest otherwise, they have admitted that there is no way to check the background of those they hire, which means that Hamas is on the payroll and does have access to UNRWA facilities.

As Kenneth at LGF notes, UNRWA facilitates terrorism through its operations, and perpetuates the Palestinian refugee situation simply by defining refugee differently than the other UN agency responsible for refugees, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). UNRWA defines refugees to include the descendants of any original refugee, meaning that there are millions more people who are considered refugees than otherwise. It also provides a permanent bureaucracy since there is no incentive to end the operations since you have a constantly growing population.

UNRWA helps millions fewer people than UNHCR, and yet has a vastly larger budget per capita and has far more people on the payroll than UNHCR. Hamas has exploited this situation time and time again, and the UN has sat back and complained about Israel's actions.

The problem resides first and foremost with Hamas, but the UN is also responsible for facilitating the crisis.

Prominent Bangladeshi Calls For Extermination of Jews

Not only was Mohammad Asafuddowlah a prominent politician and business leader in Bangladesh, but he's a newspaper editor and gets to set the agenda and tone in political circles.

Apparently his version of peace and mine differ sharply. He prefers the peace that comes as the result of genocide and the annihilation of all Jews on the face of the earth:

A former senior official and newspaper editor from Bangladesh told a television audience last week that Adolph Hitler should have been more thorough when it came to the Jews. The TV host seconded the opinion.

As reported by the editor and publisher of the Weekly Blitz, peace activist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, Mohammad Asafuddowlah said, "My soul bleeds when I recall the recent atrocities against the people of Gaza. And if I was a young man, I would have gone to Gaza with a weapon to exterminate Israel."

It is not just Israel's extermination Asafuddowlah seeks, however. "Now I believe that what Adolph Hitler did during the Holocaust was absolutely correct. He should have done this more extensively, to eliminate the total Jewish population from the world," he added.

Abdul Hye Sikder, the host of the TV program on which Asafuddowlah appeared, reacted to the genocidal statements with agreement, echoing the sentiments. Sikder, Choudhury reports, was at one time a leading activist of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Assafuddowlah has been described by Bangladesh's New Age newspaper as "one of the finest civil servants of Bangladesh and a personality crowned with many qualities." He served in the public sector for 35 years, as chairman of state-run corporations and director-general of various government ministries. He was also the editor-in-chief of The Bangladesh Today, a leading English-language daily.

And he's got lots of people who agree with him.

These are the same people who would also declare that the Holocaust didn't happen or that the number of Jews murdered wasn't as high as claimed. The Holocaust revisionism goes hand in hand with the calls for a renewed genocide against the Jews and to finish the job of Hitler and the Nazis.

UPDATE:
The original story is here.

Congolese Thug Charged In War Crimes; Hamas Does Same Without Worry

A Congolese thug is currently on trial at the International Criminal Court at the Hague for war crimes, including inducting children as young as 15 into his militia.

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is accused of forcing children under the age of 15 to fight in the military wing of the Union of Congolese Patriots.

"Lubanga's armed group recruited, trained and used hundreds of young children to kill, pillage and rape. The children still suffer the consequences of Lubanga's crimes. They cannot forget what they saw, what they suffered, what they did," ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said as the trial opened on Monday morning.

Lubanga pleaded not guilty. His defense will not begin its opening statement until Tuesday. He sat largely impassively, in suit and tie, as the prosecution opened its case.

This is little different than what Hamas and other jihadi groups has done in Gaza and throughout the world for years on end. Hamas has been indoctrinating children in the jihad against Israel, and repeatedly marches them into battles, using them as human shields and hoping to incite Palestinians to further violence. Photo evidence courtesy of Charles at LGF.

Or see here, here, here, here, or:


That's Hizbullah indoctrinating another generation to hate Israel and seek its destruction. They're busy passing out toy guns to tots and young ones, but before long, they're out throwing rocks at Israelis, but they will be given the real thing soon enough.

Where is the world outcry and demand that Hamas leaders be indicted for war crimes and to stand trial for their actions? Nary a voice will be raised to do so, despite the overwhelming piles of evidence of just that.

UPDATE:
In video form:

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.

UN Failing Africa Again: Congo Violence Displaces 600,000+

This time, it's the situation in the Congo that deserves closer attention. The United Nations 17,000 member peacekeeping force in Congo, the largest such contingent in the world, is on the run after rebel groups have gone on the offensive against the regime there. 600,000 are displaced and the numbers continue to grow literally by the hour.

The misery in the Congo has its genesis in the 1994 genocide and ethnic cleansing in neighboring Rwanda, and we're now watching the same ethnic groups, the Hutus and Tutsis about to rip Congo apart. Millions of Hutus were forced to flee Rwanda following the 1994 genocide and settled in Congo, including many of those responsible for the genocide. They set up camps from which to carry out operations against the Tutsis in Rwanda. Now, they're on the march:

Rebels vowing to take Congo's eastern provincial capital of 600,000 people advanced toward Goma on Tuesday as Congolese troops and U.N. tanks retreated, while tens of thousands fled to a makeshift shelter.

The sudden influx tripled the size of the camp in Kibati in a matter of hours, said Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency. A hundred refugees a day, mostly women and children, were also fleeing across the border into Uganda, that country's Red Cross said.

In Kibati, a few miles from the front line, young men also lobbed rocks Tuesday at three U.N. tanks with Uruguayan troops heading away from the battlefield.

There are no simple answers to dealing with the situation there, but the UN's presence does little to deter the combatants from going after people who are taking refuge at UN refugee camps.

The Congolese military and the UN have retreated in the face of this rebel army, leaving civilians in the path of the advancing army wondering about what will happen next.

Aid groups and UN officials warn of a human rights catastrophe. Considering that the UN is doing nothing but withdrawing from the field of battle, the African Union isn't likely to send in forces anytime soon, and the Congolese military is also retreating, I'd say that there's little anyone can do to stop the advancing rebel army from taking Goma.

No one at the UN seems prepared to actually force peace on this rebel army; making a sustained fight to the rebel army, rather than withdrawing to avoid a fight. This only enables and emboldens this group to take further territory and advance towards its goals. The use of helicopter gunships is a start, but those UN tanks and armored units need to stop retreating and begin holding their ground.

There's also suggestions that the rebel army is operating in cahoots with the Rwandan government, which expands the level of this crisis.

UPDATE:
It's also important to keep in mind that the failure to act to prevent the 1994 genocide is leading to further bloodshed and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. It should once again be a clarion call for action to stop bad actors before they are able to carry out their plans, and shows that the UN cannot handle such situations with peacekeepers who are constrained by their rules of engagement from actually enforcing peace by going after those who wish to break it.

13 Years

13 years. That's how long it took for Radovan Karadzic to be brought to justice.

Karadzic was one of the world's most wanted men in connection with the genocide of more than 8,000 men and boys near Srebrenica in 1995 during the series of wars fought in the former Yugoslavia.

So, where was he captured?

Mr. Karadzic’s exact place of arrest was not disclosed, but Serbian government officials said he was apprehended by Serbian secret police not far from Belgrade, the capital.

Officials from President Boris Tadic’s office said Mr. Karadzic had appeared before an investigative judge at Serbia’s war crimes court, a prerequisite for his extradition to The Hague.

Mr. Karadzic, a nationalist hero among Serbian radicals and one of the tribunal’s most wanted criminals for more than a decade reportedly hid out in caves in the mountains of eastern Bosnia and in monasteries earlier in his years as a fugitive. Before his political career, he was a medical doctor who worked as a psychiatrist in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital.

Prosecutors in The Hague and officials of the European Union have long suspected that he was, in fact, hiding in Serbia, and in recent years have pressed officials in Belgrade to hand him over. The failure to arrest Mr. Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the still fugitive Bosnian Serb general also indicted on war crimes who remains at large, has stood as a block to greater Serbian ties to the European Union after the wars in Bosnia and later Kosovo.

UPDATE:
So how did he manage to avoid being arrested all this time? He hid in plain sight. He grew out his beard, and even managed to resume practicing alternative medicine. Wonderful.

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.

Horrors Lurking Beyond The Big Media Coverage

The situation in Congo is one that makes Darfur pale in comparison. Rape and unspeakable crimes against humanity persist on a daily basis, and are all the result of continuing problems from the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

The problems have their roots in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when thousands of victims and perpetrators fled across the border. Upwards of 10,000 Rwandan rebel forces remained, living in forested areas and terrorising local populations at their will. Rwanda doesn't want them back, and even if they did, many refuse to return. The Congolese Army, it seems, has neither the collective heart nor the political will to forcibly remove them, and with many soldiers not receiving pay for months on end, they too are guilty of looting and pillaging. So the forces remain, intent on the sexual and social destruction of the local population.

So far they are succeeding on a spectacular scale. For those who are apprehended, there is little impunity, thanks to antiquated gender laws. The attacks grow more numerous and sadistic by the day and the normalisation of sexual violence continues largely unabated.

"Darfur is nothing compared to what's going on in the Congo," says Schuler Deschryver, who despite constant death threats, continues to raise the plight of Congolese women. "My father was the founder of the National Park in Rwanda, which is home to rare silver back gorillas. During the war here, just one silver back was killed. And when it happened, within 48 hours millions in funding was sent to ensure the rest of the gorilla population was protected. Why isn't the same done with our women? I'll tell you why, because in the eyes of the international community animals have more value than humans in this part of the world."

Schuler Deschryver's anger is also felt a few kilometres away, on the outskirts of Bukavu, where Dr Denis Mukwege, an obstetrician for more than 20 years, tries to deal with the aftermath of sexual violence. He runs Panzi Hospital, set up in 1999 in response to the emergency crisis after the so-called African war; it houses more than 350 patients. Each day, 10 new cases are admitted, some as young as nine, so badly damaged that reconstructive surgery is often required. The victims sit on benches, lining urine-soaked corridors, alone and frightened. On eye contact, there is nothing. No expression, no acknowledgement, no smiles - just a fleeting confirmation that behind their eyes, a pained suffering lies deep.

Mukwege can't say for certain if the attacks are on the increase. In general, the hospital estimates it sees just 10 per cent of all sexual violence victims, but certain patterns are developing. Attackers are now identifiable by their manner of attack: one group, after raping the woman or girl, inserts the barrel of a gun into her vagina and shoots, thus destroying her vagina, bladder, rectum and causing massive blood loss. Some force males at gunpoint to rape mothers or sisters, often in front of the whole community. A large percentage of the attackers are HIV-positive and knowingly try to infect their victims.

These aren't just random acts of grotesque inhumanity; it is the systematic sexual and social destruction of whole populations in eastern Congo. And little, it seems, is being done to stop it.

Nothing is done to stop it because it simply isn't fashionable for the Hollywood elites to travel to Congo to demand a stop to the rapes and killings and mutilations. If it were the gorillas, they'd be lifting their voices to demand an end to the senseless deaths and poaching.

There are serious problems with the way the world community deals with human rights catastrophes, and the entire region in Africa is still dealing with the failures to stop the Rwandan genocide in 1994. It's a slow motion horror that continues to take lives and breed new generations of hatred and violence.

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.

Justice Delayed But Not Totally Denied

Cambodia continues to deal with the vicious and barbaric effects of the Khmer Rouge nearly 30 years after they were ousted from power. The Khmer Rouge turned the countryside red with blood - killing more than a million people before their ruinous rule was stopped by the Vietnamese.

Kang Kek Ieu, also known as Duch, was in charge of the notorious S21 jail in the country's capital, Phnom Penh.

Duch is the first of five suspects whom prosecutors have asked the tribunal to investigate over their role in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

More than a million people are thought to have died during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule between 1975-79.

Judges spent several hours interviewing Duch on Tuesday before formally filing charges against him.

"The co-investigating judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia have charged Kang Kek Ieu, alias Duch, for crimes against humanity and have placed him in provisional detention," tribunal judges said in a statement.

Duch was not among the top level of Khmer Rouge leaders but he has become one of its most notorious members, according to the BBC's Guy De Launey in Phnom Penh.

He ran S21, a notorious jail where about 1,400 men, women and children were kept, and many of them brutally tortured.

Countries ravaged by despots, dictators, and genocidal thugs are still scarred by those periods in history, and one has to expect that we'll see similar issues elsewhere in the world - including Sudan and Iraq.

Part of the reason for the delay was because it took time for the UN to get its act together. Figures.

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.