Friday, July 30, 2004

Turning Up the Heat on Khartoum

I've been agonizing for days about how to compose my next posting to this blog regarding the Crisis in Darfur.  The focus of the blog at present has shifted away from our friends down in southern Uganda north by a thousand or more kilometers across the border into western Sudan.  The emergency there is too great to ignore, too great for the whole civilized world to ignore.  I'm sure our friends in Uganda would agree.
 
My last posting on Darfur was intended to provide some useful links to online resources about the dire situation in Sudan and information about how ordinary people can help and how to take meaningful action.  I wanted to do more with this posting, I wanted to help "Turn up the Volume and the Heat to Maximum" on the Janjaweed militias and the Killers in Khartoum.  To let 'em know that lots of people around the world are not going to stand for this crap anymore, that we are drawing a line in the sand between those poor frightened and starving refugees from Darfur and you, their killers!"
 
A few days ago there was a news video showing Omar al-Beshir, present Dictator of Sudan, working his followers up into a frenzy for war.  The TV news report stated that  5-6,000 Sudanese troops, including the very soldiers and militia guilty of the atrocities against the refugees, were marching into camps in Darfur under the pretense that they were there to protect the innocent.
 
Some of Omar's warriors performed before the TV news cameras a "traditional ritual" of devouring live chickens, knowing that this bloodthirsty display was sending yet another terrifying message to the frightened women and children looking on.  Women and children who are severly traumitized, exhausted, sick, hungry, confused, and already near death.

Now Omar al-Beshir and his government ministers want to intimidate the U.N., the U.S.A., the African Union, the European Union, and other international bodies by declaring that the sending of international troops to protect the people of Darfur and the international humanitarian workers there would be considered an "act of war against Sudan".
 
Of course many nations and regional political and religious bodies have had conspicuously little or nothing to say up to now.  What's even worse some countries at the U.N. want to block punitive emergency actions against Sudan by the U.N. Security Council.  Of course this is on behalf of their own economic self-interest (oil and money) and guilt of supporting these scumbags.  I mean, if the world community can stop the ongoing genocide in the Sudan, then such a movement could spread rapidly to their own countries!  This would be a real disaster, for them. 
 
So here is my personal message to Omar al-Bastado of Khartoum and his ilk:

"You are going to back away from those people you lowlife 'cause we are coming in, and you and your killers will be made to stay away from them forever.  If you want to threaten us by sending in your so-called police to stand against the international community as we are desperately working to rescue the people of Darfur, I want to be the first to sign-up to fight against you and your troops.  You and your boys are going down Omar, and the time for it is long overdue"
 
For my visitors and readers who are not yet so hot under the collar as I am right now and would like to read more reports and testimony on Darfur, the following links might be of help to you: 
 
USAID: Response to the Humanitarian Crisis in Darfur 
USAIDTestimony before Committee on Foreign Relations  June 15, 2004
UNICEF: Darfur/Chad Frontline Diary Entries (May-July 2004)
BBC World NewsPhoto Gallery of Bredjing Refugee Camp, Chad 
Passion of the Present.org: Sudan News Blog (activist blog on Darfur)
 



2 comments:

BRE said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
BRE said...

O.K.

So the wording in this posting is a little STRONG and it is very unprofessional to threaten the lives of political leaders, presidents, and dictators in public.

But come on, reading just the Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony (see link above) is enough to make any sane person blow his/her top!

If quiet and steady diplomacy and pressure from the U.N. and its member nations in regards to Sudan's leaders has been working, then why do upwards of 1 million people in the Darfur region have to pay for that "success" with their lives?

If the numbers are right from the experts that the loss of life of the peoples of southern Sudan is 6 million dead over two decades, isn't that payment enough?

It would be interesting to know what people around the world think should happen to Omar and his government, or maybe not. Perhaps that knowledge of world opinion would be even more depressing than the situation itself.

I've seen and heard enough, personally. Stop Omar and stop the ongoing atrocities against people all over the Sudan, right now.