Uganda: PBS Frontline/World feature on microfinance programs in Africa

For my readers who found the story about this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners Dr. Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank interesting, Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices Online highlights news about a PBS Frontline/World documentary on microfinance and micro-lending to the world’s poor. Microfinance is a great way for individuals to get involved with supporting poor people who want and can provide for themselves and their families through micro-business and small business entrepreneurship vs. receiving aid handouts from donor nations in “the international community”. The PBS documentary focuses on a small California, U.S.A. firm which allows small capital lenders to “follow the money they lend” and measure results by having a hands-on involvement with the people and businesses they support.

Uganda: A Little Goes a Long Way produced by David Ritsher and Josiah Hooper and reported by Public Radio International’s technology correspondent Clark Boyd travels to Uganda to focus on the work a small San Francisco microfinance startup named Kiva Microfinance is doing on the ground to help alleviate poverty in this small east African nation.

What is unique about Kiva.org (Swahili word for “agreement” or “unity”) is that they use the Internet as a tool to help bring together peer-to-peer lenders and small business borrowers in developing nations. Their micro-loan programs have been hugely successful in helping small entrepreneurs get a start in owning and operating their own businesses and the loan payback rate is an astounding 100% to date. Public Radio International, WorldChanging blog, and the World Bank Group’s PSD blog have all done stories about Kiva Microfinance and I have provided links to their podcast and posts and to other microfinance resources below. The video should be available online at PBS Frontline/World for viewing by November 7, 2006.


Excerpt from PBS Frontline/World - Uganda: A Little Goes a Long Way

Microcredit is not new. It's been around in one form or another for hundreds of years. But in the Information Age, a San Francisco company has taken the idea of microfinance and upgraded it for the Web. Radio reporter Clark Boyd first reported about Kiva.org for Public Radio International's news program The World. He now travels to Uganda for FRONTLINE/World, where the first recipients of money collected through Kiva's Web site are building and expanding businesses.

Kiva, which means "agreement" or "unity" in Swahili, would allow people with a little bit of extra cash to use their credit card or the online money transfer company, PayPal, to lend directly to African entrepreneurs. Kiva got its start a little more than a year ago in Uganda, where it forged partnerships with local microfinance institutes so that each business would be vetted and approved before being posted on the site.

Boyd travels to Uganda to find out more about the real-world impact of these micro loans, He arranges to meet Grace Ayaa, whose peanut butter business received a micro loan through Kiva. When she fled a brutal war between government and rebel forces in the north, she took refuge in the capital. She takes Boyd to the Acholi Quarter, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Kampala, where many people displaced by Uganda's decades-long conflict scrape together a living.

Most people living here work all day in the local rock quarry breaking rocks used to build houses. The pay is around $1 a day. Ayaa helps people in the quarter out of the quarry work and into a position where they can start viable businesses with the help of a loan. Traditionally, micro credit is offered through banks that charge as much as 35 percent interest or moneylenders who charge as much as 300 percent. Kiva provides loans from individuals at a fraction of the cost.

Back in San Francisco, we see the other side of the operation, meeting some of the people who found Kiva's site and decided to make a loan. Nathan Folkert is a software engineer who lives in the city's Mission District. He read Grace Ayaa's story online and decided to help fund her peanut butter business. Ayaa is one of 70 businesses Folkert has loaned money to. He pulls up Grace's journal page where a message is waiting for him. "Thanks so much Nathan," Grace has written. "I purchased the fridge and bought the packing materials, and this has really enabled me to produce more."

Other lenders in the United States talk about their experiences. "My husband's hobby is rebuilding old motorcycles," says Donna Slote, who loaned to a small motorcycle workshop she saw on the site. "It's incredibly personal in the sense that you get to choose the specific businesses that you want to loan to. You have a real connection with where your money's going and what it's being used for," adds Slote.

Kiva has been connecting lenders with would-be entrepreneurs for a year now, but it is a small operation, relying on donations and a staff of seven in San Francisco to keep things running. Premal Shah, who used to work for PayPal, is Kiva's president, and he explains the role Kiva is trying to carve out in the microfinance world.

"Banks don't value emotional returns," says Shah, "so they will charge a high interest rate to these microfinance institutions. But people are a little more forgiving. Today, your average person can't actually invest in small businesses in the developing world." By creating Kiva, Shah says, "we're tapping into this new source of capital," which is ordinary people.

As Boyd travels across Uganda, meeting people and listening to their stories, he finds that many struggle to support much more than just themselves. In the town of Mbale, Amos Mayoka, a furniture maker, is hoping to get a loan of around $1,000 to expand two businesses he has started. "My elder brothers passed away of AIDS and left me with a lot of children. So now it's entirely on me to keep up the two families," Mayoka tells Boyd. When asked how many people he supports, Mayoka responds, "More than 20." Amos' picture and story are uploaded to the Kiva site, and his loan officer Janet will monitor the progress of his request.

Grace Ayaa also looks after more than her own family. She is the assistant director of Life in Africa, another of Kiva's local partners in Uganda.At the weekly meeting of her Life in Africa group, three loan requests are up for review. It's a lively affair in an outdoor garden setting. People fire off questions to the new applicants, who must give a good account of why they should be chosen. Those present are invested in making the right decisions, as they are all responsible if the business should fail. One of the hopefuls, Molly, has her loan officer explain that she needs $275 to set up a stall selling charcoal for fuel. One woman calls out that she supports Molly's loan but that she should not hire her son. "He refused to go to school 10 years ago," she says. "He might be capable of stealing or disrupting the business." It's a close community, and people know much about each other's lives. Molly's loan is approved, and soon enough it's uploaded to Kiva's Web site halfway across the world. (Read more…)

Related articles and additional online resources:

PBS Frontline/World – Stories from a Small Planet
Uganda: A Little Goes A Long Way – 10/31/06

Kiva.org – Loans that change lives

World Bank PSD blog – Kiva.org P2P microfinance (10/31/05)

World Changing blog – Distributed, Collaborative… Microfinance (10/21/05)

Public Radio International – The World program – Microfinance report (02/15/06)
Interview with Global Giving and Kiva founders and Ethan Zuckerman of GVO

My Heart’s in Accra blog – Ugandan microfinance on PBS (10/31/06)

PBS and KBUY-TV – Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty

The Microfinance Gateway – online portal for the microfinance industry

Global Giving Foundation – enables charitable donors to give directly to projects

Accion International – a leading, award-winning U.S.-based microfinance institution

Unitus – a leading, award-winning U.S.-based microfinance institution

PBS microfinance documentary highlights Unitus and Accion (10/27/05)

Technorati tags: Africa Uganda microfinance microcredit social ventures entrepreneurship Global Voices

London: African Leadership Achievement Prize for Good Governance Announced

BREAKING NEWS!

Sudanese-born entrepreneur Dr. Mohammed (Mo) Ibrahim, founder and Chairman of African mobile telecoms leader CelTel (a subsidiary of MTC Group), has announced a groundbreaking annual leadership achievement prize for good governance in Africa. Just when I was sinking into a hopeless well of depression over the disintegrating humanitarian situation in the Sudan’s western province of Darfur, Dr. Mo comes through with the big news of the day to lift our spirits about Africa. This news helps to inspire me at just the right moment since over the past several days I have been doing a great deal of online research in preparation for my next posts on the history of the Sudan and a piece about some of Khartoum’s budding entrepreneurs. Dr. Mo Ibrahim describes himself as a Nubian, a people with a long and rich history.

At the launch of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation today in London, Dr. Mo announced the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, a USD$ 5 million prize to be awarded annually to one of Africa’s best and most deserving leaders. AllAfrica.com has the best MSM news coverage on this exciting initiative along with an exclusive interview about the prize with Dr. Mo Ibrahim. BBC World News has today broadcast a short video about the award and published a story to their website. The rest of the global mainstream media is well…asleep at the wheel. Jewels in the Jungle is of course one of the first to bring this story to the blogosphere, where the best news and most informed readers really matter.

Hats off to the people of Sudan for bringing the world Dr. Mo Ibrahim. Finally, finally you have something to cheer about and a(nother) reason to be very, very proud.

I already know whom I would nominate for the Prize for Achievement in African Leadership for 2007 but unfortunately she was just elected to office last year. I certainly know whom I would not nominate for this year’s award, especially the guy sitting at position Nr.1 on this list of world leaders (World’s 10 Worst Dictators for 2006).

Excerpts from the latest news about the award can be found below with links to AllAfrica.com, BBC News, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and other related articles.


allAfrica.com
NEWS October 26, 2006
Posted to the web October 26, 2006
By Margaret McElligott
Washington, DC

After a professional career spent proving that investing in Africa can be profitable, telecommunications entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim has embarked on a new task: to improve the quality of African leadership. To that end, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation announced today a $5 million annual prize for African leaders who were elected fairly, improved their country's standard of living, and handed over power peacefully to the next elected government.

Recipients of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership will get $500,000 a year in their first 10 years out of office, and $200,000 a year for the rest of their lives. The prize will be the world's most generous award, according to the foundation.

"The message is that we, Africans, it is time for us to take charge of our issues," Ibrahim said. "It is our responsibility to look after our continent, to look after our kids."

Ibrahim told AllAfrica that he hopes the award will spark a debate on the role of governance in Africa, and provide the means for former leaders to stay engaged in the national life of their countries.

"You don't need the power of the office to do things," Ibrahim said. "Civil society is so rich. We need to get engaged there."

More than anything, he said, the prize will be a reward to leaders who deliver to their people. He hopes to make the first award by the end of 2007.

"It's important that the citizens of Africa take the leaders to account," he said.

The prize's selection committee will choose winners with the help of a governance index that is being developed by Dr. Robert Rotberg at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The foundation will spend about $500,000 a year to develop and update the index. Rotberg has previously written on governance indices and has been developing new measurement methods with students for years.

Rotberg told AllAfrica that most existing measures rely on interviews and other forms of documentation for comparison, but that he will use only quantifiable, objective measures. For example, in measuring changes to the national infrastructure, the index may count the miles of paved road in a country. To measure political freedom, team members may identify the number of journalists or opposition leaders held in prison.

(Read more at AllAfrica.com - Record Breaking Governance Prize Launched)


Related articles and additional online resources

BBC News – 10/26/06
Prize offered to Africa's leaders A $5m prize for Africa's most effective head of state is being launched by one of the continent's top businessmen.

Mo Ibrahim Foundation official website – see Flash video with Nelson Mandela, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, et Al.

Mo Ibrahim Foundation African Leadership Prize press relese

AllAfrica.com – 10/26/06
Exclusive interview with Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim about the Leadership Prize

Harvard University – John F. Kennedy School of Government
Center for Public Leadership – CPL Newsletter
Belfer Center (JFK School of Government) - Dr. Robert Rotberg profile

AME Info – 09/13/06
MTC Wins 4 Prestigious Industry Awards

AllAfrica.com - 05/28/03
Dr. Mo - The Cellular Choice (interview by Francois Ploye)

CelTel Corporate website
Interview with Dr. Mo Ibrahim about his career and the telecoms industry in Africa

Technorati Tags: Africa Sudan governance leadership politics corruption anti-corruption Global Voices

Norway: Nobel Peace Prize 2006 awarded to development economist Dr. Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank

On a day when much of the world is sitting on the edge of their seats wondering if there is going to be a nuclear confrontation on the Korean peninsula, the Norwegian Nobel Committee reminds us about the kind of world we all should be working hard to build.

Professor Muhammed Yunus, noted economist and champion of the poor for more than 30 years, has been awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Peace. The Grameen Bank, started by Dr. Yunus in his home village in Bangladesh in 1976, will be sharing the coveted peace prize with the Vanderbilt University educated economist. The Grameen Bank specializes in providing small loans and financial services to the rural poor of the world, with programs ranging from Asia to the Middle East and Africa, and in Latin America and the Carribean. There are more than a dozen organizations and companies that come under the umbrella of the Grameen family of enterprises offering a variety of services and products. The Grameen Foundation alone serves over 2.2 million people worldwide with their micro-finance programs. A well-known and successful Grameen Foundation technology program is the Village Phone Project. You can learn about how the Village Phone projects work in sub-Saharan Africa by visiting George Conrad’s blog On Safari with El Jorgito and reading his archives from Uganda and Rwanda for 2005/2006.

Dr. Muhammed Yunus is a featured participant in the Principal Voices Project and a good buddy of world economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs. CNN has some great video reports about Professor Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank and more information can be found at the websites and blogs listed below:

Washington Post - 10/13/06
Bangladesh Economist, Grameen Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize

CNN International
Bankers for poor win peace Nobel – 10/13/06
(Note: see related articles and video clips in this CNN article)

PBS The New Heroes (2005)
Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank

Knowledge @ Wharton (Wharton Business School, Univ. of Pennsylvania)
Muhammed Yunus, Banker to the World’s Poorest Citizens
(Note: PBS Nightly Business Report interview March 09, 2005)

Businessweek Online
Muhammed Yunus: Microfinance Missionary – 12/26/05

NextBillion.net – Microfinance archives
Muhammed Yunis wins Nobel Peace Prize – 10/13/06

Poverty and Growth
World Bank Institute’s Poverty and Growth Program blog
Advances in Development Economics archives

Technorati tags: Nobel Prize Peace development economics economics poverty Bangladesh Global Voices

U.S.A.: Students STAND UP for DarfurFast Day

I was telling my fellow blog author buddy Jörg Wolf of the Atlantic Review that I intend to increase my focus on the Darfur crisis & Sudan here at Jewels in the Jungle this month. Jörg has been making a great effort over at his blog to share his own views on Darfur as a European (German) and to stimulate a transatlantic dialogue over the crisis amongst his many readers.

There are more than 32,000 blog posts about Darfur in this Technorati search result (tags) and more than 20,000 posts about Darfur in this Blogpulse search result, many of them coming from international blog authors too numerous to mention here. I want to thank all the new global visitors who have left comments to my Darfur posts and I apologize for not being able to spend more time at your blogs lately to read some of your very fine posts. I recommend that my readers check the comments to my most recent Darfur posts and click through to these international blog authors who have graced this site.

One new global blogger that has caught my attention lately is Drima, a Sudanese student studying at university in Malaysia and author of the Sudanese Thinker. In Drima’s own words he is…”Born where the White & Blue Nile meet aka Khartoum, Sudan. Currently a full-time student and a part-time multi genre music producer, aspiring entrepreneur and blogtivist in the tiny multi cultural island nation of Poopa Majoma...”. Drima’s blog is quite good with lots of links to news and opinions about the crisis in Darfur and Sudan in general as well as general news about the Middle East and global issues. In a recent post titled Ex-US Officials Urge Military Action Over Darfur I made mention of the STAND DarfurFast campaign that is taking place in the U.S.A. on October 5th.

Unfortunately, Drima felt that I was “rubbing it in his face” re: the reaction of high school and university students and the general public in the United States to the Darfur Crisis vs. Malaysia and the rest of the world, but that wasn’t my point. Jörg and I have been having an intense (private) dialogue about the same thing re: European university students and the lack of media coverage and public outrage here in Europe. “Where is the rest of the world on Darfur?”
So, this was meant to be a brief Heads Up post on the DarfurFast campaign that is taking place on university campuses and in high school auditoriums across America today, and I will keep it brief.

Another Heads Up event this week that focuses on Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is the CNN special report on Anderson Cooper 360°. The CNN documentary news production is titled The Killing Fields: Africa’s Misery, The World’s Shame. With some luck I hope to have more information published tomorrow about this series from the award-winning production team at Anderson Cooper 360°. CNN correspondents Jeff Koinange, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Anderson Cooper are spread out from the DRC to the Horn of Africa and are maintaining a blog with video clips for online visitors and viewers. Here is a link to Jeff Koinange’s post about a ride with the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) forces on their way to rescue stranded refugees in North Darfur: Outgunned soldiers avoid confronting the enemy – Oct 03, 2006.

The Anderson Cooper 360° special will be airing in Europe again on Friday at 0400 CET, other regions of the world should check your local CNNI program schedule. CNN Insight has a related feature report tonight airing at 2000 CET and titled Living in Africa’s Refugee Camps, hosted by Jonathan Mann. All I have to say about that prime time program airing schedule of 4:00 AM in the morning is “Thank GOD for the Internet!”.

Below is an excerpt from an October 4th article at the Christian Science Monitor online that highlights the work of the organization STAND:

Student activists rise again - this time for Darfur
By Matthew Clark Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

She sleeps less, goes out less, and has reduced her course load to work 30 to 40 hours a week organizing student campaigns. Her goal: to end the suffering in Darfur, Sudan, perhaps the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

"If people are still dying, I need to keep working," says Bailey Cato, a University of Oklahoma senior and a regional coordinator for a student antigenocide coalition called STAND. And tomorrow she'll be fasting - along with Don Cheadle, Hollywood star of "Hotel Rwanda," and other celebrities and politicians in a show of solidarity with the people of Darfur.

Student fasts are nothing new, of course. But the Darfur crisis has caught on with American activists in a way not seen since the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s and early '90s. And the big surprise is: They're achieving results.

In the past month alone:

• The US appointed a special envoy to Darfur, bowing to pressure after an international day of protests - including a rally of some 30,000 in New York's Central Park.

• California passed legislation to stop investing in companies supporting the Sudan regime - the fifth state to do so. More than two dozen colleges and universities are also in the process of divesting.

"The grass-roots people have really kept the issue alive and forced the hand of the governments," says Alex de Waal, a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, who has been advising the African Union on Darfur. He says the UN Security Council's decision in March 2005 to refer Darfur war crimes cases to the International Criminal Court and the US move two years ago to label the conflict "genocide" would not have happened without advocates' pressure.

That pressure is building. Yesterday, student musicians from Berklee School of Music in Boston released a CD dedicated to the women of Darfur. Proceeds will benefit aid programs there run by Mercy Corps, an international humanitarian group. Last week, a coalition of Cincinnati-area religious, civic, and student groups held "Five Days for Darfur," a series of awareness-raising events.

The CSM article goes on to say:

Activists' priority: UN peacekeepers

As the situation has worsened, activists have pushed for change. Most advocates want UN peacekeepers sent to Darfur.

"I think [grass-roots efforts] have made [Darfur] almost a top-tier issue for the Bush administration," says John Prendergast, a senior adviser of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "There's no question [President] Bush feels political pressure to respond."

Mr. Bush said Monday the UN should send peacekeepers without delay.

One reason the Darfur movement has succeeded - where many similar international efforts have failed - is the US move to label the crisis genocide. "The comparison of Darfur to [the 1994 genocide in] Rwanda is what has been most potent here," says Eric Reeves, a Darfur analyst and Smith College professor.

While appearances by celebrities like George Clooney have been crucial, grass-roots efforts have made the difference - especially those of young people, he adds. "A lot of students now really only know Rwanda as historical event, and there is a resolve that this will not happen on their watch.... You have to go back to apartheid-era South Africa to find [a movement] this powerful for an issue that doesn't involve US blood or treasure.

"STAND, the student antigenocide group, is an example. Since April, it has grown from seven to 55 chapters. When Ms. Cato brought Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan whose story inspired the movie "Hotel Rwanda," to her campus last Wednesday, he packed the 750-seat auditorium with an overflow audience of at least 1,200 people. "We're young, idealistic, and we're horrified that genocide can go on in this world," Cato explains. (read more at CSM online)

Additional online resources

Time to Protect – DarfurFast campaign for October 05, 2006

Time to Protect homepage (see regional blogs, videos, and other resources)

STAND: Students Taking Action Now- Darfur (a student anti-genocide coalition)

Genocide Intervention Network (press releases and reports)

USA Today – CNN Initiative helps to get the most difficult news out of Africa
By Peter Johnson 10/04/06

Technorati Tags: Sudan Darfur genocide refugees Human Rights UN African Union Congo Chad Global Voices

New York: As U.S. pressure on Sudan grows top UN officials stab Darfur in the back

In an amazing turn of events two top UN officials recently have expressed reservations about sending in UN peacekeepers to Darfur effectively retreating on the demands put forth in the UN Security Council Resolution 1706 and backstabbing global efforts to get security forces into the Sudan in order to protect millions of displaced refugees. According to a news article at BBC News online Jan Pronk, UN Special Envoy to Sudan has stated that the UN should abandon efforts to send in a UN peacekeeping force and instead increase funding to the African Union mission. In a statement to the Associated Press Professor Johannes Pieter Pronk said,

"The international community should instead push for the African Union's mission to be prolonged and reinforced," Mr Pronk is quoted as saying. He said the AU force's mandate should be extended indefinitely to ensure relief continued to reach Darfur's refugees. Mr Pronk is quoted as saying he was certain Khartoum would allow the AU force to stay on in Darfur. World leaders, he said, must guarantee more funds for the AU so it can carry out necessary peacekeeping work. "Otherwise, we're shooting ourselves in the foot each time," he said. "Our first priority must be to help the people of Darfur."

In a further shocking development, outgoing UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown (chief of staff for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annanas) has lashed out at the U.S. and U.K. governments in an attempt to lay blame for the UN’s failures in Darfur at the feet of President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. During an exclusive interview with the U.K. newspaper The Independent Mark Malloch Brown claims,

Nowhere are the new limitations of US power today more exposed than over Darfur, where Washington has used the word "genocide" to condemn the scorched earth policies of the Sudanese government against the people of Darfur and the rebel groups who hide among them. But, says Malloch Brown, in their outrage the US and the UK are, "out there alone and it's counter-productive almost".

"Sudan doesn't see a united international community. It doesn't see its oil customers [China and Russia] or its neighbours in that front row. And that allows it to characterise themselves as the victims of the next crusade after Iraq and Afghanistan. So Tony Blair and George Bush need to get beyond this posturing and grandstanding. The megaphone diplomacy coming out of Washington and London: 'you damn well are going to let the UN deploy and if you don't beware the consequences' isn't plausible. The Sudanese know we don't have troops to go in against a hostile Khartoum government; if Sudan opposes us there's no peace to keep anyway; you're in there to fight a war. It's just not a credible threat."

What is needed instead is two things: "a carefully-modulated set of incentives and sanctions which Sudan needs to understand" and a diplomatic coalition to back them.

Khartoum wants four things: "the normalisation of their relations with the US, UK and others; an opportunity to deploy their new oil wealth and exercise global diplomatic and economic influence; a UN deployment that will increase their authority as the national government of Sudan and not undermine it; and a way of handling the International Criminal Court indictments laid against members of the Khartoum government which they all feel very threatened by. Those are the kind of issues which the Sudanese need to hear a positive message on.

"But in the other pocket there need to be the sanctions. And those pluses and minuses need to be echoed not just by a group of Western leaders but by a much broader cross-section of countries that Sudan respects and trusts. That's what we're now trying to orchestrate. We've been working very hard on getting China to be part of the next set of diplomatic demarches to put pressure on the Sudanese. We're working on how can we bring the major states within the Arab League and the African Union more into frontline diplomacy."

Meantime, he says, the West could do with matching its moral indignation with cash. The food aid pipeline to three million hungry people in Darfur is still $300m short of what is needed. And the African Union peacekeeping forces in the region - inadequate but the only game in town - isn't properly financed till the end of the year. Western governments, he says, "have really taken their eye off the ball on this".

There you have it from the U.K.’s very own Mouth of the South, Mark Malloch Brown, a rat leaving a sinking ship if ever there was one. Brown is obviously more interested in saving his tarnished legacy at the United Nations than saving lives in Darfur, a mission where he and his UN colleagues have failed miserably. Did I mention that Mark Malloch Brown is a son of Africa, born 1953 in the British Colony of Southern Rhodesia?

Meanwhile, back in the United States of America and from various corners around the globe pressure on the Government of Sudan and its cadre of international backers (the Arab League, China, Russia, etc.) has been steadily building. From the pages of the New York Times (a SaveDarfur.org full page ad) to the halls of the U.S. Congress, from the Canadian capital of Ottawa to the Norwegian capital Oslo, politicians and civic leaders and ordinary world citizens are demanding action on the crisis in Darfur with or without the permission of the Khartoum regime. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently thrown down the gauntlet at the feet of Sudan President Omar al-Bashir (aka Omar the Butcher) according to a September 27th Voice of America news report:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday Sudanese authorities will be held responsible and "bear the consequences" if they continue undermining efforts to reinforce peacekeeping operations in Darfur. In a Washington speech, she said the Khartoum government is at a crossroads in its future relations with the United States and the rest of the international community.

State Department officials billed the speech to the Africa Society as a major address on Sudan. And the message to the policy group included some of the strongest language to date about implications for the Khartoum government if it continues to reject the upgrade of the African Union observer mission in Darfur into a full-fledged U.N. peacekeeping operation.

The U.S. State Department VOA news article goes on to say:

She called on the Khartoum government to "immediately and unconditionally" accept a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur, as called for in a Security Council resolution at the end of August.
Rice said the Khartoum government, which has refused the U.N. force as a violation of its sovereignty, faces what she termed a "clear and consequential decision" and a choice between cooperation and confrontation.

She said it if chooses cooperation and welcomes the U.N. force into Darfur it will find a "dedicated partner" in the Bush administration. But she said if remains defiant on the peacekeeping issue, it will be headed for international isolation.

"If the Sudanese government chooses confrontation, if it continues waging war against its own citizens, challenging the African Union, undermining the peacekeeping force, and threatening the international community, then the regime in Khartoum will be held responsible, and it alone will bear the consequences of its action," she said. "The international community must make clear to the leaders of Sudan that this is the choice they face."

Two days after Secretary Rice’s speech before the Africa Society U.S. lawmakers from the Congressional Black Caucus held discussions over Darfur with diplomats and ambassadors from 11 Arab and Muslim African countries and with the People’s Republic of China ambassador to the United States Zhou Wenzhong. VOA News reported on the meeting between U.S. African-American lawmakers and the Arab League’s diplomatic corps in Washington D.C. and I quote:

In what some described as tough discussions, members of the Congressional Black Caucus spent more than an hour behind closed doors with ambassadors and diplomats from Arab countries.
Attending, according to congressional aides, were Egypt's ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, and the Arab League ambassador to the U.S., Hussein Hassouna. Also, diplomats from 10 other countries, including Jordan, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, Morocco, Djibouti, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia [were in attendance at the meeting].

Donald Payne, a New Jersey Democrat told VOA the lawmakers had, in his words, "drawn our line in the sand" regarding the need for urgent Arab government pressure on the Khartoum government to allow a 20,000-strong U.N. force into Darfur: "We reiterated our feeling that the Arab League has the power, and the authority, and the relationship with the government of Sudan to move [Sudan president] Bashir. If anyone can do it, they can and we asked them to go back to their capitals, (send) a message to their capitals, send a message to Bashir that he has to change his ways," he said.

Payne said he and others were "not diplomatic" in delivering a message that Khartoum's objections to a U.N. force may ultimately not prevent a U.N. force from deploying to Darfur. He adds there was a clear difference of opinion on the issue of Sudanese sovereignty, cited by Khartoum and the Arab League as a barrier to a U.N. force. "The support the Arab League gives to Sudan reflects I think as much in its policies for good as it may be for inaction, and what we are saying in this meeting, very affirmatively and very strongly, [is] we want an active Arab League, actively and aggressively approaching the Khartoum government that they have to change because people are dying," said Sheila Jackson Lee (Democrat – Texas), who was among lawmakers participating in the meeting.

Note: links to external online resources in articles above have been added by author

Hmmmm. I like Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice’s approach better than Pronk & Brown’s backsliding tactics for conflict resolution. How about you, my readers? Should the UN make another worthless deal with Omar al-Bashir on Darfur, or should the U.S. & Co. offer him a deal he can’t refuse?

ADDITIONAL ONLINE RESOURCES

UN News
UN Security Council Resolution 1706 (full text and press release)
Security Council hears proposal to revive 'nearly dead' Darfur peace plan (SC/8833)

VOA News – 09/27-29/06 - text, audio and video
Rice Warns Sudan of ‘Consequences’ for Refusing Darfur Force
U.S. Lawmakers Press Arab Governments, China on Darfur

BBC News online
UN must drop Darfur peace effort – 09/29/06

The Independent online (U.K.)
Exclusive interview: In defence of the United Nations – 09/29/06

U.K. Guardian newspaper online – 01/12/05
Meet Kofi Annan’s right-hand man (profile of Mark Malloch Brown)

Congressional Black Caucus of the 109th U.S. Congress
Congressional Black Caucus – Wikipedia

CBS 60 Minutes – Yahoo! News Online Special – 09/24/06
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on 60 Minutes
Video segments, exclusive interviews, and viewer comments

PBS Frontline
Interview with Egypt ambassador to the U.S. Nabil Fahmy – Sep 2001

Diplomatic Traffic
Profile on Arab League Ambassador to the U.S. Dr. Hussein Hassouna
Arab League: We are trying to restore trust with the United States


Technorati Tags: Africa Sudan Darfur U.S.A. UN African Union genocide Current Affairs Global Voices

World: Pope Benedict XVI Under Fire - Africans, Americans, & Germans Speakout

Global Voices Online (a Harvard Law School - Berkman Center for Internet and Society project) has a roundup post on the controversy in the Muslim world over Pope Benedict XVI's reading of a 14th Century text. GVO's citizen editor Ndesanjo Macha highlights in his post Africa's Reactions to the Pope's Remarks what some of the African bloggers from both sides of the aisle (Christian and Muslim) have to say. Following is my comment left at that GVO post which pretty much sums up my feelings about all of this worldwide nonsense:

”Great roundup on a very controversial subject. In my opinion, Pope Benedict XVI has clarified his position on this subject (3 times+) and should go about the business of taking care of his flock. It is outrageous that so many religious leaders, theologians, and world leaders would take offence that a text from a 14th Century document was read aloud at the German University in Regensburg by a Roman Catholic Pope. I am certain that within the halls of institutions and mosques and political offices within the Islamic world much worse has been said and done re: Christians and Jews down through the centuries. All major religions of the world can point to a violent and inhumane past”… and their respective followers today should bow their heads in shame and prayer for forgiveness.

Get a grip on yourselves! Damn!

Sorry Pope Benedict, but this kind of stuff can get a good Christian to cussin'... if not worse. What's next? Do we all have to go out and buy a suit of armour, swords and scimitars, war horses and camels, kiss the wife and kids goodbye as we march off to free the City of Jerusalem from the Infidels?

Update Sep 21st:

In following links to blogs posting on this subject via the German news magazine Spiegel International Online (see below) I discovered an interesting roundup post by an American mom titled The Pope's Speech and Why It Matters to Non-Catholics. One of the commentors at The Common Room points readers to an article written by a former student of Pope Benedict XVI at Universität Regensburg, a Father Joseph D. Fessio S.J. (Doctorate in Theology, Regensburg University 1975). In Father Joseph's article "Is Dialogue with Islam Possible?" he states the following:

In the main body of the lecture, Benedict criticizes attempts in the West to "dehellenize" Christianity: the rejection of the rational component of faith (the sola fides of the 16th century reformers); the reduction of reason to the merely empirical or historical (modern exegesis and modern science); a multiculturalism which regards the union of faith and reason as merely one possible form of inculturation of the faith. All this is a Western self-critique.

But as the starting point of his lecture, Benedict takes a 14th century dialogue between the Byzantine Emperor and a learned Muslim to focus on the central question of the entire lecture: whether God is Logos. The Emperor's objection to Islam is Mohammed's "command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor asserts that this is not in accordance with right reason, and "not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature". Benedict points to this as "the decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion".

It is at this point in the lecture that Benedict makes a statement which cannot be avoided or evaded if there is ever to be any dialogue between Christianity and Islam that is more than empty words and diplomatic gestures. For the Emperor, God's rationality is "self-evident". But for Muslim teaching, according to the editor of the book from which Benedict has been quoting, "God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality".

Benedict has struck bedrock. This is the challenge to Islam. This is the issue that lies beneath all the rest. If God is above reason in this way, then it is useless to employ rational arguments against (or for) forced conversion, terrorism, or Sharia law, which calls for the execution of Muslim converts to Christianity. If God wills it, it is beyond discussion.

The entire text (translated) of the lecture by Pope Benedict XVI can be found in the resources I have listed for readers below.

German press reports on the Pope's remarks controversy
Spiegel Online International (German news magazine, English edition)

Muslims Angered by Pope’s Remarks – 09/15/06

The Pope’s Lecture at the University of Regensburg (translated) – 09/12/06

Popes Apology Rejected by Some, Accepted by Others – 09/18/06

Rushdie, Hirsi Ali, the Pope – Who’s Next? by Claus Christian Malzahn – 09/18/06

Spiegel interview with German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble – 09/20/06
“We have no relationship to our diverse Muslim Society”

Spiegel Photo Gallery – Don’t miss the “Pope on Fire” Muslim anger photo album

Der Speigel Online (Original German language version, for the purist)

Papst Contra Mohammed – Glaubenskampf um den Islam, die Vernufnt und die Gewalt
Heft Nr. 38/2006

The Catholic Press

Ignatius Insight - Is Dialogue with Islam Possible? by Father Joseph Fessio - 09/18/06

Technorati tags: Religion Pope Benedict Christianity Islam Theology History Global Voices

World: Global Day for Darfur in Full Swing

The Global Day for Darfur is today. A million voices from around the world have begun to speak as One Voice. People everywhere are pleading “Send in the UN Peacekeepers to Darfur ASAP”. There have been rallies in Moscow and Montreal, memorials in Abuja and Kigali, candlelight vigils in Phnom Pen (Cambodia), protests from Paris to Madrid, prayers in London, and a huge event is taking place in New York City’s Central Park as I write. According to the event organizers, more than 32 cities around the world will be participating. I won’t waste your time today with a lot of words of my own, but want to share with you some blog posts and press articles and video news that highlight the Global Day for Darfur and the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Global Day for Darfur website

SaveDarfur.org website – Prayers for Darfur blog post

Amnesty International - Global Day for Darfur site

Suffer the Little Children - A beautiful poem for the women and children of Darfur by African blogger Mshairi (London)

Black Looks – a look at what’s happening in Spain on the Global Day for Darfur

The Independent (U.K.)
Bush hints at use of force in Darfur – Sep 17, 2006
Day for Darfur inspires protests in 32 countries – Sep 16, 2006

The Sunday Times
A Blind Eye to Genocide by Bishop Desmond Tutu – Sep 17, 2006

The Sudan Tribune
Sudanese First Vice-President Supports UN Troops in Darfur – Sep 16, 2006

Der Spiegel (International edition – English)
Escalating Violence: France calls for action on Darfur – Sep 15, 2006

BBC News
Blair criticizes Sudan on Darfur – Sep 16, 2006
U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair's letter to EU leaders – Sep 17, 2006

CNN – Activists around the world focus on Darfur – Sep 17, 2006

CNN Inside Africa with Femi Oke – Sep 16-17, 2006 program
Transcript of interview with Rev. Dr. Gloria White Hammond (SaveDarfur.org) and Omar Ismail (Darfur Peace and Development Foundation)

Note: the SaveDarfur coalition of more than 170 inter-faith organizations and foundations is a key organizer for the Global Day for Darfur. During the interview with Femi Oke Dr. Gloria Hammond described the Government of Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir as perpetrators of a “serial genocide, referencing government aggressions for more than 20 years against the people of Southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and the Darfur region.

Technorati tags: Sudan Darfur Day for Darfur UN Human Rights genocide Global Voices

Sudan: International pressure ratcheting up over Darfur

There are only 4 days to go before the Global Day for Darfur rallies kickoff in cities across the globe. It is time for the world’s bloggers to speakout in order to make our voices heard loud and clear in Khartoum, at the UN, and in capitals around the world. Can the blogosphere raise a million voices in four days on behalf of the people of Darfur? If you have a voice, use it damnit! The people in Darfur need your help desperately.

As the 61st Session of the UN General Assembly gets underway in New York the Crisis in Darfur, Sudan is sitting right at the top of the agenda. According to this report from the CSM online there is a showdown looming between the Khartoum regime (GoS) and the international community (the UN member states):

Pressure ratchets up over Darfur (click on headline for related articles)
A deadline is raising tensions and stakes in a UN-Khartoum showdown.

By Howard LaFranchi – Christian Science Monitor - Sep 13, 2006
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y.

With time running out on the African Union's peacekeeping force in Darfur, the United Nations may find out if the international community has the ability to stop renewed genocide.

A decade after the world looked on as hundreds of thousands of people died in Rwanda and Bosnia, Sudan's region of Darfur is emerging as a test of whether the world can do better this time. Key governments are pressing Sudanese authorities in Khartoum to accept an extension of the African Union force's mandate that runs out at the end of the month. Such a move, international leaders hope, would give time for a more sizable UN force, already approved by the Security Council, to prepare and deploy.

But Khartoum so far shows no signs of giving in to international pressure, instead lambasting foreign intervention as neocolonialism, and commencing an offensive to take on rebel forces in the region.

The showdown, which is likely to run into next week's UN General Assembly opening session here, is shaping up as a signature 21st- century battle pitting national sovereignty against international authority and an expanding sense of humanity's right to protection.

At a Security Council session focused on the Darfur conflict Monday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the first casualty of a failure to intervene would be the people of Darfur - 200,000 of which have already been killed or allowed to starve to death. "But the government itself will also suffer if it fails in its sacred responsibility to protect its own people," Mr. Annan said.

In the unusually forceful speech, he also said, "The humanitarian gains of the last two years [in Darfur] are being rolled back." Emphasizing that "my voice alone will not convince the government" in Khartoum to call off its offensive and accept a renewed and fortified international presence, Annan urged all Council members to "rise to the occasion."

The United States has been leaning on the Sudanese government to accept the UN force. Last month, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer was kept waiting for days in Khartoum by President Omar al-Bashir, who claimed he was too busy with other matters. He finally received her, only to rebuff the American plea.

President Bush has upped the ante, offering to meet with Mr. Bashir when both leaders are expected to attend next week's General Assembly debate. But Bashir may not be anxious to meet a leader who two years ago accused his regime of genocide in Darfur, analysts say.

Since then, the international community has accepted the characterization of the violence in Darfur as genocide.

While Bashir may not be open to Western pressure, he does appear to pay closer attention to regional leaders, some UN officials say, which is why they say Annan places such strong emphasis on "the neighborhood" getting involved.

Indeed, many leaders are counting on the efforts of Egypt, which was instrumental in gaining Khartoum's acceptance of the African Union force. Egyptian officials say they believe agreement with Sudan can still be achieved, but they do not favor imposition of an international force.

"We agree that this is an international emergency that must be addressed, but we see that over the long term it will be much more beneficial to everyone to have people cooperating," says Egypt's ambassador to Washington, Nabil Fahmy.

Egypt is "sensitive" to Sudan's concerns about its sovereignty, but Ambassador Fahmy adds that Khartoum's acceptance of the African Union force is also something the international community can build on. And as a country with soldiers already in Darfur, Egypt is keen to see an international presence remain there. "Not having a force at all is not a useful formula," Fahmy says.

Yet with the clock ticking, more voices are calling for the UN to send a force even if Khartoum does not accept it. Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona and former Sen. Bob Dole said in an opinion piece in The Washington Post Sunday that the Bush administration should press the UN to draw up such contingency plans.

Africa specialists say there is little mystery as to what will happen in Darfur if the African Union force leaves with no international replacement. "This would create a very serious security vacuum, and a security vacuum the [Sudanese] government is very eager to fill," says Suliman Baldo, director of the Africa program of the International Crisis Group in New York.

Khartoum is already bombing civilian targets in Darfur, he says, while preparing to send in more than 25,000 troops to wipe out rebels who are not party to a negotiated peace accord, he adds.

That is not a scenario that Annan wishes to see play out as he prepares to leave his post at the end of the year, aides say. They add that Annan believes the world has made progress on humanitarian issues over the past decade, but that Darfur could be its undoing.

"One of the ideas he has promoted is that a government has the responsibility to protect its people," according to one UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But if a government can't or is unwilling to do that, then other countries have the moral responsibility to step in."

The international community can begin by enforcing steps it has already taken against the Sudanese government, Mr. Baldo says. "The world community should immediately enforce the targeted sanctions the Security Council has already approved," he says. "If they don't do that, then the humanitarian disaster is what will unfold."

Note: Corrections to the original CSM article (ref: Suliman Valdo = Suliman Baldo) have been made and links to additional online resources have been added to assist my readers. Article has been re-published here in its entirety, which is not quite legal. Don’t try this at home kids.

ADDITIONAL ONLINE RESOURCES ABOUT THE DARFUR CRISIS

International Crisis Group – Darfur Campaign site
Recent Press Op-eds and Editiorials by ICG staff members and associates

The U.N.’s Darfur Moment – Tom Paine Sep 06, 2006

To halt Sudan’s atrocities, follow the money – IHT Aug 22, 2006

Die zweite Phase der Vertreibung – Die Tageszeitung (Germany) Jul 17, 2006

Confronting the atrocities in Darfur – Presentation by Nick Grono, Vice-President of the International Crisis Group, to the Panel on the Challenges of Fighting Crimes against Humanity at the Crans Montana Forum, Monaco, 23 June 2006

Rescue Darfur Now – The Washington Post Sep 10, 2006
Opinion article by U.S. Senator John McCain and former Senator Bob Dole spelling out a 6-part plan of action for the U.S.A. on Darfur

UN Sudan Information Gateway – info for the humanitarian community in Sudan
UN News - Text of speech by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan before the UN Security Council meeting of September 11, 2006 on Darfur

UN News – Security Council expands mandate of UN mission in Sudan to include Darfur, adopting Resoulution 1706

U.S. Asst. Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Fraser’s official press briefing on the August 2006 trip to Khartoum, Sudan - ReliefWeb Aug 31, 2006

Asst. Secretary of State Jendayi Fraser remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies “Consolidating Peace in Sudan” – Jun 05, 2006

U.S. Department of State - UN Resolution 1706 (Sudan) text

Yale Law Journal – The Responsibility to Protect: The UN World Summit and the Question of Unilateralism by Alicia L. Bannon (Note: PDF file download)

Wikipedia – UN World Summit 2005 (see “Responsibility to Protect” references)

Insight TV – Living with Refugees - a Sorious Samura documentary about a family driven out of Darfur and their life in the IDP camps along the Sudan-Chad border region

Technorati tags:Africa Sudan Darfur United Nations UN genocide Human Rights Global Voices

U.S.A.: September 11th Attacks, Five Years On

I think that many of us around the world remember what we were doing on that fateful day in September 2001 that (may have) changed our world forever. I was here in Germany and had received a phone call shortly after 1500 CET from a BA operations center that something terrible had happened in New York City, that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers, “could I confirm via CNN what was going on?” I immediately brought-up video on both CNNI and BBC World to watch the Breaking News Story unfold before my eyes, by then the South Tower of the World Trade Center was also in flames and the news networks (all) were repeatedly replaying the video scenes of the jetliner crashing into and through the top floors of the WTC. Smoke and fire everywhere.

Although the reporters and newscasters on all channels were still speculating on whether the spectacle was either a terrible accident or an attack, I remember that I understood almost instantly what it was that I was seeing, what was happening to the people of New York City, and I remember that at that moment all of the strength seemed to leave my body and my legs felt like collapsing under the weight of my grief… people were being attacked (militarily) on American soil.

After confirming what I had been witnessing and hearing from the CNN and BBC and German news channels to the party on the phone and wishing them luck and Godspeed in dealing with the 10’s of thousands of frightened airline passengers that would be affected by these terrible events, I hung up. Then it struck me, Panic & Fear. Not for my own safety, but for my children, where were my children? My son and daughter lived and studied at university in New York City. Where were my kids!!!??? It was clear that this catastrophe was going to stress the communications infrastructure of NYC, America, and the world to its limits and it was going to happen real fast. I started dialing telephone numbers, tears rolling down my face, praying to God that they would be O.K., asking God to spare them from those infernos in lower Manhattan, praying to God to bless the people who had already perished in the flames aboard the aircraft and at the WTC and the Pentagon, “please God let them be alive, let them be there when I can get through…”

Twenty attempts to reach NYC by phone, thirty attempts without any success, and finally after countless desperate tries to reach my kids (big kids, mind you) by phone, someone picked up on the other end. It was my son, he was somewhat panicked and in shock but he was O.K. My baby, my daughter, was also O.K. They had been spared, they were safe, and we exchanged “I love you’s” and hung up so that others may use those precious telephone lines to America and to New York City. I thank God everyday for His mercy upon my loved ones on that fateful day. Thousands of other people from many, many countries were not so fortunate as I, and I grieve every year on this day for the loved ones that they have lost in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania.

I do not like talking to people about this day, September 11th 2001. This is the first time that I have written about my experience on 9/11 publicly. It is nothing special when you read about the stories shared by others, but to hear those words from my son “Hello Dad, we’re O.K. We are safe” were the most beautiful words I have ever heard in my life, ever.

In the past five years there has been too much suffering and death and horror here on Earth, there have been lot’s of 9/11’s for far too many innocent victims and their families right around the world. Too many desperate calls and frantic searches for loved ones ending without those precious words “I’m O.K., we are O.K., thank God.” In the past 5 years, too many of us have come to feel that humankind has lost its way, as if we are all wandering in the wilderness. The time has come that we all deeply reflect on where do we go from here. How do we get out of this manmade mess and together build a better world for all?

I made promises to my God on that fateful day, and said prayers for guidance and forgiveness. I intend to keep my pact with God, ‘til the end of my days. This is how I shall always remember September 11th.

The CS Monitor has a very good article written by Peter Grier and Mark Rice-Oxley commemorating the 5th Anniversary of the September 11th Attacks. Below is an excerpt from the lead paragraphs of the story (complete article here):

from the September 11, 2006 edition of the Christian Science Monitor

Five years after 9/11: a shifted view of the world
The winners and losers that are still churning the world's politics.
By Peter Grier and Mark Rice-Oxley

WASHINGTON AND LONDON

Old allies have become wary of one another, if not openly suspicious. Sensing inattention, small rogue nations may have decided it is time to make trouble. Two wars have begun, and their ends do not yet appear in sight. Less noticed, a quiet empire continues to rise in the East.

The world today is a very different place from the way it was on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

In one sense that statement is obvious. Five years is a long time in geopolitics. The world turns, whatever terrorists do.

But half a decade on, it also seems clear that Al Qaeda's attacks and the US response have helped move the metaphorical tectonic plates of the globe.

Besides direct effects, such as the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the reverberations from 9/11 may include a new general organizing principle for international affairs.

The cold war was about the Western and communist blocs, and their values, conflicts, and internal cracks. The current period is about the US and the Islamic world - their mutual suspicions and occasional cooperation, and the wedge Al Qaeda has tried to drive between them.

"Five years in, it is now clear that the 9/11 attacks created a new dynamic for global politics, and thus American foreign policy, centering around the changed relationship between a state and a religion," argues Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

(Read the complete article at the CS Monitor online)


CNN Special Report: 9/11 Five Years Later, Life After the Attacks

CNN Pipeline is streaming CNN's television coverage of September 11, 2001, in real time as it happened that day, free. Also, host Richard Lui is at Ground Zero in New York for free live coverage of commemoration events. (Note: turn-off your pop-up blocker in order to see the CNN Pipeline 9/11 preview video. Available free only on Sep 11, 2006 until midnight EDST.)

Technorati tags: "9/11" September 11 Terrorism U.S.A. Middle East Global Voices

Sudan: Is the Khartoum regime moving for the final solution in Darfur?

A few weeks ago (Aug 24th) I left a comment re: Darfur at the Berlin-based Atlantic Review blog authored by my buddy Jörg Wolf and two other Fulbright Scholar alumni. The blog focuses on news and issues affecting German-U.S. bilateral relations and we (the expert readers) often get off subject over at Jörg’s place but the Atlantic Review team is very tolerant. The AR post is titled “The Evolution of Resurging German Power” and below is an excerpt from one of my comments to Jörg’s post:

“What I am hinting at in my previous comment is that none of us, especially EU nations and the Arab League countries, China, Pakistan, and a long list of other nations can say a damn thing about assisting the people of Darfur and southern Sudan. It is already too late, the ethnic cleansing and rampage of murder and rape and other atrocities against these people has reached the end game to the tune of perhaps 500,000 lives. The final death toll will be much higher because Darfurians will die of disease and
illness and neglect for years to come just as over 4 million Congolese have since their 2nd civil war of 1998. Millions of people in Darfur are displaced from their homes and villages living in the worst conditions imaginable and under constant threat of rape and death while the regime in Khartoum leads the international community around on a leash of inaction and fear threatening a wider Jihad than we are facing now in much of the Middle East and at the Horn of Africa (Somalia).”

“What can any of us say to the people of Darfur or do on their behalf now that will make a difference in their lives? It is too late. Never again has happened yet again and we let it happen without doing anything to stop it. The United States government has been calling for harsh sanctions and military intervention since 2003-2004 but it has fallen on deaf ears both at the U.N. and in Brussels and Strasbourg. Darfur should be of very special signifigance (and shame) to the people of Germany, and I think you know why.
Berlin could have done a lot more than offer military troop transport and paltry financial assistance to the African Union mission to Darfur, but to date it hasn't and Germany's policy toward Sudan will not change in the near future. After all, Sudan is a potentially lucrative source of oil and natural gas to nearby Europe. Being an African-American, I have an especially bitter fire in my gut re: the atrocities carried out in southern Sudan and in Darfur at the hands of an "Arabized" Islamic black elite in Khartoum and the Janjaweed militias. Amre Moussa of the Arab League was right, the Gates of Hell have been opened and will not be easily closed again.”

Although Jörg and I disagree on several issues re: U.S.-German relations, on the matter of Darfur we stand shoulder-to-shoulder. We are both outraged about the crisis in Darfur and in southern Sudan and deeply disappointed and confused that our respective governments and other nations around the globe have not stepped-in to help provide the necessary security for the people of Darfur and the many organizations who are desperately trying to help alleviate some of their suffering. Jörg writes about this in his November 2005 post “Genocide: U.S. calls for more sanctions against Sudan, but Germany sees business” and his May 01, 2006 post “Rallies to help Darfur across the United States. And in Germany?”

Admittedly, many of us around the world who say we care about this crisis have tended to wash our hands of this complicated and seemingly hopeless situation. Darfur is seldom a headlines story in the international press or a breaking-news story in TV news today; it’s easy to move the suffering in Darfur and the rest of Sudan to the backburner while we concentrate on a cornucopia of misery and war and danger from other parts of the globe. This is what the murderous regime in Khartoum has been counting on, that we would look away and try to forget.

This week the GoS (Government of Sudan) has decided to move for the end game, the final solution to their problem with the black Africans occupying the valuable land over the oil and gas fields of western Sudan, in Darfur. News reports from several international media outlets report that Khartoum has begun a new offensive in Darfur, sending in more than 10,000 well-armed troops and national police to cleanse the province of rebel militias and their supporters. Various experts on the crisis and international NGO’s have dreaded this very action, warning for months and months that such a move by the GoS is simply a ploy to help the regime exert total control over the lives of millions of IDPs living in the squalid conditions of refugee camps and millions more Darfurians who do not have any shelter or safety at all. The end game scenario in Darfur has arrived, and the “international community” is poised to repeat the failures of Rwanda and The Balkans and the DR Congo yet again. What will we tell the people of Darfur when it is over, the ones that survive? That we are sorry???

Below I've listed some of the latest news articles about Darfur and Sudan. Over the next days I will post again about this crisis and list reports, press releases, and online multimedia presentations about Darfur that might help all of us decide what we can do, and what we want and demand our governments, the UN, and the Government of Sudan to do about Darfur___ and do it in a damn hurry. If the UN and the "international community" can get 15,000 troops into Lebanon so fast, then they can get troops into Darfur just as fast. Time for the desperate people of Darfur has run out.

UPDATE September 5th:

More and more bloggers around the globe are picking up on the plight of the people of Darfur after this latest outrage from Khartoum. Jörg sent me an email with a link to a heated discussion over at the European Tribune post What Now for Darfur?. Here is an excerpt from the comments thread for that post (ref: comment by Metatone 4.00/2):

What can be done? Well, we could engage in some "liberal hawking" and stage a NATO invasion. But, the killer is not winning the invasion, but what happens next. Short of setting up a separate state, it's hard to see how an invasion will solve the friction between the central government of Sudan and those in this southern area. And do we have the political capital and goodwill to go and create a new country after an invasion? Or indeed the strategic reserve of troops to do it whilst holding down commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon (plus minor engagements elsewhere)?

I think not.

Which is easy to type when you don't live in Darfur, but I don't see any good solutions. I'd like to see a much stronger diplomatic effort, but I think it will fail because China has no interest in recognizing the rights of minorities (c.f Tibet) and besides neither China nor Russia have many reasons to trust the West, it seems at the moment.

Thanks for all the comments below folks and a special welcome to the new iAbolish blog author Sarah. See the iAbolish.org website for their feature AASG on the Ground: Sudan. iAbolish is part of the AASG (American anti-Slavery Group).

I smell smoke, don't you? Perhaps bloggers worldwide really can build enough momentum in the blogosphere and the media to Stop al-Bashir.

Latest news about Darfur and the UN-AU Peacekeeping Crisis

The Head Heeb
Catch-22 in Darfur - Aug 31, 2006

Washington Post
Darfur Rebels Say Government on Attack – Sep 03, 2006
Obama Visits Sudanese Refugees in Chad – Sep 02, 2006
Sudan President Claims West Conspiracy – Aug 29, 2006

BBC News
Sudan wants peacekeepers to leave - Sep 04, 2006
Darfur tests international resolve – Sep 04, 2006

Times Online (U.K.)
Darfur villages burn as army tramples on UN peace plan – Sep 03, 2006

Reuters
Sudan says AU can stay in Darfur but not under UN – Sep 04, 2006
Russia criticizes hasty UN resolution on Darfur – Sep 04, 2006
UN’s Sudan peacekeeping could cost 1.7 billion a year – Sep 01, 2006
UN votes for UN force in Darfur; Sudan says “no” – Aug 31, 2006

The Standard (Kenya)
The voice of reason in Sudan peace negotiations – Sep 03, 2006

China’s Peoples Daily – Aug 31, 2006
China calls for comprehensive, lasting peace in Sudan’s Darfur region

Global Day for Darfur – September 17, 2006
A coalition of humanitarian organizations from the U.S. and U.K. are organizing a global day of action worldwide to support the people of Darfur. Please help them by visiting their website and signing the petition to call for U.N. action in Darfur.

Source: Day for Darfur coalition (www.dayfordarfur.org)

Technorati tags: Sudan Darfur genocide Human Rights UN Africa Current Affairs Global Voices