Crash-course on The Darfur Region Genocide

Crash-course on The Darfur Region Genocide of Western Sudan
Saturday, July 30, 2005

In recent days there has been an increase of attention on Africa, the only continent that is now poorer than it was twenty-five years ago. First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have visited Africa. Also last week President William Jefferson Clinton made an apology for not coming to support of Rwandans during the unspeakable genocide of 1994. Also, President George W. Bush has increased significantly the aid to the African nations. Nonetheless, in all probability, one of the greatest human-genocidal cataclysms will continue unless there is imminent intervention.

Little attention has been given to this genocide, except for op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof for the NY Times who has written many articles. In his most recent article http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/opinion/26kristof.html?th&emc=th he puts much of the blame on the media for not giving sufficient coverage:

An excerpt:

• “Serious newspapers have done the best job of covering Darfur, and I take my hat off to Emily Wax of The Washington Post and to several colleagues at The Times for their reporting. Time magazine gets credit for putting Darfur on its cover - but the newsweeklies should be embarrassed that better magazine coverage of Darfur has often been in Christianity Today.


• The real failure has been television's. According to monitoring by the Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year - and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3 minutes - about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks.


• Incredibly, more than two years into the genocide, NBC, aside from covering official trips, has still not bothered to send one of its own correspondents into Darfur for independent reporting.”

The most excellent overview of information I have found to date is the extensive study of Eric Reeves, Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has spent the past six years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst, publishing extensively both in the US and internationally. He has testified several times before the Congress, has lectured widely in academic settings, and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan.

Reeves’ crash-course, in five installments, was published last week, July 18-22. It is comprehensive. Reeves website is: http://www.sudanreeves.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index However, since it may be past time to access all installments online, I have attached all, in order, beginning with Darfur-1 through Darfur-5.

Reeves’ solution is the use of National Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces http://www.nato.int/:

• Excerpt form Darfur-5: “The more than 150 camps for displaced persons, with at least 2 million registered and unregistered people, must be fully secured. That means replacing the Sudanese police and security forces with A.U. and NATO military police, including a substantial complement of female officers experienced in responding to sexual violence. The camp surroundings must also be secured, as women and girls are forced to venture further and further to find firewood for cooking, water, and animal fodder. Humanitarian corridors must be fully secured so that drivers for the U.N.'s World Food Program and other agencies no longer face deadly assault. Civilians in inaccessible rural areas must be provided safe passage, or large numbers will slowly starve. Those civilians attempting to return to their villages--especially the early contingents--must be afforded security: If they return and are again attacked by Janjaweed or other lawless forces, it will become impossible to persuade others to risk returning.”


• “OUR MORAL CHOICE: The plan I have laid out above for NATO intervention is unlikely to be implemented. Even so, it is important that the stark moral choice confronting the international community be absolutely clear. History must not record this moment as one in which our decision was uninformed by either the scale of the human catastrophe or an understanding of what is required to stop genocidal destruction.”

Let me ask you this question: If we know about genocide and do not take action against it, are we not also complicit? One may say there’s little we can do and that may be true, for most of the things we do individually for humanity seem so small. Collectively, we can make a difference. At the least we can write our representative http://www.house.gov/ and senators http://www.senate.gov/ to request their support for initiation of NATO peacekeeping forces. It’s my moral choice and I hope yours also.

Cornell Cox

P. S. You can click on the links above to get your representative/senators e-mail box to send a message. I have mailed the following brief message (feel free to use the body of my letter or put in your own words):
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Dear Representative (or Senator):

I encourage your most painstaking support and influence for the use of NATO forces in peacekeeping, prevention of genocide, and life sustaining measures for the people of Darfur western region of Sudan. Urgent action is required as laid out by Eric Reeves, Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. As a result of his in-depth study of the Sudan genocide, he has testified several times before Congress. I concur with his strong recommendation for the use of NATO peacekeeping forces in Sudan.

• As he has succinctly put: “OUR MORAL CHOICE: The plan I have laid out above for NATO intervention is unlikely to be implemented. Even so, it is important that the stark moral choice confronting the international community be absolutely clear. History must not record this moment as one in which our decision was uninformed by either the scale of the human catastrophe or an understanding of what is required to stop genocidal destruction.”

Let us not be complicit to genocide; let this administration not have to apologize as President Clinton recently felt the need to apologize for the inaction of the Rwanda genocide of 1994.

Sincerely,

Cornell Cox
Smithfield, NC 27577
919-934-2137
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
11 September 2005

In response to the July 30th mailing on genocide of The Darfur Region in Sudan, Africa, Senator Mel Martinez ® of Florida has responded to my friend Forrest Smalley. It’s the only reply I’ve seen either from a senator or representative. Senator Martinez is a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and chairman of its Subcommittee on Africa. In the event you missed the initial subject matter below Senator Martinez’s reply it’s reprinted.

For your edification,

Cornell
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From: Mel_Martinez@martinez.senate.gov [mailto:Mel_Martinez@martinez.senate.gov]Subject: Response to your recent comments
Below is a response to the recent comments I received from you:Dear Mr. Smalley:Thank you for contacting me regarding genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. I appreciate hearing from you and would like to respond to your concerns.Sudan has been plagued by civil conflict over the last four decades. The most recent crisis began in December 2003, pitting the Southern Sudanese African-Muslim population, against the Northern Sudanese of Muslim-Arab descent. In July 2004, Congress declared the atrocities committed in Darfur to be genocide, bringing international attention to this ghastly situation that has since September 2004 displaced more than a million people from their homes and caused over 300,000 fatal casualties.Through the years, a number of measures have been introduced in the Senate to attempt to end the suffering of the Sudanese people. On March 2, 2005, Senator Brownback (R-OK) and Senator Corzine (D-NJ) introduced the Darfur Accountability Act (S. 495), a bipartisan measure pressuring the Sudanese government to end the violence against civilians, disarm the Janjaweed guerrillas, and abide by the cease-fire provisions of the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in January 2005.As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and as chairman of its Subcommittee on Africa, I am closely examining S. 495. This bill would require that the United States support sanctions by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council, accelerate assistance to the African Union force in the region, establish a military no-fly zone in Darfur, widen the multilateral arms embargo to include the government of Sudan, freeze assets and properties of and deny visas and entry to those named by the U.N. Commission investigating crimes against humanity, and appoint a Special Presidential Envoy for Sudan.However, some of these measures have already been carried out. For example, on July 19, 2005, the U.S. military began airlifting more than 1000 Rwandan troops in a NATO operation to increase the African Union force monitoring the peace agreement. Our military is also building an additional 16 base camps, as well as providing communications and vehicle maintenance for the entire AU peacekeeping force.On July 26, 2005, Mr. Roger Winter was designated as the US Special Representative for Sudan to work toward ending the violence in the Darfur region. Mr. Winter has an impressive 25-year experience in conflict resolution, including negotiating the peace process that ended the two-decades-long north-south civil war and led to the power-sharing Sudanese unity government sworn in on July 9, 2005.Rest assured I share your concerns about the ongoing situation in the Sudan, and particularly in the Darfur region. As always, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any additional questions or comments, or visit my website at http://martinez.senate.gov/.Sincerely,Mel MartinezUnited States Senator
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Subject: Response from Representative WeldonDear Mr. Smalley:Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about the humanrights violations in Darfur, Western Sudan. It is good to hear fromyou.I am very concerned about the state of affairs in Sudan. Darfur isonly the most recent crisis in that country and my colleagues and Ihave been working for years to address Sudan's terrible human rightsrecord. An estimated 2 million people have died over the past decadedue to Sudan's civil war, famine and other related causes. Millionsmore have been displaced from their homes. For the past twenty years, Sudan's Islamic fundamentalist regime has launched a deliberate campaign of genocide against Christians in southern Sudan.Eyewitnesses have given the House and Senate testimony about slavery, torture, rape, mutilation and killings of Christians.Unlike the Christian victims of southern Sudan, the victims of thegenocide in Darfur are Muslim. The conflict in Darfur began when rebels attacked government property, accusing the government of neglecting Darfur's mostly black population in favor of the country's Arab population. The Sudanese government responded by setting up Arab militias known as Janjaweed, to put down the rebellion. The Janjaweed are waging a campaign resembling ethnic cleansing to drive black Africans out of Darfur. It is believed that 70,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been driven from their homes. Though the crisis has been going on for nearly a year and a half, the U.N.Security Council acted on it for the first time only in April, and then only by issuing a weak statement. More diplomatic intervention isurgently needed.I believe it is important to remember that 2004 marks the 10thanniversary of the Rwandan genocide, which the United Nations failed to stop. Political and diplomatic calculations should never prevent theinternational community from intervening to stop mass murder. For this reason, I co-sponsored H.Con.Res. 403 in the 108th Congress, condemning the Government of the Republic of Sudan for the attacks of the Janjaweed against innocent civilians in the impoverished Darfur region of western Sudan. This resolution, which passed the House on May 17, 2004, also calls on the international community to condemn Sudan's attacks.The United States has also proposed a U.N. resolution calling for atravel ban and arms embargo on the government-backed militia in Darfur, as well as an international war crimes investigation. If the situation fails to improve within thirty days, the Security Council may impose targeted sanctions on the government of Sudan itself. Unfortunately, the United Nations has not adopted thisresolution. On June 22, 2004, I supported H.R. 4613, which adds $70million in funding for USAID's disaster and famine assistance, and $25million for the State Department's refugee assistance programs. In the last year, the United States has given over $357 million to Sudan for humanitarian assistance. Furthermore, President Bush has publiclycondemned the violence and dispensed Secretary of State Colin Powell to Sudan at the end of June to issue this condemnation in person.Thank you again for contacting me. You may be assured that I willcontinue to monitor this crisis in the coming months. If I can be offurther assistance to you in the future, please let me know. It is anhonor to serve you in Congress.Sincerely,Dave WeldonMember of Congress