Darfur Film Series

From Save Darfur

Darfur Film Series - Tuesdays in August

Africa Action will host screenings of films about Darfur and the earlier genocide in Rwanda every Tuesday in August. They will follow each screening with a discussion and explore ways to take action to stop genocide in Darfur. For more information, please email Africa Action at mobilize@africaaction.org or call 202-546-7961.

Every Tuesday at 6pm
The Institute for Policy Studies
733 15th Street N.W., Suite 1020
Washington, DC
Light refreshments will be served.

August 02- Hotel Rwanda
Eleven years ago, during the Rwandan genocide, over 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. The movie Hotel Rwanda provides a shocking visual representation of the brutality of genocide and the heroism of those who resisted. Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who sheltered over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. The film portrays the consequences of world's refusal to intervene as the massacre unfolded.

August 09- Darfur Film Project
After observing the woefully inadequate media coverage on the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro (students at American University's School of International Service) decided to do something about it. In 2004, the team (with colleague Jen Marlowe) traveled to Sudan and eastern Chad and returned with over 45 hours of footage, along with incredible stories and images. The resulting work in progress is the Darfur Film Project, a documentatary of the testimonies of survivors of the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Come view excerpts from the film and stay for a post-film discussion with the filmmakers. For more information, visit www.darfurfilm.org.

August 16- Shake Hands with the Devil
Canadian General Roméo Dallaire was charged with an impossible task: to head the UN peacekeeping mission with a handful of soldiers ordered not to use force to protect Rwandans from the mass slaughter. SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL follows Dallaire’s return to the region 10 years later, as he comes to grips with the events that have haunted him — his struggles with top UN officials, expedient Belgian policy-makers and Clinton administration officials who ignored his pleas for reinforcements. The experience led to Dallaire’s own life tragedy as he dealt with the psychological fallout of witnessing a genocide he was powerless to stop. Judging from the current killings in Darfur, Sudan, the ethical dilemmas confronting the international community are as urgent now as a decade ago. SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL won the World Documentary Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. For more information, visit www.californianewsreel.com.

August 23- All About Darfur
Taking the situation in Darfur as its catalyst, ALL ABOUT DARFUR is a contemplative journey of filmmaker Taghred Elsanhouri to the land of her birth at a time of crisis, as she examines the Afro/Arab race dynamic in Sudanese society through the prism of her own experience of race in Britain and Sudan. Darfur is on everyone’s mind from peddlers in the Souk to professors at the University. The film offers a unique opportunity to hear and see Sudanese people articulating in their own words how they feel about the Darfur crisis, about race and politics in their country and about the place and role of the international community in their affairs. ALL ABOUT DARFUR won the Chairperson’s Prize at the Zanzibar International Film Festival.

August 30- Darfur Film Shorts And Art Exhibit
A Darfur Film Shorts program comprised of brief videos on Darfur and related subjects including Darfur Destroyed, A Good Man in Hell, and a short film on Darfur produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition, there will be artwork featured from the collection of Dr. Jerry Ehrlich, a pediatrician practicing in New Jersey, who has collected stunning drawings created by Darfuri children depicting their view of the horrors of genocide and war. These will be on display for your viewing.

TAKE ACTION! The Save Darfur Coalition and Africa Action are collecting signiatures for a petition demanding stronger U.S. action on Darfur. Make a difference by signing the petition here.

Sudanese Govt Forces Attack Shangil Toby in Northern Darfur

From the Darfur Centre for Human Rights and Development

On Sunday 24/7/2005 around 12 pm, government forces attacked the village of Shangil Toby, Northern Darfur. The attack was carried out in response to earlier military action taken against the Government of Sudan forces by rebel groups in the area. In clear breach of all international convention, they carried out their reprisals against innocent men, women and children.

U.N. Names Rights Monitors for Sudan, Uzbekistan

From Reuters

The U.N.'s top human rights body named two special investigators for Africa's conflict-torn Sudan and Central Asia's Uzbekistan on Friday, both countries the focus of international concern.

The experts are charged with monitoring the human rights situations, leading fact-finding missions, and reporting their findings to the United Nations.

The U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights appointed Sima Samar of Afghanistan as so-called Special Rapporteur on human rights in Sudan.

Samar is the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Women's Affairs in the post-Taliban Afghan government and now chairs the country's Independent Human Rights Commission, the OCHCR said in a statement.

"Access to Justice for Victims of Sexual Violence"

The UNHCR report is available here (pdf file) - thanks to Passion of the Present for tracking it down.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

Sudan must end the "climate of impunity" fuelling sexual violence in its turbulent Darfur region and bring those accused of rape to trial, the United Nations said on Friday.

Although the Sudanese government reacts angrily to accusations that rape is widespread, even arresting people for publicising cases, sexual attacks continue with some involving members of the security forces, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a report.

"The government of Sudan needs to acknowledge the scope of the problem and to take concrete action to end the climate of impunity in Darfur," the report said.

The report evaluated a year-old agreement with the U.N. in which the Sudanese government pledged to investigate abuses in Darfur immediately and "to ensure that all individuals and groups accused of human rights violations are brought to justice without delay."

While the authorities had taken some steps to tackle sexual violence, charges were still not investigated thoroughly.

Condoleezza Rice on the Newshour

JIM LEHRER: I noticed on your recent trip to Darfur, however, you seemed terribly frustrated that here is -- millions of people have been made homeless, thousands of people have been killed, and here the United States and the rest of the world can't stop it. It must be terribly frustrating --

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, it's very sad and --

JIM LEHRER: But why can't we do anything about it?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, we are doing something about it. We have finally gotten the UN Security Council resolutions that we need to bring some pressure on the Khartoum government to respond. We have finally gotten an increase in the AU mission, police -- African Union policing and monitoring mission after months of the Sudanese government dragging its feet about increasing the ceiling.

We are making progress, and when I was there, Jim, the Rwandan forces were just arriving by American airlift. There's NATO airlift involved in this. So we're making some progress.

But when you go to Darfur and you see, particularly the children, who are in makeshift kindergartens in the sand and you think to yourself, we don't want to see these children grow up in these camps, despite the remarkable job that the non-governmental organizations are doing in making life better for them, that you do then want to accelerate and hasten the day when there is a political settlement to the situation in Darfur so that these people can return home.

And I'm going to do everything that I can to bring that day about. My deputy, Bob Zoellick, has been to Sudan three times. I've been there once.

I think you'll see much more of us because we have to keep the spotlight on this very difficult situation and not let the international community forget our responsibility to try and resolve the issue.

From the Harvard Crimson

One of Harvard’s brightest stars will take a leave of absence next year to advise Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), himself a rising star in the U.S. government, on issues of foreign policy.

Samantha Power, professor of practice and founding executive director of the Carr Center at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), said she hopes to work closely with Obama and his advisors on “three or four issues” of foreign policy, including United Nations reform, the genocide in Darfur, and the detainment camp in Guantanamo.

Darfur Camp Resident Say They Face Threats From Sudanese Security

From Reuters

Sudanese security threatened refugees in Darfur with arrest and beatings to find out what they told Condoleezza Rice when she visited their camp, U.N. sources told Reuters on Thursday.

The U.S. secretary of state spoke to a number of people in Abo Shouk camp near the town of al-Fasher during her visit last week. She told reporters Sudan had a "credibility problem" over Darfur and that she wanted to see "actions not words".

"They (Sudanese security officials) have threatened and harassed people after high-profile visits. They want to know what people said ... People were harassed after Rice's visit," a U.N. source in al-Fasher said.

"(They were) threatened with prison and beatings," the source added.

Canadian Assistance to the AU

From Canada NewsWire

Canada is providing 105 armoured vehicles, training and maintenance assistance, and personal protective equipment in support of the efforts of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to bring peace and stability to the Darfur region. The loan of the armoured vehicles, which includes the provision of spare parts, is for a period of one year.

An implementation team of up to 80 Canadian Forces personnel will also deploy to Senegal, which will host the vehicle staging base in Dakar, and a training centre in Thiès. The implementation team will provide the African Union (AU) soldiers with training in the operation and maintenance of the armoured vehicles. This training is expected to commence in early August and will be completed in mid-September.

The 100 "Grizzly" general purpose armoured vehicles and five "Husky" armoured recovery vehicles will be moved from Dakar, Senegal, to the Darfur region of Sudan, and are expected to be operational by mid-September. The vehicles will be used by AU troops from Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal.

"This armoured vehicle loan is an important part of Canada's assistance to the African Union Mission in Sudan," said Defence Minister Bill Graham. "It will provide the AU with some of the key tools they need to safely and effectively conduct peace support operations in the troubled Darfur region."

"Canada is committed to assisting the AU mission and supporting an African-led solution in Darfur," said Foreign Affairs Minister, Pierre Pettigrew. "We have responded to the AU's requests, and are working to provide effective support to increase the stability in Darfur and to ensure the civilian population is protected."

Sudan and the war in Darfur

The Foreign Policy Association presents an interview with Robert I. Rotberg, author of the article "Sudan and the war in Darfur"

FPA: What would the implication be of the U.S. taking a drastic measure such as cutting off the oil flow?

RR: I think it would get the attention of the generals who run Sudan immediately, and Condoleezza repeated it again yesterday, the genocide in Sudan, we have an obligation to end that genocide and it strikes me that we must take ever measure to make it very clear to those generals in Sudan what their options are. So far, we are not doing that.

FPA: Would the humanitarian community voice opposition to that?

RR: Why wouldn’t they do the opposite? If the prevention of genocide is the most important thing, people are getting killed at a continuing rate and the African Union being ineffective in Sudan—there are too few to pull off anything. Made it clear to the generals that they had no other options. Now maybe your assumption that the oil money is trickling down to the people of Sudan, but that is just not true. It is trickling into pockets and staying in the army.

Daily Darfur

From Irish Health

"We did have some cases where people died. To this day I have a very clear memory of a four-year old boy who was brought into our outpatient clinic late in the afternoon and one of our nurses said come right away; she looked worried in a way she normally didn’t. In the clinic there was a boy sitting on his mother’s knee breathing very, very fast. He was still awake and he was starting to look sleepy and I knew as soon as I saw him that he probably had about five minutes to live.

"He had been brought to our clinic by his mother, obviously over some great distance, and he had been sick with pneumonia probably for at least a week. It could have been treated very simply on the first, second or third day of the illness- we were really seeing the illness in its final chapter. We brought him into our in-patients section and we put him on a bed and I looked at our nurse and I said he is going to die any minute. I said I don’t think we should subject him to the discomfort of putting up a drip, putting him through all of that .The nurse looked at me and said we have to try. I looked at the mother and I thought, yes, they have made an enormous journey, she is probably about to lose her child and I will have to explain that to her and I thought OK, this kid deserved our help. So we put a drip up…and even in the process of doing that he just very quietly went to sleep and died there and then…

"That’s very frustrating when that happens because it is avoidable and it is very difficult to explain that to a mother-that having made it after a long journey to a place where we normally could do something to help, five minutes later her child is dead."

From AFP

Six unidentifed gunmen have been killed near Sudan's border with Chad by the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) in retaliation for killing one SLA member, the UN Mission in Sudan said Wednesday.

From the Chicago Tribune

The grimace on Miriam Adam's face reflects Darfur's recent dreadful past and present, a time of war in which an estimated 180,000 people have been killed, most of them--but by no means all--by an Arab militia known as the janjaweed, armed and exhorted to mass murder by the Sudanese government in faraway Khartoum.

Adam, 25, a mother of two, was waiting patiently, sitting in the sand, dressed in a bright, saffron-colored gown wrapped around a face set in despair. She was waiting for the monthly food shipment, delivered here last month by Catholic Relief Services, one of scores of non-governmental organizations assisting survivors of Darfur's deadly, ongoing conflict.

To the rest of the world, Adam is a statistic out of focus.

From IRIN

The nomads, who aid workers say are in their thousands, have largely been unnoticed by the international community, and Darfur's other residents often equate them with the notorious "Janjawid" - the government allied militia who have been accused of terrorising the region's non-Arab tribes.

The nomads live with the constant fear of being attacked by the rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), who could mistake them for the Janjawid.

"People are calling us Janjawid; it is not secure, we can be attacked at any time," Abdel Haman Duhr, a clan leader from the Mahami community, said.

UN says Sudan's refugee camp attacked by Uganda rebels

Xinhua

The United Nations Mission in Sudan announced here Wednesday that a refugee camp in southern Sudan was attacked by Ugandan rebel militia on Monday which resulted in the death of eight displaced people.

Radia Achouri, spokeswoman of top UN envoy in Sudan Jan Pronk,told a press conference that a camp for displaced people in the southern Juba town was attacked by an armed group thought to belong to the Lord Resistance Army (LRA), Ugandan rebel militia active in southern Sudan.

She said eight displaced people including three women and two children were reportedly dead.

The UN would respond to a demand by the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to send experts to investigate the incident, she added.

The UN official slammed the LRA as "a real hampering factor against stability in southern Sudan", adding that the international peacekeeping forces in Sudan had the right to defend themselves against any such attacks.

The Sudanese government and the SPLM reached a comprehensive peace deal in January, ending a 21-year-long civil war.

In addition, Achouri said banditry still rampaged in Sudan'sconflict-ridden western Darfur region.

She said criminal gangs had frequently targeted vehicle stransporting humanitarian aid and killed the drivers.Violence flared up in Sudan's arid Darfur region in February 2003 as rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government,accusing it of neglect.

UN Agency Airdrops Food for People Walking Home in Southern Sudan

From UN News Center

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today it had airdropped its fourth consignment of food to some 3,000 refugees walking through forest and swamp to their home villages in south-west Sudan after a peace agreement ended over 20 years of civil war.

The refugees, avoiding landmines by taking a 700-kilometre route from Mabia camp in Equatoria province to Deim Zubeir in West Bahr-al-Ghazal province, received 24 tons of mixed commodities on Sunday to help them cover the last 70 kilometres by this weekend, WFP said. The amount of aid WFP has dropped during the trek adds up to more than 100 tons, it added.

Food has been stockpiled at Deim Zubeir for the refugees' arrival, it said.

The number of returnees is expected to rise when the rainy season ends in September or October, but WFP said it still lacked $132 million, or 44 per cent, of the funds needed to feed an estimated 3.2 million people in the south, east and transitional areas of Sudan.

Witness

Two weeks ago, the Center for American Progress and the Genocide Intervention Fund launched a joint initiative known as "Be A Witness" built around a petition calling on television networks to increase their coverage of the genocide in Darfur.

As "Be a Witness" noted

During June 2005, CNN, FOX News, NBC/MSNBC, ABC, and CBS ran 50 times as many stories about Michael Jackson and 12 times as many stories about Tom Cruise as they did about the genocide in Darfur.

This week, tireless Sudan advocate Nicholas Kristof took up the call and chastised the press for its lack of Darfur coverage

If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.

Shortly thereafter, Editor and Publisher printed a piece reporting

New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof's attack on the press for underreporting the atrocities and genocide in Darfur, which ran in today's paper, has drawn the ire of some newspaper editors who said they are doing the best they can with what they have.

In this piece, USA Today Foreign Editor James Cox offered a partial but important explanation for the dearth of coverage

Cox pointed to a two-day series USA Today ran in May on Darfur, stressing the difficulty the paper had in even getting a visa for reporter Rick Hampson to travel there. "It was excruciatingly difficult to get the permission," he said. "We had an application that had been stalled for months."

Sudan does not want journalists freely traveling around Darfur for the sole reason that their reports are going to reveal the true nature of Khartoum's genocidal campaign.

Considering this basic fact in conjunction with the efforts currently underway to expand the African Union mission in Darfur, it might behoove all involved to consider embedding journalists with the AU just as the US did during the initial weeks of the war in Iraq.

People want information about Darfur; journalists want access to Darfur; and the UN and AU want (or at least should want) to disseminate information regarding to crisis in Darfur as widely as possible.

The US and NATO are currently providing key logistical support to the AU mission and ought to insist that any reporter who wants access to Darfur be assigned to and granted protection by an AU patrol force.

Brian Steidle served with the AU in Darfur for six months before eventually resigning his position so that he could share his photos with the world.

Steidle is a hero for doing this - but it shouldn't take personal acts of sacrifice and courage to make the world aware of the genocide in Darfur.

Anything is Better Than Darfur

From the AP

With a peace agreement signed in January and the former southern rebel leader, John Garang, installed in Khartoum as first vice president earlier this month, many southerners are anxious to leave the dusty camps where food is scarce and jobs are scarcer.

[edit]

A similar strain played around the camp: excitement over peace and the inauguration of John Garang as first vice president, dissatisfaction with the situation at the camp, and a pressing desire to leave.

The war caused an estimated 3.5 million southerners to flee north. Another 570,000 sought refuge abroad, most in neighboring Kenya and Uganda.

The camps outside Khartoum are impoverished cities that have arisen from the mud of the flat dusty plain.

[edit]

Not everyone wants to leave the north, though, even at Jebel Aulia. Aisha Osman, 39, is a refugee from Darfur, where the situation is still too volatile to plan a return home. Osman, selling popsicles to schoolchildren from an orange cooler at the Nuba Market, wasn't certain her region would ever see peace.

"For now, this is better. Anything is better than Darfur," she said.

Germany "irritated" about US wish for NATO intervention in Darfur

From Der Spiegel

If the United States has its will, a massive intervention by NATO is to put an end to violence and expulsion in the province of Darfur in western Sudan.

The federal government is irritated about the US advance - after all, only troops from Germany and other European countries are to be deployed.

The Americans want to keep their own forces out of the mission. Washington is exerting pressure, because the establishment of an African Union peacekeeping force is not making any progress.

However, Berlin sees not so much the misery of the victims of expulsion as a reason for the US urging, but rather US interest in the undisturbed development of Sudanese oil fields.

For the time being, NATO plans to hold only an "exercise" in Darfur, to show officers from African countries how an international operation must be executed.

Last Wednesday 20 July defence experts from all Bundestag groups gave Defence Minister Peter Struck (Social Democratic Party of Germany) the go-ahead to send two German staff officers to Darfur.

Roger P. Winter Appointed Special Representative for Sudan

From the State Department

The Department of State announces the appointment of Roger P. Winter as Special Representative of the Deputy Secretary of State for Sudan. Mr. Winter’s appointment reflects the high priority this Administration attaches to halting the violence in Darfur and supporting implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed January 9. Mr. Winter will be responsible for advancing the achievement of America’s goals for Sudan that were promoted during the Secretary’s visit to Sudan last week and during the Deputy Secretary’s three visits to Khartoum and Darfur in April, June and July.

Since 2001, the United States played a leading role in peace negotiations between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to end the North-South civil war that devastated Sudan for two decades. Mr. Winter was a member of the U.S. team that supported Senator Jack Danforth in helping to negotiate the CPA. He has been involved in humanitarian and conflict issues in Sudan for twenty-five years, most recently as Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance. In that capacity, he also helped negotiate the April 2004 cease-fire agreement for Darfur, which was an initial first political step toward ending the carnage taking place in that region. Mr. Winter’s long involvement with the parties and familiarity with the events that have occurred in Sudan will enable him to engage with the new Government of National Unity and others to further U.S. diplomacy on Sudan and advise the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on policy related to Darfur and to Sudan.

Newspaper Editors Shoot Back At Kristof's Darfur Complaint

From Editor and Publisher

New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof's attack on the press for underreporting the atrocities and genocide in Darfur, which ran in today's paper, drew the ire of some newspaper editors, who said, in interviews with E&P, that they are doing the best they can with what they have.

Limited resources, as well as a war in Iraq, terrorist coverage, and, some admit, a lack of understanding or interest by readers in the Sudanese region's problems, are all part of the reason that the Darfur story is not top of budget.

James F. Smith, foreign editor of the Globe and a former African correspondent, agrees that more Darfur attention could be given, but said that is the case for many foreign hot spots. "Nicholas Kristof may be very upset about Darfur, but there are other places that need attention," he said, noting a Globe two-page spread on life in the Congo that ran two weeks ago. "We felt the need to tell people about that, too. I have groups in here all the time - from India, Venezuela - who say we don't write enough about them, either."

Jim Willse, editor of The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. had the same explanation. "We don't have anywhere near as much as we'd like to have," he said of Darfur reporting. "Papers our size are constantly having to make choices on anything to cover. I agree Darfur is worth more attention than it is receiving. But we cannot be in all the places that are newsworthy."

Steve Butler, foreign editor of Knight Ridder, said he has been hampered by having no African correspondent since his last one left in December. "We have been keeping our Iraq coverage going an that is a more important story," he said. "It has U.S. soldiers there, people are very interested in it, and it lends itself better to breaking news."

[edit]

Most editors who spoke with E&P agreed that the Darfur story should get more attention due to its seriousness. But, each reminded Kristoff of the realities at today's daily papers. Budget cuts, other worldwide stories like Irag and terrorism, and limited reader interest, require a broad approach, they said.

"If we don't cover the Michael Jacksons, that will be our demise," said John Yearwood, world editor of The Miami Herald. "That is what the public wants. But, we ought to make the commitment to also give Darfur or Rwanda attention if we can."

Basic Needs, Mental Health, and Women's Health Among IDPs

From International Medical Corps

A recent study conducted in South Darfur by Dr. Lynn Lawry (formerly Amowitz), Director of Evidence-Based Research for International Medical Corps (IMC), warns that while some of the displaced population’s basic needs are being met by humanitarian organizations, significant gaps persist in general health services, mental health, and women’s health needs.

The current international aid response is not fully meeting these needs. The study calls for immediate steps to be taken to address the poor state of mental and women’s health.

Approximately 2.3 million people in Darfur rely on aid to survive. United Nations officials have called this the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Insecurity for aid workers and poor infrastructure continues to hinder relief efforts, particularly in South Darfur. Although health assessments of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Darfur have been previously reported, mental health and women’s health burdens in this population remained largely unknown.

To assess these needs, IMC surveyed a random sample of 1,293 displaced women living in camps in Nyala district, South Darfur. The results represent over 220,000 IDPs in Nyala and revealed the significant unmet women’s and mental health burden among these people.

[edit]

Depression and suicide

The prevalence of depression and suicide rates presents a considerable challenge for humanitarian agencies in Sudan. This reflects a more general need to address mental health needs in populations affected by conflict as the priority is usually given to physical health. Nearly a third of women interviewed (31%, 390/1,253) met criteria for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and another 63% of women reported symptoms of depression including feeling down, depressed, and hopeless. Suicide attempts among women and household suicide prevalence were alarmingly high in contrast to general rates worldwide. Over the prior year, 5% of respondents reported suicidal ideation (66/1,257) and 2% reported personal suicide attempts (28/1,260). Two percent of households had a household member that committed suicide during the prior year (21/1,124).

The full report can be found here (PDF file).

African Union to Investigate Weekend Darfur Violence

From the UN News Center

With the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reporting persistent banditry and deadly attacks on civilians throughout war-torn Darfur, the African-led force working to maintain peace in the vast region has begun investigating a spate of weekend violence, including armed clashes between government and rebel forces.

According to UNMIS, the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) is also investigating a reported ambush on the military in Darfur, where, tens of thousands of people have been killed and around 2 million driven from their homes since fighting between the Khartoum Government allied militia and rebel forces began in 2003.

As for the overall security situation in Darfur, the UN mission said that some banditry acts, including by the rebels groups, had reportedly taken place. It added that armed banditry persisted in the three states of Darfur, including killing of civilians, attacks and looting of commercial trucks and non-governmental organizations and their passengers.

Africa Action Petition

For some reason, I failed to link to this petition from Africa Action

In commemoration of the 400,000 dead in Darfur, we are launching a petition drive to raise 400,000 voices of conscience across the country demanding that the U.S. government do everything necessary through the United Nations (UN) to ensure an urgent multinational intervention to protect civilians in Darfur.

The Darfur genocide petition calls on the President to assert U.S. leadership by taking every step necessary through the United Nations to:

Establish a mandate for an international force to protect civilians.

Deploy such a force in support of existing African Union efforts in Darfur. The United States has a unique capacity and clear obligation to take immediate action.

We are seeking at least 400,000 signatures by September 9! We are hoping that you will not only sign the petition, but will also actively help secure signatures from your friends, families, colleagues and strangers. Government officials who remained silent during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 regularly claim that if Americans had clamored for more government action, the U.S. would have been forced to work with the UN to intervene, and could have saved thousands of lives. We have the power to guarantee protection for the people of Darfur. Every signature counts towards stopping genocide in Darfur. What can you do?

I urge you to sign it.

Fresh Violence Could Affect Darfur Peace Process, warns UN

From IRIN

The recent outbreak of violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur could threaten ongoing efforts to bring lasting peace to the strife-torn region, the UN warned on Tuesday.

"The violence is a matter of serious concern to us, especially given that we had just reported to the [UN] Security Council that the situation was quiet and both sides seemed to be respecting the ceasefire agreement," Radhia Achouri, spokesperson for the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), said.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

Sudanese government troops and rebels attacked each other in Darfur in fresh violence but one analyst said on Tuesday the international community is willing to give a new unity government time to solve the problem.

The African Union said rebels killed three government soldiers in an attack on a convoy in Darfur, where United Nations officials have said killing has decreased since January.

"The SLM (Sudan Liberation Movement) attacked a government convoy on Saturday. ... That is confirmed. ... Three (government) military personnel were killed in the attack," said an AU official who did not want to be named.

A Sudanese official previously told Reuters the government responded to the attack on its convoy on Saturday with an assault the next day on nearby rebel camps.

Rebels reported the government used helicopters in an attack along the main road between al-Fasher and Nyala, hitting villages and killing seven civilians.

The government and rebel reports have not been independently verified.

From Nick Kristof

Some of us in the news media have been hounding President Bush for his shameful passivity in the face of genocide in Darfur.

More than two years have passed since the beginning of what Mr. Bush acknowledges is the first genocide of the 21st century, yet Mr. Bush barely manages to get the word "Darfur" out of his mouth. Still, it seems hypocritical of me to rage about Mr. Bush's negligence, when my own beloved institution - the American media - has been at least as passive as Mr. Bush.

Condi Rice finally showed up in Darfur a few days ago, and she went out of her way to talk to rape victims and spotlight the sexual violence used to terrorize civilians. Most American television networks and cable programs haven't done that much.

Even the coverage of Ms. Rice's trip underscored our self-absorption. The manhandling of journalists accompanying Ms. Rice got more coverage than any massacre in Darfur has.

This is a column I don't want to write - we in the media business have so many critics already that I hardly need to pipe in as well. But after more than a year of seething frustration, I feel I have to.

[edit]

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.

"Generally speaking, it's been a total vacuum," said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group, speaking of television coverage. "I blame policy makers for not making better policy, but it sure would be easier if we had more media coverage."

From the AP

The 75-year-old man sat under a crude awning, tying knots in a fishnet stretched out in front of him. But there was no water in sight.

"It's for when I return home," Malong Wal said, pulling the nylon thread taut. "As soon as I get a place on a bus I will go."

Wal, who is from Aweil in southern Sudan, echoed the desires of many in Jebel Aulia, a sprawling displaced persons camp 30 miles outside Khartoum. The camp, like three others around the capital, is home to tens of thousands of southern Sudanese who fled during the 21-year civil war that pitted Christian and animist rebels in the south against the Muslim-dominated government in the north.

With a peace agreement signed in January and the former southern rebel leader, John Garang, installed in Khartoum as first vice president earlier this month, many southerners are eager to leave the dusty camps where food and jobs are scarce.

The camps' gradual stirring to life with internally displaced people hoping to return to their once-violent home villages comes as another sign that Africa's longest-running civil war is indeed fading into history six months after the peace deal was signed, even as troubled Sudan remains torn by a separate conflict in the western Darfur region.

Darfur a Priority for Govt of National Unity

From SUNA

First Vice President and President of Government of Southern Sudan John Garang De Mabior has said that the priorities of the stage and the government of national unity include ending the crises of Darfur and east Sudan, expulsion of Lord Army from eastern Equatoria area and realization of democratic transformation by participation of all political forces in the government.

Nineteen Killed as Chopper Goes Down in Sudan

From AFP

Nineteen people were killed on Monday when a Sudanese military helicopter crashed over the war-torn western region of Darfur, the army said.

"An M-17 helicopter crashed as it was on an administrative mission. It was heading to the Al-Leait Jar al-Nabi region in southern Darfur," a statement said.

The press release explained the helicopter was unable to land due to bad weather and crashed after several failed attempts to land elsewhere in Darfur.

"It hit the ground in the Damayat region west of Nyala, causing the death of its entire crew, including three officers, one technician and 15 passengers, who were all soldiers," it added.

SLM/A Hindering Access

This seemed important - from the Monthly Report of the Secretary-General on Darfur

It should be stressed that responsibility for improving the security situation in Darfur does not rest solely with the Government. Though they are not signatories to the joint communiqué, the armed movements have comparable obligations under the N’Djamena Ceasefire Agreement, the two Abuja protocols of November 2004 and Security Council resolutions. While their actions on the ground have had less impact on civilians than those of Government forces or the Janjaweed, recent actions of the armed movements, especially SLM/A, have generated concern in the international community that these movements are now actively seeking to hinder relief and monitoring activities. In addition, AMIS is now frequently confronted by local SLM/A commanders who deny their patrols access to an increasing number of rebelheld areas. These AMIS patrols have reported that the SLM/A commanders have attempted to justify their refusal to grant access on the grounds that AMIS was conducting espionage against SLM/A, without attempting to substantiate the allegation.

Humanitarian Hijinks on Rice's Visit to Sudan

Here and here.

Sudanese Army Confirms Weekend Clashes

From the AP

Sudan's army acknowledged weekend clashes with Darfur rebels, even as the government called for moving up the next round of peace talks.

In a statement Monday, the army said fighting Saturday and Sunday began with a rebel attack on a civilian convoy the army was escorting in the western region. But the Justice and Equality Movement, one of two main Darfur rebel groups, had said the army attacked its positions first.

The army, in the statement carried by the official news agency, said a captain and two privates were killed by rebels, but that its troops forced the rebels to retreat.

Daily Darfur

From the BBC

Sudan's army and rebels have accused each other of staging attacks in the Darfur region, days after peacekeepers said security had improved.

Rebels accused government forces of using helicopters and planes to bomb villages, while the army said the rebels had killed three soldiers.

[edit]

Four villages have been bombed since Friday, one of which was completely destroyed, Sudan Liberation Movement spokesman Mahjoub Hussein told the AFP news agency.

"Our movement is in a state of high alert and we will blame the government for any instability in the area," he said.

Armed forces spokesman General Abbas Abdel Rahman Khalifa said the army had not attacked villages, only rebel camps, after armed guards with a civilian convoy were attacked between two of Darfur's biggest towns, al-Fashir and Nyala.

He said an army captain and two soldiers were killed.

From the International Crisis Group

Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) risks failure unless all parties urgently push to overcome the ruling National Congress Party's lack of political will. If the international community doesn't confront the hard issues - ruling party support for the southern militias, corruption, a lagging democratic process - and assist the South in building viable and representative public institutions, the entire agreement could unravel, with consequences as deadly as the war that just ended. Implementation by the SPLM/A has also been slow, due to overly centralised decision-making, lack of some capacities and cash flow problems. An immediate and critical challenge to the SPLM/A is the government-allied militias in the South (the SSDF). By reaching an agreement with those militias, the SPLM/A can neutralise a potential spoiler and unite the South for the six-year interim period preceding the self-determination referendum the CPA promises.

From the Washington Post

Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, made the first pilgrimage here in 2004, when the camp held 40,000 people in makeshift tents. Now it holds about double that number, in increasingly permanent-looking brick homes. I'm the only reporter to have been to the camp with three top officials -- Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick and, this past week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But while the senior officials change, there's a certain sameness to the events at this perennial photo-op location -- the same visuals, same points, same war.

Before her arrival at Abu Shouk, Rice defended the Bush administration's response to the situation in Darfur as more than campaign-style optics. She said that U.S. efforts had averted a humanitarian disaster, helped bolster the number of African Union troops monitoring the region and led to a peace deal for a separate north-south conflict that could serve as a model for Darfur. During her visit, Rice met privately with women who had been raped by Sudanese militia, attempting to draw attention to that issue.

It's true that sometimes even superficial events can have an impact. Aid workers said Powell's brief stop helped force the Sudanese government to end restrictions on aid convoys. But the sameness of these events underscores how they are designed mainly for the pictures and images. Policy implementation is another matter.

For the people who live here, a photo op just doesn't do much to end the suffering.

COLIN L. POWELL

Date of visit: June 30, 2004

Arrival vehicle: An armored SUV with District plates

Duration: 20 minutes

Amount of that time spent in press interviews: None

Key visual: Swarming crowds chanting "Ya'eesh," Arabic for "long live."

Key quote: "Camps are good for temporary purposes but that cannot be the answer."

Number of network correspondents: One

Return visits since: None

ROBERT B. ZOELLICK

Date of visit: April 15, 2005

Arrival vehicle: A local jeep

Duration: 75 minutes

Amount of that time spent in press interviews: 11 minutes

Key visual: Watching the pasta-making

Key quote: "This has been a problem that left tens of thousands of people dying, so we have to solve the problem."

Number of network correspondents: One

Return visits since: Two, to other camps in Darfur -- and both without media

CONDOLEEZZA RICE

Date of visit: July 21, 2005

Arrival vehicle: An armored SUV -- with its plates removed

Duration: 90 minutes

Amount of that time spent in press interviews: 25 minutes

Key visual : Children chanting "Marhab, marhab, ya Condoleezza!" ("Welcome, welcome, oh Condoleezza!")

Key quote: "We've got to make every effort because these children need to grow up at home, not in a refugee camp."

Number of network correspondents: Four

Return visits since: Yet to be determined

Holy Fool provides a round up of (and commentary on) recent Darfur news.

Eric Reeves

Final post from the New Republic blog

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.

And so, despite the long odds against an intervention actually taking place, it is our obligation to say with conviction and understanding the most urgent truth: In the absence of humanitarian intervention Darfur's civilian population, as well as humanitarian workers, will be consigned to pervasive, deadly insecurity; displaced persons will remain trapped in camps that are hotbeds of disease; agricultural production will remain at a standstill, leaving millions of people dependent on international food assistance for the foreseeable future; aid workers will continue to fall prey to targeted and opportunistic violence.

In other words, the genocide in Darfur will continue. We could stop it. We have simply chosen not to.

Drama Queen in Darfur

From CJR Daily

Yesterday, as we noted in the blog report, Sudanese government officials threw a fit when U.S. reporters accompanying Secretary of State Condelezza Rice began to aggressively question Sudanese President Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir. One reporter, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, was hustled out of the room by armed guards. To her credit, Mitchell was trying to get Bashir to answer some tough questions. The AP reports:

"Can you tell us why the violence is continuing?" Mitchell asked, as a Sudanese official said "no, no, no, please."

"Can you tell us why the government is supporting the militias?" she asked.

After getting no reply from Bashir, she asked, "Why should Americans believe your promises?"

However, too many stories, including the AP one cited above, have played up the victim angle in their coverage of Rice's trip.

The Progress Report

Today's Progress Report from the American Progress Action Fund has a section dedicated to Darfur.

Monthly Report of the Secretary-General on Darfur

The report can be accessed here (PDF file)

If that doesn't work, go here.

Eric Reeves' Testimony

Testimony by Eric Reeves at a Congressional briefing: "Genocidal Rape and Assault in Darfur" (sponsored by members of the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues, the Congressional Caucus on Human Rights, and the Genocide Intervention Fund)

Rape in Darfur is part of ongoing genocide that has already claimed almost 400,000 lives. As we enter the deadliest part of the current rainy season, as transport becomes increasingly difficult—along with meaningful surveillance—we face a stark choice that many would blur, but which cannot be avoided if we are honest: will we commit to providing all the security that is required by women, girls, and all vulnerable civilians in Darfur—as well as the humanitarian organizations struggling heroically amidst intolerable levels of danger?

No such commitment has been made by any government or by any legislative body. A year ago the Congress declared the realities in Darfur constitute genocide; a year later the genocide continues apace. I must ask, what do your words mean?

NCC and NGO's in U.S., U.K. and France urge UN Resolution on Darfur

From the National Council of Churches

Leading non-governmental organizations in the United States, France and Great Britain are urging their countries to immediately sponsor a United Nations Security Council resolution that will mandate peace enforcement operations in Darfur, Sudan.

"This joint declaration is important because it recognizes the influence that the US, the UK and France can have in urging the international community to get involved in stopping the genocide in Darfur," said Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, Associate General Secretary of the National Council of Churches USA for International Affairs and Peace.

Estimates for Darfuri Africans killed since February 2003, range from 180,000 to 400,000. Over 2.5 million have been displaced and remain at mortal risk today, facing continued violence, malnutrition and disease.

"Specific steps need to be taken, and one is to get all of the Security Council members to act on behalf of the victims in Darfur," Kireopoulos said. "Peacekeeping forces are needed to protect the civilians in this crisis, and only a concerted effort by those who have influence can actually make it happen."

"As three of the permanent five members, the governments of the USA, France and the United Kingdom have significant influence at the UN Security Council," declares the joint statement issued July 21 by the Save Darfur Coalition (U.S.), of which the NCC is a member; Collectif Urgence Darfour (France); and Protect Darfur (U.K.).

"We therefore call on our governments to show leadership and immediately sponsor a resolution at the UN Security Council that will mandate peace enforcement operations in Darfur," the statement continues. "Action now, though two years into the genocidal crisis, will go down in history to their credit. Failure to act, however, would go down in history to their shame -- and rank alongside the failure of previous governments to prevent mass murder in Bosnia and genocide in Rwanda. Now is the time to show that lessons have been learned, not by words alone but by actions."

Daily Darfur

I'm extremely busy, but fortunately Passion of the Present has lots of recent Sudan news posted.

Each of Us Can Help Darfur

I don't normally post columns or editorials, but I thought this one was pretty good.

From Jane Eisner of Knight Ridder

I had, until now, shied away from writing about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, on the weak but justifiable grounds that my job is to opine about national issues, and this was something happening on a distant continent.

Now I feel too guilty to stay silent.

Guilt works in mysterious ways, but not always in mysterious places. It's an especially potent tool in houses of worship, where we are more apt to dwell on how we should act rather than rehearse the list of easy excuses for inaction.

Guilt might have motivated the U.S. Senate to pass a resolution designating last weekend a National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection to draw attention to Darfur. When public officials don't do all they can to confront a humanitarian crisis, it's always handy to pass a resolution.

Guilt might even have motivated some of the nation's clergy to remind congregants that if we are all, indeed, God's children, then we can scarcely sit by as 300,000 people or more are slaughtered and nearly two million displaced.

I can attest: Guilt works. I heard this very message from my rabbi Saturday, and my conscience hasn't left me alone since. I can no longer pretend it's not in my job description to express outrage and demand action against what is being called the worst genocide since World War II.

Darfur Violence Drops but Rape Persists

From the AP

Rebels and government-backed militias in Sudan's Darfur region are still carrying out attacks, raping women and creating a climate of fear, although violence in the region has declined in the last year, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday.

While the number of civilians killed in Darfur has dropped from over 300 in January to less than 100 in June, people remain afraid to venture far from camps, Annan said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

Additionally, the number of people affected by the Darfur conflict increased from just over one million in May 2004 to 2.9 million in June 2005, he said. This includes nearly 1.9 million refugees still in Sudan, over 200,000 refugees in Chad, and nomads and other drought-affected people.

"Darfur may be a less active war zone than it was a year ago, but violations of human rights continue to occur frequently and active combat has been replaced by a suffocating environment of intimidation and fear, perpetuated by ever-present militia," Annan said.

Eric Reeves

The latest post from the New Republic blog

The larger point here is that A.U. troops alone are both insufficient and merely a default policy--one that frees the Bush administration and its feckless European allies from the need to contemplate humanitarian intervention on an appropriate scale. Our response to the crisis has been defined not by security needs in Darfur but by the capacity of the African Union. Human rights groups have, in the main, refused to articulate this difficult truth, and an under-manned, under-equipped A.U. deployment to Darfur remains the unchallenged policy of the international community.

Rice Pressures Sudan to Address Rape Problem

From the Washington Post

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Thursday with women who had been raped during a campaign of ethnic violence in Sudan's Darfur region, as she sought to pressure the government to deal with a problem that has persisted despite an apparent easing of the humanitarian crisis.

Rice heard the women's stories during a 90-minute stop at this sprawling camp of mud-brick homes, a showpiece that has become required stop for dignitaries visiting Darfur. Dozens of children greeted her with chants of "Marhab, marhab, [welcome] ya Condoleezza," but other camp residents were kept outside a compound of seven huts while she spoke with aid workers and the group of women, and gave a succession of interviews.

Rice met with about 15 women, who were shielded from public view in one of the huts, and emerged looking moved by their plight. She called their stories "unbelievable but . . . true," although she declined to discuss the details because she said she feared the women were vulnerable to retribution.

Surrounded by children clutching soccer balls in the blazing heat, Rice said she had a new appreciation for what she called "a devastating crisis for so many people," especially the women and children who told her "how hard life is here."

Andrea Mitchell's Experience in Sudan

NBC's Andrea Mitchell discusses Darfur and being manhandled by Sudanese security forces while travelling with Condoleezza Rice.

Here is a blog entry

So by the time we finally did get in, there were Sudanese officials saying, "Don't ask any questions," and American officials saying, "No agreements. No deals." And we went in, and I asked President el-Bashir why, in essence, anyone should believe his promises when his government has said repeatedly that it will stop the violence and then it continues to support the militias that are doing the killing. At which point two guys came up behind me, two of his armed security guards, and grabbed me from behind and started pulling me out the door. I tried to keep my balance so that I didn't go down. And they shoved me out the door.

And an interview

It is a vast desert area with shelters that are well constructed, better than just tents. They have some semi-permanent shelters, which is a positive and a negative sign, because it indicates that they don’t really have much hope of moving these people back to their homes.

The people here are afraid to talk about the violence against them.

There is also little suspicion about the conditions today. There were a lot of men there and this is basically a camp for women and children. So, we don’t know who was brought in and how much was show and tell.

Brian Steidle

From the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Committee on Conscience

In Darfur, My Camera Was Not Enough: Brian Steidle Wednesday, July 27, 3:30 p.m.

Rubinstein Auditorium

Brian Steidle, former United States Marine captain and member of the African Union monitoring team in Darfur, returned home with hundreds of photographs documenting the atrocities in Darfur. See these images and hear him speak about his experiences in Darfur and Chad.

In September 2004, Brian was invited to serve in Darfur as an unarmed military observer and U.S. representative with the African Union. He was armed only with a pen and his camera. While conducting investigations, he observed villages burned to the ground, hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians and the results of violent atrocities including the rape of women, the torture of men and the murder of children.

His conscience would no longer allow him to stand by without taking further action, and he became convinced that he could be more effective by bringing the story of what he witnessed to the world.

Rice says Sudan Has a "Credibility Problem" on Darfur

Gee, ya think?

From Reuters

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday told Sudan's president his government had a "credibility problem" on the issue of Darfur and she wanted to see "actions not words."

In a meeting marred by scuffles involving Rice's aides and Sudanese security officials, Rice told President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to stop violence, especially against women, in the remote western region of his country.

"I said to the Sudanese government that they had a credibility problem with the international community I have said; actions not words,"' Rice said in a round of interviews with journalists at a Darfur refugee camp.

A senior U.S. official traveling with Rice said the secretary of state told Sudanese officials the situation in Darfur was getting in the way of improved relations.

"On Darfur, her message was this is the obstacle to normalization," the official, who did not want to be named, told journalists traveling with Rice.

Hundreds of Thousands

CBS News

According to Natsios, the Abu Shouk camp is the second largest in Darfur. Two weeks ago, it had an estimated 71,000 residents but the Sudanese government has since moved some of them to a new camp nearby.

To grasp the continuing severity of the humanitarian crisis, Natsios says out of a total population of 5 million in Darfur, there are two million people in such camps, including 1.8 million inside Darfur and about 200,000 just across the border in Chad. The Abu Shouk camp had about 40,000 residents a year ago when Secretary of State Colin Powell visited.

How many died in the fighting? "Nobody knows," said Natsios. He estimates the number in the "hundreds of thousands."

Darfur Deaths Drop, Few Villages Left to Raze

From Reuters

Violence in Sudan's Darfur region has diminished greatly over the past year, partly because militia have run out of targets after razing countless villages, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

His report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday, said active combat had been replaced by intimidation and fear, perpetuated by an ever-present militia when homeless people leave refugee camps.

"The decrease in attacks on civilians may also be a function of a reduced number of targets," Annan said. "So many villages have been destroyed since the war began that there are now fewer locations for militia to strike."

Sudan Still Paying Militias Harassing Darfur

From the New York Times

The Sudanese government, after promising a parade of foreign leaders over the past year to rein in the violence in Darfur, is still paying regular salaries to leaders of militias there that continue to attack and kill civilians, say American officials and aid workers stationed in Sudan.

At least 180,000 people in Darfur have died since 2003.

International aid organizations say the attacks have diminished in recent months. But State Department officials say because government-financed militias and others have been so successful at intimidating or killing civilian residents, now almost everyone who might have been a target is either dead or living in a refugee camp. The camps, spread across Darfur and over the western border in Chad, now hold more than two million people.

Yet the militias remain armed and poised in the western provinces, American government officials say. The militias also continue to train and arm recruits. At a recent ceremony for 400 recruits, senior Sudanese military officers applauded the graduates, African peacekeepers who saw it told aid workers.

The International Crisis Group, a private organization, said in a report two weeks ago that militia leaders "remain on the payroll of the state governments," which are branches of the federal government. Colin S. Thomas-Jensen, media assistant for the group, said the information came from "interviews with government officials in Darfur who oversaw the payments to the militias."

Americans With Condoleezza Rice Manhandled In Sudan

From the AP

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a congratulatory round of meetings with officials of the new unified Sudanese government Thursday, but expressed outrage after security forces manhandled aides and reporters accompanying her.

"It makes me very angry to be sitting there with their president and have this happen," she said. "They have no right to push and shove."

Rice made her remarks to reporters after she and her entourage board an airplane to fly from the Sudanese capital to a refugee camp in the Darfour region.

After landing near the camp, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Sudanese foreign minister had responded to Rice's demand for an apology by telephoning her aboard the plane to say he was sorry for what had happened in Khartoum.

"Diplomacy 101 says you don't rough your guests up," Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson had said earlier as he and reporters were facing off with guards at the ultra-high-security residence of Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.

The guards elbowed Americans and tried to rip a tape away from a U.S. reporter. At another point, Rice's interpreter and some other aides accompanying her were blocked at a gate.

Ambassador Khidair Haroun Ahmed, head of the Sudanese mission in Washington, attempted to smooth over the situation on the spot. "Please accept our apologies," he told the reporters and aides. "This is not our policy."

Guernica

Via Passion of the Present we find out that past issues of Guernica Magazine have contained several pieces on Darfur.

Among them

An interview with Nicholas Kristof

An interview with Samantha Power

And a photographic slideshow from the Bahai Refugee Camp on the border of Chad.

Rice Urges End to Darfur Violence

From the AP

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says there has been progress in Darfur but the world will not accept mere promises from Sudan's new government to halt the violence.

Rice planned to visit a Darfur refugee camp that houses more than 70,000 people on Thursday. She was to meet privately with female refugees to discuss their claims that they face violence and rape inside and outside the camp.

En route to Africa, Rice indicated it can be an awkward task for the Bush administration to both encourage the new Sudan government and hold it accountable for Darfur.

"I'll admit it's not the easiest thing to manage these two tracks," Rice told reporters aboard her plane.

Eric Reeves

I strongly encourage you to read the entire post

There is no sign that normal agricultural production will resume any time in the near future. There is no sign that the insecurity confining people to camps for the displaced or villages under siege will be alleviated, even with the currently planned deployment of additional African Union personnel. There is no sign that the international community intends to fund humanitarian efforts in Darfur at an appropriate level. There is no sign that Khartoum's National Islamic Front, and the new government it dominates, has changed its genocidal ambitions, now best served by preserving the deadly status quo. There is no sign that peace negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria will yield more than the vaguely worded "declaration of principles" signed two weeks ago. And there is no sign of the international humanitarian intervention that might stop the genocide.

There are only signs that the dying will continue indefinitely.

Rice Says US Could Send Ambassador to Sudan Again

From Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held out the possibility of sending an ambassador to Sudan for the first time since 1997, in a sign of improving ties after the installation of a new government.

"We are looking to the day when we can put (ambassadorial) representation there, because obviously things are moving pretty quickly in Sudan," Rice told reporters en route to Senegal, where she arrived on Wednesday on her first trip to the continent as secretary of state.

[edit]

But Rice said such a move would depend on Khartoum resolving a conflict in the western region of Darfur and being removed from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

At a news conference in Dakar, she said she would demand on a visit to Khartoum and Darfur on Thursday that Sudanese leaders act to stop the violence, which she called genocide.

"I will start from the point it could also be a new day if this new government ... exercises its responsibility toward all the people of Sudan, including the people of Darfur," she said.

"We don't rely on words, we rely on actions," she added. "We have gotten some help from the Sudanese government but by no means enough."

UN Experts on Darfur Sanctions to Leave for Region Soon

From the UN News Center

A four-member expert panel appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to monitor an arms embargo in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region will be leaving soon for the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa where it is to be based.

The experts, mandated by Security Council resolution 1591 on 29 March, met yesterday with the Council Committee set up by the same resolution to monitor its implementation and will report back to the 15-member body within 90 days.

The resolution calls on all states to take the necessary measures to prevent the sale or supply of weapons and military equipment to belligerents in the conflict in Darfur, where at least 180,000 people have been killed and some 2 million displaced since fighting broke out in early 2003 between rebels, the government and its allied militias.

"Following organizational briefings and meetings in New York, the experts will depart in several days for Addis Ababa, where they will be based, and from where they will travel to El-Fasher and other locations in Sudan, in accordance with their mandate," Council President for July, Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis of Greece said after yesterday's meeting.

The experts are Gerard P. McHugh (Ireland), Ernst Jan Hogendoorn (Netherlands), Sherrone Blake Lobban (Jamaica) and Eustace Mainza (Zambia).

Security Incidents

From Humanitarian Hijinks

While posting these little rants to my blog may not exactly be a communications priority, reporting security incidents certainly is. And there have been a lot this month in North Darfur where I am working at the moment: it's rare that a day or a situation report passes by without at least one mention of attacks and robberies, be they on locals or aid workers.

[edit]

Today an African Union soldier who patrols around a checkpoint near Kebkabiya tells me that he had an interesting experience a few weeks ago - a group of Arab militia were passing through and suddenly stopped to complain to the AU about increased robberies and banditry in that area (no mention of the politically and ethnically motivated attacks, rapes and murders, but hey, what can you expect from militia?)

Yep, that's militia, complaining about too much violence. And the fact that someone should really do something about it.

It gets even better: only a few hours later, who should pass by the same checkpoint but a group of rebels (SLA). Making exactly the same comment about how the AU should really sort out all this banditry - it's simply getting unacceptable, all this violence.

I couldn't agree more. Shame that my definition of violence still seems to be a bit wider than theirs.

Memo to the Community on Darfur

From the Center for American Progress

Today Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice departs for her first trip to the Darfur region of Sudan, one year after Congress formally declared that the hundreds of thousands of killings, rapes and forced displacements occurring in Darfur constitute genocide.

Secretary Rice will have the opportunity to witness firsthand whether the steps taken by the Bush administration to stop the genocide have lived up to the promise that the pesident made in his second inaugural address: "[A]ll who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors."

Daily Darfur

From the Chicago Tribune

Sen. Barack Obama has snared a high-profile human-rights activist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and lecturer from Harvard to join his Senate staff, advising him on issues of genocide and the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Samantha Power, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," is expected to become a foreign policy adviser to the Illinois Democrat, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

From the BBC

Security in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region has improved significantly, says the commander of the African Union peacekeeping force

Festus Okonkwo said there had been no major battles since January and the number of village attacks had fallen.

But peace talks between the government and the increasingly fragmented rebels have so far achieved little.

Some 2m people live in Darfur's camps, driven from their homes by over two years of conflict.

From the UN News Center

Faced with a shortfall in funding for Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today appealed for $8 million to provide 100,000 more families with seeds and agricultural tools as a much more cost-effective means than emergency food aid in combating hunger.

“For one tenth of what is spent on food aid for a month, enough seeds can be purchased to help the same number of people produce their own food for several months,” FAO Emergency Coordinator for North Darfur Sara McHattie said.

From the Sudan Tribune

Despite its status as a state sponsor of terrorism and the conflict in Darfur that Washington has called genocide that keeps U.S. businesses and most international aid out, Sudan will be awash in revenues: oil money. More surprisingly, Sudan will also be counting on investments from some Americans - those whose pension plans invest in companies active in Sudan, mostly in the oil sector.

Eric Reeves

From the New Republic blog

None of this would be more than a debate about nomenclature if a finding of genocide did not hold the potential to dictate the need for humanitarian intervention in Darfur--the only response that can provide security for many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians at acutest risk and for humanitarian operations that are operating at the very limit of tolerable insecurity (at least one major aid organization has withdrawn because of the deaths of several of its workers). Genocide should not, of course, be the threshold for humanitarian intervention; but in the world as we find it, in the wake of genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda, the g-word has come increasingly to constitute a ghastly gold standard for international action.

Even with consensus on genocide, however, the simple political truth is that intervention, especially in the shadow of Iraq, will require extraordinary efforts to achieve legitimacy, and there are few signs that the U.N. will step forward. Absent U.N. action or direct intervention by Western democracies (ideally in the form of NATO troops), the currently deployed and deeply inadequate African Union force is all that stands as an international response. This ensures that the genocide will continue.

Interview with AMIS Head

From IRIN

QUESTION: What is your assessment of the current situation on the ground in Darfur, in military and security terms, and how does it affect the humanitarian situation?

ANSWER: Over the last few months the security situation on the ground in Darfur has generally calmed down in the sense that fixed combat between the parties - the two principal rebel movements and government troops - has more or less vanished. What we had in the run-up to the resumption of the Abuja peace talks in June, from May to the first half of June, was fighting between the rebel elements. I take it they were just skirmishes for territory in the run-up to the talks; that too has now died down.

What we now have is sort of usual banditry. From time to time inter-tribal fights flare up, but very sparingly. You can say the security situation on the ground is calm. That assists those who deliver humanitarian assistance to those in need.

However, because of other factors, not necessarily to do with the absence of security, the humanitarian situation is not really something cheerful, and the prognosis also doesn't look good. There are attacks on convoys, particularly food convoys, and fraud in the distribution of humanitarian materials in the camps. But all told, we as AMIS try to assist the humanitarian agencies and NGOs to do their work in a more peaceful environment. From a purely humanitarian point of view, I wouldn't say they have access everywhere, but there are many places they can go.

Right now the number of war-affected is rising; we are looking at something like three million. Quite a number - about 200,000 - are new arrivals, so there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Breaking Up Kalma

From Humanitarian Hijinks

Each day brings a new report of violent attacks inside Kalma, targeting water points, medical clinics, NGO compounds and IDPs themselves. Shootings have become a regular nightly occurence inside the camp, and even in Nyala town (45 min down the road) there are nightly armed break-ins into aid workers offices and guest houses.

Daily Darfur

The Sudan Tribune has made the text of the Declaration Of Principles for the Resolution Of the Sudanese Conflict in Darfur available.

From AFP

The Sudanese government has set up a committee to investigate and eliminate rape and other violence against women in the country's strife-torn western Darfur region, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said.

From The Christian Post

At a symbolically important ceremony in troubled Darfur, Sudan this weekend, Christian aid groups turned over control of a refugee camp to a local organization.

ACT/Caritas and Norwegian Church Aid congratulated the Sudanese Development Organization for being awarded responsibility of managing the Belil Camp in the southeast Darfur region.

In a statement, NCA noted that Saturday's ceremony can be seen as a precursor to a major change in how the war affected people in Darfur will be assisted.

ACT/ Caritas intends that when the regional conflict is resolved, that "ownership" of the entire relief operation can be transfered to Sudanese-run organizations.

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Committee on Conscience

Boots on the Ground: What can the African Union achieve in Darfur?

Wednesday, July 20, 3p.m.
Rubinstein Auditorium

Join us for a roundtable discussion, held in cooperation with the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, with governmental and non-governmental experts as they address the role of the African Union monitoring force in responding to genocide in Darfur. What is the current status of the African Union monitoring force? How could this force be further supported? Who should support it? What can the force achieve on the ground?

Speakers include:
Charles Snyder, Senior Representative on Sudan, U.S. Department of State Victoria Holt, Senior Research Associate, Henry L. Stimson Center Michael Larmas Smith, Independent Analyst Lt. Col. Joseph Nzabamwita, Defense Attaché, Embassy of Rwanda, Washington, D.C.
Sarah Martin, Advocate, Refugees International

RSVP to cocrsvp@ushmm.org. This is free and open to the public it is held at U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl, SW, Washington, DC, 20024. Metro: Smithsonian.

Eric Reeves - Guest Blogger

Via Mark Leon Goldberg we learn that the New Republic has turned its blog over to Eric Reeves for the week.

Be sure to check it out.

The Return of a Sudanese Survivor

A commentary from Julie Flint, an expert on Sudan and co-author of the Human Rights Watch report on Darfur entitled "Darfur Destroyed."

Garang is an enormously charismatic figure and has shown that he is willing to change to survive. But he faces two enormous challenges today: at the national level, to implement his enduring vision of a "new Sudan" alongside a regime he once described as "the Taliban of Africa"; and in the South, to turn the SPLM into a genuinely popular government open to dialogue and cooperation with the experts it so conspicuously lacks and now so desperately needs.

If he succeeds, and if Khartoum respects Naivasha, Garang may be able to sell unity to voters in six years' time. If he fails, Sudan will be set on the road to partition.

UN Sudan Envoy to Brief ICC

From the UN News Center

The top United Nations envoy for Sudan is headed to The Hague, to meet with the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating 51 people suspected of committing war crimes in the war-torn Darfur region.

Jan Pronk, head of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), is expected to meet with lead ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, to discuss the situation on the ground in Sudan's troubled in Darfur, where a two-year conflict between the Khartoum Government, allied militia and rebels in the region has killed at least 180,000 people and displaced nearly 2 million others.

Just last week, Mr. Pronk voiced hope the military leaders of Darfur's main rebel factions would accept a preliminary agreement between the Government and rebels aimed at ending the conflict. He also travelled to Asmara, Eritrea, and returned to Khartoum convinced that the Eastern Front is prepared to start serious negotiations with the Government with the aim of finding a lasting solution to the problems of Eastern Sudan.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the new government of Sudan this month that the peace process between North and South must be made irreversible – which it will not be, unless it takes root in the East and in the West as well.

Following his visit to The Hague, Mr. Pronk will then come to New York to brief the Security Council on Darfur and the state of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement's implementation between the Sudanese Government and Southern rebels.

Call to Action on Darfur

From AScribe

American Jewish World Service has spearheaded a coming together of major national Jewish organizations, denominations and hundreds of synagogues, federations and other Jewish groups to sponsor a unity statement demanding action to end the genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan.

The leaders of American Jewish Committee; American Jewish Congress; Anti-Defamation League; Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life; Jewish Council for Public Affairs; United Jewish Communities; and World Jewish Congress have joined American Jewish World Service, as well as the heads of every religious stream, large local federations, hundreds of synagogues and dozens of other Jewish groups to endorse a "Call to Action on Darfur" addressed to President Bush.

The effort was undertaken by American Jewish World Service (AJWS) as a way to convey the importance of this issue to all Jews, to focus energies from the Jewish community against this genocide, and to increase Jewish communal involvement in this effort.

"We are extremely proud of the Jewish community's grassroots response to this tragedy. We now want to be sure that all American Jews know the degree to which our leaders and our national communal organizations are fighting this fight," said Ruth Messinger, president and executive director of AJWS. AJWS launched a Sudan humanitarian aid and advocacy campaign in April 2004.

Last summer, more than 20 national Jewish organizations joined the AJWS-founded Save Darfur Coalition, partnering with other religious communities and important civil society leaders. Since then, hundreds of rabbis, congregations, Hillels, seminaries, Jewish community relations councils and other Jewish groups around the country have been involved and are continuing to give sermons, hold speak-outs and teach-ins, and engage in grassroots education, fundraising and advocacy efforts. The Jewish Coalition for Sudan Relief was formed to provide humanitarian aid funding to Sudan. And almost $1 million has been contributed to the AJWS Sudan Relief and Advocacy Fund.

"The Call to Action takes the Jewish response to a new level," said David Harris, executive director of American Jewish Committee. "In an extraordinarily unified effort, the leaders of the American Jewish community fully recognize that the lessons of history have taught us to confront genocide wherever it may occur; indifference or inaction is simply not an option," he said.

The two-page call to action includes background about the crisis and a call to President Bush urging him to "assert moral and political leadership, promoting immediate and comprehensive international intervention" in Darfur, Sudan to include:

Creating security through a larger international peacekeeping force with the expanded mandate and ability to protect all civilians;

Providing additional financial and logistical support for African Union troop training, mobilization and deployment to Darfur as part of that peacekeeping force;

Increasing funds for humanitarian assistance and facilitating its urgent delivery; and

Assisting in the reunification of families, their voluntary return to their lands and the rapid reconstruction of their homes, schools and communities.

American Jewish World Service plans to send the signed statement to the president by the end of July, has asked all signers to distribute the call to their constituents and provide information to them on how to take action, and intends to place full-page advertisements of the call in the coming months.

Pockets of Severe Malnutrition in Bahr al Ghazal

From IRIN

Several counties in the southwestern Sudanese region of Bahr el Ghazal are facing food shortages with thousands of people suffering from severe malnutrition, according to the UN World Food Programme and a famine early warning system.

"Almost 6,000 people were fed in therapeutic and supplementary feeding centres in four counties in Bahr el Ghazal in June," Laura Melo, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said on Friday.

Pockets of severe malnutrition had been noted in Twic, Gogrial, Aweil and Raga counties, she added.

"We are talking about 6,000 people in four counties. This is a very high number and a situation of great concern," she said, noting that WFP had provided food assistance to 230,000 people in the whole of Bahr el Ghazal in June.

In a separate report, the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) said existing food deficits and a lack of sufficient food aid, on top of this year's dry season, had resulted in extreme food insecurity in the region.

"Some households ran out of food two months before the 'hunger season' [June to August] began, mainly due to last year's poor harvest, in combination with significant reductions in the availability of fish, wild foods and milk," noted the report released on Wednesday.

Life During the Rainy Season

From Humanitarian Hijinks

The mosquitos are getting vicious and all the aid workers have suddenly become vigilant about taking their malaria tablets now that we are seeing more and more new cases break out in the camps every day.

The children are the worst because they are already weak and often malnourished, their little bodies are just completely overstretched. Most are eerily quiet despite their obvious discomfort, and it pains me to think that maybe they just don't know anything different. Having lived in the camps for more than two years now, they are growing up to think that this is a normal state of being, a regular part of life.

Daily Darfur

From KUNA

UN mission in Sudan said Saturday it was not its job to safeguard security in the troubled province of Darfur.

A UN official said in remarks here that the African Union (AU) was responsible for the security in Darfur in western Sudan.

The official underlined UN commitment to supporting Sudan by a peacekeeping force of 10,750 troops.

The protection of civilians is the responsibility of the Sudanese government, he added. He said the international forces would defend themselves if they were attacked.

From the AP

The two main rebel movements in Sudan's conflict-ridden western Darfur region have signed an agreement to stop all acts of enmities and friction between their supporters to maintain unity in the strife-torn province.

The agreement was signed late Sunday in the Libyan capital by the leader of the Sudan Liberation Army, Abdelwahid Mohamed el Nur and Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement. It called for "an immediate halt of all enmities and negative media campaigns and to resort to dialogue to solve any dispute between them."

The two groups agreed to release detainees, work to normalize relations and rebuild confidence and coordinate work on other issues.

From Reuters

Rwanda began sending more than 1,000 troops to Darfur on Sunday in a move that will quadruple the size of its contingent in an African force monitoring the troubled Sudanese region.

From the Sudan Tribune

The higher committee for resolving Darfur conflict, which is headed by the second vice-president of the Republic, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, was briefed on the joint UN-Sudanese government report.

This report will be sent to the UN Security Council at the end of this month.

The committee was also briefed on the humanitarian and security situation in the region, as well as the ongoing trials of suspects accused of committing atrocities in Darfur.

Rice to Visit Sudan

From AFP

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to Sudan next week for her first trip to the troubled African country since taking over as chief US diplomat, a US official said Friday.

[edit]

The official did not specifically say whether Rice would go to Sudan's war-ravaged western region of Darfur, where her deputy Robert Zoellick has just made his third trip in four months.

"Fatwa" Issued Against Garang and the SPLM

There is some important information contained in Eric Reeves' latest update. Under the terms of the peace accord, John Garang, head of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, was named First Vice President of the "unity" government last weekend.

Reeves reports that he does not have much political support in Khartoum and that Muslim clerics have issued a Fatwa against him and his party

The simple truth is that many powerful men in Khartoum are not prepared to accept peace, and this threatens not only Garang and Southern governance, but the entire CPA. An important Los Angeles Times dispatch (dateline: Rumbek, South Sudan) records the assessment of a number of “analysts [who] say Garang will need to survive the political machinations in Khartoum, where hardcore Islamists view him as an ‘infidel’ who should not even be allowed into the capital” (Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2005). Moreover, as Robert Collins, arguably the most distinguished historian of modern Sudan, notes:

“Arab extremists will be looking for opportunities to sideline Garang. ‘The hardliners in Khartoum are keeping their mouths shut and sharpening their knives,’ [Collins] said.” (Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2005)

It is no accident that several northern Sudanese have forwarded to this writer news of a “fatwah” issued against John Garang and the SPLM in Khartoum. The “fatwah” appeared on www.sudaneseonline.com (July 10, 2005), and a translation from the Arabic was provided to this writer:

“Twenty-five Muslim clerics in Sudan issued a Fatwa against the SPLM. The Fatwa forbids joining the SPLM as a political party, or even co-operating or dealing (in trade, renting of buildings, offices or houses to its institution). The Fatwa quotes numerous Islamic verses that a true Muslim shouldn't follow, support, co-operate or join the SPLM. The Fatwa stated that SPLM followers are either non believers or secularists who oppose the implementation of the Islamic Sharia (law) in Sudan. The Fatwa claimed that the SPLM is plotting against Muslims and Islam and that joining the former rebel Movement is like dealing with the devil and an enemy. And that forming an alliance with the SPLM is like fighting the Prophet Mohamed, which is the biggest offence in Islam. The Fatwa warned Muslims from cooperating with the SPLM, and that those who disobey the warning will be condemned to hell. The Fatwa was issued by 25 Muslim clerics who represent the little known Sharia Association of Sudan.” (www.sudaneseonline.com, July 10, 2005; translation provided)

Another northern Sudanese has sent this writer an email (July 8, 2005) reporting:

“The Al-Jazeera website reported that a fatwa was issued in Khartoum describing anyone who joins or cooperates with the SPLA as ‘Kafir’ and warned people not to join any political group formed by the SPLA or cooperate with it. The fatwa described such actions as apostasy and ‘Kufr.’ It warned landlords not to rent property to the SPLA in whatever form.”

The radically Islamist character of the NIF/National Congress, as well as other political forces in Khartoum, must not be underestimated; nor must their threat to Garang, the SPLM, and the peace agreement for South Sudan.

Refugees in Chad

In addition to housing some 200,000 refugees from Darfur, Chad also has 10,000 from the Central African Republic who need to be moved quickly, before rains cut them off from access to aid

Racing against the fast approaching rains in Chad, slowed by the lack of roads and facing the threat of bandits, the United Nations refugee agency said today it expects to complete within three weeks the relocation of 10,000 needy refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) who are threatened with being cut off from all aid.

Daily Darfur

From Bloomberg

Haroon Adam Sharif kicks at the dirt outside his cousin's hut and complains that he doesn't know how he and his two wives and 11 children will survive the ``hunger season'' in Sudan's Darfur region, where a two-year conflict has killed 180,000 people and driven 2 million from their homes.

The Irish aid agency Goal is distributing seeds to people in the volcanic rock hills of the Jebel Marra region who fled their homes after a government crackdown against rebels. Sharif, 53, says nomadic herders and government-backed ``Janjaweed'' militias bring their animals to graze as soon as the green shoots appear.

``I used to earn money by gathering firewood with my two donkeys, but the Janjaweed stole my donkeys,'' Sharif, who is a sheikh, or village leader, said in an interview in Bardani, about 650 miles (1,040 kilometers) southwest of Khartoum, Sudan's capital. ``Now, I earn some money working as a casual laborer on road projects or other people's vegetable gardens.''

Aid agencies led by the United Nations World Food Program are accelerating food distributions in Darfur, a region the size of France, to prepare for the three-month period between planting and the harvest called the hunger season. As many as 3.5 million lives are at risk in Darfur, according to the UN, which is distributing $561 million of food in the region.

From AFP

The speaker of South Darfur state legislature is among four people who have been held captive by ethnic minority rebels for nearly a fortnight, Sudan's official media reported Friday.

The latest from Eric Reeves

This past weekend’s inauguration of a new “government of national unity” (GNU) for Sudan, while unquestionably an historic event, hardly heralds immediate peace for either Darfur or Eastern Sudan, and does nothing to change the deteriorating situation on the ground in South Sudan, where critical transitional needs continue to be largely unfunded by the international community. This occurs even as famine conditions settle more deeply in Bahr el-Ghazal Province, Western Upper Nile, and elsewhere in this war-ravaged region. And a much larger crisis looms: South Sudan presently has no capacity to absorb the hundreds of thousands of returning refugees and internally displaced persons.

Much has been made of John Garang’s inauguration as First Vice President of the GNU; and certainly the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) has taken on enormous burdens of governance. But it is far from clear that Garang will be able to have any significant effect on the “northern” policies of the new Khartoum government, either in Darfur or increasingly violent Eastern Sudan.

Indeed, Garang will have exceedingly difficult challenges in organizing the governance of South Sudan, and securing the means for economic development as well as adequate humanitarian capacity. The South has endured over 20 years of extremely violent and destructive war, often directed by the National Islamic Front regime (as well as its predecessors) at civilians and civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, churches, refugee camps, even sites of humanitarian assistance.

Moreover, 300,000 people have already returned to the South in recent months, typically without any substantial resources; and many additional hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees are poised to return. Without emergency transitional aid---of appropriate size and urgency---many of these people will return to die for lack of food, potable water, shelter, and medical treatment. Addressing these issues is John Garang’s first obligation, and it is daunting.

The international community has been eager to use the occasion of the new GNU as a means of suggesting that progress can now be made on Darfur by virtue of Garang’s role as First Vice President. Though it is clear that Garang is deeply committed to halting ethnically-targeted human destruction in Darfur, a realistic assessment of the political situation in Khartoum suggests how little has changed in the power exercised by the National Islamic Front (which has for several years understandably sought to re-name itself innocuously as the “National Congress Party”), and how little control Garang has over the forces that sustain present genocide by attrition.

Laura Bush Meets With Kagame

From the AP

Bush did not speak publicly about the violence in another part of Africa, the Darfur region of Sudan. More than two years of conflict in Darfur have left tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million displaced. Arab, pro-government militias have mounted a counterinsurgency against black African rebels; many have compared the situation to Rwanda's genocide.

During a brief meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Bush did discuss Darfur. Before the session, the first lady had said she wanted Kagame's advice about how the U.S. should respond in Darfur.

Her spokeswoman, Susan Whitson, said afterward that Bush wanted to keep private the substance of her conversation with Kagame.

Food Aid Drops in Darfur Due to Security Problems

From DPA

Poor security and bad roads in Sudan's troubled Darfur region has forced a Danish aid agency to drop food aid from planes to reach needy people, reports said Thursday.

"Until now we have delivered food aid by truck, but attacks on the trucks and continued violence in combination with extremely bad roads has prevented aid deliveries on several occasions," Anne Sophie Laenkholm of the Danish Refugee Council told Danish news agency Ritzau.

Some six food drops during the coming 10-day period are planned in coordination with the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP), she said.

The Danish Refugee Council is responsible for relief to some 66,000 people in the Jebel Marra region in Darfur.

Exhausted and Drained

From Humanitarian Hijinks

As another week in Darfur draws to a close, I am exhausted and drained.

In some parts of North Darfur the rains have been pounding down on us poor aid workers like whips. The drops splatter onto the tin roofs of our little offices and compounds like machine gun fire - conversation is impossible, and you can barely hear yourself think.

Of course, we are the lucky ones. In the camps, everyone is scrambling to higher ground as tents collapse, plastic sheeting flies away, and homes are submerged in feet of water. The houses that people have built out of red mud bricks become veritable swimming pools and slides: everything and everyone is soaked.

Even in major towns the water can rise up to knee-level, and the children are practically submerged in the filthy brown slush. My heart aches when I think that there is no fresh change of clothing waiting for them at home; often, in fact, there is no home for them to return to. Sleeping in their soggy rags, five to a waterlogged straw mat, these kids are a sorry sight for anyone's eyes, even our hardened aid worker ones.

The fact that diarrhoea, malaria and other rainy season diseases are almost certainly lurking just around the corner makes it all even more depressing.

What About Kenya?

From AFP

Thousands of villagers in northern Kenya fled their homes in fear as new inter-clan violence wracked parts of the remote region after at least 77 people were killed in a brutal massacre and reprisal attacks this week, officials and residents of the area said.

Some 6,000 people from isolated communities sought shelter from potential revenge violence Thursday here in Marsabit, the region's hub about 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of the village of Turbi where Tuesday's bloody raid took place, they said.

"As a result of the fears, around 6,000 people have fled into Marsabit town," Farid Abdul Karid, the head of the Kenya Red Cross Society's disaster response unit, told AFP.

[edit]

The death toll from three days of clashes had stood at 76 earlier Thursday but after one of 10 Boranas reported killed on Wednesday was found alive but critically injured, the two new confirmed deaths brought the total to 77 dead, officials said.

The flight of the villagers and new killings came 48 hours after 300 to 500 heavily armed Borana raiders slaughtered 56 Gabra villagers, including 22 children, in Turbi on Tuesday.

At least 10 of the attackers were killed during and after the raid that was followed by a revenge attack in which nine Boranas, including four children, after Garbas pulled them from a car driven by a priest near Sololo.

Daily Darfur

From DPA

The African Union (A.U.) appealed Thursday for additional donor support to increase the strength of its troop presence in the troubled Sudanese province of Darfur to over 7,000.

Laura Bush is in Africa

Later Thursday, Bush was closing out a weeklong trip through Africa with a visit to Rwanda where she said she will be looking to President Paul Kagame to suggest how the U.S. can make sure that a genocide his country experienced more than a decade ago is not repeated in the Sudan's Darfur region or anywhere else.

She was being joined there by Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

A 100-day slaughter in 1994 by Hutu militias killed nearly half a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.

``I look forward to talking with both the first lady of Rwanda, as well as the president of Rwanda, about what the rest of the world can do in situations similar to this, like in Darfur, and see what they think is the best way for the world to help in situations like their genocide,'' the first lady said Wednesday to reporters.

The AP has more.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection

Committed to bringing an end to what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis, many Americans are focusing this weekend on the power of prayer.

From July 15 to 17, thousands of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim congregations will hold worship services, offer sermons and homilies, and engage in prayer for the people of Darfur, in western Sudan. Some 400,000 people in that region of Africa's largest country have died amid conflict over the past two years, and more than 2.5 million remain displaced and in danger.

AllAfrica offers this report

Members of the United States Congress joined with leaders of private relief and faith-based organizations Wednesday to focus renewed attention on the continuing crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. Religious groups across the country are participating in a Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Victims of Genocide in Darfur from July 15 through 17 to try to force action to stop the killing, which has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives over the past two years and left 2.5 million more in jeopardy.

In an unusual display of bi-partisanship at the U.S. Capitol, 20 Republican and Democratic Senators and Representatives spoke out, calling for a firm response to the ongoing crisis and urging Americans to join in prayer for the victims. "There is no difference between speaking out in support of something or remaining silent, if both allow genocide to occur," Rep. Steve Israel (D-New York) said. "We have an obligation to speak out for those who can't speak for themselves."

Joining the members of Congress at the event were representatives of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups and research and advocacy organizations. A total of 17 diverse organizations comprise the Weekend's co-sponsors, including Africa Action, Africare, American Jewish Committee , B'Nai Brith, Catholic Relief Services, International Crisis Group, the NAACP, the National Association of Evangelicals, National Council of Negro Women, Save Darfur Coalition, the Sudan Task Force, the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

From the Los Angeles Times

Garang faces a tough transition from military to political leader; Bashir, his official power diminished, also faces the International Criminal Court's investigation of the Darfur genocide. Still, if the two men are able to start building civil institutions and take good advantage of foreign aid, they could build a unified nation. They won't soon make Sudanese forget decades of murder and starvation, but they might be able to consign the civil war to a tragic chapter of history.

UN envoy has 'good reason to believe' rebel military will accept accord

From the UN News Center

The top United Nations for Sudan today voiced hope that rebel forces on the ground in the strife-torn Darfur region would accept a preliminary agreement between the Government and rebel factions aimed at ending a two-year-old war that has killed at least 180,000 people and displaced nearly 2 million others.

Returning from a two-day visit to North Darfur and El-Fasher, where he met with rebel military leaders, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative Jan Pronk said he had "good reason to believe that the Abuja process is supported at the field level."

What About the Congo?

More on yesterday's reported massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Two mass graves believed to contain the remains of 39 civilians killed on Saturday in Ntulumamba village, in Kalonge Chiefdom 75 km north of Bukavu, have been reported to the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), a UN spokeswoman said.

The spokeswomen, Sylvie van den Wildenberg, said on Wednesday from Bukavu that survivors revealed the graves and said they mostly contained the bodies of women and children. MONUC's Pakistani South Kivu Brigade dispatched an airborne Quick Reaction Force to investigate, along with UN civilian teams.

"This mission has the task of establishing those responsible for the massacre so that they will be hunted down," she said.

Liberal MP Wrestles With Foreign Affairs And Embassy To Get A Visa To Sudan

From Embassy Magazine in Canada

A Liberal MP who delayed a summer fact-finding mission to Sudan after being told this week he was denied a visa by the Sudanese Embassy in Ottawa is having his application reconsidered ­ and he believes the decision will be reversed.

On July 8, Borys Wrzesnewskyj postponed an informal Parliamentary "goodwill" investigation of the war-torn African nation originally planned for late-July.

He said he was forced into the decision after a phone call from an official at Foreign Affairs Canada (FAC). The government worker broke the news that his visa application submitted in mid-June had been rejected without explanation by Sudan's political office in Ottawa.

[edit]

The Sudanese trip is being self-financed by a politician from every major political party, and the tentative line-up includes Conservative MP Maurice Vellacourt, Bloc MP Francine Lalonde and NDP MP Alexa McDonough. Some of them are traveling on frequent flyer air miles.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, the principal organizer, said elected officials from Canada offer a unique perspective on democratic decision-making that may be useful to their counterparts in Sudan. "Sudan is on the cusp of a very important transition," he said. "A fact-finding mission is one way to establish a direct connection among people in positions of power in both countries to have a better understanding."

This week world leaders congratulated Sudan for inaugurating a new government of national unity that has promised to implement January's North-South peace agreement. "It's a time of optimism and peace," said Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

A separate conflict is still being waged by rebel forces in the Darfur region, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths since 2003. Two million more people have been uprooted from their homes.

If the visa issue is sorted out, the Parliamentarians plan to start their mission in the capital city, Khartoum, for an orientation and meetings with government officials and non-governmental workers. The legislators next plan to visit refugee camps in Darfur, before returning to Khartoum for a de-briefing and more discussions.

The group is expected to present its findings to their respective caucuses, and aim to hand over a combined report to the parliamentary Foreign Affairs committee.

National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Darfur

I receive this e-mail from Save Darfur, explaining why the Weekend of Prayer that I wrote about yesterday is important and what it hopes to accomplish

Thanks for the "appears to be the work of" credit, but in fact we were approached by Sens. Brownback and Corzine's offices to support their initiative. Our (very strong and immediate) support for it was based on three factors:

1) It will accelerate the commitment and visibility of elected officials to the crisis and encourage them to take stronger action (several elected officials are in fact hosting a large event on Wednesday);

2) It will accelerate the commitment and visibility of religious leaders, particularly evangelicals (with their disproportionate influence at the White House), to the crisis and encourage them to take stronger action; and

3) It will provide an excellent tool for reaching and teaching millions of people about the crisis (yes, millions -- the Catholic Church will be including Darfur prayers in all its masses during a weekend in early August). Most of these are people who would otherwise remain effectively unaware of Darfurian suffering and appropriate personal and U.S. responses.

You can't argue with that, though I still find it offensive that Congress appears to be substituting this resolution for passage of the Darfur Accountability Act.

And while I greatly respect and admire the work Save Darfur is doing, it is a little ironic that Congress has passed a resolution that is intended to raise awareness of a genocide that it apparently doesn't want to deal with.

Are members of Congress trying to get people engaged so that Congress has grounds for doing more on Darfur? Since when does Congress require grassroots activism to take action? If Congress cares about Darfur, it is more than capable of doing something about it on its own.

Or is Congress just passing this resolution in place of real action?

Daily Darfur

Everyday, there seem to be less and less news about Darfur - not because things are improving, but because the media seems to have stopped covering it.

From UPI

A former ally of the president of Sudan tells the BBC he has no great hopes for the country's new constitution and government.

Hassan al-Turabi had been imprisoned for an unsuccessful coup and was released two weeks ago. Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir recently signed a constitution that makes southern Sudan a semi-autonomous region.

John Garang, an Army officer turned rebel leader, became a vice president with authority in the south.

Turabi told the BBC Garang will be squeezed between two northerners. He said the Khartoum government should have included a vice president from the Darfur region in the west, which has been devastated by genocidal war.

From Reuters

The European Union named Finnish diplomat Pekka Haavisto as its first Special Representative to Sudan on Wednesday to coordinate its peacekeeping in the suffering Darfur region.

From Josehp Britt in the Washington Post

What responsibility do Arabs have to stop genocide being committed by Arabs?

Genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan, inflicted on mostly Muslim African tribespeople by the nomadic Arab militias called janjaweed with the enthusiastic assistance of the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, has been going on for over two years now. In response, nations from western and central Africa have sent peacekeeping troops; various Western countries, including the United States, have pledged many millions of dollars in aid. Western diplomats led by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick have worked feverishly to stop the massacres, rapes and forced relocations that the Sudanese government has employed as its weapons of choice.

Absent from the picture have been the other Arab states. This is exceedingly strange, and not just because most of Darfur's victims are Muslims. Darfur is thousands of miles away from any of the Western countries trying to stop the genocide there; even the African nations sending peacekeepers are remote. Meanwhile, Egypt, with a huge army, a modern air force and more contacts within Sudan than every Western country combined, has looked on while as many as 400,000 people have been slaughtered just beyond its southern border and has, in effect, done nothing.

What About the Congo?

In relative terms, Darfur has garnered a lot of media attention. Other places in Africa, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, have not, despite the fact that things such as this are happening

Assailants forced a group of villagers into their huts and set them on fire in eastern Congo, killing 39 people and injuring 17 others, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday.

The attack came late Saturday in Ntulumamba village, some 45 miles northwest of Bukavu, U.N. spokesman Kemal Saiki said. Communications with the remote area are difficult.

Villagers who managed to escape blamed Hutu rebels for the attack, but Saiki said this could not be independently verified. Some 10,000 Rwandan Hutu rebels operate in eastern Congo after fleeing their homeland following the 1994 genocide

A Prayer for the Dying

As Mark Leon Goldberg of the American Prospect reported back in April, the Bush administration was leaning heavily on congressional leaders and managed to stall, and probably killed, the Darfur Accountability Act.

As Goldberg explained, the bill

[E]stablishes targeted U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime, accelerates assistance to expand the size and mandate of the African Union mission in Darfur, expands the United Nations Mission in Sudan to include the protection of civilians in Darfur, establishes a no-fly zone over Darfur, and calls for a presidential envoy to Sudan.

Because of this pressue, the bill appears to be trapped in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Relations, presumably never to be seen again.

So what is Congress going to do now that sanctions, a no-fly zone and civilian protection are off the table? Apparently it has been reduced to "[encouraging] the people of the United States [to pray] for an end to the genocide and crimes against humanity and for lasting peace in Darfur, Sudan."

That's right, the US Congress has been reduced to calling on the American people to pray that somehow this genocide ends.

On July 1st, the US Senate quietly passed S.RES.186

A resolution affirming the importance of a national weekend of prayer for the victims of genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur, Sudan, and expressing the sense of the Senate that July 15 through July 17, 2005, should be designated as a national weekend of prayer and reflection for the people of Darfur.

The House passed a companion resolution (H.RES.333) just yesterday.

The key portion of the resolution reads as follows

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) supports the goals and ideals of a National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Darfur, Sudan;

(2) encourages the people of the United States to observe that weekend by praying for an end to the genocide and crimes against humanity and for lasting peace in Darfur, Sudan; and

(3) urges all churches, synagogues, mosques, and religious institutions in the United States to consider the issue of Darfur in their activities and to observe the National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection with appropriate activities and services.

This resolution appears to be the work of the Save Darfur Coalition, a vital organization that has done a great deal to raise awareness of the genocide - but what does it say about the level of US commitment to address this situation when Congress is unwilling to do anything beyond simply asking the American people to pray for the dying people of Darfur?

If members of Congress are truly concerned about the deaths of nearly 400,000 Darfuris, or the fates of an estimated 3 million more, they are certainly capable of doing more than quietly declaring a "National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection."

Save Darfur deserves credit for getting Congress to even do this much, but this resolution cannot absolve Congress of its pathetic failure to adequately address the situation in Darfur. If anything, it only serves to highlight the government's utter lack of concern.

Church Workers say Darfur's Real Fight is Over Resources

From the Catholic News Service

To an outsider, there does not appear to be much in Nyala to fight over: a lot of desert, a few camels and, for a couple months of the year when it rains, some green grass that provides a welcome respite from the otherwise omnipresent sand.

Yet church workers providing aid to some of the more than 2 million people displaced by fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region say that behind the violence lies a bitter struggle over diminishing supplies of water and arable land.

"This is a war that's first and foremost about resources," said Bjorg Mide, director of the ACT/Caritas Darfur Emergency Response, a program that brings together the world's Protestant and Catholic aid agencies in an effort to help people who have been chased from their homes by a scorched-earth campaign that many characterize as genocide.

Lost Lands

From Humanitarian Hijinks

I've been trying to be positive about the inauguation of the new Sudanese government this weekend: clearly, it's a big deal and everyone is fervently hoping that it will bring some much needed change to the country.

But today's it's back to business and, as expected, Darfur is still Darfur.

In their desperate attempt to show the world just how grand things really are getting around here the Sudanese government continues to press ahead with the relocation issue (particularly in those cases where a relocation of displaced communities suits their needs, like in Kalma camp).

Obviously, a big part of the relocation roadshow is getting some life back into those villages - and hell, who cares if the people living there are actually the original inhabitants?

All over Darfur, tribes allied to the Janjaweed militia are beginning to settle into their new homes, sow their fresh seeds and plough their new fields. Except of course the little huts and the ripe fields aren't actually theirs.

Daily Darfur

From the AP

The world's repeated promise of 'never again' in the face of mass human slaughter has become a hollow, meaningless refrain, the former U.N. commander in Rwanda said Monday.

Romeo Dallaire, the retired Canadian general who criticized world leaders for their failure to stop the 1994 Rwanda genocide, was typically outspoken when asked to comment on Monday's 10-year anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.

"Oh jeez, that 'never again.' Never again, we said that also in the late 40s when this outfit was building itself up," Dallaire told reporters. "Never again is not an instrument that's been effective."

From Xinhua

Uganda is to deploy 50 policemen in Sudan's western region of Darfur under an African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission, local press reported on Tuesday.

Lasting Peace for Sudan Now Within Reach

Here is Kofi Annan's statement at the inauguration of the new government in Khartoum over the weekend

The peace process between North and South must be made irreversible -– which it will not be, unless it takes root in the East and in the West, as well. As an immediate priority, therefore, the Government of National Unity must work to resolve the conflicts in Darfur and in eastern Sudan.

The humanitarian crisis in Darfur has been contained, but not resolved, for the moment, thanks to a massive international effort. But only a comprehensive political solution can bring an end to the conflict and suffering there. That is why we all welcome the Declaration of Principles agreed in Abuja a few days ago, just as we applaud the recent Cairo Agreement between the outgoing government and the National Democratic Alliance.

By the same token, I hope direct talks between this new Government and the movements in the East will now begin without delay. And I call on all armed groups that have not yet joined this national process, as well as members of the political opposition, to play their part in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement through non-violent, democratic means, and help prepare for free and fair elections in three years’ time.

The Longer View

Via Passion of the Present we get this piece from CJR Daily comparing CNN's coverage of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to its coverage of Darfur - it is more than a month old, but we just became aware of it

While it might not have been perfect, CNN's performance in 1994, in particular the use of images, far exceeds its skimpy coverage of the current conflict in Sudan. Simply put, if you watched CNN in the summer of 1994, you were made aware of a genocide taking place on a nationwide scale -- and you were given a working understanding of what triggered it.

The same cannot be said for the network's coverage of Sudan this year. These days there's a lot of talk from anchors and guests about the pictures they see, but the network doesn't actually have any footage. By CJR Daily's count, the last time CNN showed pictures from Sudan was March 15. At the time, Wolf Blitzer told viewers, "The images in the piece we're about to show you may be disturbing to some viewers." Disturbing? Yes, but necessary to get across the fact that brutal slaughter occurs on a daily basis in Sudan.

[edit]

Last July, former CNN White House correspondent John King offered a bit of on-air commentary about balancing Iraq and Sudan coverage. "It's the practice of 'Newsnight' every night to pay respects to Americans who have died in Iraq," he said. "The day when there are no more casualties to report can't come soon enough. If we applied that practice [paying respects] to civilians killed in the civil wars in Sudan, it would take up the entire broadcast, every night, for weeks."

But is the only alternative to ignore the situation altogether?

The truth is, when the press falls silent, it does more than just leave the rest of us in the dark; it also allows governments to fall silent. Until a passing reference at a press conference yesterday, it had been nearly 145 days -- five months -- since President Bush even made reference to the ongoing genocide, nearly 145 days during which the administration stayed clear of any engagement with the situation.

The second truth is, lack of access is not an excuse for a lack of coverage. Covering Darfur requires resources and dedication. The pictures CNN aired on March 15 were gathered by a former U.S. Marine who had recently returned from Darfur, demonstrating that where there's a will, there's a way, and that there are witnesses ready to be pressed into service. Some of them are even reporters, currently diverted to more airy and less somber assignments.

CNN just needs to find its way, so it can help those reporters get on theirs.

Can the African Union Do It Alone?

The Committee on Conscience will be hosting an event on July 20th that will

Explore the role of peacekeeping in Darfur at a roundtable discussion with Charles Snyder, United States Department of State; Victoria Holt, the Henry L. Stimpson Center; Mike Smith, independent analyst; Lt. Col. Joseph Nzabamwita, Embassy of Rwanda; and Sarah Martin, Advocate for Refugees International.

U.S. Sanctions on Sudan to be Lifted Soon

From UPI

Sudan and the United States have agreed on a timetable for lifting U.S. unilateral sanctions on the African country, officials said Monday.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail said the two countries also agreed to lift Sudan from a U.S. list of states supporting terrorism and to step up diplomatic representation to the level of ambassador.

Be A Witness

The Center for American Progress and the Genocide Intervention Fund have launched a new campaign entitled Be A Witness

Genocide is the ultimate crime against humanity. And a government-backed genocide is unfolding in the Darfur region of the Sudan. As the horror in Darfur continues, our major television news networks are largely missing in action.

During June 2005, CNN, FOXNews, NBC/MSNBC, ABC, and CBS ran 50 times as many stories about Michael Jackson and 12 times as many stories about Tom Cruise as they did about the genocide in Darfur.

Whether it is coverage of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s, or recent coverage of the tsunami, television news can help stop grave injustices and end human suffering. Increased television coverage of the genocide in Darfur has the power to spur the action required to stop a devastating crime against humanity.

Genocide in Darfur is happening right before our eyes. Ask our networks why we can't see it.

They provide a fascinating breakdown of new coverage by the likes of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC.

Check it out.

Daily Darfur

From the Financial Times

John Garang, a former rebel leader, was sworn in as Sudan's vice-president over the weekend, marking a significant move forward for a peace process that ended a 21-year civil war in Africa's largest nation.

The swearing-in ceremony on Saturday, which also saw Mr Garang and his former enemy, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, sign a new interim constitution, was the first big step in the setting up of a transitional government many hope will help solve the volatile country's numerous other problems.

Mr Garang is the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, which fought Arab, Muslim-dominated northern governments for a greater share of power and wealth for the impoverished, largely animist and Christian south.

The New York Times has more.

From the AP

The leader of Sudan's main opposition party criticized the new interim constitution as deficient on Sunday and said he was forming an alliance with a leading Islamist figure to monitor the freshly sworn-in government.

The constitution was signed into being on Saturday following the swearing in of the former rebel leader John Garang as Sudan's first southern and Christian vice president.

On Sunday, former Prime Minister Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi said he welcomed the power and wealth-sharing rights gained by southern Sudanese in the peace deal that led to the formation of the new government and the interim constitution. But he criticized the constitution itself, saying it was a bilateral pact that did not include other groups.

"We think it is a deficient constitution in many ways," al-Mahdi, who heads the opposition Umma Party, told a news conference.

From the UN News Service

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today hailed the inauguration in Sudan of its Government of National Unity and called for efforts to resolve the country's still-simmering conflicts, particularly in Darfur.

“The peace process between North and South must be made irreversible - which it will not be, unless it takes root in the East and in the West as well,” Mr. Annan cautioned at a ceremony in Khartoum attended by the new leaders of Sudan. “As an immediate priority, therefore, the Government of National Unity must work to resolve the conflicts in Darfur and in Eastern Sudan.”

From Reuters

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said a new unity government in Sudan was a step towards improving ties with Washington, but action to end the conflict in Darfur was needed for sanctions to be lifted.

Zoellick attended the swearing in on Saturday of former southern rebel chief John Garang as first vice president, marking a new era after two decades of north-south civil war.

But he said a southern peace deal signed in January needed to extend to a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur.

From Reuters

Sudan's new presidency on Sunday lifted the state of emergency in Sudan, except in the conflict-torn regions of Darfur and the east, a statement from the presidential palace said.

Time Magazine looks at efforts to get compaines to divest from Sudan.

Darfur Rain Update

From the Famine Early Warning System Network

Seasonal rains have set in over most of Darfur and Eastern Chad hampering access to IDPs and refugees. All efforts should be made to provide refugees and IDPs with shelter and to preposition or distribute relief supplies to last through the rainy season. While large towns in Darfur are accessible, surrounding areas face access difficulties. Rains have already cut off certain areas in West and South Darfur. In addition, the rains are limited fuel deliveries and contributing to fuel shortages in Sudan. Over the next month the rains will advance to their furthest northern positions and continue to hamper transport throughout the region.

More on the Incidents in Darfur Camps

From the UN News Service

United Nations agencies in Sudan’s war-wracked western Darfur region were forced to withdraw staff today from most camps in an area hosting up to 70,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) when aid workers preparing for food distribution came under attack by groups of young men armed with sticks and stones.

Eight workers were hurt - one of whom, while not seriously injured, was still in hospital, according to initial reports.

Daily Darfur

From IRIN

The African Union (AU) warned on Friday that it faced a US $200 million shortfall for its peacekeeping operations in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur.

From the International Organization for Migration

The immediate and long-term needs of Sudan must not be sidelined by the international community as the country heads into a new phase, said IOM Director General, Brunson McKinley, before leaving for the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Mr. McKinley will be attending the inauguration of the Government of National Unity tomorrow.

Despite a donor conference in April to help rebuild southern Sudan, during which more than $2 billion were pledged, funding for humanitarian programmes remains largely unmet. As those displaced by the 21-year conflict either return to their former homes or make plans to, the need for facilitating voluntary returns and providing reintegration assistance is becoming ever greater.

There are an estimated six million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sudan with at least four million of those displaced by the war in the south. A majority of those are likely to return according to a new survey carried out by the IOM in partnership with the Sudanese government, UN agencies including OCHA, UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

From Reuters

Refugees in West Darfur attacked aid workers with sticks and stones on Friday as they tried to register them for food rations, United Nations agencies said.

The registration came at the request of refugees who said some of those claiming aid were not bona fide recipients.

"They were attacked with sticks and stones. At least eight people were wounded," World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told a news briefing in Geneva.

From AFP

Bandits are exacerbating the fragile situation in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, threatening people's access to much-needed humanitarian supplies, the United Nations warned Thursday.

Bandits are not only stealing food and other items from people along main supply routes in the region, but they had resorted to murder, "killing truck drivers bringing food to the people," UN envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk said.

"It is extremely serious," Pronk told a press conference in Khartoum.

Security Incidents in Darfur Camps

From UNHCR in several camps for the internally displaced around El Geneina in West Darfur. The incidents erupted as a registration exercise for food distribution was starting. The registration is conducted by WFP, with UNHCR ensuring the inclusion of vulnerable displaced people among the displaced. Initial reports from UNHCR staff indicate that as people were lining up to be registered, some groups of young men armed with sticks and stones began attacking aid workers who were supervising the registration. UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF as well as all NGOs withdrew from most of the camps, which include Krindring I and II, Ardamata, Dorti and Abu Zar. Some of our teams are being escorted back to El Geneina by African Union forces. Some minor injuries have been reported as well as damage to vehicles. But we're still awaiting further details. There are an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 internally displaced in camps around El Geneina. In all, about 2 million people are displaced in Darfur.

UN Envoy Seeks Darfur Peace Deal by Year End

From Reuters

Sudan could begin peace talks with eastern rebels in August, the top U.N. envoy in the country said on Thursday, adding he hoped for a full peace deal by the end of the year between the government and rebels from the western Darfur region.

But Jan Pronk said the declaration of principles (DOP) signed between Darfur rebels and the government on Tuesday in the Nigerian capital Abuja needed to be translated into action on the ground.

He urged the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) to release 10 aid workers held hostage, and told the government to reprimand a military commander who was firing mortars over an aid agency's headquarters in the tense region of Golo in central Darfur.

"(Eastern) talks could start sometime in August," Pronk told reporters in Khartoum. He declined to give further details.

"Peace before the end of this year," he said of Darfur, "that's the objective."

Hunger Strike for Darfur

Nathan Kleinman has gone on a Hunger Strike for Darfur

At sundown on June 30th, 2005, I began a hunger strike in solidarity with the 3.5 million civilians on the brink of starvation in Darfur, western Sudan. I will be stationed in front of the White House every day—except when I'm organizing, or sleeping, which is not allowed in Lafayette Park—until the world takes appropriate notice of what President Bush has now repeatedly called genocide. I will consume only water until steps are taken to stop this heinous crime. The approaching G8 summit presents world leaders with a tremendous opportunity to come together and take action.

Humanitarian Hijinks: On the Ground in Darfur

I just recently found out about this blog from Passion of the Present and have added it to our "Darfur Resources" collection. I highly encourage you all to read it

So as of last night we have a peace plan. Except it's actually nothing more than another declaration of principles. Negotiators in Abuja have placed their signatures on a document and made plenty of self-congratulatory statements in which they agreed to 're-convene' on August 24th to discuss what they actually mean when they say they are making peace.

To those of us who are counting, that's the sixth time in more than two years that the Sudanese government has signed an official agreement promising to protect its citizens from violence. Another neatly bundled package of already broken promises. Unfortunately, it's also another excuse for the international community to pretend that the situation in Darfur is improving. That, yes, peace is clearly on its way.

Nato Airlifts Peacekeepers into Darfur

From IOL

Nato has started a three-month airlift of African peacekeepers into Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, the alliance said today.

In a statement, Nato said the operation began with the deployment of Nigerian troops into the region last week. It said the airlift would continue into September.

"We Have Learned Nothing from Rwanda"

The latest from Eric Reeves

Are we going to repeat what happened in Rwanda?” asked UN Secretary-General Annan in a recent BCC documentary (July 3, 2005). Annan posed the question again: “Is [Darfur] going to be another Rwanda?” Asked about how history “would judge the international response [to Darfur],” Annan said: “Quite likely that we were slow, hesitant, uncaring, and that we have learned nothing from Rwanda” (Reuters, July 3, 2005).

While such an honest assessment is surely welcome, its belatedness and expediency---coming only in the third year of ethnically-targeted human destruction in Darfur---must be noted as well. For this is not the first time Annan has invoked Darfur in the context of Rwanda. Precisely fifteen months ago, in marking the grim tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Annan (who was head of UN peacekeeping at the time of the Rwandan genocide) declared that the atrocities being reported in Darfur “leave me with a deep sense of foreboding” and, further, that “whatever the language we use” to describe atrocities in Darfur, “the international community cannot stand idle.”

In fact, the international community has been largely idle in confronting those responsible for “atrocities in Darfur,” and Annan must again bear a good deal of the responsibility. A significant new report today (July 6, 2005) from the International Crisis Group (see below) offers the most compelling account available of the need for a more robust international response in Darfur. And in arguing for humanitarian intervention that will almost certainly require NATO troops, the International Crisis Group demonstrates a courage and specificity that have eluded Annan for well over a year.

Here it is worth bearing in mind that on April 7, 2004 Annan explicitly spoke of humanitarian intervention in Darfur, and concluded his remarks on this terrible occasion by declaring that,

“wherever civilians are deliberately targeted because they belong to a particular community, we are in the presence of potential, if not actual, genocide.” (UN News Center, Reuters, and other wire services, April 7, 2004)

And yet for over two months nothing followed from this extraordinary assessment.

Daily Darfur

The Genocide Intervention Fund reports that GIF member Stephanie Nyombayire will be named ABC News's "Person of the Week" on July 8.

From the State Department

The United States congratulates the parties on their signing of the Declaration of Principles for the Resolution of the Sudanese Conflict in Darfur. We welcome the agreement of the Government of Sudan, Sudan Liberation Movement, and the Justice and Equality Movement to the declaration’s 17 points that now provide a framework for negotiations on wealth and power- sharing as part of a Darfur political settlement. We urge the parties to undertake these negotiations quickly in order to achieve peace and reconciliation in Darfur.

From Kofi Annan

The Secretary-General welcomes the signing -- by the Government of Sudan, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement -- in Abuja on 5 July, of a Declaration of Principles for the Resolution of the Conflict in Darfur. The Declaration signals the parties’ intention to bring to an end the conflict in Darfur. The Secretary-General congratulates African Union mediator Salim Ahmed Salim and the United Nations team which participated in the negotiations on the successful conclusion of this stage. He encourages the parties to move forward decisively and promptly when they restart talks on 24 August and to conclude a lasting political settlement to bring an end to the enormous suffering of the people of Darfur.

From the Rutland Herald

A war of genocide taking place some 6,000 miles away came to Rutland Wednesday.

About 50 people, including Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., gathered in the Fox Room at the Rutland Free Library to hear two speakers talk about the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that in just two years has claimed about 300,000 lives and displaced millions of civilians.

The discussion focused on the roots of the conflict and what America and average citizens could do to stop the bloodshed.

The two speakers were Peter Galbraith, president of Vermont InterFaith Action, and Daniel Akol Aguuek, who grew up in southern Sudan before he escaped and was eventually able to come to the United States, where he has lived for the last four years.

From AFP

Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir is preparing to share power with former foes in the south he relentlessly fought until a January peace deal, as two other rebellions continue to tarnish his rule.

"I will deal with him soldier to soldier," Beshir, said shortly after seizing power in a military coup in 1989, in reference to southern former chief rebel John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

But six months after their 21-year-long conflict ended with 1.5 million people dead, Field Marshal Beshir and Colonel Garang are about to lead Sudan during at least four years of the six-year interim period in line with the January 9, 2005 agreement.

Beshir will stay on as president and Garang will become vice president on Saturday, until general polls are held four years later.

Minh-Duc offers some thoughts about what to do in Darfur at State of Flux.

Chinese Investment in Africa

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer did a piece on China's investments in Africa that touched on its relationship with Khartoum

More Sino-Sudanese ceremony, a new extension to the multimillion-dollar Khartoum refinery. Western oil companies are watching in dismay as China moves onto their turf. America's had financial sanctions against Sudan for more than a decade because of the government's links to militant Islamist groups. A Canadian company withdrew its oil investment because of pressure from shareholders over human rights. But there are no such obstacles in the path of the Chinese, to the delight of the Sudanese government.

AWAD AL JAZ: Business is business. No other business besides the business.

LINDSEY HILSUM: In Darfur, government-sponsored militias have driven up to two million people from their homes. Women have been raped; men murdered. But China certainly wasn't going to support oil sanctions or harsh U.N. Security Council resolutions. The resolutions were watered down, so China abstained and didn't veto.

AWAD AL JAZ: We don't feel any interference in our Sudanese local business, or interfering any of our traditions or politics or beliefs or behaviors. So they just devote their time and their energies to do business as we planned for, and as we agreed to.

LINDSEY HILSUM: The oil at Higleig lies beneath grazing land and villages which were disputed in decades of war between North and South. Conflict and discrimination kept people poor; development scarcely touched them. The roads the Chinese built to bring in supplies should help the area develop, and some people have benefited from electricity extended to their homes. But government attacks forced many more thousands out, as land was cleared of people to make way for oilfields. The refugees now live in poverty in Khartoum. They have their own perspective on the Chinese.

MAN (Translated): Investment is good. It will develop our land. But the most important thing is how we are treated. In the end, the Chinese must go home. This is not their country. Then, this will all be ours.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Chinese weapons: During the North/South war, which ended only this year, government defectors demonstrated the small arms they'd used. They were assembled in three Chinese-built factories just outside Khartoum. The European Union and the U.S., meanwhile, have an arms embargo on Sudan. China's influence is growing, and not just in Sudan, as African governments realize just how useful a little competition can be.

New Constitution Provides Sweeping Immunity

From Amnesty International

The new Interim Consitition for Sudan, ratified today, provides sweeping immunity for the highest levels of the Sudanese government and demonstrates that the government is not serious about combating impunity, said Amnesty International.

The organization added that this provides further evidence that the government of Sudan should not sideline the International Criminal Court in favour of national prosecutions of possible war crimes committed in the armed conflict in Darfur.

Darfur Situation Remains 'Very Fragile'

From AFP

The situation in Sudan's troubled Darfur region remains "very fragile" despite a lower number of deaths, a senior US State Department official said Tuesday.

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told reporters the lull in violence in the strife-torn western region must be consolidated with the help of the incoming national unity government.

"There's fewer deaths, but it remains a very fragile situation," Zoellick said. A UN report last week said there was a considerable drop in the mortality rate in Darfur, though the health situation there remains precarious.

[edit]

"The militia situation remains basically as it was before," Zoellick said.

"The militias aren't attacking people, but no one told the militias to stand down either."

He added that "the Sudanese military have pulled back, but you still have a lot of banditry, and you even have rebel on rebel conflicts."

He warned that African Union peacekeepers who have been deployed to monitor a ceasefire, signed last year, would not have the strength to confront Sudan's military or even the Janjaweed militia.

Sudan, US to Upgrade Diplomatic Representations

From Xinhua

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail said on Tuesday that Sudan and the United States will upgrade diplomatic representations in months.

Ismail, currently in the Libyan port city of Sirte for an AU summit, told Sudan's official SUNA news agency that relations between Sudan and the United States are improving, but the ties have not reached normal level.

He said that a joint committee of foreign ministries in the two countries has been established to discuss ways of normalizing bilateral relations.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

The U.N. Security Council delayed for more than three months setting up a system to impose sanctions on individuals in Sudan's Darfur region because of a dispute over a required panel of experts, diplomats said on Tuesday.

The latest report from the International Crisis Group

The AU's Mission in Darfur: Bridging the Gaps

The international community is failing in its responsibility to protect the inhabitants of Darfur, many of whom are still dying or face indefinite displacement from their homes. New thinking and bold action are urgently needed. The consensus to support a rough doubling of the African Union (AU) force to 7,731 troops by the end of September 2005 under the existing mandate is an inadequate response to the crisis. The mandate must be strengthened to prioritise civilian protection, and a force level of at least 12,000 to 15,000 is needed urgently now, not in nearly a year as currently envisaged.

From the AP

Sudan and two Darfur rebel groups signed a "declaration of principles" Tuesday aimed at helping bring peace to Darfur, but failed to reach a comprehensive deal to stop the violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Sudan's western region.

At the end of the fifth round of peace talks, representatives from the government, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement signed a three-page document agreeing to broad commitments, including respecting Sudan's unity, upholding democracy and "justice and equality for all, regardless of ethnicity, religion and gender."

The document also proposed "an effective devolution of powers" to regional authorities and said that Darfur's people should be ensured of a role in all levels of government.

But how to best share power and wealth would be decided at a later date, the document stated. Talks are set to begin anew Aug. 24, mediators said.

From IRIN

The mortality rate in the strife-torn Darfur region of western Sudan declined significantly in 2004, but the general health situation remained of concern, according to the preliminary findings of a survey coordinated by the UN World Health Organization.

From the New York Times

A crayon drawing by "Taha," who is 13 or 14 and lives in North Darfur, showed helicopters in the sky and houses engulfed in flames. "Now my nights are hard because I feel frightened," says the label accompanying the drawing. "We became homeless."

And on another label there was this from 13-year-old "Salah," from West Darfur, who drew men mounting women or pointing guns at one another: "The women were screaming. They seized them, they took them by force. The pretty ones were taken away ... girls were taken, small girls, too, I think 5 and 7 and 14. Some came back after four or five hours. ... Some we haven't seen again."

The 27 drawings that went on display yesterday at New York University depict the world of the young artists, Darfur refugees who escaped the killings in Sudan. So their crayon and pencil offerings show rape, men on horseback with guns, burning villages and helicopters raining weapon fire from the sky.

The exhibition, "The Smallest Witnesses: The Conflict in Darfur Through Children's Eyes," will be on display through Sept. 6 at the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at New York University. The work of the children, who range in age from 8 to 17, was collected in February by researchers from Human Rights Watch, an independent human rights organization.

More on the Preliminary Peace Agrrement

From Reuters

The parties to peace talks on Sudan's Darfur region on Tuesday signed a declaration of principles, a breakthrough in negotiations aimed at settling a 2-1/2 year conflict that has killed tens of thousands.

But the broad declaration left the nitty-gritty of a comprehensive peace settlement for later and the talks were adjourned until August 24.

"This is the beginning of the road to peace," said Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur, president of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel group, in a speech at a signing ceremony.

It took more than three weeks for delegates from Sudan's government and two rebel movements to agree on the document.

"In order to gain momentum and give people sufficient time to prepare themselves, we shall recommence the next phase of our deliberations on August 24," said Salim Ahmed Salim, head of the African Union (AU) mediation team.

The declaration includes calls for refugees to be brought home and for new security arrangements, as well as more long-term principles such as respect for different ethnic and religious groups and equitable distribution of national wealth.

"Broad security arrangements to consolidate the restoration of peace shall be addressed in the context of a comprehensive agreement," the document says.

Peace Agreement Signed on Darfur

From the AP

Better times may be at hand for Sudan's troubled Darfur region.

The Sudanese government and two rebel groups have signed an agreement on how to resolve the conflict in that area.

The three all signed the declaration of political principles, which outlines a long-term solution to the crisis.

It is estimated that the conflict has resulted in about 180-thousand deaths.

It began more than two years ago when mainly ethnic African rebels launched an uprising against what they say were decades of neglect.

Sudan's Arab-dominated government and pro-government Arab tribal fighters are charged with retaliating by launching coordinated attacks on ethnic African farmers.

Africa Key Topic for Security Council in July

From the UN News Center

The Security Council will devote a considerable amount of its time this month to various situations on the African continent, and will also spotlight the Council's role in humanitarian crises, the new President of the 15-nation body said today.

[edit]

On the 22nd, the Council would be briefed by the head of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) Jan Pronk, hopefully along with a representative from the African Union (AU). Ambassador Vassilakis said the situation in Sudan's western Darfur region remained worrying political will to move forward on both political and humanitarian fronts.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

Rwanda will send at least 1,200 troops to Darfur in mid-July to prevent further conflict in the troubled Sudanese region, Foreign Minister Charles Murigande said on Monday.

From the Christian Science Monitor

There's something wrong with this picture. Here in Khartoum, a building boom is under way with plenty of air-conditioned office buildings, wide, freshly paved boulevards, new cars, and a new enormous shopping mall.

Inside the air-conditioned "Afra" mall, a consumer can find just about anything desired. Anchored by a Wal-Mart-sized emporium that sells everything from fresh food to toys, clothing, televisions, and appliances, the mall has an assortment of stores with well-known names like Giordano and Pierre Cardin. Upstairs, a movie theater sits next to a bowling alley and a room of pool tables. Sudanese shoppers, dressed mostly in traditional white robes for the men and colorful wrapped dresses for the women, look healthy and joyous.

The scent of money engulfs the place, a carefree way of life for the fortunate Sudanese who are well-heeled, possibly the beneficiaries of new oil money, investment from the outside, and a miniboom created by a huge expatriate aid community.

What makes the picture seem grotesquely distorted is the scene a thousand or so miles to the west of Khartoum where, in the past couple of years, as many as 200,000 people have died and 2 million have fled their homes in a civil war between antigovernment insurgents and the government-supported Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.

From Lusaka

The African Union has expressed concern over the slow pace of negotiations between warring parties in Sudan's Darfur region where at least 180,000 people have been killed and more than two million people driven from their homes since fighting broke out in 2003.

The AU concerns come barely two days after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan criticised the developed world for being too slow to respond to the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.

From Reuters

The European Union will name a special representative to Sudan in coming weeks to coordinate the bloc's peacekeeping efforts in the suffering Darfur region, an EU official said Monday.

From Reuters

African forces deployed to prevent further fighting in Sudan's Darfur region are underfunded, the head of African Union (AU) peacekeeping said on Monday.

From Fergal Keane, author of "Season of Blood"

I have no doubt that in a few years time there will be investigations by the United Nations and the EU and several others into why the world failed the people of Darfur.

We already know why, just as we did in Rwanda.

We cared, but we did not care enough.

Passion of the Present has lots of other news.

Humanitarian Efforts in Sudan Face $1.3 Billion Shortfall

From the UN News Service

Programmes providing humanitarian assistance and protection in Sudan and supporting the recently-signed peace agreement there face a $1.3 billion funding shortfall out of the $1.9 billion needed for 2005, the United Nations warned today.

As UN agencies met with their non-governmental partners in Geneva on a new plan of work for the country, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that only $643 million of the needed funds have been received so far.

Worse-than-expected crop failure and new displacement in conflict areas led in May to an upward revision of the estimate of total funds needed for the country, which was ravaged by a decades-long civil war in the south and separate conflict involving rebels, the Government and militias in the Darfur region since 2003.

Other factors that have increased funding requirements include mine clearance activities, repair of transportation infrastructure, increased assistance to support the spontaneous return and reintegration of displaced persons and increased activities to support the peace agreement in the areas of governance and law and order, OCHA said.

Darfur Mortality Update

The latest from Eric Reeves

[A]pproximately 3.5 million people are now conflict-affected, with many populations experiencing significantly higher mortality rates than those captured in the UN study. Assuming a global Crude Mortality Rate (CMR) of .9 (.1 higher than the UN mortality study of only accessible areas), and subtracting .3 (what UNICEF suggests is a “normal” CMR for Darfur), monthly mortality in Darfur that can be attributed to violence, disease, and malnutrition stands currently at over 6,000 (derived from a conflict-generated CMR of .6 for a population of 3.5 million x 30 days=6,300 “excess” deaths per month).

If this monthly mortality rate, for the period November 2004 to May 2005, is included as the governing rate for the most recent global mortality assessment by this writer (April 30, 2005), a revision downward of approximately 40,000 is dictated in calculating the current (June 30, 2005) total mortality, or a figure of 360,000 dead.

Daily Darfur

From AFP

Eritrea has accused the Sudanese government of committing "horrendous crimes" in Darfur and "atrocities" in eastern Sudan but renewed denials that it is providing military support to rebels in the east.

From Reuters

Sudan's state of emergency will end on July 9 when its new presidency is sworn in, but areas in the east and west could remain under emergency law because of continued conflicts there, an official said on Friday.

Yasir Arman, spokesman for the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which will form a coalition government next week, also said leader John Garang will arrive in the capital on July 8 for the first time in more than two decades to take up the post of first vice president.

"The state of emergency is going to be lifted immediately on July 9," Arman told Reuters.

From Human Rights Watch

At the African Union summit next week, African leaders should put the protection of civilians in Darfur at the top of their agenda, Human Rights Watch said today. Leaders of the pan-African organization’s 53 member states will meet in Sirte, Libya on July 4-5.

“The African Union deserves credit for leading the efforts to restore security to war-torn Darfur,” said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “More African Union forces need to be deployed across Darfur to protect civilians and help reverse ethnic cleansing.”

From IRIN

"We estimate that there are about 4,000 child soldiers remaining in the SPLM/A [Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement/Army]," Una McCauley, child protection officer with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Operation Lifeline Sudan, said.

Some 10,000 other children are thought to be associated with other armed groups in southern Sudan, mainly pro-government militia. Many were selected by local chiefs in their home areas who arrange their recruitment.