Darfur Daily News: June 04, 2005

[applegrove]

Thanks to SAVE DARFUR - Latest News at:

http://www.savedarfur.org/go.php?q=latestNews.html

Troops en route to Sudan

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1715717,00.html

03/06/2005 09:52 - (SA) NEWS 24.Com


"Kigali - The airlift of about 5 000 additional men to be deployed in the troubled Darfur region of western Sudan as part of the African Union (AU) mission could get under way later this month, a United States (US) senior official said on Thursday.

Speaking to journalists in Kigali at the Common Market for Southern and East African states (Comesa) meeting, the US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick, said: "The Rwandans have told me they are ready to go and the Nigerians said they are ready to go," he added.

Senegal and South Africa are also expected to be among countries contributing troops to the expanded mission.

-- Snip -- "

In related news to do with Serbia:

Atrocity video may prepare ground for Serb arrests
posted by melnjones and this DU discussion found at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1520469

Atrocity video may prepare ground for Serb arrests


"BELGRADE (Reuters) - Film of paramilitary soldiers slaughtering six young Bosnian Muslim captives in 1995 has opened another crack in the wall of Serbian war crimes denial and major arrests may follow, officials said on Friday.

-- Snip --

The brief home video shocked Wednesday evening television news audiences across the country. On a leafy mountain road speckled by sunshine and shadow, the young men, beaten and terrified, are killed with hands tied behind their backs.

The killing was casual, sneering.

"This video will mark a turning point in the minds of our public and make it easier for the government to fulfill its commitments toward the (Hague war crimes) tribunal," said Minister for Human Rights Rasim Ljajic, a Muslim."

snip...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=3&u=/nm/20050603/wl_nm/warcrimes_serbiamontenegro_dc



How they protect themselves:

From: http://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/

Sudanese FM warns aid groups about meddling

http://www.sudantribune.com/article_impr.php3?id_article=9897

Via AP Wed June 1, 2005. Excerpt:

Striking an unapologetic note after the arrest of two foreign aid workers, Sudan's foreign minister Wednesday (June 1) warned international organizations not to meddle in the country's affairs or tarnish its image.

"Organizations operating in Sudan should observe the country's national security in their dealings and they should not be seen to tarnish Sudan's image through issuance of false information," Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail was quoted as saying by the official Sudan News Agency.

Ismail said Sudanese authorities had investigated the agency's claims and found they contained incorrect information. He said investigations of the two aid workers were continuing.

The minister called on international organizations "to avoid meddling into what does not concern them."

-- Snip --

Darfur Daily News June 03, 2005
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3780933

Darfur Daily News June 02, 2005
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3773778

Darfur Daily News June 01, 2005
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3766193

To see the latest Darfur Calendar of Events in your local area:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3766193

* Please take a few moments of your time to search out local Darfur actions/vigils in your neck of the woods - and report back to us with the details of the event.

Actions:

1)

STOPPING THE DARFUR GENOCIDE: We need ANSWERS to these QUESTIONS: posted by Nothing Without Hope

We still need more ideas. We are acting on the ones we can. But more involvement would be excellent. For this DU discussion go to:

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3724411

2)

Take 10 minutes for Darfur -- 10,000 a month are dying posted by WesDem

DU site for taking action:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3730018

3)

Here is an earlier thread by Frenchiecat that got 'heated' but filled with lots of great information & action to take.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=235&topic_id=6725

[FrenchieCat]

1. Thanks again for the Darfur Thread....

It's never too late to save lives!

[applegrove]

2. Yes - it seems 5000 more AU troops are on their way. I hope that

ends the abuses once and for all.

[manic expression]

3. Do you think 5,000 troops will do it?

It will help, definitely, but can you see the Sudanese Government (and the Janjaweed) backing off because of this? I hope against hope that they do.

[applegrove]

4. I think the two have already shown that they are terrified of witnesses.

Not the poor witnesses - they never cared how many of them there were and they can just say : "oh - they are for the rebels". I think they are terrified of the case that can be made against them by aid workers and AU soldiers.

So I think that even a small intelligence network like the AU and the aid workers have right now - is going to make it harder for them to continue.

I wanted NATO to go in. No, 7000 AU in a place the size of Texas will not stop much incidence of slaughter or cleansing or rapes in isolated spots. More crime will occur. That is not acceptable. But the number of 'credible' witness so up. Witnesses who cannot be said to have any axe to grind. With before and after reports on the villages, the movements of the planes and gunships, janjaweed & rebel movements ...all recorded. Makes it easier to make the case. Makes it much more dangerous for the government to 'not' control the Janjaweeds as a much stronger case could be made against them with every incident. Not as if the AU soldiers will not be noticing exactly what direction gunships are coming from and at what time. The outsiders can make the initial case which will then let the victims make the whole case. If the government in Khartoum thinks it can stay in power and negotiate some sort of "peace" - they need for the reports to be of a 'rebel' nature and not a genocidal one. IMHO

And as we know - if the camps themselves are safe and the distribution of food or the movement of people not interfered with or forced on the victims.. that will save many, many people.

But I agree with you that all that matters right now is that it stops and people then don't starve. Then once that is secure people can get back their land.

I wonder what scary statements will come out of the mouth of the government at the peace talks on June 10. Last time he was talking about the party they would all have once they had peace.

[manic expression]

7. Good points

Anyway, thanks for posting this thread, more people need to be aware of what is going on, and more people need to be talking about it.

[Adelante]

5. Op-Ed: A Policy of Rape

A Policy of Rape

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: June 5, 2005

NYALA, Sudan

All countries have rapes, of course. But here in the refugee shantytowns of Darfur, the horrific stories that young women whisper are not of random criminality but of a systematic campaign of rape to terrorize civilians and drive them from "Arab lands" - a policy of rape.

One measure of the international community's hypocrisy is that the world is barely bothering to protest. More than two years after the genocide in Darfur began, the women of Kalma Camp - a teeming squatter's camp of 110,000 people driven from their burned villages - still face the risk of gang rape every single day as they go out looking for firewood.

Nemat, a 21-year-old, told me that she left the camp with three friends to get firewood to cook with. In the early afternoon a group of men in uniforms caught and gang-raped her.

"They said, 'You are black people. We want to wipe you out,'" Nemat recalled. After the attack, Nemat was too injured to walk, but her relatives found her and carried her back to camp on a donkey.

A neighbor, Toma, 34, said she heard similar comments from seven men in police uniforms who raped her. "They said, 'We want to finish you people off,'" she recalled.

-more-

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/opinion/05kristof.html

[applegrove]

6. Thanks for posting. n/t