We at Newry Journal were long wondering where in the world Newry man John Cully was now labouring on behalf of the world’s poor, homeless and afflicted.

 

Dear all,

Please read the article below. These type of incidents are happening on a daily basis here in West Darfur - Sudan and in Eastern Chad.

For a copy of this news brief with links to cited articles, visit the GI-Net website: http://www.GenocideIntervention.net/educate/darfurnews/

DARFUR NEWS BRIEF: Dec. 2-18, 2006
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Janjaweed militia, rebel forces, and Sudanese government troops clashed in the town of El Fasher, killing at least six civilians.  In western Darfur, Janjaweed militia attacked a convoy of refugees with rocket-propelled grenades, executing or burning alive the survivors.  Increasing violence has forced many aid agencies to scale back services or evacuate workers.  The United Nations Human Rights Council agreed to send investigators to Darfur to look into gross human rights violations.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged his support of no-fly zones over Darfur and the United States' special envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios met with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir to discuss peacekeeping options.

Violence continues to cross the borders between Chad and Central African Republic and Sudan.

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GENOCIDE HITS HOME

Congress is finished with Darfur work until the beginning of January. Your senators and representative are home in their districts.  Now is the perfect time to meet with your elected officials, and tell them that ending the genocide in Darfur is important to you.  DarfurScores.org has all of the information you need to plan an effective meeting with your legislators.

More Information
http://www.DarfurScores.org/
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SITUATION ON THE GROUND

Jan Egeland, who stepped down from his post as the UN humanitarian chief, said the situation in and around Darfur was worse than ever before.  "I think some of the Arab countries and Asian countries have not really understood we're in a free fall," he said.  "It's not a steady deterioration.  It's a free fall and it includes Darfur, eastern Chad, northern Central African Republic."

Fighting flared around the Darfurian town of El Fasher, the region's main aid hub, where Janjaweed and Sudan Liberation Movement militias clashed and the government of Sudan deployed its own troops to the town.  The African Union feared an attack on its peacekeepers in El Fasher from a coalition of rebel forces, including both the Sudan Liberation Movement, which signed the Darfur Peace Agreement, and two other rebel groups that did not.  Janjaweed forces attacked students at a university in El Fasher, killing three.  Humanitarian aid operations are being scaled back due to the insecurity and the UN pulled 134 non-essential staff out of El Fasher.

Minni Minnawi, the head of the SLM, gave Khartoum a deadline this week for implementing the provisions of the peace agreement, including disarming militias.  Nee Acquaytee, the executive director of Africa Action, told Vatican Radio only a UN force would be able to perform the task.

Along Chad's border with Sudan, the UN reduced staff at six camps to the bare minimum and cut back on services to more than 110,000 Darfurian refugees. Chadian President Idriss Deby has said he will allow peacekeepers in to Chad.

The atrocities have now fully extended into Chad, the head of Amnesty International Canada said, with Janjaweed soliders "burning victims alive, mutilating and raping at will."

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir blamed the recent violence in Darfur on the rebel National Redemption Front and accused the international community of funding and arming the rebels.

Rapes and other forms of sexual violence have risen in Darfur in recent months and are being used as weapon of war.  Aid agencies are ill-equipped to deal with the looming women's mental-health crisis.

Janjaweed militia attacked a convoy of refugees travelling in western Darfur.  About thirty civilians were killed.  Some were shot while others were burned to death.  Later, relatives of the dead protested at the African Union base in El Geneina.  Three were killed when African Union peacekeepers fired on the crowd.  The African Union expressed regret for the killings but said the peacekeepers acted in self-defence.

Increasing violence and pressure from the government has kept food and other basic relief from reaching thousands of people in Darfur.  Over 250 aid workers have been pulled out of Darfur since Dec. 1.  According to Eric Reeves, the situation can still worsen.

A spokesman for a faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army said that a government warplane fired a rocket at a home in western Darfur, killing eight.

Violence from Sudan continues to leak into Chad and Central African Republic.  Rebels captured another town in Chad and continued instability in that country could put the health of 300,000 refugees at risk.  The African Union warned of a "tragedy unfolding" in Chad and Central African Republic.  The Chadian army pursued Chadian rebels into Sudan causing aid workers to pull out of the border regions for fear of escalating violence.

PROPOSED UN TRANSFER

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the UN undersecretary-general of peacekeeping, delivered a message to the AU Peace and Security Council from UN chief Kofi Annan, stating that "the magnitude of this crisis requires a force with a robust mandate and a sound concept of operations."  He also said a ceasefire was necessary before peacekeepers could be effectively deployed.

Annan and UN human rights head Louise Arbour urged the UN Human Rights Council to hold a special session on Darfur, following a decision by the council to reject a proposal by the European Union and Canada to "place primary responsibility on the Sudanese government to prevent human rights violations."  The council, bowing to Annan's demands, agreed to send a high-level mission to Sudan to investigate accusations of increasing violence in the region.  Sudan welcomed the mission so long as the mission's report reflected the reality on the ground.

Sudan claimed earlier reports of Khartoum's acceptance of a UN force or a UN-AU hybrid force were a misunderstanding.  "International troops are a colonization of Sudan," Beshir said, and the United Nations could provide logistical or financial support but no troops of any kind.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres says the world is suffering from an "Iraq syndrome" that prevents it from intervening in Darfur.  Guterres says the sovereignty of countries has gained paramount importance over the sovereignty of human beings and that the Security Council will have to work around that.

Andrew Natsios, the United States' special envoy to Sudan, visited Khartoum to attempt to secure Sudanese support for a hybrid peacekeeping force.  Natsios reported his meeting with Beshir was "constructive."  Before leaving for Sudan, Natsios attended a bipartisan meeting with US Senators Durbin and Brownback to discuss the United States' options to force a peacekeeping mission on the government of Sudan.

Kofi Annan reiterated that the international community has been willing to intervene in Darfur but the Sudanese government has so far rejected proposals for an international force in Darfur.  Annan said Darfur is an issue he will work on until Dec. 31, his last day as secretary-general.  Incoming Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called the situation in Darfur "simply unacceptable."

Representatives of the UN, the African Union, and the Sudanese government met to discuss how the UN's $21 million light support package for the African Union mission in Sudan would be spent.

THE PEACE PROCESS

Beshir says his government is "undertaking relentless efforts towards the effective implementation of both the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Darfur Peace Agreement and the successful conclusion of the East Sudan Peace Agreement."

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor, Luis Ocampo-Moreno, said indictments for suspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur will be handed down no later than February.

INTERNATIONAL ACTION

An Associated Press article declares efforts to ease the Darfur conflict at a "dead end," with strong sanctions from Western governments the only way forward.  "Over the past four years, there has been no real cost imposed on the Sudanese government for what is happening in Darfur," said Colin Thomas-Jensen of the International Crisis Group.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said the situation in Darfur parallels the Rwandan genocide, with ineffective peacekeepers and a complacent international community.

US Sen. Russ Feingold (WI) argues that the United States must become fully engaged in addressing the deteriorating situation in Chad, because it has "serious implications for Darfur" and US national interests.

The United States Senate unanimously passed a resolution urging the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Darfur.  President Bush reaffirmed the United States' commitment to implementing a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.  The Government Accountability Office, meanwhile, reported State Department estimates may have been too low of the number of people killed in Darfur during the first two years of fighting.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair backed a no-fly zone over Darfur while the US continues to explore military options including air strikes and naval blockades, but the ongoing crisis in Iraq dampens the likelihood of any unilateral military action.  France said that it is not willing to support a no-fly zone "at this stage" and Sudan dismissed the threats saying military actions would increase suffering in Darfur.

The International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch called on European Union leaders to support tougher sanctions on the government of Sudan.  EU leaders, meanwhile, urged the government of Sudan to accept a UN support package for the AU mission in Darfur.  The Sudanese minister for international cooperation said that sending one million soldiers would not quell the violence in Darfur.

INTERNATIONAL ACTIVISM

The Save Darfur Coalition sponsored a weekend of prayer for Darfur, in which at least 70 religious organizations are participating.  Hundreds of people turned out for a letter-writing event at a Virginia synagogue.

A Georgetown University professor lauds the efforts of students on Darfur, and recommends teachers constructively engage their students’ idealism without "shielding them from the disillusioning lessons of history."

Students at Drake University held a week of events raising money for the Red Cross's work in Darfur, including "Date for Darfur," a date auction, and "Dodge for Darfur," a dodgeball tournament.  At Kent State University, meanwhile, both students and faculty passed resolutions expressing the sentiment that "action needs to be taken" in Darfur by the US government; copies of the resolutions will be sent to Ohio legislators.

High school students in California held a conference on Darfur featuring a Sudanese refugee.  "If every high school in this country encouraged kids to sign a petition, the number of signatures would be so great that the government would be forced to act," said Casey Corman, the student who organized the event.  A candlelit vigil in Connecticut honored victims in Darfur, a demonstration outside of the United Nations headquarters called on the Human Rights Council to take greater action in Darfur, and a sociologist said the genocide "touches our humanity."

George Clooney reported that many of the refugees featured in his videos from Darfur have been killed.  In order to address the ongoing violence, he said, Western governments must engage in "some sort of political discussion with these people, and, since we don't do business with them, we need help from China, Egypt, Russia."

Rallies were held around the world calling for international intervention to end the crisis in Darfur.

Third graders in St. Petersburg, Florida set up a website dedicated to their research about the situation in Darfur.

SPECIAL REPORTS & COMMENTARY

Eric Reeves argues in a column for The New Republic that the Nov. 16 "conclusions" reached in a UN-AU meeting gave the government of Sudan everything it wanted.  A paragraph stating peacekeepers should restore "security and protection of civilians" is meaningless, Reeves writes, because the government has yet to disarm the Janjaweed under the terms of the Darfur Peace Agreement, and continues hampering humanitarian aid efforts.

In a separate response to a letter from a reader, New Republic editors argue that the complex politics of Darfur and the atrocities committed by some rebel groups does not negate the existence of genocide perpetrated by the government of Sudan.  Critics, they write, "cite historical and political factors, as if the mere existence of history and politics in this remote corner of Africa disproves the charge of genocide -- as if genocide cannot be committed by those who have complicated political motivations or against those who belong to groups represented on the political stage by unsavoury actors."

Médecins sans Frontières' November podcast includes a report from West Darfur, where medical aid is increasingly impossible due to the insecurity and lack of civilian protection.

Roll Call executive editor Mort Kondracke endorsed the position of former Clinton administration Africa advisor Susan Rice for US military intervention in Darfur, including air strikes and a naval blockade.

Julie Flint outlines a six-step process to secure peace in Darfur and Alex de Waal writes that the political process is the only way to secure peace in Darfur.  Together, Flint and de Waal wrote Darfur: A Short History of a Long War.

Richard Goldstone, who served as chief prosecutor of the UN's International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia, chastises the UN's Human Rights Council for its failure to confront the violence in Darfur and Chad.

Despite economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the economy of Sudan continues to boom, though the economy of southern Sudan lags behind.

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting details the "forgotten crisis" of Eastern Sudan.



Archives of the Darfur news briefs
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John H Cully 

El Geneina - West Darfur - Sudan

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