[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Day for Darfur inspires protests in 32 countries
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:17:44 +0200
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http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **Day for Darfur inspires protests in 32
countries
By Paul Vallely
Published: 16 September 2006
Tony Blair has launched a behind-the-scenes initiative to bring maximum
international pressure to bear upon Sudan to lift its ban on a 20,000-strong UN
peacekeeping force being sent into Darfur. The government of Sudan has shown
steady intransigence in the face of last week's UN Security Council resolution
authorising a peacekeeping mission to the far west of Sudan.
It has condemned the proposal as "neo-colonialism" and an infringement of its
sovereignty. Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, has vowed to fight off UN
troops himself, and warned that Sudan would take on international soldiers "as
Hizbollah beat Israeli forces". It has also said that al-Qa'ida insurgents
would enter Sudan to fight the UN.
"We are all very worried about what's happening in Darfur at the moment,"
Hilary Benn, the British International Development Secretary, told The
Independent yesterday. "We need maximum united international pressure."
Direct attempts by London and Washington have so far failed to shift Sudan. The
US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, saw the Sudanese Foreign Minister in
Washington two days ago but the meeting was unsatisfactory. George Bush has
offered to meet Mr Bashir at next week's UN General Assembly debate. The
Sudanese leader is not keen to meet the US President, who two years ago accused
his regime of genocide in Darfur.
Downing Street has therefore been trying to apply pressure to Sudan through its
allies - China, Russia, Egypt and the Gulf states. Mr Blair raised the subject
of Darfur three times when he met the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, in
London this week. China owns 13 of Sudan's top 15 companies, it buys more than
50 per cent of Sudan's crude oil, and Beijing has repeatedly blocked attempts
at the UN to crack down on Khartoum's murderous policy in Darfur. Premier Wen
expressed concern but it is unclear whether China will act.
Margaret Beckett, the British Foreign Secretary, last week visited Egypt, which
was instrumental in persuading Khartoum to accept African Union (AU)
peacekeepers two years ago. Egyptian officials told her that they thought
agreement with Sudan might still be achieved, but they would not push the
imposition of an international force.
Pressure is also being applied via the Gulf states and the Arab League. Most
active is the AU, which sees Darfur as the first big test of its effectiveness
as a replacement for the toothless old Organisation of African Unity. Its
president, Alpha Oumar Konaré, has made Darfur his top priority.
The European Union is active, with its president, Jose Manuel Barroso, working
on visiting Darfur soon in person. There will be considerable diplomatic
activity at next week's UN meeting and at a meeting of African Union leaders on
the fringe of the General Assembly on Monday. The aim is to get all the leaders
of the AU, EU, Arab League and US to sign up to a single statement. "We are
engaged in trying to get the world community speaking with one voice," said Mr
Benn. Whether that can be achieved is unclear. "At the very least we hope to be
able to offer every support to the African Union mission," said Mr Benn. "It
has been doing a good job in very, very difficult circumstances, but it hasn't
got enough troops and it needs to improve its command and control."
The real question is how world leaders can get President Bashir to back down.
The Blair initiative is understood to offer a mix of carrot and stick, with
additional aid and debt relief being offered for good behaviour and the threat
of sanctions otherwise.
"We are anxious to offer them a ladder to climb down," said one senior official
yesterday. "But they should be in no doubt whatsover that, if they set their
face against everybody else, then the international community isn't going to
sit on its hands on this one."
Tens of thousands of protesters - in 32 different countries - will demonstrate
tomorrow in a Day for Darfur, in protest at the continuing violence in the west
of Sudan, where at least 200,000 have been killed and two million people made
homeless.
In London there will be three protests. Outside the Sudanese embassy survivors
of the Nazi, Rwandan and Bosnian genocides will assemble. Later they will open
an exhibition on the Darfur crisis at the Old Vic Theatre.
Outside Downing Street Muslim imams will join Jewish and Christian leaders,
including Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in a multi-faith service.
In the US the former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, will address a
large rally in Central Park, New York. Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the
impotent UN peacekeeping forces during the massacres in Rwanda, will speak in
Toronto. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu will also take
part.
The protest is over the refusal of the Sudanese government to allow a
20,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force into Darfur to protect the
civilian population as a war escalates between the Sudanese army - with its
ruthless Janjaweed militia - and various rebel groups. Campaigners fear that
Sudan will use the new offensive to impose a brutal and definitive solution.
Tomorrow has been chosen because it is the first anniversary of a revision of
international law by world leaders at the United Nations which insisted that
the need to protect people from atrocities must override the notion of national
sovereignty.
Under the Responsibility To Protect (RTP), the UN agreed that states would
share "responsibility to take collective action in a timely and decisive
manner" to prevent grave atrocities like genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes
and crimes against humanity "when the government of the people concerned is
unwilling or unable to do so".
Darfur is the first real test of whether the international community will act
by that promise.
For information see: www.dayfordarfur.org
'Never again'. But do they mean it?
Susan Pollack, SURVIVOR, THE HOLOCAUST IN EUROPE
I was 13 years old when German troops came to my village of Felsogod in Hungary
and took my father. I never saw him again. Then they came for me and my family
and sent us to Auschwitz. My mother was gassed to death as soon as we arrived.
I survived Auschwitz, slave labour, selection at the hands of Doctor Josef
Mengele and a death march to Belsen before I was 15. I can still see the
mountains of corpses at Auschwitz. After the Holocaust, the world said "never
again". Today they are still saying it, but when genocides like Darfur go on
unchecked, I'm beginning to wonder if they mean it.
Beatha Uwazaninka, SURVIVOR, GENOCIDE IN RWANDA
When the genocide began, I was 14 years old and it was hard to make sense of it.
For three months, I was on the run, hiding in sugar cane fields and the houses
of the dead. I narrowly avoided being raped and murdered but a million of my
people, including my family and friends, were massacred in the space of a
hundred days while the world looked on.
I have rebuilt my life and have a baby girl now. For her sake, and the sake of
millions of others all over the world, I have to speak out about what is going
on today in Darfur.
Kemal Pervanic, SURVIVOR, ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BOSNIA
Life in the Serb concentration camps was horrific. I witnessed atrocities
daily. You live day-to-day, keeping your head down in case you catch a guard's
eye; seeing men called out who never return; hearing their tortured screams.
Despite the lessons of the failures in Rwanda and the Balkans hundreds of
thousands of Muslims have been killed in Darfur and no one cares enough to stop
it. Western governments dithered over Bosnia. This time, despite the fact that
it's Muslims being killed, it is Arab governments whose silence is allowing the
conflict to continue unabated.
Tony Blair has launched a behind-the-scenes initiative to bring maximum
international pressure to bear upon Sudan to lift its ban on a 20,000-strong UN
peacekeeping force being sent into Darfur. The government of Sudan has shown
steady intransigence in the face of last week's UN Security Council resolution
authorising a peacekeeping mission to the far west of Sudan.
It has condemned the proposal as "neo-colonialism" and an infringement of its
sovereignty. Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, has vowed to fight off UN
troops himself, and warned that Sudan would take on international soldiers "as
Hizbollah beat Israeli forces". It has also said that al-Qa'ida insurgents
would enter Sudan to fight the UN.
"We are all very worried about what's happening in Darfur at the moment,"
Hilary Benn, the British International Development Secretary, told The
Independent yesterday. "We need maximum united international pressure."
Direct attempts by London and Washington have so far failed to shift Sudan. The
US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, saw the Sudanese Foreign Minister in
Washington two days ago but the meeting was unsatisfactory. George Bush has
offered to meet Mr Bashir at next week's UN General Assembly debate. The
Sudanese leader is not keen to meet the US President, who two years ago accused
his regime of genocide in Darfur.
Downing Street has therefore been trying to apply pressure to Sudan through its
allies - China, Russia, Egypt and the Gulf states. Mr Blair raised the subject
of Darfur three times when he met the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, in
London this week. China owns 13 of Sudan's top 15 companies, it buys more than
50 per cent of Sudan's crude oil, and Beijing has repeatedly blocked attempts
at the UN to crack down on Khartoum's murderous policy in Darfur. Premier Wen
expressed concern but it is unclear whether China will act.
Margaret Beckett, the British Foreign Secretary, last week visited Egypt, which
was instrumental in persuading Khartoum to accept African Union (AU)
peacekeepers two years ago. Egyptian officials told her that they thought
agreement with Sudan might still be achieved, but they would not push the
imposition of an international force.
Pressure is also being applied via the Gulf states and the Arab League. Most
active is the AU, which sees Darfur as the first big test of its effectiveness
as a replacement for the toothless old Organisation of African Unity. Its
president, Alpha Oumar Konaré, has made Darfur his top priority.
The European Union is active, with its president, Jose Manuel Barroso, working
on visiting Darfur soon in person. There will be considerable diplomatic
activity at next week's UN meeting and at a meeting of African Union leaders on
the fringe of the General Assembly on Monday. The aim is to get all the leaders
of the AU, EU, Arab League and US to sign up to a single statement. "We are
engaged in trying to get the world community speaking with one voice," said Mr
Benn. Whether that can be achieved is unclear. "At the very least we hope to be
able to offer every support to the African Union mission," said Mr Benn. "It
has been doing a good job in very, very difficult circumstances, but it hasn't
got enough troops and it needs to improve its command and control."
The real question is how world leaders can get President Bashir to back down.
The Blair initiative is understood to offer a mix of carrot and stick, with
additional aid and debt relief being offered for good behaviour and the threat
of sanctions otherwise.
"We are anxious to offer them a ladder to climb down," said one senior official
yesterday. "But they should be in no doubt whatsover that, if they set their
face against everybody else, then the international community isn't going to
sit on its hands on this one."
Tens of thousands of protesters - in 32 different countries - will demonstrate
tomorrow in a Day for Darfur, in protest at the continuing violence in the west
of Sudan, where at least 200,000 have been killed and two million people made
homeless.
In London there will be three protests. Outside the Sudanese embassy survivors
of the Nazi, Rwandan and Bosnian genocides will assemble. Later they will open
an exhibition on the Darfur crisis at the Old Vic Theatre.
Outside Downing Street Muslim imams will join Jewish and Christian leaders,
including Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in a multi-faith service.
In the US the former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, will address a
large rally in Central Park, New York. Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the
impotent UN peacekeeping forces during the massacres in Rwanda, will speak in
Toronto. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu will also take
part.
The protest is over the refusal of the Sudanese government to allow a
20,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force into Darfur to protect the
civilian population as a war escalates between the Sudanese army - with its
ruthless Janjaweed militia - and various rebel groups. Campaigners fear that
Sudan will use the new offensive to impose a brutal and definitive solution.
Tomorrow has been chosen because it is the first anniversary of a revision of
international law by world leaders at the United Nations which insisted that
the need to protect people from atrocities must override the notion of national
sovereignty.
Under the Responsibility To Protect (RTP), the UN agreed that states would
share "responsibility to take collective action in a timely and decisive
manner" to prevent grave atrocities like genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes
and crimes against humanity "when the government of the people concerned is
unwilling or unable to do so".
Darfur is the first real test of whether the international community will act
by that promise.
For information see: www.dayfordarfur.org
'Never again'. But do they mean it?
Susan Pollack, SURVIVOR, THE HOLOCAUST IN EUROPE
I was 13 years old when German troops came to my village of Felsogod in Hungary
and took my father. I never saw him again. Then they came for me and my family
and sent us to Auschwitz. My mother was gassed to death as soon as we arrived.
I survived Auschwitz, slave labour, selection at the hands of Doctor Josef
Mengele and a death march to Belsen before I was 15. I can still see the
mountains of corpses at Auschwitz. After the Holocaust, the world said "never
again". Today they are still saying it, but when genocides like Darfur go on
unchecked, I'm beginning to wonder if they mean it.
Beatha Uwazaninka, SURVIVOR, GENOCIDE IN RWANDA
When the genocide began, I was 14 years old and it was hard to make sense of it.
For three months, I was on the run, hiding in sugar cane fields and the houses
of the dead. I narrowly avoided being raped and murdered but a million of my
people, including my family and friends, were massacred in the space of a
hundred days while the world looked on.
I have rebuilt my life and have a baby girl now. For her sake, and the sake of
millions of others all over the world, I have to speak out about what is going
on today in Darfur.
Kemal Pervanic, SURVIVOR, ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BOSNIA
Life in the Serb concentration camps was horrific. I witnessed atrocities
daily. You live day-to-day, keeping your head down in case you catch a guard's
eye; seeing men called out who never return; hearing their tortured screams.
Despite the lessons of the failures in Rwanda and the Balkans hundreds of
thousands of Muslims have been killed in Darfur and no one cares enough to stop
it. Western governments dithered over Bosnia. This time, despite the fact that
it's Muslims being killed, it is Arab governments whose silence is allowing the
conflict to continue unabated.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1603857.ece
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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