DARFUR CAMPAIGN TERMINATED. EMPIRE DEFLATION BEGUN.

DARFUR CAMPAIGN TERMINATED.
EMPIRE DEFLATION BEGUN.

Q & A START LOVING

DARFUR HEROES - MAIN PAGE

If we do not quickly increase the number of Darfur Heroes in the US and globally, the genocide is likely to continue NO MATTER WHAT ELSE WE DO. Pick from a HOW YOU CAN HELP, from a model below or from Posts at left, follow it, AND GO BEYOND. Please hurry. Note: Except for child at the right Photos are from one of the most Heroic actions yet for Darfur: AfricaAction.org Septembe 9th, 2006. THIS is what Darfur Heroism looks like.
>> AID WORKERS: HERO NURSE MATHINA MYDIN * HERO Dr. Janet Kerr * HEROES International Rescue Committee * HEROES MSF/Doctors Without Borders
>> STUDENT HEROICS: Heroes U Chicago Stand * HEROES HUNGER STRIKE: HARVARD UNIV. * Santa Clara Univ Tent Vigil & Fast * Elvir Camdzic 600mi ride * Wash. State Univ. Tent Vigil & Fast * Journey for Humanity * STAND 04-05 National Activism * Georgetown U STAND 05 / Nate Wright * Swarthmore Col 05 Launches Divestment * Harvard Campaigns * Berklee Col. of Music * College Heroism * Sudan Divestment Taskforce * Bailey Cato
>> HOLLYWOOD: HERO MIA FARROW
>> RESCUE DARFUR FAST-TILL-GENOCIDE-STOPS: ROSEMARY * DAVE * MARY RACHEL * JEB
>> ACTIVIST HEROICS: Salih Mahmoud Osman * September 9th 300 * April 30th 30,000 * HERO Brian Steedle * Nate Kleinman * September 17th * Start Loving (Jay McGinley)
>> ORANIZER HEROICS: Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition * Boston Save Darfur * Philadelphia Darfur Alert
>> ACADEMIC HEROICS: HERO ERIC REEVES (Smith Col.) * SAMANTHA POWER (Harvard U.) * JOHN WEISS (Cornell U.)
>> PRESS/BLOG HEROICS: HERO Awatif Ahmed * Paul Salopek * Nicholas Kristoff NY Times 04 * passionofthepresent.com * Eugene Oregon (Coalition For Darfur blog) * Ingridj - Sudan Watch
>> NONPROFIT HEROICS: Africa Action * Save Darfur * Genocide Intervention Network * USHMM 04 Gen. Emergency! * John Prendergast
>> GOVERNMENTAL HEROICS: Romeo Dallaire, Jan Egeland, Kofi Annan
>> SUDANESE HEROICS: Simon Deng * Manute Bol

>> Who qualifies as Darfur Hero?
>> This is your blog
>> About this Blog
>> Darfur Information
>> Blogs, Posts, Sites, Links, Etc.

>> Heroes Desperately Needed. SEE OPPORTUNITIES

SOMETHING DOESN'T ADD UP FOR DARFUR "ACTIVISTS"

Among we "SAVE DARFUR" "ACTIVISTS"...

Among we "SAVE DARFUR" "ACTIVISTS"...

RESOLVE, COMMITMENT, FORMIDABILITY, DETERMINATION, PATRIOTISM, HOPE...
HUMANITY & ACTIVISM
LOOK LIKE THIS.................

"Tell me what HUMANITY looks like!"
"This is what Humanity looks like..."

"Tell me what HUMANITY looks like!"
"This is what Humanity looks like...

"Tell me what HUMANITY looks like!"
"This is what Humanity looks like..."
__________________________

Among we "SAVE DARFUR" "ACTIVISTS"...


Among we "SAVE DARFUR" "ACTIVISTS"...

SOMETHING DOESN'T ADD UP.
SOMETHING DOESN'T ADD UP.
SOMETHING DOESN'T ADD UP.
SOMETHING DOESN'T ADD UP.
SOMETHING DOESN'T ADD UP.
__________________________

IGNITE THE FIRE OF HUMANITY
click the match.IGNITE THE FIRE OF HUMANITY
!!click the match above!!
DO IT!
DO IT!!
DO IT!!!

You see it in "Dances With Wolves" in the opening sequence - the battle that is a genocidal stalemate until....



The armies are across the field from one another...












Agonizing, slow, mutual slaughter...







One person faces the madness, they are dead already...



Quietly, alone one rides out -WHAT MILLIONS MIGHT DO, ONE MAN MUST DO

As in EVERY CRUCIAL STRUGGLE, the odds are impossible...


But HOPE and POSSIBILITY, HUMANITY are in the ATTEMPT....

}}}}}}}} ALL IT TAKES IS ONE MATCH. YOU? {{{{{{{{

The Infection of "Possibility" Spreads...





And spreads....







And Salvation is at hand.



_________________________
IGNITE THE FIRE OF HUMANITY

click the match.IGNITE THE FIRE OF HUMANITY
!!click the match above!!
DO IT!
DO IT!!
DO IT!!!

DARFUR VIGIL: INTERRUPTED INDEFINITELY BY JAIL

[from a letter to an inquiring friend]

Hi beloved [friend.] Along with a 16 year old "angel" from New Haven Catholic Worker and the first genuine, non-hypocrite "Pastor / Priest" that maybe I've yet encountered (Steve Miller, and YES he's been "fired" from the church for non-hypocrisy[see today's posts]!) got out after 27 hours of jail after arrest at the White House for lying on the sidewalk still, dead, as a Nagasaki/Hiroshima victim. Photos and video of our actions this week - click here (and here for more background). Only posted so far are Pentagon (pictures like the one below) and DOE/Bechtel. White House and Archdiocese of the Military (THE MOST EVIL EVER COMBINATION OF WORDS?) will go up in the next day or so I'm sure if you check back on their site. (continued below)
If I have met only one living saint it may be Margaret McKenna pictured below, creator of Philadelphia's New Jerusalem. I've tried for maybe 8 years to meet her, and it never worked out. Now, we've been arrested together! Meet her. All of you, each of you, meet her. Know her. Help in her work. For yourself. She defines humility. She defines peace. She defines the presence of "God." She is completely non-dogmatic, profoundly agreeing (I perceive) as I told her I believed that "Loving" is the only true religion. She is maybe the closest encounter yet I have had of God; not a lot closer encounter than you beloved sister and several others have given me; and maybe not closer than my bio-father. Margaret must be known. She must be helped. SHE MUST BE LEARNED FROM. Tell her you are my sister, my "family." I've told her of you. i think she Loves me. (more below).

Not that it bothered me personally but the DC White House Arrest I've just been released from, and specifically how "the system" treats human beings (poor, defenseless, outside the "power structure," for parking tickets and the like - chains, shackles, pens, cages, sleep deprivation, toilet paper deprivation, food deprivation, water deprivation, 27 hour whimsical life/liberty/"human rights" deprivation...), dozens of us that I personally witnessed, is possibly the greatest inhuman evil that personally I've ever touched; evil I expect I cannot walk away from.

I don't mean to alarm you, and you know by now that often, OFTEN, early in hearing one of my "callings" I get Her intention wrong and do NOT move forward, but I've also promised to be honest with you and keep you informed. I'll be writing of my experience and plans over the next few days and will post on this and the Start Loving blog. As I sit here the morning after release, I find myself "Called" to violate the conditions of my release (8 hours community service; service I'll do anyway at a place I've long wanted to serve, CCNV, but not report that service and hence the "violation") and to their surprise and anger, re-present myself with total peace and respect to the officials of the system (part of my family) for re-arrest but now acting with complete and profound non-cooperation - being a piece of limp meat - complete non-cooperation with this consummately evil system of violence to our brothers and sisters. Gandhi and others are correct in saying that, "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good." And, as Oscar Romero predicted, "Those committed to the poor must share the same fate as the poor."

About 15 years ago a premonition swept over me that I would be homeless. I was living in "my" $500k West Chester house that I built on Cloverly Road at the the time. TA-DA! A year or so ago I had a similar premonition, but this time that I would die, murdered by the system for non-cooperation with evil in prison.

Truly I am sorry to worry you; probably without basis. I will share more with you when it is written over the next few days.

Loving you and profoundly blessed by your love, Start

DARFUR: GOD BLESS MIA!!! GOD FORGIVE THE REST OF US.

Mia Farrow offers Darfur exchange

US actress Mia Farrow has offered her freedom in exchange for that of a respected rebel figure in Sudan. Monday, 6 August 2007, 16:43 GMT 17:43 UK

Suleiman Jamous, a co-ordinator for Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), has been confined to a UN peacekeeping base near Darfur for more than 13 months.

Although he needs urgent surgery, the 62-year-old faces arrest if he leaves.

In a letter to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Ms Farrow has offered to take his place, saying his continued absence was an "impediment" to peace.

"Before his seizure, Mr Jamous played a crucial role in bringing the SLA to the negotiating table and in seeking reconciliation between its divided rival factions," she said.

Exchange

"I am therefore offering to take Mr Jamous's place, to exchange my freedom for his in the knowledge of his importance to the civilians of Darfur and in the conviction that he will apply his energies toward creating the just and lasting peace."

Farrow, who was once married to Frank Sinatra and later had children with Woody Allen, is a goodwill ambassador for Unicef, the United Nations' children's agency, and has visited Darfur twice.

Mr Jamous was originally airlifted from Darfur to the UN base in nearby Kadugli for medical treatment last June.

But he needs a stomach biopsy, which cannot be performed at the camp, and believes he will be seized as soon as he leaves.

Farrow's call to free Mr Jamous came just hours before eight of Darfur's rebel factions announced they had reached a common position and wanted "final" talks with Sudan's government.

He was one of two key rebel figures absent from the factions' negotiations.

The agreement follows last week's decision to send 26,000 UN and African Union peacekeepers to Darfur.

Darfur Heroics: Khalilzad, Kuschner, Zarkozy

UK and France modify UN text on new Darfur forceReuters.uk, UK - 1 hour agoParts of the resolution are under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which makes it mandatory. It would allow the mission "to use necessary means," a euphemism for a use of force, "as it deems within its capabilities.

BASHIR REJECTS UN. Vigil Day #151 Sudan Embassy July 29.

Filed by Start Loving.

The Darfur Vigil returned to Round the Clock this past Monday maintained by Start Loving who returns to a base of operations for light calories, MP3 Player Electrons, and Internet mid afternoon for three hours each day. Saturday and Sunday are also spent at the base.

Sudan officially rejects revised UN text on Darfur force, Sudan Tribune

What does a world citizen, a Servant of The Almight / Good / World Family / Brotherliness do when:

• 450,000 have been exterminated under Bashir's watch? Our watch? China's Watch? NGO's Watch? "Activists" watch?
• 3 million displaced under Bashir's watch? Our watch? China's Watch? NGO's Watch? "Activists" watch?
• Brother Bashir heaps desecration on desecration, inhumanity on inhumanity, lie on lie, deception on deception?
• We-the-worlds-citizens heap hypocrisy on hypocrisy, lip service on lip service, excuse on excuse, inaction on inaction....

How does Start Loving serve the above? What does or do The Almighty / Goodness / Humanity / "Activist" brothers / brother Bashir / brother Moon / Save Darfur / Africa Action / STANDnow demand of me?

DARFUR HERO: House speaker to risk arrest in China

"The genocide that originated in Darfur is, in my view, the central moral crisis of our time," Romanoff said at a news conference Tuesday at the state Capitol.

House speaker to risk arrest in China July 25, 2007 By Joe Hanel Herald Denver Bureau

DENVER - A top Colorado Democrat will travel this weekend to China, where he plans to deliver a message to foreign ministry officials: Stop paying for genocide in Sudan.

FULL ARTICLE

DARFUR HERO: MIA FARROW "GET'S IT!!!!!"

Anger Management: Mia Farrow talks about helping the victims at Darfur and putting Steven Spielberg in his place By Mia Farrow, Newsweek International

"I had to do anything [that] I could

to end the suffering [that] I had seen,

because I had a new moral obligation

and a new credential:

I am a witness."


The actress Mia Farrow first glimpsed the atrocities of Darfur—where 400,000 have been killed and two million have been driven from their homes—as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Since then, she has recast herself as one of the victims' most-eloquent (and -livid) outside advocates. When Khartoum blocked a U.N. effort to send troops in 2006, Farrow flayed the Sudanese and their accomplices—witting or otherwise. In op-eds and speeches, she joined a campaign against the 2008 Beijing Olympics, hoping to stigmatize China for its support of Sudan. And she even warned Steven Spielberg—a consultant for the upcoming event—that he risked becoming "the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games." Adam B. Kushner talked with the star of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors" about moral outrage and raising hell.

KUSHNER: Is this your first foray into advocacy?

FARROW: I'd traveled for UNICEF and, before that, a couple of times for Nelson Mandela's children's charities in South Africa. But Darfur was a seminal moment for me. On the 10th anniversary of [the] Rwanda [genocide], I read an op-ed on Sudan by Samantha Power, and I called UNICEF and said, "I need to go to Darfur. Something terrible is happening." I scoured the Internet trying to inform myself, I read Alex de Waal's book—which is the manual—but it was interesting (in an appalling way) how little information was available.

Can celebrities be effective as political actors?

I knew that I had to do my utmost to address this. You do what you can with what you have available. And you are interviewing me. When I visit people who cannot speak to NEWSWEEK for themselves—it's an immense responsibility to have to represent them. And every day, I feel [that] I've failed in some way: there's something [that] I didn't think of, something [that] I could have done better.

What if we can't persuade the Sudanese government to let peacekeepers in?

In my last trip to eastern Chad—where I was really very close to the Darfur border and spoke to refugees—I realized that the only voice that has any weight for me now is the voice of the people who are actually enduring these atrocities. So I've stopped saying what is practical. My feeling is [to] let it be said what should be done—a nonconsensual deployment.

But if that's what we need and the United Nations won't do it, aren't you actually inviting somebody else to intervene? By that logic, you're calling for U.S. or NATO troops.

Intervention should have happened in 2004 and it didn't. So should NATO come in? Anyone should come in! The United Nations and all member states should [act] in a matter of days when we see a government slaughter its own people. That should be an automatic trigger; it shouldn't be deliberated for years.

Those are the same lessons [that] people took from the Nazi Holocaust: ["]If not now, when? If not me, who?["] Given his activism on exactly those issues, Steven Spielberg was a smart target.

I'd heard that he was going to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as the artistic director, and I thought, ["]Does he know?["] So I wrote him a letter, and he probably never got it, so it was time to write the op-ed. I've been six times into the region and I'm tired of people telling me to be "patient."

Has Spielberg shaped up?

He wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao, and it was a fine letter, saying [that] he said [that] he didn't know of China's complicity. And I believe him. But what is he going to do about it? I would hope that he would withdraw his cooperation from the Games.

So many people have tried to make China a better world actor, but you figured out their Achilles' heel.

Chris Matthews once asked me, "What does China have to do with [Darfur]?" I had assumed that everyone knew, but they didn't. China was a huge player in the amount of money that was going to Sudan. Conservatively, 70 percent of that money was being used to attack the people of Darfur. I wasn't the only one to make these observations, and I didn't coin the phrase "Genocide Olympics." What caught me by surprise was China's reaction. It hasn't translated to anything on the ground, but it did get their attention.

It's not the way international relations are usually conducted. You're a guerrilla diplomat.

We're not constrained. But the people on the ground who are doing lifesaving work are muted, because [preserving] their access is paramount. Aid workers are in dangerous situations saving lives that the world has turned away from, but they can't speak out. They're under a lot of stress. One aid agency sent a professional stress counselor from headquarters, and that stress counselor left after three days, because it was too stressful.

You're certainly making a ruckus for a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

I take off the UNICEF hat when I talk about Darfur. But it was impossible simply to come out of [Sudan] having held babies and say, "Well, that's that." I knew, after leaving Darfur, that I had to do anything [that] I could to end the suffering [that] I had seen, because I had a new moral obligation and a new credential: I am a witness.

Darfur Heroics: NY Times

Bless the NY Times for this devastatingly insightful article regarding Darfur:

A Godsend for Darfur, or a Curse?New York Times, United States - 5 hours agoGROUND UP Drawing water from a dry riverbed on the border of Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan. By LYDIA POLGREEN THE announcement by researchers at Boston University last week that a vast underground lake the size of Lake Erie had been discovered ...

Vigil for Darfur Day #141 Sudan Embassy DC

The best of times; the worst of times?

Have we ever been closer to the Rescue and Restore of Darfur? I don't think so:

• Effective pressure on China bearing fruit
• Powerful, humane leadership from France
• al-Bashir acquiescing to France / US / UK / China pressure
• "Lake Eire" being found under Darfur
• The Elders being formed of Mandella, Tutu, Carter... and Darfur spoken of as a focus

LAST MONTH WAS THE WORST MONTH EVER FOR ATTACKS ON AID WORKERS.

Let's not take our eyes off the ball. In fact, let's step up efforts dramatically.

IF YOUR DEAREST WERE IN A DARFUR DEATH CAMP in this 5th year of genocide, when our token wrist bands, one day fasts, sporadic lobbying, etc. have been correctly read by Washington as lip service, WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR - TO SAVE YOUR DEAREST? DO IT. DO IT NOW.

Personally, I don't know what is going on with my body. Literally I feel like I've forgotten how to walk. I'd have thought what with 9-12 hours per day marching for months now in front of the Sudan Embassy all the pain would be gone. Quite the opposite. I need to keep going with the Sudan Embassy Vigil for many, many more months. Mustn't quit until the Rescue and Restore is underway with certainty. I don't know how I can bear the pain in my feet, legs and hips much longer. How bad is the pain? Well, I was hit by a car this week, my head crushed the windshield, my body caved the hood, I was thrown back on the pavement with the tire stopping inches from my head, and that pain was nothing compared with the pain of each step I take most hours per day. Very frustrating.

Oh well. It is amazing what you can do out of Love. It isn't the pain I mind so much, as the worry that it will sideline me at this crucial juncture. Mustn't let that happen.

Darfur Heroics: PCHS students pay a price

PCHS students complete walk for Darfur

Jul 18 2007

By Tiffany Williams

Staff Reporter


When youth are inspired they can do anything and they will change the world. That is exactly what 15 students from Ponoka Composite High School did. They were inspired by students from Grant MacEwan College who walked from Calgary to Edmonton to raise awareness on the situation in Darfur. The group might seem small but Rishi Jaipaul who organized the event knows that size doesn't matter in their plight to raise money and awareness.

"It will make a difference, even the smallest thing, even if it saves one person's life it still made a difference," said Jaipaul.

The students from PCHS raise $4,876 for Doctors without Boarders. They raised the money through donations, selling t-shirts, the walkers took pledges and they held an event at their school and shaved students heads. He says that the money is going to Doctors without Boarders because they are one of the few humanitarian organizations who are still there. The other groups had to pull out because of rebel attacks.

Many of the walkers endured blisters, sprains, bruises or other hardships, but Jaipaul stresses that it was all worth it.

"The physical pain was hard, but when I was cramping up, I would think about the people in Darfur who would have to walk for 10 days to get to refugee camps after their villages were burnt."

The students set off from Ponoka on July 11 at 7:30 a.m. and started walking. They arrived in Lacombe at 2:30 p.m. and were taken in to rest at a church. They left the next day at 8:30 a.m. and arrived in Red Deer at 2:30 p.m. At 6:30 p.m. that night there was a reception held for their efforts. At the reception MP Bob Mills spoke of his humanitarian efforts in other war torn countries, members from the Central Alberta Refugee Effort spoke and a child solider that walked from Darfur to Ethiopia.

"The best part was seeing people's reactions, when telling them that I was walking from Ponoka to Red Deer. Also explaining the situation to people, where it is, the conflict, the lack of government support. I even had to explain to some people what genocide was, it was important just to get that awareness out there,' he said.

The group is also planning a car wash this summer and they still have t-shirts available if anyone would like to purchase them. For more information on how to support the group you can call Jaipaul at 403-352-8531.

The walkers included; teacher Ron Labrie, Jaipaul, Emma Curran, Maria Schultz, Neil Thompson, Danielle Comeau, Amy Baumgartner, Carielle Walsh, Tyrell Kochanski, Erin Golley, Scott Halland, Travis Kostivk, Lisa Widdifield, Brandon Curkan and the youth pastor from Youth for Christ Jerel Peters. They also received food and water donations from Hamilton's IGA, Extra Foods and Subway who provided lunch for them. A special thank-you also goes out to their driver Karen Dean who helped with supplies, kept the group hydrated and handed out snacks. Check out next week's Ponoka News for a first hand account of the group's adventure by Jaipaul.

Darfur Heroics: Yasmin Ravid

Young Israeli advocates for Darfur refugees,
Friday July 13, 2007 by stacey palevsky, staff writer

Television is known more for inspiring couch-potato behavior than activism.

But when Yasmin Ravid saw the sad, lost faces of mother-and-daughter refugees [from Darfur] on an Israeli newscast, she couldn’t sit idly by.

The 23-year-old decided she didn’t want to feel helpless. So she started looking for ways to help. She found the Hotline for Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv. Within days of seeing the television broadcast, she visited a refugee in prison.

For the past five months, Ravid has mostly worked with Darfur refugees just released from prison — taking them to the doctor, buying them a boom box, helping them learn Hebrew and English — in an attempt to restore the humanity they lost in Sudan.

Ravid’s Bay Area roots run deep — her mother, Linda, grew up in San Mateo and her father, Shlomi, spent several years as a shaliach in San Francisco, where he started the Israel Center in 1996. She used to go to Camp Tawonga. She lives in Israel and visits Northern California often, most recently before a backpacking trip in Guatemala (where she is currently).

Darfur refugees don’t get the attention they deserve, Ravid said in an interview during her recent Bay Area visit.

“Because Israel has so much going on, we don’t talk as much about the rest of the world. That’s just how it is,” she said.

Darfur refugees have been coming to Israel after being treated terribly in their home country. After escaping from Sudan, they make their way to Egypt, where they are also treated poorly. They arrive in Israel with high hopes for a peaceful life, but because they come from a country that supports terrorism, the Israeli government considers the refugees to be enemy nationals and puts them in jail.

With support from the hotline and volunteers like Ravid, about half of the refugees have been released from jail and placed on kibbutzes, where they can live and work if they agree to abide by certain restrictions.

The Israeli government has not decided exactly what to do with all the refugees coming from Darfur.

“On the one hand, they’re very grateful to have a place where they can walk down the street without getting beaten. They feel safe, and that’s extremely important,” Ravid said. “But there’s also a lot of frustration because their future is not secure. All they want to do is live.

“Some of them have been told that Jews kill any Muslims who come into their country,” she added. “The fact that they’re willing to take a chance and come to Israel shows how desperate they are for a better future.”

The Hotline for Migrant Workers helps foreign workers, refugees and asylum-seekers in Israel and runs a health clinic in partnership with Physicians for Human Rights.

The hotline first assigned Ravid to go to Masiyahu Prison and bring the Sudanese refugees basic supplies like paper and pens. Soon the hotline was asking her to “vouch” for a 27-year-old refugee who was to be released to work on a kibbutz after nearly two years in prison.

Most of Ravid’s volunteer work found her driving refugees from Kibbutz Yad Hana near Hadera to their medical appointments in Tel Aviv. She bought them medications and often paid her own travel costs.

“I want to make them feel like people again,” she said.

The volunteer work is now a family project. Ravid’s sister Maayan teaches the Sudanese Hebrew and English. Her brother just wrote a research paper about Darfur refugees for a high school course. And her parents have started a grassroots campaign to ensure the government does not send the refugees back to Egypt.

“She inspired us not to sit back but to act, to demonstrate our belief in tikkun olam, to go out of our way to help others,” Linda Ravid said.

Yasmin Ravid is pleased that her family is helping to raise awareness about the Sudanese refugees. She starts school at Ben Gurion University in the fall. She doesn’t know what she’ll study yet, but she does know she wants to continue advocating for peace and human rights.

“It’s important for Israel to take care of this situation correctly,” she said. “It’s such a great opportunity to prove that we’re the democratic and enlightened state we think we are.”

ANGEL FOR DARFUR: MIA FARROW

Powerful Acts: An interview with Mia Farrow
By Joel Whitney

I told Kofi Annan:

"I'm not suggesting you douse yourself with kerosene. But you could resign."

[This gal gets it. Start Loving]

Guernica magazine’s Joel Whitney recently spoke with Darfur activist Mia Farrow about the role of the UN, China and the U.S. in the ongoing genocide in Sudan: Not everyone reads a grim news story and gets on a plane to head for a war zone. But not everyone is Mia Farrow. [click above link for full article.]

Finally, someone in addition to Eric Reeves that is paying the price to Rescue and Restore Darfur. Someone that sees the truth (her photos below) and relentlessly lives it and tells it. Her site: http://www.miafarrow.org/

Genocide or AWESOME CAREER OPPORTUNITY?!?!??!

Genocide or AWESOME CAREER OPPORTUNITY?!?!??!

OK. These are the world leaders of the scam "Save Darfur" movement. Look at them. Is there a Genocide in Darfur or is this the most awesome career opportunity imiginable for these nice folks?


The Panel: (Back Row) John Prendergast (ICG), Samantha Power (Harvard), Nicholas Kristof (NY Times) and Daoud Ibrahim Hari; (Front) Omer Ismail, Mia Farrow (MIA IS THE EXCEPTION. SHE ACTUALLY BEHAVES AS THOUGH THERE IS A GENOCIDE - DAY IN AND DAY OUT), Winter Miller and Mark Hanis

More at: Photo Coverage: Public Theater's In Darfur Reading

Tuesday, July 10, 2007; Posted: 11:30 AM - by Ben Strothmann
The Public Theater offered New Yorkers a free staged reading of Winter Miller's In Darfur in Central Park for one night only, on Monday, July 9th. This reading continued the momentum generated by The Public's developmental production of In Darfur, which was highly successful in bringing audiences and artists together to raise awareness of the Darfur Crisis and encourage activism. The reading featured the original cast of The Public's production and was directed by Joanna Settle.

"Working as research assistant to Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the New York Times, playwright Winter Miller is immersed in the issues surrounding the ongoing genocide in Darfur. In Darfur is the provocative account of three intertwined lives at a camp for internally displaced persons in Darfur. The story follows an aid worker's mission to save and protect lives, a journalist's pursuit to deliver a "Page One" story and a Darfuri woman's quest for safety. It is a searing story of urgency and international significance," state press materials....

DARFUR HERO: FARROW IMPLORES H.S. STUDENTS

'There's so much you can do'The Republican, MA - Jun 25, 2007

United Nation's Children's Fund Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow believes that "this is the seminal moment" for high school students to take action against the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

"Are we not members of the human family [with Darfur]? And do we not have responsibilities to each other?" Farrow said in an recent interview....

Vigil Day #113 Darfur Vigil Washington DC

Please note: The Darfur (Sudan) Vigil continues! ALL FUTURE UPDATES AT:

BrigadeOfPeacemakersForDarfur.blogspot.com

Darfur Hero? French President Nicolas Sarkozy

For the sake of Darfur let us pray that a Savior(s) has finally been sent. Please Father Almighty, let it be.

African Union chief says new French president has will to resolve Darfur crisis

African Union leader John Kufuor praised French President Nicolas Sarkozy as having the will to help find a solution to the Darfur crisis, after meeting the France's newly elected leader on Monday in Paris.

Sarkozy has said [that] he wants aid to Africa and the Darfur crisis to be among the top priorities of the G-8 summit meeting starting Wednesday in Germany.

«I got the feeling that this president will definitely try to help find a solution in Darfur,» said Kufuor, president of Ghana, after his 30-minute meeting with Sarkozy.

«The impression I got is that this president will help to bring relief to the suffering people of Darfur,» Kufuor said. «He's concerned that at least humanitarian support is given.»

The AU currently has a 7,000-strong force on the ground in Darfur, but it has been unable to stop fighting between ethnic African rebels and pro-government janjaweed militia in Sudan's vast western Darfur region. The four-year conflict has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million Darfurians.

Kufuor said [that] the «[good will] and the understanding» [that] he established with Sarkozy during their half-hour of talks «may help move the solution forward.»

Darfur Heroics: HRW "Create Darfur Oil Fund"

Rights groups asks UN to create Darfur oil fundReuters AlertNet, UK - 3 hours agoNEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch asked the UN Security Council on Thursday to create a fund using Sudanese oil revenues to help the country's Darfur region as part of its bid to force Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers.

Sudan: HRW Letter to the UN Security Council On DarfurAllAfrica.com, Washington - 4 hours agoWe write to strongly urge the United Nations Security Council to take multilateral and decisive action to prevent the unacceptable human rights situation in Darfur from becoming worse and threatening the lives, homes, and security of tens of thousands ...

UN: Create Darfur Recovery Fund with Sudanese Oil RevenuesReuters AlertNet, UK - 4 hours ago(New York, May 31, 2007) - United Nations Security Council members should act decisively to protect civilians in Darfur by establishing a mandatory Darfur Recovery Fund with Sudanese oil revenues, Human Rights Watch said today.

Darfur Hideous: More Bush Lip Service

Bush Looks To Intensify Pressure On SudanBy Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post, May 29, 2007

LIP SERVICE. We-the-people, under the leadership of the timid, uncommitted, selfrighteous Save Darfur coalition, pay LIP SERVICE to Darfur. Bush and Congress see this, and give us LIP SERVICE in return, and we have no right to expect anything further. I can go into a Lexus dealership and try every trick in the book to get them to "give" me a car. They may be polite to me. But until I go in ready to "PAY THE PRICE," NO CAR! JUST LIP SERVICE is all I will get. Clearly, we-the-people prove day after day that WE WILL NOT PERSONALLY PAY THE PRICE TO STOP THIS GENOCIDE. Green wrist bands? YES! Banners on churches and busses? YES! Personal risk? NO!!! Personal inconvenience? NO!!!!! 21,000 non Jews risked self AND FAMILY to save Jews during WWII. We-the-people under the non-leadership of Save Darfur risk nothing, pay nothing, do nothing. Well, not surprisingly, the unstated response from Bush and Congress is the same as ours. LIP SERVICE. And, as we should expect, all we get from Al-Bashir and China is LIP SERVICE. God save us. IT IS TIME FOR WE THE PEOPLE TO PAY THE PRICE. Start Loving, Day #90, Sudan Embassy Vigil, StandWithDarfurSudanEmbassy dot blogspot dot com.

Sudan Embassy Darfur Campaign Day #89

TUESDAY, Day #90 will be spent away from the Embassy Darfur Campaign on various campaign related tasks including blogging and preparing signs for marching that will not cover my soon-to-be Auschwitz-like physique.

Wednesday and Thursday also may bring my absence from the Embassy as I continue the privelage of covering for Ellen, the hero that has been the sole support of the Darfur Sudan Embassy Campaign every day.

EVERYTHING - Darfur and the world. DEPENDS ON ESTABLISHING A Brigade of PeaceMakers: Darfur. Join. Get others to join. Now.

Darfur Heroics: Ban Ki-Moon

U.N. presses for peace in Darfur
The secretary-general writes to the Sudanese president in a last-ditch push for a truce and negotiations.
By Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2007


UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has put his personal diplomatic clout on the line to end the bloodshed in Darfur, demanding a cease-fire and fresh peace talks in a letter to Sudan's president, U.S. and Sudanese diplomats said Saturday.

Ban has asked the Security Council to hold off on sanctions to give President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir time to respond to an all-out diplomatic drive outlined for the first time in the confidential letter, which was delivered Friday.

Full article

HUNGER STRIKE: HARVARD UNIV.

Thank God SOMEONE is finding courage to pay the price for the wellbeing of others. Will we-the-people ever do this for Darfur? Thankyou Google

Striking ZealotryHarvard Crimson, MA - May 21, 2007On the heels of a student hunger strike, Harvard’s outsourced security guards have authorized a strike against their employer, AlliedBarton, ...
Harvard security guards authorize strikeBizjournals.com, NC - May 18, 2007The terms of their employment had spurred a nine-day hunger strike by undergraduates, and a protest in front of Holyoke Center in Harvard Square Thursday ...
Harvard students end successful hunger strikeNews-Leader.com, MO - May 12, 2007Opitz, a 2006 Central High School valedictorian, had been on a hunger strike for nine days in hopes of improving worker conditions for outsourced security ...
Harvard Students End Hunger Strike Over Guards' WagesChronicle of Higher Education (subscription) - May 11, 2007Harvard students ended a nine-day hunger strike on behalf of campus guards this afternoon, The Harvard Crimson reported. The students had been seeking to ...
Students at Harvard on Hunger Strike For Security Guard WagesThe MIT Tech, MA - May 10, 2007A Harvard University sophomore was hospitalized early Tuesday after going on a hunger strike to lobby for fairer wages and working conditions for campus ...
Central High grad among Harvard hunger strikersNews-Leader.com, MO - May 5, 2007Opitz, who now attends Harvard University, is one of 11 students who launched a hunger strike Thursday to show their support for Harvard's newly unionized ...
After Nine Days, Protesters End Hunger StrikeHarvard Crimson, MA - May 14, 2007The hunger strike was organized by Stand For Security, a coalition of more than 20 campus organizations, to protest the wages of Harvard security guards ...
Fifth Day of Hunger Strike: Harvard President’s Administration ...Infoshop News - May 9, 2007On the fifth day of the students hunger strike at Harvard to pressure its administration to raise security guards pay, protesters found the President’s ...
Harvard Students Back Home After Hunger StrikeBoston Channel.com, MA - May 10, 2007BOSTON -- Two Harvard University students hospitalized during a hunger strike were back at home Thursday morning. Javier Castro was hospitalized on Tuesday ...
Harvard Students Hold Hunger StrikeBoston Channel.com, MA - May 9, 2007BOSTON -- Harvard University students took part in a hunger strike Wednesday to show their support for university security guards, who are negotiating a new ...
Hunger Strike Over Guards' Pay Sends Harvard Student to HospitalChronicle of Higher Education (subscription) - May 9, 2007A Harvard University student in the midst of a hunger strike was hospitalized on Tuesday, the fifth day of a protest on behalf of higher pay for campus ...
A Hunger Strike Epidemic?Inside Higher Ed, DC - May 11, 2007He notified students at Harvard when the hunger strike began at Stanford, and he heard about the Harvard strike as soon as it started. ...
Hunger Strike Ends as University Agrees To Meet 2 Key DemandsHarvard Crimson, MA - May 13, 2007The nine remaining students staging a hunger strike in protest of the wages and benefits offered to Harvard's outsourced security guards ended their ...
Hungry for Justice at HarvardZNet, MA - May 15, 2007and "We are unstoppable, another Harvard is possible!" Though the hunger strike is over, the students and guards recognize that the struggle itself is far ...
Central High grad on hunger strike urged to eatNews-Leader.com, MO - May 11, 2007A Springfield native and 2006 Central High School valedictorian, Opitz now attends Harvard University. Today marks the eighth day of a hunger strike that ...
Hunger Strike Is Definitely a Misguided TacticHarvard Crimson, MA - May 11, 2007While I admire the idealism of students who have embarked on a hunger strike to support the demands of Harvard’s security guards, I think the protest is ...
Harvard Crimson
Second Hunger Striker HospitalizedHarvard Crimson, MA - May 10, 2007Seven days into a hunger strike aimed at getting higher wages for Harvard's security guards, a second undergraduate participating in the strike was ...
Harvard may face graduation strikeBoston Herald, MA - May 17, 2007Last week, a group of Harvard students ended a nine-day hunger strike on behalf of the guards, at the guards’ request. The guards make $12.68 an hour, ...
Stick to Student IssuesHarvard Crimson, MA - May 13, 2007As controversial as the issue was, the tactic of a hunger strike was even more so among the student body, with e-mail lists abuzz in debate about Stand for ...
Campus Progress
Starving for Social JusticeCampus Progress, DC - May 9, 2007On Thursday, May 3, 11 Harvard University students began a hunger strike in protest of the university’s decision not to intervene in stalled contract ...
Guards May Strike If Demands Not MetHarvard Crimson, MA - May 17, 2007Jamila R. Martin ’07 , one of last week’s hunger strikers, said that Harvard security officers are “basically getting parity to crappy wages.”
Harvard strikers break fastBoston Herald, MA - May 11, 2007With tears streaming down some of their faces, the fasting students effectively ended their hunger strike after the guards met them in Harvard Yard, ...
F(ocus) Your ActivismHarvard Crimson, MA - May 11, 2007Like those red bandanas hand cut by the Dems, this hunger strike is just another form of earnest, but ultimately unwise, activism at Harvard. ...
Hunger striker hospitalizedBostonNOW, MA - May 9, 2007The hunger strike at Harvard is about wages, hours and full union recognition. Students want the university to involve itself with negotiations between ...
University Agrees to Meeting with ProtestersHarvard Crimson, MA - May 8, 2007Six days into a hunger strike aimed at pressuring Harvard to influence negotiations over security guards' contracts, the University has agreed to honor the ...
Hunger Striker Hospitalized; Labor Protests Gain Momentum as ...Harvard Crimson, MA - May 8, 2007As students prepared to gather in the Yard Tuesday for a sixth day of a hunger strike in support of higher wages for security guards, the protesters ...
Hungry For a CauseHarvard Crimson, MA - May 8, 2007The hunger strike is a classic protest ultimatum—the gastronomical equivalent of Patrick Henry’s famous cry, “Give me liberty or give me death! ...
Veritas et SecuritasHarvard Crimson, MA - May 6, 2007A hunger strike also obscures the facts rather than clarifies them, and sets a bad precedent for future student advocacy efforts at Harvard. ...
News, Views and Careers for All of Higher EducationInside Higher Ed, DC - May 14, 2007Students at Harvard University on Friday agreed to end a hunger strike they had been waging for more than a week on behalf of security workers engaged in ...
Walkout Threatens Harvard CommencementBoston Channel.com, MA - May 18, 2007Some students recently took part in a nine-day hunger strike for the security workers. NewsCenter 5's Steve Lacy reported that university officials do not ...
DISSENT: Striking a Blow Against InjusticeHarvard Crimson, MA - May 6, 2007That assumption was a mistake, and my dismissal of the student hunger strike as a form of protest was far more misguided than the movement I had jumped to ...
VPs Agree To Meet with StrikersHarvard Crimson, MA - May 11, 2007But coalition members, including those participating in the hunger strike to pressure the University to intervene in the negotiations between AlliedBarton, ...
Hunger-striking Harvard soph hospitalizedBoston Herald, MA - May 8, 2007A Harvard University sophomore was hospitalized yesterday after going six days without food as part of a student hunger strike in support of university ...
Harvard Crimson
University To Meet with SLAMHarvard Crimson, MA - May 8, 2007The meeting comes a week into a hunger strike involving 11 undergraduates, one of whom was hospitalized yesterday for dangerously low sodium and electrolyte ...
The Politics of DrudgeryHarvard Crimson, MA - May 17, 2007... the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) called a “hunger strike,” and organized daily rallies in Harvard Yard. After two participating students had ...
Student Groups Across Campus Enter DiscussionHarvard Crimson, MA - May 11, 2007“There is nothing wrong with members of the UC as individuals doing a hunger strike to show their solidarity with strikers,” Goldenberg said. ...

DARFUR HERO: MIA FARROW

Farrow shifts spotlight from self to Darfur
By Rinker Buck
Hartford Courant

WASHINGTON DEPOT, Conn. – She’s 62 now, as charmingly elfin as ever, and still making movies. But don’t ask Mia Farrow about Hollywood, her famous marriages or how she manages to stay so trim.

The only subject Farrow is interested in – and governments from Khartoum to Beijing wish she would stop talking about – is Darfur. [click above for full article]

GOOGLE:
Reuters
Debating DarfurReuters - 10 hours agoMs. Farrow has called for UN peacekeeping forces to be sent to Darfur, where she toured the conflict area for a second time last year. ...
Farrow shifts spotlight from self to DarfurFort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN - May 13, 2007“Here, let me show you my PowerPoint on Darfur,” Farrow says after ordering iced green tea and a blue cheeseburger for lunch at the GW Tavern on a recent ...
Voice of America
American Activism for Darfur Hits New York StageVoice of America - May 22, 2007Action by governments and the United Nations is also a part of the solution, according to Mia Farrow. The actress-turned-activist, who has visited Darfur on ...
Mia Farrow puts spotlight on DarfurWhite Plains Journal News, NY - May 5, 2007"Here, let me show you my PowerPoint on Darfur," Farrow says after ordering iced green tea and a blue cheese burger for lunch at the GW Tavern one day last ...
Sudan Tribune
Sudan's EnablersHuffington Post, NY - 13 hours agoMs. Williams, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, recently headed a UN Mission on Darfur. Ms. Farrow recently returned from her fourth trip to the ...Fidelity's PetroChina stake sale shows campaign power Reuters Italiaall 16 news articles » PTR
Inner City Press
At the UN, Senators Talk Darfur, Boycott Is Disfavored, N. Korea ...Inner City Press, NY - May 21, 2007UNICEF goodwill ambassador Mia Farrow, on the other hand, speaks of China's "genocide Olympics." Dr. Djibril Diallo on Monday said that no one in the UN has ...
China's pivotal role in Sudan on trialJakarta Post, Indonesia - May 22, 2007Hollywood actress, Mia Farrow, who is a good-will ambassador for the UN Children's Fund, gave the campaign a publicity boost in March when she branded the ...
Around the world, protestors call for action on DarfurMonday Morning, Lebanon - May 20, 2007Several hundred protesters, led by the American actress Mia Farrow, rallied outside the White House to urge President George W. Bush to increase support for ...
China Tries to Head Off a `Genocide Olympics': Frederick KempeBloomberg - May 23, 2007Not to actress Mia Farrow and her son Ronan, who wrote a critical op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in late March. That turned up the heat on China as ...
Olympics are China's 'vulnerable spot' when it comes to Darfur crisisMonsters and Critics.com, UK - May 21, 2007The criticism reached a high point at the end of March, when Hollywood actress Mia Farrow, who is a good-will ambassador for the UN Children's Fund, ...The Chinese Panda Ambles into an Olympic Thicket Asia Sentinelall 10 news articles »
'Voices of Darfur' at broadcast museumCincinnati Post, OH - May 18, 2007Mia Farrow was clearly the star of the evening. She still exudes that waif-like loveliness in person that captured us all in TV's "Peyton Place" and then ...
Farrow Tells of Trips to Darfur at Class DayThe Emory Wheel - May 11, 2007... Mia Farrow brought a serious tone to the ususally lighthearted Class Day ceremony on Thursday, talking about the atrocities she's seen in the Darfur ...
Fidelity. Berkshire targeted over PetroChinaReuters AlertNet, UK - May 1, 2007"I have to assume, given his philanthropic endeavors, he doesn't fully know" what is happening in Darfur, Farrow said. "We remain hopeful. ...PTR - BRK.A
China's FM: Linking Beijing Olympics to Darfur will failUSA Today - May 20, 2007During the recent presidential race, French politicians floated the idea of an Olympic boycott and American actress Mia Farrow also has called on corporate ...
Darfur – the China ProblemNew York Sun, NY - May 15, 2007As Darfur activists Mia Farrow and Ronan Farrow recently wrote, "Beijing is uniquely positioned to put a stop to the slaughter, yet they have so far been ...
Actress Mia Farrow To Present Closing Address At DarfurDarfur ...EVLiving - May 3, 2007Actress Mia Farrow will be the closing speaker at the internationally touring photographic exhibition DARFURDARFUR at Scottsdale Center for the Performing ...
Mia Farrow helps raise funds for Darfur in RidgefieldStamford Advocate, CT - May 3, 2007Farrow, a UNICEF ambassador and activist committed to raising awareness and aid for Darfur (www.miafarrow.org), has visited the region four times since 2004 ...
Darfur: The "Genocide Olympics?" campaign roars into high gearSudan Tribune, Sudan - May 10, 2007On TV and in newspapers, Farrow has been pressuring China to face up to its role in the genocide being carried out by Arab militia groups in the Darfur ...
Mia Farrow turns star wattage on DarfurEarthtimes.org - Apr 30, 2007BRIDGEWATER, Conn., April 30 Actress Mia Farrow now channels her Hollywood star power into a different direction: the suffering in the Darfur region of the ...
Mia Farrow Turns Star Wattage On DarfurPost Chronicle - Apr 30, 2007Actress Mia Farrow now channels her Hollywood star power into a different direction: the suffering in the Darfur region of the Sudan. To stress her point, ...
Mia Farrow turns star wattage on DarfurUnited Press International - Apr 30, 2007To stress her point, Farrow uses a presentation that includes photographs she took during her visits to Darfur as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. ...

Sudan Embassy Darfur Campaign Day #80

NOTE: To help Ellen, the partner in this Sudan Embassy / Darfur Campaign will not be on site at Embassy Thursday 5/24 or Wednesday Thursday 5/31, 6/1. Will be collecting and distributing food for the needy in her stead.

Bathing, Laundry and Blogging at the Washington Peace Center this evening, Saturday.

Returning Sunday early afternoon after helping out at the Washington Peace Center that has been such an extraordinary daily support of the Embassy Campaign.

Next Wednesday for 8 days I will usually be at the Embassy on the usual Marching for Darfur in the morning, but in the evenings I will be assisting friends that have been supporting the Darfur campaign, and therefore absent from the Embassy except mornings and early afternoons. Regarding the Hunger Strike these days, I anticipate dropping Calorie intake to allow for the hours marching that will be sacrificed; dropping to 300-400 calories per day I'll guess - some fruit and a small piece of chicken or fish.

What will it cost us, this killing Darfur by lip service? This post might help you, as it helps me - link.

Modified Hunger Strike continues:

• Marching to accelerate weight loss so as to become a visual on Mass. Ave of the forced starvation being visited by our neglect on Darfur; 8-12 hours per day burning up to 3000 extra calories.
• Consuming about 800 calories per day to survive for as many months as it takes.

My energy, mental, and physical capabilities are well within the "green zone" as far as short or long term safety is concerned, but my productivity is definitely starting to suffer big time. My body and mind are getting a bit worn out. Much, much left, but clearly I am dropping away from my peak abilities, for now.

CRUCIAL ARTICLES:
Darfur: U.S. Activism a TOTAL MORAL FAILURE
Three fold Holocaust Desicration by US Jews...
Exploitative U.S. "Family Values" will be its demise...
US Christians shamefully exploit Darfur Genocide
Kristof, Power, Fowler... exploit student Inactivists and Darfur
Darfur: Sick of Darfur In-activism? Join the Brigade of PeaceMakers
Darfur InActivism: Activist Dellinger rolling in his grave?
Student InActivists shamelessly exploit Darfur
Free Lunch - Darfur InActivism!!! There's no Genocide!.

ALL START LOVING SITES:
DARFUR'S LAST HOPE: Brigade of PeaceMakers: for Darfur. JOIN NOW
SAVING DARFUR, EARTH, OURSELVES: Jesus, God, Good...
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Holocaust Rescuers
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Peace and Nonviolence
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: David Dellinger
4 DARFUR HEROES; 21,000 FOR HOLOCAUST: Darfur Dying for Heroes
HUNGER STRIKE: Stand with Darfur: Sudan Embassy
WE'RE EVIDENCE NO GENOCIDE: Darfur Genocide a Fraud
Actions 6/06 - 1/07: Stand With Darfur White House II
Actions 5/06 - 6/06: Stand With Darfur White House
Actions 7/05 - 5/06: Rescue Restore Darfur

NPR: Darfur Sudan Embassy Vigil Day #75

Commentary: Hunger Striker Wants to Make Difference in Darfur
May-06-2007, All Things Considered
...believes his actions can make a difference in Darfur. He inspired this commentary from NPR's Kitty Eisele. KITTY EISELE: He calls himself ?Start Loving,? but actually it's the last...

Listeners Letters: McGinley Commentary, Immigrant Profile
All Things Considered, May 12, 2007 · Listeners air their thoughts on Kitty Eisele's commentary about Jay McGinley, and Debbie Elliot's profile of Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, a former illegal migrant worker, now a citizen and a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University.

Start Loving - In defense of Ms. Eisele: "I take it as a kindness in support of the Darfur cause that NPR aired the comment above from the California listener. With all respect and affection for the listener, this Californian clearly did NOT understand Ms. Eisele's report. Clearly Ms. Eisele was communicating with courageous honesty her conflicted support and respect for my embrace of people 6000 miles away; and making herself extremely vulnerable to criticism through her selfless self-depreciation. God bless your courage, insight, compassion, skill and support for Darfur Ms. Eisele. Tragically so far, one in a million posses or use these wonderful characteristics you have displayed."

Start Loving correcting Ms. Eisele regarding White House protesters: "Among the only people in the world "sane" enough to stand for their brothers and sisters in Darfur, Iraq and other places thousands of miles from the U.S. are some of those "crazy" White House protesters you so carelessly maligned. Ellen Thomas, with support from her husband Thomas is the only person yet to come forward with daily support of the Sudan Embassy Darfur Action for which you have at least guarded hope. Ellen was one of those White House demonstrators for 18 years, and now chairs the Washington Peace Center and is a world respected anti Nuclear activist. Thomas is in his 26th year of White House vigil against nuclear armaments and for truth and wisdom in government. Thomas and Ellen's bill Prop 1 to eliminate nucs worldwide has been proposed by Rep. Eleanor Homes Norton every year for many, many years now and has ever increasing international support. Pretty Crazy huh?

The prophets of every age are judged by their peers as "crazy," and by history as the only ones that were "sane" in their time; the ones that if NOT "stayed away from" might have averted, well, Armageddon. Please take care. You, Ms. Eisele are so much better than that.

ps: Are there no crazies in-front-of the White House? Are there no crazies IN the White House?"

Darfur Hunger Strike Sudan Embassy: May 7

Things have never looked so bleak for Darfur. It turns out that Congress, the UK, and President Bush are every good at lip service and deception as el-Bashir and we-the-people are. We are going to talk our Darfuries to death.

It will take a miracle to break this deadly cycle of talk, do nothing, talk, do nothing....

We must wake up and see that they are our family. There is no other hope.

ACTIVIST HYPOCRICY: LIP SERVICE BUYS NO MERCEDES

How much longer will we InActivists kill Darfuries just so we can enjoy the delusion that our Activist whining and LIP SERVICE will save Darfur? I can have an uncle running a Mercedes dealership, I even can have recommended (voted him in) my Uncle for the job, BUT WITHOUT $$$$ (PAYING THE PRICE) NO MERCEDES!!!!!!!!!

Bush is our paid employee. He is not on commission (except from the corporations.) We the people can whine and give LIP SERVICE on Darfur till every Darfurie is tortured to extermination, BUT UNTIL WE STEP UP WITH THE PRICE, LIP SERVICE IS ALL WE WILL RECEIVE IN RETURN, along mutilated Darfurie corpses.

This is the seminal, and to be expected finding of Samantha Power's brilliant, "Problem From Hell," a work she seems promptly to have forgotten upon receiving her Pulitzer. Her conclusion is 'Genocide has never been stopped because the people have never stood up!' THE POLITICIANS WILL NOT TAKE RISK UNTIL WE GIVE AN UNMISTAKABLE MANDATE OR ULTIMATUM TO THEM - WE MUST VOTE WITH OUR BODIES (fingers sending emails, postcards, dialing phones do not count.)

It has been four years. IF we citizens want the genocide to stop we must vote unmistakably with our BODIES.

IF AN ALL POWERFUL ENTITY PLACED YOUR DEAREST LOVED ONE IN A DARFURIE CAMP TODAY AND GAVE YOU UNTIL JUNE 30 TO STOP THE GENOCIDE AND SAVE THEM, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? (Oh, so now you see the sham of emails, green bracelets, more postcars and lobying....) WHAT YOU WOULD DO FOR YOUR DEAR ONE, DO IT FOR DARFUR. NOW. My suggestion is DARFUR'S LAST HOPE: Brigade of PeaceMakers: for Darfur. JOIN NOW.

Start Loving, Day 64 Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike (A Hunger For Justice : Darfur Becomes One Man's Cause for Deprivation Delphine Schrank, C01 (Post) Washington Post, April 14, 2007)

ARTICLES:

Three fold Holocaust Desicration by US Jews...
US Christians shamefully exploit Darfur Genocide
Exploitative U.S. "Family Values" will be its demise...
Darfur: Sick of Darfur In-activism? Join the Brigade of PeaceMakers
Darfur: U.S. Activism a TOTAL MORAL FAILURE
Darfur InActivism: Activist Dellinger rolling in his grave?
Student InActivists shamelessly exploit Darfur
Free Lunch - Darfur InActivism!!! There's no Genocide!.
Darfur: Sick of Darfur In-activism? Join the Brigade of PeaceMakers
Kristof, Power, Fowler... exploit student Inactivists and Darfur

See updates at all sites:

DARFUR'S LAST HOPE: Brigade of PeaceMakers: for Darfur. JOIN NOW
SAVING DARFUR, EARTH, OURSELVES: Jesus, God, Good...
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Holocaust Rescuers
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Peace and Nonviolence
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: David Dellinger
4 DARFUR HEROES; 21,000 FOR HOLOCAUST: Darfur Dying for Heroes
HUNGER STRIKE: Stand with Darfur: Sudan Embassy
WE'RE PROOF OF NO GENOCIDE: Darfur Genocide a Fraud
Actions 6/06 - 1/07: Stand With Darfur White House II
Actions 5/06 - 6/06: Stand With Darfur White House
Actions 7/05 - 5/06: Rescue Restore Darfur

Darfur Heroics: Yad Vashem - UN MUST ACT

Yad Vashem says UN must act in Darfur

Military force must be sent to Sudan, Holocaust Museum heads tell UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. 'Mere statements are no longer sufficient,' they say

Amit Schneider Published: 04.29.07, 12:24 / Israel News

The United Nations must take action to stop the genocide in the Darfur region, Yad Vashem heads said in a letter sent Sunday to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. (LINK ABOVE for full article.)

Darfur Hunger Strike Day #56 Sudan Embassy

EVERYTHING - Darfur and the world. DEPENDS ON ESTABLISHING A Brigade of PeaceMakers: Darfur. Join. Get others to join. Now.

I anticipate that with the work of yesterday through the wee hours of this morning I am ready to enter an assault on hearts / souls of months, maybe many many months in and around the Sudan Embassy.

The agony and the ecstasy continue. Much about the spiritual and physical aspects of this campaign are at http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/.

It is now a race against the clock for Darfur. Bush blustering creates and opportunity. China's attention is now on the implications of their obstruction. UK/US Security Council control through June 30.

I expect to be in a race to avoid Darfur / Global death 24/7, desperately trying to be God's Grief and Suffering regarding Darfur / U.S. - International Heartlessness at and around 221o Mass. Ave / Embassy Row, DC.

I expect to continue 10-12 hours/day forced marching for maximum communication with the new posters and to drop to an an Auschwitz physique (although I'm pretty close now). I'm thereby burning about 2500 cal/day and dropping an estimated 1-1.5 lbs per day. Within two weeks I expect to hit bottom and then, if God and Angels provide the 2500 cal/day I expect to continue to keep expending I'll stabilize indefinitely.

Pray for Darfur. Pray for my faithfulness. Pray for your loved ones born and yet unborn.

The fate of the world is being decided, now.

CRUCIAL ARTICLES:
Darfur: U.S. Activism a TOTAL MORAL FAILURE
Three fold Holocaust Desicration by US Jews...
Exploitative U.S. "Family Values" will be its demise...
US Christians shamefully exploit Darfur Genocide
Kristof, Power, Fowler... exploit student Inactivists and Darfur
Darfur: Sick of Darfur In-activism? Join the Brigade of PeaceMakers
Darfur InActivism: Activist Dellinger rolling in his grave?
Student InActivists shamelessly exploit Darfur
Free Lunch - Darfur InActivism!!! There's no Genocide!.

ALL START LOVING SITES:
DARFUR'S LAST HOPE: Brigade of PeaceMakers: for Darfur. JOIN NOW
SAVING DARFUR, EARTH, OURSELVES: Jesus, God, Good...
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Holocaust Rescuers
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Peace and Nonviolence
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: David Dellinger
4 DARFUR HEROES; 21,000 FOR HOLOCAUST: Darfur Dying for Heroes
HUNGER STRIKE: Stand with Darfur: Sudan Embassy
WE'RE EVIDENCE NO GENOCIDE: Darfur Genocide a Fraud
Actions 6/06 - 1/07: Stand With Darfur White House II
Actions 5/06 - 6/06: Stand With Darfur White House
Actions 7/05 - 5/06: Rescue Restore Darfur

Darfur Heroics: Mia Farrow Genocide Olympics

Beijing Olympics 2008 official logo

The Chinese government funds the genocide in Sudan, and has been doing so for years..The Chinese Foreign Minister, when asked about it by a reporter for the New York Times, said "It is all just business to us."

The Chinese hope the Olympics will improve their image and bring them honor on the world stage. And yet they are sponsoring genocide. Indeed, oil that is fueling the building in preparation for the Olympics is pumped out of the ground in Sudan..and the money paid for that oil is used to by the government of Sudan, with Chinese approval, to commit genocide..

Read more here including Mia and Ronan Farrow's article in the Wall Street Journal..and many more articles like it..
Please copy the image above and paste it on your site. No telling how long we will be able to keep this one up here. And we got it from a friend..

Darfur Heroics: Kristoff, FINALLY

Driving Up the Price of Blood (by Nicholas Kristof)
The "CFD" has posted his latest column (from Tuesday)...

Conclusion: "Perhaps the explanation for Mr. Bush’s passivity is the same as the explanation for Mr. Bashir’s brutality. Maybe Mr. Bush has made his calculations, looked at the number of calls and letters he gets about Darfur, weighed the pros and cons, and decided that Americans really don’t care enough about genocide to make him pay a major price for allowing it to continue."

We have given Bush/Congress neither a MANDATE nor an ULTIMATUM. Yet?

Darfur Heroics: Edmonton Students 8 Days Walk

Hmm, which sets a higher price on Darfurie lives:
A. Green wrist bands
B. One day fast from one of your luxuries
C. A postcard
D. 20 students walking 8 days for Darfur

"For the next eight days a group of 20 Grant MacEwan college students will walk more than 300 km from Calgary to Edmonton to raise funds and awareness for the plight of people in Darfur suffering and dying in a protracted genocide."

See full article: Sun, April 22, 2007
Students take steps for Darfur refugees
UPDATED: 2007-04-22 13:28:31 MSTGroup walking to Edmonton to raise awareness to Sudan crisisBy NADIA MOHARIB, CALGARY SUN

Darfur Heroics: Yad Vashem: For Darfur - NOTHING!

The world is doing nothing to halt the genocide is again being perpetrated in Darfur - that was the message from Yosef (Tommy Lapid), a Holocaust survivor from Budapest, who now serves as chairman of the Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem for the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II. Lapid was speaking at the annual Holocaust memorial ceremony this week. This is a translation of his address to the people of Israel and the world. Full article: DARFUR & THE HOLOCAUST

ALSO!
Every day horror, from Darfur to Paris
By Guy Senbel for Guysen Israel News
Dimanche 22 avril 2007 à 06:05
Editorial of the week of 21/04/2007
This week we wish to draw our readers’ attention to the situation in Darfur where, from February 2003, nearly 400 000 people have been massacred by the militias of the Sudanese government, and more than two million people have been forcibly displaced. Most editorialists are calling this the “Darfur crisis”, we prefer to call it the massacre or the crime against humanity.

DARFUR: Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike Day 45

Dr. King, "A man is not fit [equipped] to live until he knows what he would die for."

A Hunger For Justice : Darfur Becomes One Man's Cause for Deprivation
Delphine Schrank, C01 (Post) Washington Post, April 14, 2007

NOTE: WE HAVE UNTIL JUNE 30, CONTROL OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL, TO RESCUE & RESTORE DARFUR. JOIN A BRIGADE OF PEACEMAKERS, NOW, OR IT IS TOO LATE.

45 days now Darfur Hunger Strike at the Sudan Embassy in DC and every minute of every day bears out fully what Dr. King was saying. No one has more Peace, Love, Joy, and Life each minute of every day than I am having. Yes, and an enormous amount of Agony for my family, our family in Darfur, and here in the U.S. Oh my God, how can we here have become so dead in our Humanity that after four years we are not dropping everything, EVERYTHING to give Bush the unmistakable mandate he needs, HE NEEDS to pull out all the stops and PEACEFULLY but in an impeccable TOUGH LOVE, GENUINELY TOUGH LOVE MANNER TO STOP THIS GENOCIDE NOW AND RESTORE DARFURIES LOVINGLY AND RICHLY TO THEIR LIVES, with an air tight, extremely time-aggressive short, medium and long term solution?!?!?!?!?

Darfur is the battle for humanity for planet earth, AND for the Rescue and Restore of 2.5 million Darfuries currently in concentration camps. Worth giving your life for? Do you love your children, born and unborn? If using Darfur we in the U.S. don't / can't raise enough humanity to save them then there will no longer be enough humanity to counter the forces of destruction / entropy in the US or world wide. Game over, Armageddon begins / continues unopposed in a myriad of excruciating ways. For strategic background see: Darfur Hunger Strike Day 35: To The Death or Resolution by June 30 and also Darfur: Necessary components for resolution by June 30 .

Today began my power dive. Darfur and Washington need my body to immediately manifest the neglect we have been visiting on Darfur. As long as I can, 12 hours today, I will abstain from all calories and exercise all day long. Remember the pictures of Auschwitz? That is the picture I need to be on Embassy row in front of the Sudan Embassy ASAP. God grant me the speed.
Much computer work on these Sites has consumed evenings this week. With that work now complete I expect to be at the Sudan Embassy 7/24 through June 30.

Everything now hinges on 1 person joining the Hunger Strike. Then we can attract two more.... There is no other legitimate hope. Oh, we can continue counting on luck / divine intervention. There is NO CHANCE that this would lovingly Restore Darfur nor be sufficient to reverse the entropy destroying all aspects of earth; only raising our humanity can do that.

READ THESE CRUCIAL ARTICLES:

Three fold Holocaust Desicration by US Jews...
US Christians shamefully exploit Darfur Genocide
Exploitative U.S. "Family Values" will be its demise...
Darfur: Sick of Darfur In-activism? Join the Brigade of PeaceMakers
Darfur: U.S. Activism a TOTAL MORAL FAILURE
Darfur InActivism: Activist Dellinger rolling in his grave?
Student InActivists shamelessly exploit Darfur
Free Lunch - Darfur InActivism!!! There's no Genocide!.
Darfur: Sick of Darfur In-activism? Join the Brigade of PeaceMakers
Kristof, Power, Fowler... exploit student Inactivists and Darfur

See updates at all sites:

DARFUR'S LAST HOPE: Brigade of PeaceMakers: for Darfur. JOIN NOW
SAVING DARFUR, EARTH, OURSELVES: Jesus, God, Good...
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Holocaust Rescuers
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Peace and Nonviolence
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: David Dellinger
4 DARFUR HEROES; 21,000 FOR HOLOCAUST: Darfur Dying for Heroes
HUNGER STRIKE: Stand with Darfur: Sudan Embassy
WE'RE PROOF OF NO GENOCIDE: Darfur Genocide a Fraud
Actions 6/06 - 1/07: Stand With Darfur White House II
Actions 5/06 - 6/06: Stand With Darfur White House
Actions 7/05 - 5/06: Rescue Restore Darfur

Darfur: Which cheap activism trick will get you a new car?

Answer: There is no cheap trick that will get you a new car. You have to PAY FOR IT.

Question: Which cheap activism trick will stop genocide?
Answer: No cheap activism tricks will stop genocide. You have to lay down your life for it.

Darfur: Sick of Darfur In-activism? Join the Brigade of PeaceMakers

Darfur Hunger Strike Day 44 at Sudan Embassy.

"DO UNTO OTHERS ALL THAT YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU," The Golden Rule of Humanity. Are you tired of acting NOT like the people in Darfur are your IMMEDIATE FAMILY; not doing "ALL that you would have them do unto you?" No one is behaving that way right? Never has a people been saved unless and until others laid down their life for them; right? Can't stand not to? Come join at the Sudan Embassy, 2210 Mass. Ave, Washington, DC.

[SEE: SEE: A Hunger For Justice : Darfur Becomes One Man's Cause for Deprivation Delphine Schrank, C01 (Post) Washington Post, April 14, 2007]

When there are TWO of us: we will stay at the Sudan Embassy

When there are FOUR of us: two will go to the Chinese Embassy

When there are EIGHT of us: Four will begin a series of actions at the White House demanding to meet with President Bush to have him tell us WHAT MANDATE WE CITIZENS NEED TO PROVIDE TO HIM so that he can bring the RESCUE AND RESTORE OF DARFUR to immediate fruition.

When there are SIXTEEN of us: Eight of us will begin nonviolent direct action to interfere with the flow of goods from China. We will interfere with the offloading of shipments from China, Picket certain stores....

When there are THIRTY TWO of us: Some of us will position ourselves in boats in front of Chinese tankers like SeaSheperds does to protect whales. Certainly people deserve more heroism than whales.

We're killing time. In God's name, Start Loving

[US & UK have the Security Council until June 30. This is your last chance to TRULY Stand with Darfur. Join a Brigade of PeaceMakers - Darfur, NOW.]

See updates at all sites:

DARFUR'S LAST HOPE: Brigade of PeaceMakers: for Darfur. JOIN NOW SAVING DARFUR, EARTH, OURSELVES: Jesus, God, Good...
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Holocaust Rescuers
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Peace and Nonviolence
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: David Dellinger
4 DARFUR HEROES; 21,000 FOR HOLOCAUST: Darfur Dying for Heroes
HUNGER STRIKE: Stand with Darfur: Sudan Embassy
WE'RE PROOF OF NO GENOCIDE: Darfur Genocide a Fraud
Actions 6/06 - 1/07: Stand With Darfur White House II
Actions 5/06 - 6/06: Stand With Darfur White House
Actions 7/05 - 5/06: Rescue Restore Darfur

Darfur Hunger Strike Day 35: To The Death or Resolution by June 30

Now is the time to end the Gencide - by June 30th. Darfur on Their Radar Screen, Washington Post. According to this article:

* Bush is furious at tepid sanction options and has called his staff for definitive ones.
* England has the Security Council in May.
* US has Security Council in June.
* Bush wants China to stop obstructing.

Just one problem. The citizens of the US have not given Bush 1/1000th of the mandate he needs. We've taken no risks and we are asking him to risk major political capital - his life. This is functionally, effectively and morally bankrupt on the part of we the citizens.

We all vote with our lives EVERY DAY! Like me most of my life we vote for bigger houses, better jobs, higher incomes, more DVD's, more reality TV, or Starbucks, more McDonald's, more Outback Steakhouse.... The elected officials see this and THIS is what the work on for us.

WE DO NOT VOTE WITH OUR LIVES FOR DARFUR. Yet.

For the next 2.5 months you and I need to VOTE WITH OUR VERY LIVES, giving an unmistakable moral and political mandate to Bush to invest the full moral, political, diplomatic and financial capital of this country to rescue and lovingly restore the people of Darfur now.

I'm going to vote with my life - I'm laying my life on the line. Next Tuesday will be day 41 of my water only hunger strike in front of the Sudan Embassy on Embassy row in DC. On water only I've got only about 20 days left I figure. But on 600 calories per day I can last until the end of June. So April 10th I go on 600 cal / day and fast either to the death, or until I see:

1. An absolutely certain plan to end the atrocities in the works;
2. An absolutely certain plan to restore the people of Darfur FULLY to their lives, IN THE WORKS;

Death or 1 & 2, which ever come first. This is the best I know how to put Bush in the strongest moral and political position to take the risks he needs to take.

What are you going to do? Join me. Or LAY DOWN YOUR LIFE UNMISTAKEABLY some other way. Now. Do it.

US DARFUR ACTIVISM - TOTAL MORAL FAILURE

Saving Darfur, Multiple Steps at a Time
Coalition's Lobbying Blitz Is Credited With Spurring Bush's Sudan Sanctions By Jeffrey H. BirnbaumWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, June 1, 2007; Page D01]

Day #93 Darfur Vigil at Sudan Embassy DC.

U.S. DARFUR ACTIVISM TOTAL MORAL FAILURE? Imagine the three people in the world you love the very most. Remember how much you love them. Do it. Ok. Now imagine that 4 years ago an all powerful entity, God, came and disguised these loved ones as Darfuries beyond any hope of recognition and placed them in Darfur; and further told you that if you told anyone that your loved ones would die immediately. You are told that the only way you can save them is to stop the genocide and restore Darfuries to their lives. WOULD YOU BE ACTING ANY DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU ARE NOW?!??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!??!? You sure as hell would.

Here is the other way that I look at it. Another one of tests of accountability I hold myself to in my personal actions is to imagine myself in Heaven after I die in front of my Darfur brothers and sisters explaining what I did or did not do. I think I'll do all right in these conversations. In similar conversations with my Cambodian, Rwandan, Balkan... brothers and sisters the behaviors of mine I describe will leave me shamed and without a shred of humanity.

[US & UK have the Security Council until June 30. This is your last chance to TRULY Stand with Darfur. Join a Brigade of PeaceMakers - Darfur, NOW.]

I apply the same test when considering the behavior of my brothers and sisters in the "Save Darfur Movement (SDM)." I envision the conversation going something like this:

SDM: "Yes, we knew it was 4 years. Yes we knew 450,000 exterminated. Yes we knew 2.5 million in concentration camps of forced starvation, rape, mutilation, murder and disease. We in the US agonized for you our Darfur brothers and sisters. We had meetings, and more meetings. We fasted from luxuries for one whole day per year. ONE ENTIRE DAY - WE ABSTAINED FROM ONE OF OUR LUXURIES! On another day we formed a human chain. On another day we sent postcards. POSTCARDS! In all there were one million! We divested our Colleges and States. Sure the real money came from China but it helped a little and it gave us great connections and enhanced our resumes too! Two different sunny afternoons we went to parks for demonstrations, and we even listened to some of the speakers! Wow, we really pulled out all the stops! I mean, what else would you have wanted??!?!?!

DARFUR: "We wanted you to treat us as you would your immediate family, which before God, we are. "Do unto others, ALL that you would have done unto you." We were raped every day. Our children were starved every day. Our men were shot every day. Our women were mutilated every day. YOU DID NOTHING."

The lesson of the holocaust was entirely: IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD IMMEDIATELY LAY DOWN THEIR VERY LIVES UNTIL IT STOPS.

NEVER AGAIN DENY OUR FAMILY EMERGENCY! Eric Reeves, Brian Steidle and who else has laid down their lives for our Darfur FAMILY EMERGENCY?

The great desecration of the Holocaust didn't happen last month in Iran; it has been happening in the most Holocaust educated in the world, the US, for the last 4 years as we have risked nothing, suffered nothing, sacrificed nothing. We have done nothing.

Now we repent and vote immediately with our lives, WITH OUR LIVES giving Bush an iron clad, unmistakable mandate to end this, or we are Damned, and Darfur is dead.

Original, bad thinking? Strikingly parallel to what Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel had to say in 1938, possibly the most relevant prophetic, moral writing I've ever seen. For example:

* "We have trifled with the name of God. We have taken the ideals in vain. We have called for the Lord. He came. And was ignored. We have preached but eluded Him. We have praised but defied Him. Now we reap the fruits of our failure. Through centuries His voice cried in the wilderness. How skillfully it was trapped and imprisoned in the temples! How often it was drowned or distorted! Now we behold how it gradually withdraws, abandoning one people after another, departing from their souls, despising their wisdom. The taste for the good has all but gone from the earth. Men heap spite upon cruelty, malice upon atrocity."

* "Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service; that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. "

* "The Almighty has not created the universe that we may have opportunities to satisfy our greed, envy and ambition. We have not survived that we may waste our years in vulgar vanities. The martyrdom of millions demands that we consecrate ourselves to the fulfillment of God’s dream of salvation. Israel did not accept the Torah of their own free will. When Israel approached Sinai, God lifted up the mountain and held it over their heads, saying: “Either you accept the Torah or be crushed beneath the mountain.

”The mountain of history is over our heads again. Shall we renew the covenant with God?"

YOUR LAST CHANCE/ THEIR LAST CHANCE: US & UK have the Security Council until June 30. This is your last chance to TRULY Stand with Darfur. Join a Brigade of PeaceMakers - Darfur, NOW.

See updates at all sites:

DARFUR'S LAST HOPE: Brigade of PeaceMakers: for Darfur. JOIN NOW
SAVING DARFUR, EARTH, OURSELVES: Jesus, God, Good...
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Holocaust Rescuers
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: Peace and Nonviolence
REAL ACTIVISM LOOKS LIKE THIS: David Dellinger
4 DARFUR HEROES; 21,000 FOR HOLOCAUST: Darfur Dying for Heroes
HUNGER STRIKE: Stand with Darfur: Sudan Embassy
WE'RE PROOF OF NO GENOCIDE: Darfur Genocide a Fraud
Actions 6/06 - 1/07: Stand With Darfur White House II
Actions 5/06 - 6/06: Stand With Darfur White House
Actions 7/05 - 5/06: Rescue Restore Darfur

[SEE: A Hunger For Justice : Darfur Becomes One Man's Cause for Deprivation Delphine Schrank, C01 (Post) Washington Post, April 14, 2007]

Darfur Hunger Strike Day 22: Final farewell

My dear brothers and sisters around the world. As noted below I've been away from the 24 h/day Sudan Embassy Darfur Hunger strike for more than a day now to deal with a wrongful arrest that seems to be dropped. This has given me access to computer that I'll not have on the sidewalk of the Embassy. I expect this is my final goodbye to you as I'll spend what is left of my body trying to thaw el-Bashir's heart on his Embassy sidewalk.

You still don't see it. Saving Darfur is about saving your world. Darfur is a mortal wound on the humanity of your Soul, and the Soul of your global brothers and sisters. Leaving it un-Rescued and un-Restored is bleeding away from you whatever bit of Heart / Humanity / Sanity you've had left in this cesspool / toxic dump of a selfish world.

Your Heart will not survive much more of this. You need to get off of your death-bed now. Draw on your Heart. Through exercise it will regain strength - quickly.

Otherwise, you have once and for all lost planet earth to the end times. You will give Living Hell to your children.

May God help you.

Your loving brother forever, Start Loving

Darfur Hunger Strike at Sudan Embassy Day 21

It seems that the January 8th arrest for Viggiling for Darfur was "no papered." All morning today was spent going from room to room, District Court, Superior Court... in DC looking for the arraignment location I had been told to be at 9am. No records. No paperwork. No filing. Nothing in the computer of any form that anyone can find.

Tomorrow I expect to resume my final days on planet earth in front of the Sudan Embassy on Hunger Strike for Darfur. The road visibility, drive-by, if fabulous there in Mass. Ave by Dupont Circle. I am there with two Darfur Posters and I meditate/pray, read the Bible or speak to the one or two folks that stop to talk each day.

Thomas and Ellen bring me water each day. They are angels - family - fellow fighters but for slightly different causes.

If an iceberg is bearing down on your town, the only hope to save the town and its inhabitants is to melt the iceberg, and all you have is one match, and there are just a few days left... WHAT DO YOU DO?

Darfur Hunger Strike Day 20

This is my first night not at the embassy since the 13th. I am tonight with friends so I can be at what I'm told is an arraignment for the heinous arrest at the White House by an out of his mind, bully police officer. My religion, Loving, my Master being Jesus forbids going to "Law." I am not going for the purpose of winning or losing, but rather to talk to my brother an try to bring him to his senses.

I find the Sudan Embassy Darfur Hunger Strike to the Death to be utterly right, and utterly sacred. Someone has got to start the giving-our-lives for our Darfur family. I am overjoyed to try. Because of the sacred nature of this campaign I was going to blow off this date, but then I could be picked up and jailed for blowing it off. I hope this is just an arraignment tomorrow. If not I expect my demise to be greatly accelerated. They would force feed me in prison to stop the hunger strike. But through noncopperation with the evil of their inhumane treatment I'd probable wind up in solitary for a week and by discontinuing liquids I can carry the strike through to completion as I've promised my brother el-Bashir that I would.

If all goes well tomorrow morning I expect to be back at the Embassy 24/7 on the Darfur Hunger Strike until my heart stops somewhere's around 20-40 days from now.

There is much on this experience at another blog: http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/

Darfur Hunger Striker's Letter to President el-Bashir

March 13, 2007

President el-Bashier
Country of Sudan, Africa, Human Family

Dear brother,

I mourn to the point of death for your mutilated humanity / the “death” of your Soul, of your heart. I mourn for the torment, atrocity the Hell on Earth you have created as the result for my brothers and sisters in Darfur.

I love you my brother. You are no better or worse than I. You are no more to blame for who you are than I am for who I am.

But I am to blame if I do not do whatever I am able with my life to bring you back to your humanity, your sanity, your Divine Self.

I'm a poor student of life but everything I have learned in life* launches me on a course. This is my 13th day of Hunger Strike (60 in the last 9 months; 134 days of Vigil at the White House), intended to be Ransom for the restoration of your Humanity, for your Soul and for the salvation of my dear brothers and sisters in Darfur.

Today by noon I hope to be in front of your Embassy in Washington delivering this letter. I intend to continue my water only hunger strike until it is clear to me that your Heart has thawed toward your family of Darfur. I believe I am prepared to let the hardheartedness that is exterminating Darfuries exterminate myself as well in the hopes that one more body might help you see.

My brother, you are going down in history and in our Father's eyes as a butcher of humanity along side of Hitler, Bush, Cheney, the Zionists and Pol Pot. My brother, it is not too late. You need only turn from your head, from endless dialog, you need only turn to your Heart, the domain of our Father. Your heart, our Father will tell you what to do.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Your loving brother forever,

Start Loving
Sudan Embassy Sidewalk (until arrested or expired I expect.)
2210 Mass. Ave NW
Washington, DC

http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/

Press release attached: http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/2007/03/press-release-darfur-hunger-strike.html

PRESS RELEASE: Darfur Hunger Strike Moves to Sudan Embassy 24 Hours Per Day

Darfur Hunger Strike Moves to Sudan Embassy 24 Hours Per Day Until el-Bashir Regains His Humanity

Washington, DC March 12, 2007 Darfur Hunger Strike day thirteen moves to the Sudan Embassy on Tuesday, March 13, where the striker intends to remain until Sudan President el-Bashir regains his humanity and brings full and generous protection, relief and restoration to his tortured Darfur family. Start Loving, previously known as Jay McGinley, has attempted to end the Darfur Genocide since May 14, 2006 by vigiling 134 days at and around the White House, accompanying this with 60 days of water-only hunger strike.

Loving, an executive in the computer industry turning around failing organizations most of his adult life, is also a trained psychological counselor and was on the management team of a small retail chain in Philadelphia until May 13, 2006 when he gave up everything to fight nonviolently in DC for his Darfur family.

“I appeal to the heart, to the humanity, to the Immortal Soul of my brother el-Bashir,” said Loving. “Al-Bashir is headed toward a place in history alongside Adolph Hitler, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Zionists and Pol Pot. He has the blood of millions on his hands. I hope to give my life, if that is required, in an attempt to awaken his heart in time to save my brother and some of our Darfur brothers and sisters. I hope to find the heroism and courage of my blessed brother and sister U.S. Soldiers who willingly give their Lives in Iraq for others, as mistaken as their beliefs may be.”

According to the faith based SaveDarfur.org coalition, “not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter... Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men, women, and children are completely reliant on international aid for survival.”


Loving faces added difficulties in his Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike campaign including a record of arrests for peacefully demonstrating at the Pentagon, Federal Court House and the White House. Despite more than 60 nonviolent, all night vigils in front of the White House acknowledged by the police to be lawful and admirable, in late January of 2007 a rogue police officer, under the cloak of darkness, harassed and then arrested Loving for sitting up under a tree holding Darfur posters; just as Loving had done on the previous nights. Loving's court date for this arrest is March 21st and the Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike will preclude attendance at this hearing.

Loving faces added difficulties in his Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike campaign including a record of arrests for peacefully demonstrating at the Pentagon, Federal Court House and the White House. Despite more than 60 nonviolent, all night vigils in front of the White House acknowledged by the police to be lawful and admirable, in late January of 2007 a rogue police officer, under the cloak of darkness, harassed and then arrested Loving for sitting up under a tree holding Darfur posters; just as Loving had done on the previous nights. Loving's court date for this arrest is March 21st and the Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike will preclude attendance at this hearing.

Additionally, Loving is completely without support or backing for his campaign which will make his campaign more difficult to survive for any significant length of time. On previous strikes Loving has had access to water , bathroom facilities and the protection of Lafayette Park Officers. Additionally, without support Loving has no knowledge or experience to guide him regarding the potential behavior of police. Despite the fact that he will be entirely nonviolent it is unknown what police action may be mounted by the various law enforcement agencies.

“Time is long past “up” for our Darfur family, and for the Soul of my brother el-Bashir” said Loving. “I have no illusion that my efforts will make any difference, but that is not my responsibility. Our Father calls us to be faithful, not successful. As best I can tell Our Father, Humanity, Conscience, Love, whatever you call it demands that we risk everything we have to awaken a Saving Love, Brotherhood, Humanity in a brother, el-Bahsir, in the face of such suffering and atrocity. This is my best attempt.”


Contact:
Start Loving – Man seeking to end Darfur Genocide
Sudan Embassy Sidewalk, 2210 Massachusetts Ave, NW., Washington, DC
start_loving@yahoo.com (expected to be unattended during this Darfur Hunger Strike campaign.
Further information: www.StandWithDarfurWhiteHouseII.blogspot.com (all blogs at “Complete Profile”).
Attachment: Letter to el-Bashir

Darfur Heroics: Prison for Darfur Hunger Striker?

Start Loving, currently on day # 10 of his most recent Darfur Hunger strike (70 days in the last 10 months) may find out March 21st if he will be imprisoned up to 6 months for his Darfur vigil at the White House. Sitting under a tree at 11pm in late January with Posters for Darfur Genocide, Loving was arrested by a rogue police officer Mallott for "camping." All police regulations and behavior the privious 60+ days in that park indicated that Loving was NOT camping, but rather sitting up all night Vigiling for Darfur.

Darfur Hideous: THERE IS NO UN (ONLY INTL. ZOMBIES)

Sudan close to scuttling UN troop deal on DarfurWashington Post, DC - 10 hours agoBashir based his objections, centered mainly on putting the African Union in command and control functions, on the Darfur Peace Agreement in May between one rebel faction and the Khartoum government.

Darfur Hero: Brian Steidle (now with crew)

A former Marine's unfiltered photography leads an American documentary crew into Darfur

Babies with their heads smashed in, run over by a truck. Men castrated and left to bleed to death. Charred corpses of people whose ears had been cut off and eyes gouged out. Villages of 20,000 burned to the ground. In 2005, former U.S. Marine Brian Steidle came back from Darfur having smuggled out these classified photos, which he had taken during his six-month post as an unarmed military observer for the African Union. Initially, there was some interest, sparked by a New York Times piece by Nicholas Kristof in which Steidle's photos were published. He even got to physically hand the photos to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who all but blew him off while thanking him for his dedication.

So, Steidle made the cable news rounds, his mouth set in the thin, grim line of someone who has – in his words – seen things that people shouldn't see. He had proof that the Sudanese government was not only funding the Janjaweed (roughly translated to "devil on a horse," the name for the Arab militia that does the killing and burning and raping of the non-Arab Sudanese) but that government agents were even, in some cases, riding alongside them. He had stories to go along with his photographs, names of children who had died in their mothers' arms. One particularly moved him: a toddler who died from a bullet hole in her side.

But Steidle was vying for the attention of the comfortable American masses in a territory so crowded with misery – not only by our occupation of Iraq and the resulting violence, but also by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and our government's inability to cope with it. Eventually, news people stopped calling, and the documented deaths of what are now more than 400,000 people fell away to make room for round-the-clock coverage of one blond girl, gone missing in Aruba.

It was around this time that Steidle met with Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, who were just wrapping up their last project, a documentary 11 years in the making called The Trials of Darryl Hunt. The filmmakers were initially contacted by Steidle's sister, Gretchen Wallace, who was looking for advice on how to make a documentary about her work in the AIDS crisis in South Africa. After learning what her brother had witnessed in Sudan, Wallace shifted her focus to Darfur, and she and her brother decided to return to the region, this time focusing on the refugee camps. "Annie and Ricki helped us see how compelling a story about Brian as an American witness would be," explains Wallace, who is one of the producers of the film and who has since founded Global Grassroots, the film's nonprofit fiscal sponsor. "They very quickly secured development support from HBO so that we could take a film crew with us."

And so – armed with pens, paper, his sister, a translator, and cinematographer Jerry Risius (Our Brand Is Crisis) – Steidle returned to the refugee camps in Chad, to reconnect with the people he had met while working for the AU. There, they captured what turns out to be the most emotionally powerful footage of the film: a graceful, graying man named Adam Mussa eloquently explaining to Steidle and Wallace how thankful he is for the scant attention [that] his people get from the Americans and asking where the Arab countries are, for he is a Muslim. As Mussa gets up and walks around the corner of a building, Steidle and his sister sit, helpless to do anything but offer their sincere promises they will get this message out to the world. Only then, once Mussa believes [that] he is out of frame, does he allow himself to pause and cry, slumped shoulders shaking, before he continues to walk away, back to the camera.

It is by interspersing moments like this one with more than a thousand of Steidle's devastating photographs that Stern and Sundberg weave a tale that tells more about one guy's struggle with his country's indifference than it does about the conflict in Darfur. "Ultimately, I think that why the film works as an issue-based or educational film is because of Brian's perspective," Sundberg explains. "He's an American everyman to whom, hopefully, people can relate. The only way [that] we could get American investors and audiences to give a [s***] about Africa was through Brian's eyes. He has no agenda; he went to the Sudan for a paycheck and was so horrified by what he found there that he has dedicated his life to the cause."

But in large part, the film's purpose is to engage and educate the American public enough so that people will do something as simple as writing a letter to their senators. "We're really excited to be coming to Texas, because there are incredible student organizations and interfaith groups who have been really behind this issue in Austin, like STAND [Students Taking Action Now: Darfur] and the Genocide Intervention Network," Sundberg says. "Texas is also great for us because one of the biggest things on the books right now is the Sudanese divestment legislation, a great example of an incredibly effective strategy that doesn't necessarily involve sending troops to Darfur."

To learn more about House Bill 667, the divestment legislation in the House of Texas Representatives, see www.sudandivestment.org/texas or come to the launch party of the Helping Other People Everywhere Campaign at Lucky Lounge on Saturday, 5-9:30pm, where Steidle, Wallace, and Sundberg will be in attendance.

Darfur Fun: No amount of lip-service is too much for we citizens to pay

Genocide in Darfur: Will the World Act?
St.Louis Jewishlight.com, MO - Mar 7, 2007
At Washington University last week, a simple and stark message was written in large black letters on white paper plates posted on university bulletin boards on the campus: City of St.

Otherishness - opposite of Selfishness. "Love as I have loved."

Darfur Heroics: Quinnipiac calls for Radical Action`

Lesson from 1960s: Protest Darfur
Quinnipiac Chronicle (subscription), CT
This is a sugar-coated allusion to what is going on in Darfur. It would take over 66 Quinnipiac Universities lined side by side to equal the number of people who have been murdered in the Sudan.

Darfur Heroics!?!? China Pressures Bashir?!?!? Pray.

China uses economic leverage to pressure Sudan on Darfur - US
Sudan Tribune, Sudan
State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the move by Beijing “sends a very strong signal to the Sudanese Government [of Darfur] that the Chinese Government wants to see this AU-UN hybrid force get into Darfur”. McCormack welcomed the step and urged other ...

Darfur Heroics: White House Hunger Strike resumes

Day #5 of the next round of the Darfur Hunger Strike at the White House/DC area. The White House Darfur Vigil holds at 134 days while an injured friend is aided by j. "The question is not will this help Darfur. The question is - can j think of anything more hopeful to do with his life in the face of Darfur Genocide? Not that I've thought of yet," said j.

More Details at www.StandWithDarfurWhiteHouseii.blogspot.com, and http://JesusGodGoodEtcnJay.blogspot.com/

Darfur Heroics: Dr. Saleem Truth to Muslims

Muslim vs Muslim The News - International, Pakistan - 22 hours ago
By Dr Farrukh Saleem

"...Muslims have a long history of killing Muslims. In the eight year Iran-Iraq War, the longest conventional war of the 20th century, a million Muslims were killed by Muslims. In Darfur, Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims have already slaughtered 400,000 Muslims. In 1967, half a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in Nigeria. In 1991, a quarter of a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in Algeria. In Bangladesh, a million Muslims were killed by Muslims. In Afghanistan, half a million Muslims have already been killed by other Muslims, and the killing spree goes on.

Are Muslims preparing to kill even more Muslims? American arms manufacturers are the only ones laughing. Just who are they laughing at?"

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com

For complete article:

Muslim vs Muslim
The News - International, Pakistan - 22 hours ago
In Darfur, Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims have already slaughtered 400000 Muslims. In 1967, half a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in Nigeria.

Darfur Hero: Awatif Ahmed, Journalist in Darfur

24 year old woman economics graduate in Darfur Awatif Isshag says, "Journalism is a profession of risk," she said matter-of-factly, her voice echoing slightly in the nearly empty room. She also said, "I will fast to get the story [in Darfur]." Ahh, but we here in the states, for Darfur we fast from luxuries and send emails. What do you say to that Ms. Isshag! Washington Post article below.

jay mcginley, Day 3 Darfur Hunger Strike, StandWithDarfurWhiteHouseII.Blogspot.com

In Darfur, a Journalist Branches Out
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page A14

EL FASHER, Sudan, March 3 -- In this dusty market town in northern Darfur, a lucky few with satellite dishes can get news of the war surrounding them from CNN or the BBC. Others rely on a tree.

For the past 10 years, Awatif Ahmed Isshag has handwritten monthly dispatches and commentary about life in El Fasher and hung them on a short, wiry tree that scatters shade along the yellow-sand lane by her house.

Along with advice on how to be a lady, Isshag, a slight 24-year-old with an undergraduate degree in economics, has satirized the local governor and described the suffering of displaced families and gun battles in the markets of El Fasher....
Working in her new office -- a cement-floored, cracked-walled space in a building with faulty wiring -- Isshag dismissed the notion that she was doing anything unusual.

"Journalism is a profession of risk," she said matter-of-factly, her voice echoing slightly in the nearly empty room. She also said, "I will fast to get the story."

Full article: In Darfur, a Journalist Branches Out

Darfur Heroics: Jolie travels in service of Darfur

Jolie travels to Africa to raise Darfur awareness
BY: WENN Monday, February 26, 2007

Actress Angelina Jolie arrived in Africa yesterday (25FEB07) in her role as United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to monitor and raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The TOMB RAIDER star touched down in N'Djamena in neighbouring Chad because she cannot travel into Darfur itself, due to the violent conditions there.

Jolie is expected to remain in the region for a few days, in her first trip there since 2004. She is due to visit refugee camps near the border of Sudan.

On Friday (23FEB07), the 31-year-old was also elected to join the Council On Foreign Relations, an international think-tank also including US Secretary Of State CONDOLEEZZA RICE.

Darfur Heroics: Edward Lyons

Saving 'starfish'
Allison Brophy Champion
Staff Writer
Sunday, February 25, 2007

Some 50,000 men, women and children exist in a refugee camp in the village of Jach in southern Sudan. They’ve fled their homes to save their lives and subsist on just the very basics.

“Their stories are all the same,” said Edward Lyons, ministry advancement coordinator with the Persecution Project Foundation of Culpeper.

“The Janjaweed militia comes into their village in the Darfur area - men killed, women raped, children abducted and sold into slavery, villages burned.”

For three decades, the northern African country has been wracked by civil war and the Janjaweed, backed by the Sudan government, has killed at least 200,000 people in the past several years.

Another 2 million Darfurians have fled their homes, most of them crowding into refugee camps like the one in Jach.

The crisis is so substantial that some might believe there is little that can be done to bring relief to those who are suffering, but not the Persecution Project Foundation, founded 1997.

“You know the story of the little boy with the starfish? A man sees him picking them up from the shore and throwing back them into the ocean, and says, ‘You’ll never save them all,” and the boy says, ‘Well, I can save this one.’

“That’s how we feel,” said 40-year-old Lyons, who left a career as a math teacher at St. Luke’s Lutheran School in Culpeper to work full-time with PPF, a Christian relief organization.

This month, the husband and father of two joined other PPF workers on a relief trip to Sudan. During their two weeks in Africa, the group spent time in Jach in the refugee camp established 2005 by the Culpeper-based organization.

They arrived in an Antonov-32 airplane filled with five-tons of supplies - tarps, mosquito nets (to provide protection from malaria), medicine, maize, solar-powered/hand-cranked radios, Bibles in Arabic and more.

In the weeks before, PPF delivered other planeloads of necessities for the 50,000 refugees including well-drilling equipment, other foodstuffs and simple things like pots for cooking or fishing hooks for those who live close enough to a river.

Jach is “very barren with very little food or water,” Lyons said, but the people make due with what they have.

Arriving Darfurians use a tarpaulin for shelter and sleep on the ground while others, who have been in the camp for longer, build “permanent” shelters made of broken tree branches and elephant grass for the roof.

PPF, working with the people, has drilled five completed wells in the area and has contracted for another 10. The women will line up and wait for as long as six hours to fill their jugs with clean water, Lyons said.

A dirt airstrip separates the Muslims from Christians, he said, and the two religious groups drink from different wells. However, there is no fighting among the refugees, Lyons said, unlike religious-based persecution elsewhere in Sudan.

Because the landing strip is dirt, PPF can’t fly into the area year-round, especially during the rainy season June through October. The evangelistic organization, however, hopes to raise the $30,000 or so that it will take to convert the runway into an all weather surface, Lyons said.

PPF also offers medical services through a small clinic in Jach, and recently hired a trained nurse named Peter.

“The days we were there he was seeing about 120 people a day,” Lyons said, mentioning the primary, mostly waterborne ailments suffered by refugees: upper respiratory illnesses, typhoid, malaria and dysentery.

In addition, PPF runs a school in southern Sudan, located in close proximity to Kenya. About 750 boys and girls - orphans of the country’s civil war - attend the Nakwatom Heritage Academy, which goes up to the eighth grade. The school also provides training in carpentry, masonry, and the like, Lyons said.

The students are extremely well behaved, eager to learn and not distracted by the large classes - about 60 per pupils per class, he said.

Upon finishing the eighth grade, they take a test and - if they excel - are given the opportunity to continue their education in Kenya.

“That’s their way out,” Lyons said.
In Jach, likewise, young people crave education and are not hindered by a lack of supplies. Absent a chalkboard, students peeled back the bark from a big tree for that purpose. It just so happened that Lyons had brought some chalk and the tree blackboard worked just fine.

He visited various areas around Sudan during his two-week visit in an experience that he described as “eye-opening.” Besides meeting the people’s essential needs, PPF workers took every opportunity to spread Christianity.

It on this rock that the organization is founded.
“Even though we can’t be in all the villages, maybe we can train 20 pastors and they will go to 20 different villages, and who knows what will happen?” Lyons said. “God is in the order of multiplication.”

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or abrophy@starexponent.com

Darfur Heroics: Truth to Arabs by Lebanon Star

It's time to put a halt to the Arab world's homegrown disaster
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Editorial

Any long-time observer of events in the Arab world is familiar with the tendency of our politicians, religious leaders and intellectuals to blame all of the region's woes on "the West" or other external factors. There is a worthwhile point to be made in saying that centuries of colonialism, military intervention and Western-backed occupation have created distortions that have contributed to instability and turmoil in the region. But while foreign powers have had a clear hand in creating the crises in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, not all of the Arab world's disasters can be attributed to outside aggression. Indeed, one of the most grave calamities in the region - Darfur, a tragedy that has been called the first genocide of the 21st century, but which has been permitted to drag on for almost four years now - is a disaster largely of our region's own making.

The conflict in Darfur, where at least 200,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million made refugees, is one that exposes multiple layers of hypocrisy. Much has been said about the lack of international will to address the crisis, even though many of the same superpowers have supported military and heavy-handed diplomatic intervention in other countries under less clear-cut circumstances. But Arab leaders themselves are among the ranks of the world's hypocrites on this issue. A savage form of terror has been unfolding in our own backyard for four years, yet until now, neither the Arab League nor any individual Arab government has sought to do much about it. Many of our political and religious leaders have strongly denounced what are arguably lesser crimes - such as the awkward and insensitive remarks made by the pope during an academic lecture - but have turned a blind eye as their fellow Muslims are slaughtered in Sudan. Where are the cries of outrage over Darfur?
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

As we approach the four-year anniversary of the start of the conflict, the catastrophe is continuing to escalate. The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said that violence is now at its worst levels since the fighting began four years ago - and it is also spilling over into neighboring countries. Each day that the conflict drags on makes it harder to reach a resolution. Rebel groups have splintered into dozens of warring gangs, making it increasingly difficult to identify parties with whom mediators can even begin to negotiate a viable peace treaty.

Regional leaders are currently making a belated and half-hearted attempt to address this four-year-old crisis, with the Arab League meeting on the issue next week. But there is every reason for observers to doubt whether the talk of doing something will materialize as decisive action. The Arab League, several of whose members are drowning in petrodollars, has only paid $15 million of its $150 million pledge to the near-bankrupt African Union peacekeeping force. Each day that our leaders ignore Darfur marks a political and moral failure and a contribution to a calamity of our own making.

Darfur Heroics: Yahya speaks Truth to Arabs, Muslims

Activist blasts Muslims, Arabs over Darfur stance
Friday, February 23, 2007-->Web posted at: 2/20/2007 2:7:51
Source ::: The Peninsula / By MOBIN PANDIT

Doha • A human rights activist from Darfur yesterday blasted the Arab and Muslim world for what he described as its hypocritical stand on the troubled region in Sudan.

He said Muslims from the rest of the world should be ashamed of their indifference towards fellow Muslims being persecuted in Darfur.

Ironically, it is the Jews and Americans who are supporting the 'innocent Muslims being targeted' in the region and providing food and shelter to nearly 250,000 Darfur refugees who have fled to neighboring Chad, said Mohamed Adam Yahya.

Yahya is the founder and executive director of the US-based ‘Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy’, a body committed to preserving human rights and ethnic communities in Darfur.

Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the US-Islamic World Forum here, he said: "The silence of the Arab and Islamic world on the Darfur issue is not only baffling, it is shameful. Do the Arabs and Muslims have any right to criticise America?"

Situated in the west of Sudan and spread over an area of 173,000 square miles, Darfur is double the size of France and has seven million people, mostly 'black' Muslims, living there.

According to Yahya, Sudan's total population is around 36 million and 26 per cent of the people are of Arab origin. They have been dominating politics, education, military, government jobs as well as business and the economy ever since the country attained freedom in January 1956.

Even though ‘black Muslims’ account for 75 per cent of Darfur's population, they do not enjoy any freedom. They are denied opportunities of education and cannot enter politics. They cannot become religious leaders or take up higher posts in the army or even become teachers.

“All a black Darfur Muslim can hope to become is a soldier in the Sudanese army,” said Yahya. "The Arab Sudanese consider themselves as superior. They have been discriminating against us for long."

Earlier, Yahya's scathing criticism of Muslims for their alleged silence on the plight of fellow Muslims in Darfur at the concluding session of the US-Islamic World Forum at the Ritz-Carlton yesterday was greeted with hearty applause.

The problem in Darfur actually began in 1991 with violent clashes between 'black and Arab Muslims' taking place. Taking advantage of the widening cleavage, the present government in Khartoum began supporting a local Arab militia, called the 'Janjaweed', with arms and funds. The problem was aggravated.

Yahya said that over the past four years alone, some 450,000 people have been killed in the region and another 250,000 have become homeless. They have been forced to take refuge in neighbouring Chad. “There is a genocide going on in the region and the Jews and the Americans are opposing it, while the Arabs and Muslims have chosen to be conveniently mum. It is ironical that Muslims are killing Muslims there,” said Yahya.

SAVING DARFUR: THE MISSING STRATEGY

"Histories are written by intellectuals, [NGO's, College Interns, Professors...], who generally give undue credit to other intellectuals [etc.] for making history. History is made by people who commit themselves, their lives, and their energies to the struggle." David Dellinger

After spending millions of dollars to Save Darfur we have instead killed four years and thousands of Darfuries in the process. Why? The Save Darfur strategy is... THERE IS NO SAVE DARFUR STRATEGY! Dave Dellinger can fill that gap. David Dellinger may be the greatest nonviolent revolutionary in the last 100 years: From DemocracyNow:Thursday, May 27th, 2004 Revolutionary Non-Violence: Remembering Dave Dellinger, 1915-2004. The central strategist for the civil rights movement and ending the war in vietnam. Extensive quotations from Dave outlining his vision of nonviolent change are now available at
David Dellinger Quotations.

Darfur Heroics: GW Sophmore braves Chad at Christmas

Home > Life
Viewing the Darfur conflict through another lens
by Cory StrubleHatchet Reporter
Issue date: 2/20/07 Section: Life

While his parents and siblings were unwrapping Christmas presents halfway across the world, sophomore Jason Mojica woke up to the cry of gunshots ringing out across Ab飨鬠Chad.

Minutes later, members of the Sudanese Liberation Movement rebel group, armed with 50-caliber machine guns, arrived at his ramshackle motel room in a pick-up truck caked in mud to safely transport Mojica and his friends to the group's compound.

Mojica, a 32-year-old student who spent his time between high school and college doing a variety of things from opening a cafe to starting a video store to working as a graphic designer, would normally spend his winter break in the bustling suburbs of Chicago. Instead, he chose to travel to the border between Chad and the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan to film "Christmas in Darfur," a documentary examining the lives of humanitarian aid workers in the refugee camps of Sudanese fleeing genocide and violence.

The Darfur conflict, which started



in 2003, consists of civil strife between rebels and the Sudanese government-backed Arab militias known as the janjaweed. Both sides have committed atrocities and the fighting, where hundreds of thousands have been killed and a couple million displaced, is spreading across the border into Chad.

Two weeks before arriving, Ab飨頭 the fourth largest city in Chad - was captured by Chadian rebels who looted the World Food Program headquarters and stole United Nations vehicles there to help those suffering from civil war in the country. It would be this precarious city - brimming with humanitarian aid agencies, refugees and warring rebel factions - that would serve as the focal point of Mojica's documentary.

Anticipating his departure to Africa, Mojica said he watched the violence in Ab飨頵nfold on Al-Jazeera and questioned his rationale for going to the region.

"I sat there watching this image, thinking 'Dear god, what am I getting myself into?'" he said. "We wanted to do good, but we didn't want to go on a suicide mission. But, the same reasons we were afraid to go were the same reasons that it was important for us to go. We just decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it."

But getting there was no easy task. Mojica and his partners, Jim Milak, 32, studying at the University of Maryland, and G. Ryan Faith, 32, a space policy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, realized their project would be costly. The trio, who originally met in the early '90s urban punk scene of Chicago, founded a non-profit organization, which they called the 77 International Foundation, to raise the necessary funds for this documentary and similar projects.

"This project would be the first like it to understand world affairs transmitted through popular culture, to communicate to the people of our generation, to express world affairs in a way that they might actually bother to pay attention to," Mojica said.

Eventually, the group raised $20,000 through fundraisers in St. Louis, Chicago and Washington and from online contributions. Armed with a few first-aid kits, bulletproof vests and film equipment, Mojica stifled his trepidation and left behind the comfort of Christmas with his family for the danger and desolation of Darfur's border.

The group would suffer one last setback before leaving, however. Only two weeks before their departure, Mojica's two cameramen pulled out of the project. The three remaining crew members spent the 15-hour plane ride perusing camera and sound manuals to fill in for them.

After a few days of interviewing aid workers and refugees on the ground, however, the crew found that despite their initial reservations, people were trying to accomplish positive ends in the midst of a dark and prolonged conflict.

"We got there and saw a place that was vibrant, full of life and people trying to find normalcy in their day to day lives," Mojica said. "People were just making do with a bad situation. What was most impressive was realizing the ability of people to get on with their lives; most of the people in that camp had been there for two years."

Inside the compounds of non-governmental agencies like the International Medical Corps, Mojica found a variety of people from all corners of the world, each with different reasons for giving up their Christmas to help the people of Sudan. But despite their profound differences, he found one very strong commonality among all of them.

"What they had in common was a passion and a desire to be personally involved in making something better" Mojica said.

It was in the midst of his daily two-hour rides in guarded convoys through arid and sporadically combative rebel territory that Mojica began to fully comprehend the complexity of the violence which he said the Western media had reduced to clips and sound-bites.

He said he thought that the story was much deeper than the one being told about the genocide, that there were actually multiple intersecting stories at play about rebel groups in both Chad and Sudan, each with their own demands, each making the story of this war-torn region even more intricate.

And of the Sudanese Liberation Movement, the rebel group whose leaders transported Mojica and his crew to their compound, he found a group of people with life experiences just as varied as the aid workers he had met. Doctors, lawyers, teachers - people he never would have expected - had either given up or were forced out of their old lives, and were now cloaked the garb of a Sudanese rebel.

"They were some of the most media-savvy people; you could not get them off-message to save their life," said Mojica, comparing the rebels to some of the most apt U.S. politicians.

Mojica, a self-identified member of the 9-11 generation, however, is far from an idealist. For him, this documentary was about trying to understand what three 32 year olds from Chicago could do - if anything - to stop an atrocity. He knows that he won't change the world by himself, but that won't prevent him from trying.

"None of us are superheroes who can fix this or solve all of the world's problems, but it's an additive effect that we're going for," Mojica said. "For years, people have said 'never again,' and what I have learned from watching Rwanda and Darfur is that what we have really meant is 'never again, in my backyard - never again, as long as it involves our national interest.'"

Darfur News: WORDS don't stop Janjaweed. WOW!

This is impossible! How can the Janjaweed be massing in Darfur? Look at all the Darfur emails, Darfur blogs, Darfur: letters, fasts-from-luxuries, divestments of US Funds (China is Sudan's banker), articles, cookie drives we've unleashed! Janjaweed massing?!?!? How DISRESPECTFUL! :-)

Janjaweed militias massing in West Darfur: source 40 minutes ago

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Janjaweed militias have been concentrating forces to the north of el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state in western Sudan, an African Union military source said on Tuesday, corroborating a U.N. report.

Janjaweed is the local name for militia forces drawn mainly from the nomadic Arab tribes of the area and blamed for much of the killing in Darfur over the past four years.

"They are massing ... they have vehicles with machineguns on top and they're janjaweed. We can't say what their intentions are," said the source, who asked not to be named.

The source declined to give numbers, but described the forces gathered as a "huge amount of personnel," with pickup trucks, camels and horses. A U.N. mission spokeswoman said the militia numbered in the hundreds.

An African Union helicopter was keeping the forces under aerial surveillance and the government was being notified, the AU sources said. The Sudanese military could not be reached for comment.

Rights group and Western governments say the Sudanese government has used the janjaweed as auxiliaries against Darfur rebels and civilians suspected of rebel sympathies. The government denies this and says the janjaweed are outlaws.

On Monday, a report by the U.N. Mission in Sudan said that "armed militia have been mobilizing in large numbers over the last five days in the general area of Abou Souroug and Sliea (approximately 50 km -- 31 miles -- north of el-Geneina). The reason behind the massive militia mobilization is so far not known."

Tribal clashes in South Darfur killed up to 100 people last week, according to the United Nations.

Darfur, an arid area the size of France, has been ravaged by violence since 2003, when rebels took up arms, accusing the government in Khartoum of ignoring the region.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has resisted pressure to authorize a deployment of 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers to support the 7,000-strong African Union mission in Darfur, saying the AU force was strong enough and the United Nations could give money and logistical help to a hybrid force.

Experts estimate 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes in four years of conflict in Darfur. Washington calls the violence genocide, a term which European governments are reluctant to use and which Khartoum rejects.

Darfur Hero: US Dr. 9 mos counseling rape victims

Local Counselor Helps in Darfur
VIDEO: Local Counselor Helps Out In Darfur Reporter: Ashley Fielder

After counseling victims of sexual and domestic violence for 20 years here in the Springs, a local counselor wanted a new challenge.

She traveled to Darfur with a humanitarian group called Doctors Without Borders.

Janet Kerr spent nine months in an area that's in the midst of civil war.

200,000 people have been murdered and two million displaced.

She went to help those living at the largest refugee camp in the world housing 120,000 people.

“It's overwhelming it just seems so surreal at first,” said Janet Kerr.

But kerr dealt mostly with the wounds that don't bleed.

She opened this mental health clinic to help victims of sexual violence, a problem that plagues the area.

“Sexual violence is used as a weapon of war over there,” said Kerr.

Women going for wood are attacked and raped by militia on a daily basis.

“Then tthey send them back to their families as way to undermine the social structure.”

Because once the women get home they're considered impure, ostercized by their families, and abused by their husbands.

That's what happened to one woman Kerr helped.

“He was horrible to her, he beat her, held a knife to her throat, a gun to her head.”

The woman escaped and walked for five months with three small children to get to the refugee camp.

It's one of many stories Kerr says changed her life.

“One of the gifts I brought back is that I don't take my life here for granted so much anymore.”

Darfur: A "real" Student STAND

[ Photo is of students during he Anti-Apartheid Student Activism in South Africa.]



There is a horrible inflation among the Darfur "activists." Kristof is among the many that weeps in admiration over cookie drives to end Darfur Genocide.

No. This is what it looks like when students really stand:

The independent daily al-Sudani cited South Kordofan Governor Ismail Khamis Jallab as saying [that] the incident began when secondary school students protested at a strike by teachers who had not been paid their January salaries.
"The protests transformed from demands to destruction," the paper quoted Jallab as saying.
"The students were demanding that the schools be reopened and the teachers paid," the security source told Reuters. [Link to full article below] [NO, I am NOT advocating violence.]

As David Dellinger stated, and as today's Darfur "activists" religiously ignore:

"Histories are written by intellectuals [including non-profits and wealthy college kids], who generally give undue credit to other intellectuals for making history. History is made by people who commit themselves, their lives, and their energies to the struggle."

Student protest turns violent in Sudan's S. Kordofan
19 Feb 2007 14:31:52 GMT

Darfur Genocide: We abandoned Anne Frank too

A family history like too many others
International Herald Tribune, France - Feb 18, 2007
As soon as I read last week about the discovery of the desperate, faded letters written by Anne Frank's father, I knew my mother would call. ...

The Darfur Genocide (preventing another Holocaust, sob, sob) is being used for what besides License for Zionist Nazism in Palestine? Oh yes, we Christians use Darfur "activism" (ha!) for lots of sanctimonious self righteousness for the crumbs we drop Darfur's way, too.

I'll be labeled antisemitic and heretic for this I'm sure. In front of God I am now wondering if the most heinous antisemitism is the perverse abuse of the Holocaust as a shield for any and all heinous Zionist atrocities on others in the middle east by Israel. Why do I think this? Millions and millions of dollars are spent allegedly to promote "Never Again" but we have not moved one inch closer to "Never Again." Apparently the money has be used for a more sinister purpose. The money spent allegedly on "Never Again" has done nothing to Save Darfur.

Blatant Hypocrisy. Hey, why should Jews be any less hypocritical than my faith tradition, "Christianity?" We self proclaimed "Christians" too heinously use Jesus solely to give us a false self-righteousness to rape, plunder and pillage plant earth and all His children.

Darfur Hypocricy: "More...talk...no action."

Our global orgy of masturbation over Darfur continues.

More tough talk on Darfur, but no action

New Europe, Belgium - 19 hours ago

The European Parliament, growing increasingly alarmed about the ongoing killings and increasing number of refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan , voted for a resolution on February 14 which calls on the international community to intervene - starting ...

Darfur Genocide: We let 18,000 kids starve per day

Hey, next to that Darfur is EASY for us to neglect. We're #1 Hey! We're #1 Hey!...

But "talking" about Darfur shure do feel good, don't it! Thank God for Darfur!

Hey, looks like Jimmy is doing a real good job of samping food donations! Way to go Jimmy!

U.N.: Hunger kills 18,000 kids each day
By Associated Press
Saturday, February 17, 2007 - Updated: 07:57 AM EST

James Morris, World Food Programme Executive Director, high-fives a boy of the Olaya Herrera district during his visit to an impoverished neighborhood in Cartagena, Colombia, in this file photo from Aug. 24, 2006. (AP)

Darfur Heroics: Gonzaga Univ STAND

Chris Heinrich
Issue date: 2/16/07 Section: News
PrintEmail Article Tools Page 1 of 1

Seeking to spread awareness of the situation in Darfur, students staged a peaceful protest on campus last Friday.

Thirteen protesters, packing fliers and signs, called for an end to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on the steps of the Crosby Student Center. Standing in dreary weather, protesters told passing students the circumstances of the situation and what they could do to help.

Clotheslines with T-shirts, each symbolizing 10,000 deaths, were hung both outside and inside the student center.

Emily Reinke, a sophomore organizer of the protest, agreed with Katie Beno, another sophomore organizer, that the focus of the protest was not on confrontation but information.

"When you say 'Darfur,' most everyone knows about the genocide in Africa but not the country," Reinke said. "Most people don't know the specifics."

More than 200 signatures were collected for a petition that called for legislation which would support the peacekeeping mission of African Union forces in Sudan. The petition will be sent to Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.

Reinke, excited by the turnout, hopes that more activities focused on alleviating the situation in Darfur can now be arranged.

John Nhial, a junior who became involved with the protest after learning about it through an all-campus e-mail, supports foreign intervention in Sudan.

"Genocide should not be an African issue," he said.

Organization for the protest began when sophomore Priyanka Fernando was contacted last week by a friend who was looking to hold simultaneous protests at Portland State University, Pacific Lutheran University, the University of Nevada-Reno and Chapman University, in Orange, Calif.

Fernando then began to research the situation and planned the event alongside campus clubs JUSTICE and the Program for International Education and Relief.

The situation in Darfur, which has left 200,000 people dead since 2004, another 2 million displaced and an estimated 4 million dependent upon aid, was called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "the largest humanitarian crisis in the world" in January, according to the United Nations Web site.

Darfur Genocide: US/UK NEGLECT STARTS AT HOME

Save Darfur? Ha! Save Darfur? WE RICH AMERICANS DON'T EVEN HAVE TIME FOR SAVING OUR U.S. CHILDREN! SAVE DARFUR? THE LIP-SERVICE CONTINUES. FOLKS, SAVING DARFUR DEPENDS ON SAVING OUR HUMANITY.

Full Article: Children left in the shadows Full UN REPORT: An Overview of Child-Wellbeing in Rich Countries

...The United Nations report, published today, reveals that the richest countries in the world are conversely some of the poorest when it comes to their treatment of children.

Joining the UK with the worst child welfare record is the US, the world's only superpower and considered to be the beating heart of the world's economy.

Both Britain and the US found themselves in the bottom third of the rankings for five of six areas of child welfare.

Many social studies experts say the only way to reverse the trend is to solve the root of the problem - public attitudes in Britain to children. Some say the modern way of life leaves little time for children, who are often seen in the rat-race culture as a pest.

DARFUR HEROES: U CHICAGO STAND

STAND protests Board’s decision against [Darfur] divestment
By Hassan S. Ali
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Activists in support of University divestment from [Darfur Genocidiary Sudan] took their message directly to President Robert Zimmer Thursday afternoon, holding a protest and descending on Zimmer’s open forum meeting with students in the Reynolds Club.

Members and supporters of the U of C chapter of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND), the student group leading the divestment campaign, gathered on the main quadrangles in frigid temperatures to show their solidarity before walking to the McCormick Tribune Lounge for the open forum meeting. The event took place less than a week after the Board of Trustees announced the University would not divest [to protect Darfur].

An initial crowd of about 40 people steadily grew as second-year and STAND co-president Aliza Levine led group chants such as “UChicago, you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide” and “Amorality, immorality, for Darfur it’s all the same.”

In a speech to the group, Levine said that after nine months of deliberation, “49 trustees have decided that the entire University community remain complicit in genocide” by not divesting the U of C from Sudan.

“We call upon the University to answer what instance will challenge our ‘paramount social values’ if genocide does not,” she said, referring to a clause in the Kalven Report, the document that has outlined the U of C’s role in social and political action since 1967. The Kalven Report enables the University to change corporate activities if they are deemed incompatible with certain “paramount social values.”

“President Zimmer was quoted in the [Chicago] Tribune today saying, ‘Our position is that for the long run, the great contribution we make to the political landscape is to provide this umbrella of open, free inquiry.’ This university has created an umbrella that lets us hide from our moral obligations,” Levine said, adding that the University cannot “continue to hide behind academic freedom.”

As part of a mock question-and-answer session with the crowd, fourth-year and STAND co-president Mike Pareles told supporters that the administration has excluded them from the decision-making process regarding Sudan.

“Instead of engaging us, they’ve once again shut the door,” Pareles said. “The University has gone from perhaps inactive during the decision making process to actively supporting the genocide.”

Pareles said STAND appreciated the Board’s creation of a $200,000 fund supporting student and faculty work on Darfur-related issues, but that the fund “will do nothing to affect the genocide that’s happening today.”

The activists filled McCormick Lounge to maximum capacity during the open forum attended by students across the University. While Zimmer gave a half-hour–long presentation on the University’s strategic initiatives, divestment activists held up signs with messages such as “My University supports genocide” and “The U of C doesn’t care about black people.”

STAND activists dominated the question-and-answer session with questions aimed at evoking and scrutinizing the Board’s rationale for divestment.

“There is a divergence of opinion about this subject on our campus,” Zimmer said. “There are natural tensions.”

Zimmer added that there was “no real agreement” about the results of divestment for the University.

“For most people, the issue was the level of efficacy for the act,” he said.

Fielding several personal attacks regarding divestment, Zimmer emphasized that the decision not to divest ultimately came from the Board of Trustees. “I’m really representing here the Board of Trustees and the input they got from the faculty,” he said.

Before concluding the forum, in which other students also raised issues such as health care for graduate students and increased sustainability and diversity, Zimmer encouraged divestment activists “to see that there are arguments on the other side.”

Genocide in Darfur? We are "ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY."

Genocide in Darfur?
We Americans are "ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY."

Apartheid/Genocide in Israel/Palestine?
We Americans are "ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY."

Three million slaughtered in Congo to steal raw materials for western "stuff?"
We Americans are "ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY."

etc...

etc...

etc....

Why the hell have I spent four of the last eight months in front of the White House regarding Darfur Genocide? Because I can't continue to be "all evidence to the contrary."

I've just watched "Rachel Corrie: An American Consicience." At youtube you can find snippets on Rachel (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, more Rachel). But this movie is devistatingly effective at showing the Genocide of the Palastinian people.

We Americans, the normal day-to-day lives (deaths) we live are "ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY."

Darfur Honesty: China Partner in Darfur Genocide

Nat Hentoff
China: Partner in Genocide
by Nat Hentoff
February 12th, 2007 9:52 PM

China has provided Khartoum [the exterminator of Darfur] more than $10 billion in commercial and capital investments over the past decade, even as it has been the regime's primary supplier of weapons, weapons technology, and weapons engineering expertise.Eric Reeves, sudanreeves.org, January 26

Access to people in need [in Darfur] in December 2006 was the worst since April 2004 . . . Sexual violence against [Darfur] women has been occurring at an alarming rate . . . The humanitarian community cannot indefinitely assure the survival of the population in Darfur if insecurity continues. Joint statement by 14 U.N. humanitarian organizations operating in Darfur, January 17

See complete article at the Village Voice

Darfur Heroics: Ban Ki-moon "Darfur my top priority"

“I have made Darfur my top priority,” he told delegates at the recent African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. See full article: Bashir Promises U.N. Chief Changes for Darfur

Now we citizens watch right? God Damn Us. DARFUR GENOCIDE IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT. WE SHOULD MAKE Ki-moon's JOB EASY. Or the shame is ours.

Darfur Heinous: Warren Buffett gouges Darfurie Eyes out

"The biggest U.S. investor in Class H shares of PetroChina, a Chinese oil concern whose parent company is active in Sudan, is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. I have huge respect for Mr. Buffett, and he may be thinking: My obligation is to make money for shareholders, not to use their investments in a dubious attempt to save [Darfur[ the world. But surely if Berkshire Hathaway and Fidelity mutual funds saw lucrative opportunities in selling bayonets to the janjaweed in Darfur, they would balk at that. We do have limits; the question is where we draw them."

See complete article: Death by Dollars (by Nicholas Kristof)

Darfur Heroics: Africa Action correctly slams Nastos

By: Africa Action Posted on: 2/12/2007

Africa Action Slams Natsios’ Denial of Genocide in Darfur

Rejection of “Genocide” by Top U.S. Official Contradicts Reality in Darfur; Shift in Language Seeks to Rule Out Necessity for New U.S. Action

Monday, February 12, 2007 (Washington, DC) – Africa Action today harshly criticized U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios for his recent claim that the crisis in Darfur no longer constitutes “genocide.” In a presentation at Georgetown University on February 7, Natsios said, “The term genocide is counter to the facts of what is really occurring in Darfur.” Africa Action emphasized today that Natsios’ statement represents a significant shift in U.S. policy on this crisis, and contradicts numerous reports from the region, which confirm that the government-sponsored genocide is continuing in Darfur.

Nii Akuetteh, Executive Director of Africa Action, said today, “Natsios’ declaration that genocide is no longer occurring in Darfur denies the reality on the ground, and conflicts with numerous statements from the White House and State Department over the past two years. This is more than a semantic change. Natsios’ claim represents a calculated attempt to re-characterize the crisis, undermine its urgency, and obviate the need for new U.S. action to address it.”

Africa Action emphasizes that the definition of “genocide” laid out in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide continues to describe the realities in Darfur. The organization notes that the “intent” of the Sudanese government to destroy, in whole or in part, specific African communities in Darfur is clear from documentary evidence, from the pattern of attacks and from the testimony of witnesses in the region. Furthermore, the five types of violent acts described in the Convention continue to be visited upon the people of Darfur, including widespread killings, the infliction of bodily and mental harm through rape and other crimes, and the deliberate destruction of livelihoods throughout Darfur.

Ann-Louise Colgan, Director of Policy Analysis & Communications at Africa Action, said today, “Reports from the United Nations, the African Union, and human rights groups confirm that the Sudanese government continues its attacks on civilians, and has stepped up its support for Janjaweed militias in Darfur. The genocide is ongoing, and this reality must be confronted, not denied, by the Bush Administration. Natsios’ statement represents a further step backward in the U.S. response to this crisis.”

As Natsios continues to threaten the Sudanese government with a mysterious “Plan B” if it does not cooperate with the U.S. and the international community on Darfur, Africa Action emphasized today that this empty threat is no substitute for a U.S. plan of action to stop the violence and protect civilians in Darfur.

Marie Clarke Brill, Director of Public Education & Mobilization at Africa Action, said today, “Activists across the country are outraged by Natsios’ denial of genocide in Darfur and by the continued absence of a U.S. strategy to address this worsening crisis. Threats of “Plan B” from the Bush Administration have left Khartoum unfazed. The death toll is mounting, and the U.S. must act now to stop the escalating violence by the Sudanese government and to provide protection to civilians and humanitarian operations in Darfur.”

Africa Action notes that almost six months have now elapsed since the passage of Resolution 1706 at the United Nations (UN) Security Council, and that no progress has yet been made towards the deployment of the authorized UN peacekeeping force for Darfur. Later this month, Africa Action will release a new analysis of the failures of the U.S. and the international community to challenge Khartoum’s obstruction and implement Resolution 1706.

Africa Action continues to advocate a new diplomatic offensive from the U.S. to break the current deadlock on Darfur. For more information, see Africa Action’s report “Leveraging New International Action on Darfur”: http://www.africaaction.org/resources/page.php?op=read&documentid=2235&type=6&issues=1024

For further information and analysis on the Darfur crisis, see http://www.africaaction.org/darfur

Copyright peacejournalism.com

Heroics: THIS is what it looks like

Ahhh. If Darfuries were only whales or some other animal we in the West would value them enough to risk ourselves.

Japanese whaling ship, protest boat collide in Antarctic seas

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- An anti-whaling group's boat and a Japanese whale-spotting vessel collided twice in Antarctic waters Monday during clashes over a pod of whales, conservationists and Japanese officials said.

The anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said a 1-meter (3-foot) gash was torn in the hull of its ship, the Robert Hunter, by the Japanese ship Kaiko Maru during the clashes in iceberg-strewn waters far south of New Zealand.

Japanese officials accused the group of attacking the whaling ship like pirates.

The Kaiko Maru issued a distress signal during the clash to seek help from another Japanese whaling ship in the area, said Hideki Moronuki, a senior official at the far seas fisheries division of Japan's Fisheries Agency. No one aboard the Kaiko Maru was injured, and no serious damage to the ship was reported.

Moronuki said two Sea Shepherd vessels attacked the Kaiko Maru on Monday morning.

"The attack was like that of a pirate, with people on one boat throwing warning flares and a rope in an attempt to entangle our ship's propeller," Moronuki said. The Kaiko Maru was forced to stop, he said.

Five other ships in the Japanese whaling fleet were far away from the Kaiko Maru at the time of the collision, Moronuki said, declining to give their location.

Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said the Robert Hunter was hit twice by the Kaiko Maru after the conservationists tried to stop the Japanese ship from reaching a pod of whales.

"Robert Hunter was struck in the stern. We have a three-foot gash in the hull above the waterline," he said by telephone from the Farley Mowat, a second Sea Shepherd ship in the area.

No injuries were reported aboard the Robert Hunter.

Watson said the Sea Shepherd ships offered to respond to the Japanese ship's distress call, but it had not answered.

The three ships were still near each other, while other Japanese whaling ships were about 20 miles (30 kilometers) away, Watson said.

"The situation clearly is dangerous," he said.

New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Center said it was aware of a distress call from a Japanese vessel, and that authorities were investigating.

The collision was the latest high-stakes clash between Japanese whaling ships and Sea Shepherd activists, whose self-stated aim is to "harass, block, obstruct, and intervene against" Japanese ships hunting whales in Antarctic waters.

Last Friday, two Sea Shepherd members went missing aboard a small inflatable boat for several hours during a confrontation with another Japanese whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru, before being found safe.

The conservationists had dumped a foul-smelling acid on the whaling ship, prompting Japanese officials to label them "terrorists" after two crew members were slightly injured.

The Japanese ships left port in November for a six-month whaling expedition in the Antarctic as part of a scientific whaling program, conducted within the rules of the International Whaling Commission.

Tokyo is pushing for a limited resumption of commercial hunts, arguing that whale stocks have sufficiently recovered since 1986, when a global moratorium on commercial whaling was introduced.

Many other countries and conservation groups say Japan's scientific program is a veil for commercial whaling. (AP)

DARFUR HERO: NURSE MATHINA MYDIN

From Spotlight: Darkness in Darfur 10 Feb 2007 JESSICA LIM :

"Fighting the searing pain in her eyes caused by the tear gas, humanitarian aid worker Mathina Mydin worked frantically amid cries of pain and gunshots. The only other foreign NGO had cleared out earlier that morning after being threatened. Mathina was the only foreign aid worker remaining at camp. One of the patients that she can recall clearly is Zenab Abdulla Rahaman and her son Abdulla Halim, 8. "She had watched her husband's throat slit in an earlier attack. That night, she was assaulted. She was so fearful for her son," said Mathina, recalling the incident which happened over two years ago....

MATHINA: "Where are our human values? I appeal to the humanity in man to give these people their dignity back."

"For things to happen for the people of Darfur, the world has to have political will."

"What kind of gentle people are these that ask so little, yet teach us so much in return? If you say the value of one life is equal to another, then yes, I feel most for Darfur."

"There may be no air conditioning and the toilets are scary. "But in comparison, it is a small sacrifice. It's a privilege to have this chance to 'do my worst'."

Darfur Heroics: Tom Lantos

Mr. Lantos,

Darfur seems like more than just a sound-bite op for you. But please do whatever you have to to STOP the Darfur Genocide. TOO OFTEN YOU GUYS DO WHAT YOU DO TO KEEP YOUR JOB. NO. DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO TO STOP THE DARFUR GENOCIDE NOW. FOR GOD'S SAKE. "Do unto others ALL that you would have them do unto you."

Please. brother jay

We Must Take Action In Darfur February 9th, 2007

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs this week held a hearing on the situation in Darfur. It is nothing short of shocking to realize that the slaughter there has gone on for three years, and despite numerous calls for action from Congress and many of its individual members, the Administration and the international community have not summoned up the political will to act.

Humankind is failing the sons and daughters of Darfur horribly. We have watched as an entire people has been persecuted, displaced, dispossessed, raped and slaughtered. As a survivor of the Holocaust, I cannot bear silent witness to the first genocide of the 21st Century.

I am sick and tired of waiting for a diplomatic solution to this crisis. The much-heralded Darfur Peace Agreement did nothing to stop the genocide. Nobody in the Sudanese government has been held accountable for the mass killings. There has been no protection of civilians. And there has been no reversal of ethnic cleansing.

Even targeted sanctions against those responsible for the genocide have had little impact on the Sudanese leaders who find the benefits of their oil dealings with China more profitable than their assets frozen in the United States.

With or without the consent of Khartoum, we need a large number of international troops on the ground to protect the people of Darfur from slaughter, and we need them now. The UN Security Council has correctly authorized the deployment of such a civilian protection force to Darfur to augment the under-gunned and under-manned African Union troops already on the ground.

But President Bashir and his cronies have rebuffed all entreaties to allow for the deployment of these desperately needed troops.

How can we change Khartoum’s mind about the deployment of a civilian protection force? If we are cynical, we can try the approach used by Chinese President Hu Jintao during his recent visit to Sudan. While urging Sudanese cooperation with the United Nations, President Hu made a jaw-droppingly generous offer of $17 million to build a new presidential palace, $104 million in debt forgiveness, and a promise to build a new railway line.

I doubt that Sudan’s leaders lost much sleep after their meeting with the Chinese president. Perhaps that night they dreamed of building the new railway line straight to Darfur to hasten the genocide.

There is a better way. President Bush must call a summit of the world’s civilized nations with a simple goal - strong, multilateral sanctions on Sudan. Investment bans. Prohibition on travel for Sudan’s top leaders.
And most importantly, shutting down Sudan’s ability to sell oil and gas on the international marketplace. I welcome the Administration’s announcement today of a “Plan B” approach to block U.S. commercial bank transactions with the Government of Sudan. This step, if fully implemented, will have a major impact on Sudan’s ability to sell petroleum overseas.

I hope that tough sanctions on Khartoum will force the regime to allow an international civilian protection force to enter Darfur. But we can’t count on it. The United States must therefore work with the United Nations, the African Union and our allies to prepare a contingency plan for the entry of a protection force into Darfur without the Sudanese government’s permission.

If we wait much longer, there may be nobody left to protect in Darfur. The innocent civilians there are crying out for our help. We must not continue to fail them.

Darfur Genocide a Fraud: John Prendergast

From the site Darfur Genocide a Fraud:

Come on now. John and these folks are wonderful, moral people. Highly intelligent and extremely well connected. New Advocacy Group Aims To Point Up Atrocities in Africa (article below)

What they have helped construct for Darfur, the Save Darfur "Movement" (shameless) has been an almost perfect time-killing machine that makes gobs of money for the safe and comfortable "activist" community and makes millions of folks in the US feel great while doing squat(no risk, no price, no huge sacrifices unlike the Holocaust 21,000 Righteous Among Nations - Vad Yashem)! And it is great for individual careers like John's and is a terrific outlet for humanistic crumbs from Hollywood and executive celebrities. How else do you feel good about owning a personal jet in this world of poverty(see article below)? So who's been hurt? Hey, we've never stopped a genocide and we weren't going to stop this one in Darfur (if it were really genocide). Right?

But if this were really Genocide in Darfur instead of a hoax, would Prendergast really be able to put his heart into building more time-killing machines? Hey, he's been to Darfur. Surely if it really were a genocide he couldn't resist putting real skin in the game and stopping this Genocide rather than bleeding energy off to the future! I mean, we've already proven we can kill time exquisitely! Why prove it again, and again....

Clearly what we need to do if this were REALLY GENOCIDE IN DARFUR is put ALL OF OUR ENERGY TO LEARN, DEVELOP, APPLY AND PROVE TACTICS TO STOP THIS GENOCIDE IN DARFUR! NOW. But then, WE would have to face the price of becoming heroes. OUCH! Darfur: Dying for Heroes.

Ah, but it is a Hoax. There is no genocide in Darfur.

New Advocacy Group Aims To Point Up Atrocities in Africa
Former Officials Unite to Focus Public on Darfur, Other Conflicts
By Nora BoustanyWashington Post Foreign ServiceFriday, February 9, 2007; Page A16

Veteran Africa activists, frustrated by the slow response from Sudan's government to international demands to ease the plight of refugees in Darfur, are regrouping to take their fight to the next level. A new group, calling itself Enough, has joined the growing list of nongovernmental peacemaking organizations. Its aim, the founders said, is to tap into the grass-roots awareness and sense of rage generated by the Darfur crisis and create a social and political network that can identify potential wide-scale atrocities, particularly in Africa, and stop them before they occur. The three co-founders are Gayle E. Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, who was previously an officer with the State Department and the National Security Council; Africa expert John Prendergast, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group who also served at State and the NSC in the Clinton administration; and Colin Thomas-Jensen, Africa research and advocacy manager for the International Crisis Group and a former official with the U.S. Agency for International Development. "We've got people's attention on Darfur. While we have it, there are other raging fires such as Uganda and the Congo, and it is more cost-effective to act in concert," Smith said. "I am both excited and moved by the activism on Africa and what has happened in the last 30 years. . . . It is breathtaking." In a survey by the Pew Research Center conducted in December, 51 percent of American respondents said they thought the United States had a responsibility to do something about ethnic violence in Darfur, and 53 percent were in favor of U.S. troops in Darfur as part of a multinational force to help end ethnic genocide there. "It's a neat idea. When you build up such a large grass-roots base, it would be a shame to let it die away once a crisis is finished. It would be great to have a system to take care of future conflicts," said Amjad Atallah, president of Strategic Assessments Initiative and an adviser to the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of organizations committed to protecting civilians in Darfur. "So much of the campaigning has been effective in raising awareness, which is crucial, but ineffective in affecting policy. We won't just focus on one crisis. We want to show the linkages and common roots between the crises in Congo, Northern Uganda and Sudan," Prendergast said Monday by e-mail from Uganda, where he is touring with actor Ryan Gosling. Prendergast said the object was to feed the growing movement against genocide and make it more comprehensive. "Ultimately, our goal is to help reorganize our government's ability to prevent and respond to the commission of crimes against humanity as a fundamental objective of U.S. foreign policy, just as promoting trade and countering terrorism is today," he said. The founders' experience in government and in relief work in Africa will add another dimension to the grass-roots activism that began on campuses nationwide. Stark images from Darfur of emaciated, gangly refugees on the edge between life and death have entered the American consciousness through a variety of documentaries and other television shows. "We are going to develop a committed core of people, which is not so much a lobbying group as one that can drive up the political temperature," Prendergast said, spelling out the new group's agenda. "How do we restructure diplomatically? What we want to do is make existing movements smarter and build a better infrastructure within the government. How to restructure intelligence networks to set alarm bells in motion? How do we provide assistance to existing peacekeeping operations and, more importantly, protect civilians?" Some ideas the group discussed include monthly analysis briefings, workshops on shaping the congressional budget process, and regional training for advocacy. At the request of the Save Darfur Coalition, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) led a delegation last month to Sudan's capital, Khartoum, to meet with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The group hoped to tease out written commitments on the deployment of peacekeeping troops, the establishment of humanitarian delivery corridors, and the clear marking of government planes to avoid confusion between attack aircraft and relief drops. S. Daniel Abrahams, a Slimfast magnate and philanthropist, offered his private jet, and the State Department gave its consent for the trip. A couple of days after the trip, a 60-day cease-fire collapsed. Richardson said in an interview this week that some advances were made "in the right direction," such as a pledge to reduce the red tape delaying permits for Sudanese relief workers hoping to work in Darfur. Most previous diplomatic efforts with Bashir have failed. "I'm going to make Darfur an issue," said Richardson, who announced his bid for the presidency one week after returning from Sudan in January. "We need to start thinking about Africa and about repairing our relations with the Muslim world. Our obsession with Iraq has caused us to neglect poverty issues. " "I think candidates of both parties at some point are going to be asked about Darfur," Smith said. "In 2004 there were questions about Darfur in the debate. We expect everyone running for president will get a question on Darfur." More than 185 organizations are members of the Save Darfur Coalition, which has a highly efficient system for collecting online donations, obtaining grants and foundation money, and gathering sizable contributions from individuals and celebrities. Enough is likely to tap into the same pool of funding. Richardson met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to push the Sudan agenda, and he welcomed the intensified efforts of the civic groups. "It is very healthy to have such groups," he said. "There are a number of ethnic wars in Africa . . . unfolding tragedies. We cannot as a nation have any more Rwandas."

Darfur Heroics: Whistle-blower on Khartoum

An ex-employee of Khartoum speaks out on Darfur
07 Feb 2007 16:49:00 GMT

Blogged by: Jonathan Erasmus
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
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Jonathan Erasmus is an independent freelance journalist. Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters.

"The greed of a handful of men is starving millions of people of their basic human needs," whispered the former employee of the Sudanese government.

He looked nervously around the Khartoum coffeehouse, anxious not to be identified. Leaning forward, he continued, lowering his voice further: "There are ruthless leaders here that lust after wealth and power, doing anything to get it, even if it means butchering their own people."

He said he'd been privy to details of government military spending in Darfur, where experts say tens of thousands of people have been killed and some 2.5 million uprooted by prolonged violence that Washington calls genocide.

He said orders for attacks on rural villages came from the "top level" - and that President Omar al-Bashir himself was guilty of heinous crimes against humanity.

"Since he (Bashir) came into power (in June 1989) he has marginalized, excluded and racially discriminated against black Africans in Sudan. He has the blood of thousands of people on his hands."

The former government employee said he believed Bashir had purposefully implemented policies and military action to change the demographics of Sudanese society to favour Arabs financially and politically while ostracising black Africans.

Going a step further, he said: "Bashir has been ethnically cleansing Darfur. This man is responsible for the actions of his government and military. He is accountable for the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have been killed by government bombs and bullets."

Sudan denies targeting civilians in Darfur and says bombing raids on "legitimate targets" have focused only on rebel groups that are non-signatories of the Darfur Peace Agreement signed last May in Abuja.

Khartoum also rejects charges that government helicopter gunships have attacked villages in Darfur. But the international rights organisation Human Rights Watch says Sudan is guilty of both bombing civilians and helicopter attacks on villages.

The government has in addition been repeatedly accused of financing and arming Arab militias in Darfur, though Khartoum vehemently rejects this.

However, some government sources say Khartoum has indeed been backing Arab militias, adding that there are officials in Khartoum whose sole purpose is to oversee the implementation of support to Arab militia groups in Darfur.

They say the government has been most notably supporting the Janjaweed militia blamed for the massacre of thousands of Darfuris in brutal raids on villages throughout the region.

My source said his job was to follow orders and not ask questions. He now fears that speaking out against the government seriously could jeopardise his safety. "I know the grim details about Darfur and senior people here know I know. It breaks me to think I have been involved.

"Sudan is using diplomacy to fool the world, but the reality is the government is committing grave war crimes in Darfur."

Khartoum denies this, with one government spokesman saying: "Sudan is trying to resolve the crisis in Darfur using diplomacy rather than military force."

But the source said Khartoum was hiding facts and the government was only using diplomacy in an international forum "to appear to be trying to resolve the crisis is Darfur without force" - but that on the ground it was using military force and not words.

He said government-ordered bombing raids in Darfur had been carefully calculated in both the targets and timing "to ensure the rebel groups in Darfur remain divided, as Khartoum firmly believes they have to divide and rule the rebels to control Darfur".

He added: "Khartoum doesn't really want to negotiate on Darfur. It wants to control Darfur on its own terms."

He said the extent of Khartoum's brutality towards its own people was staggering. "The quantity of munitions the government has used in Darfur is shocking. The U.N. simply can't know the true extent of the bombing and attacks government forces have carried out or they would surely have acted.

"The longer the outside world continues to be blind to what is really happening, the longer the fighting and killing of innocent civilians will continue and many, many thousands more will die."

Since the beginning of the conflict in early 2003 some experts have estimated that 200,000 people have died in Darfur, but this figure has remained unchanged for more than two years. The truth is no one really knows the extent of the massacre.

"It's sickening to say but I'm not convinced of the sincerity of international community expressions of concern anymore," the source said. "If people really cared about Darfur they would know how many Darfuris have died.

"There has been nothing to back up all the words and resolutions. They are hollow promises and hollow promises don't save lives."

He motioned to get up and leave, but stopped to add one last comment: "Once again, the world has forgotten the black African."

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Darfur Heroics: Tim Large re RESTORE DARFUR

No peace without jobs in Darfur
08 Feb 2007 18:57:00 GMT

Blogged by: Tim Large

One of the more insidious aspects of the conflict in western Sudan is its impact on the ability of Darfur's people to make a living. The rapes, the massacres, the torched villages - these are well documented. Less so the effects of the crisis on the production of tombac chewing tobacco, say, or leather and metalwork.

These are just two ways in which Darfuris have long supplemented the income from their main agricultural activities. Lumped together, they're what aid agencies mean when they talk about "livelihoods".

It's no surprise that a conflict that has killed some 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million more has had a devastating effect on livelihoods. But a new report by the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University argues that unless Darfur's people find ways to earn money, peace won't be possible.

"While displacement may be seen as the main proximate cause of loss of livelihoods, the real causes are found much deeper in the dynamics of conflict and local power relations," says the study, entitled "Challenges to Peace and Recovery in Darfur".

"After nearly three years of conflict, this systemic destruction of livelihoods has probably contributed as much if not more to the increase in conflict-affected populations and displacement than the effects of direct attacks on communities."

Here are a few ways the conflict is devastating livelihoods in Darfur, according to the report:
As violence stops people moving about freely, market places are empty and trade has come to a standstill. Crops don't get cultivated and animals don't get herded. People don't collect firewood. Remittances are neither sent nor received.

Health centres, schools and water supplies have been destroyed. Banks have been looted. Public services have been decimated as civil servants, teachers and health workers are displaced.

The uprooting of millions has led to concentrations of people in and around towns, pressuring water supplies and exhausting vegetation. The trade in firewood and grass for fodder has become a hot issue around camps for displaced people.

In some areas under Sudanese government control, Arab groups have occupied land, controlling resources and moving livestock into farmers' fields. Reports of Arab groups extorting protection payments from residents are widespread.

Traditional leaders have been killed or displaced. and newly appointed leaders have sometimes misused their authority to profit from aid distributions. Traditional tribal systems of administering land tenure and negotiating livestock migration routes have broken down.

The scale of the international food aid programme is distorting local markets and affecting cereal production. Food aid is now a widely traded commodity.

The link between livelihoods and conflict isn't always obvious, but these examples help connect the dots.

While technical in places, the report is worth a read, if only to underline the point that building a lasting peace in Darfur will involve more than just sending in peacekeepers.

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Darfur Heroics: University Chicago STAND

University of Chicago stands pat; Darfur activists take aim
While other colleges sever financial ties with Darfur Sudan, U. of C. defies protests and sticks to 1967 policy
By Michelle S. Keller, Tribune staff reporter; Tribune staff reporter Jodi S. Cohen contributed to this reportPublished February 8, 2007

Darfur Heroics: Chatham MA Prom $ to Darfur?

Chatham Man Organized ‘No Prom’ Night To Benefit Darfur Victims
by Debra Lawless
Raising awareness and money to fight the mass slaughter of ethnic Africans are the twin goals of a new local chapter of the national student group Students Take Action Now: Darfur (STAND), advised by English teacher Jeff Howell of Chatham.
Last fall at Dennis-Yarmouth High School, where Howell teaches, STAND posed a provocative question: Is it more important to attend your high school prom in high style, (which costs on average up to $600 per person), or to give the money you would have spent to fight genocide in Darfur, an African nation you may never have heard of? High school students Cape-wide will struggle with this question come prom time this spring, thanks to STAND.
On Friday, March 9 at 7 p.m., Howell’s students and the Human Rights Commission of Cape Cod will sponsor a three-hour No Prom For Darfur dance at Cape Cod Community College. Tables will be set up in the upper commons so students can break from dancing to write letters and sign petitions against genocide. A video crew and local politicians have also been invited to the event. “We’ll see who shows up,” Howell says.
To explain to the community what this is all about, several of Howell’s students will join Dan Millenson, executive director of the Sudan Divestment Task Force, in conducting a program at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House in Chatham on Sunday, Feb. 18 during the 10:30 a.m. service, and again at 2 p.m.
Darfur is a nation in the western Sudan torn by war that began when Africans rebelled against the Arab-dominated government in February 2003. The rebellion has turned into a mass slaughter of Africans. Estimates of the number of dead vary, but Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor who has been studying the conflict almost since its beginning, estimates 450,000 are dead and 2.5 million more displaced from their homes.
It must be said up front that while the original, perhaps idealistic, idea was to schedule the No Prom For Darfur dance (which is “come as you are” and costs $25) on the same night as Dennis-Yarmouth’s junior prom, the two dates no longer conflict. So while juniors can attend both events, scheduling an alternate dance on the same night as the junior prom did bring a lot of attention to the cause.
Kids who didn’t know about the genocide commented, “why are we missing the prom?’” said Dennis-Yarmouth senior and STAND member Ross Desmarais. “We decided on an alternative just to have people attend. We can raise the same amount of awareness and money.”
Desmarais believes that while students will still attend their proms, which he describes as “the major high school spectacle” looked forward to by both genders, they may not rent that Hummer limousine or buy that $1,000 dress.
“We’re not on the same night as any prom,” Howell says. “We’re not taking attendance at any prom. It’s the concept that’s important. We’re inclusive.”
Most significantly, students Capewide attending 16 public and private high schools are invited to No Prom For Darfur. Howell expects at least 200 students who are “energized by the issue” to attend.
In a nutshell, here’s how this came about.
Last spring, Desmarais and his classmate Zak Jason, who had just taken their advanced placement exam in U.S. History, needed a project related to current events to complete the semester. The pair settled on raising awareness of the genocide in Darfur, an atrocity about which most students knew nothing. Desmarais and Jason also wanted to raise money for humanitarian aid to Darfur, and after tacking up posters they designed around the school and giving a Power Point demonstration, Desmarais and Jason asked for donations in the cafeteria.
They raised $700 in two days, Desmarais says. “We sent it to the Save Darfur Coalition.”
The project took on a life of its own, with about 50 more students, including junior Jen Pimental, who is now president of STAND, becoming involved. Last fall, Reeves, author of a forthcoming book about the genocide “A Long Day’s Dying,” spoke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Five kids piled in my Ford Freestyle and we headed up there,” Howell says. Reeves concluded his talk by saying that in 12 months another 500,000 people will be dead in Darfur. “We all looked at each other and said, ‘no way. We have to do something,” recalls Howell.
The “no prom” idea evolved one day during a casual hallway conversation at Dennis-Yarmouth. While Howell expected some flak from the many florists, hairdressers, limousine and tuxedo companies that make money on proms, he has been surprised to get phone calls from such businesses supporting his efforts. Chatham’s Monomoy Community Services also contacted him with the message that his students were spreading faith for the future of the world and pledged $350.
“People are just waiting for you to scratch the surface to find out what a good person they are,” Howell says.
2/8/07

Darfur Heroics?!? George Bush Administration

Bush Approves Plan To Pressure Sudan
Treasury Would Block Transactions
By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 7, 2007; Page A12

President Bush has approved a plan for the Treasury Department to aggressively block U.S. commercial bank transactions connected to the government of Sudan, including those involving oil revenues, if Khartoum continues to balk at efforts to bring peace to Sudan's troubled Darfur region, government officials said yesterday.

The Treasury plan is part of a secret three-tiered package of coercive steps -- labeled "Plan B" -- that the administration has repeatedly threatened to unleash if Sudan continues to sponsor a campaign of terror that has left as many as 450,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless. But the administration has held back on any announcement of Plan B, even after setting a Jan. 1 deadline, in hopes of still winning Khartoum's cooperation.
The delays have increased skepticism that the administration is willing to risk potential diplomatic and commercial fallout from targeting Khartoum.

The U.S. plan would put pressure on Darfur rebel leaders who have refused to participate in peace talks or who have targeted humanitarian groups operating in the region, officials said. The information on Plan B was provided by officials in four government agencies on the condition of anonymity because the administration had not planned on releasing details yet.

Some aspects of Plan B have already been stealthily launched, such as stationing four U.S. Army colonels last month as observers on the Sudan-Chad border in full view of Sudanese intelligence. The unannounced move was intended as a signal to Khartoum, which the administration accuses of launching a "quiet war" against Chad's government to widen the Darfur conflict.

"I find this all very dubious. They have talked about Plan B, but they have never explained what Plan B is," said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The deadlines have come and gone, and the Sudanese have thumbed their noses."

Andrew Natsios, Bush's special envoy to Sudan, tomorrow will testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the administration has set three triggers that would result in the enhanced sanctions: one, renewed attacks on displacement camps or driving nongovernmental organizations from Darfur; two, stonewalling peace negotiations with rebel forces; and three, refusing to implement a plan pushed by then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to expand a poorly equipped 7,000-person African Union force into a hybrid A.U.-U.N. force of 17,000 troops and 3,000 police.

"Treasury's plan to block commercial bank transactions connected to the Khartoum regime, even those involving oil revenues, will be only a minor, short-term inconvenience," said Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert at Smith College, who noted that Khartoum has already violated the three triggers since the start of the year. "This element of Plan B only reveals more fully its vacuous nature."

The Darfur conflict broke out in 2003, when African rebel groups attacked police stations and military outposts. The United Nations and human rights groups accuse Sudan's government of supporting a militia known as the Janjaweed in an effort to crush the rebellion. About 2,000 villages have been destroyed across Darfur, and the administration more than two years ago accused the government of engaging in genocide. But the United States has made little progress in ending the conflict or the humanitarian crisis.

Buoyed by booming oil wealth and a close relationship with China, Sudan has shrugged off repeated threats of action. Bush, increasingly frustrated by the impasse, approved key aspects of the plan last month, directing Treasury to come up with a menu of options that would directly affect the government in Khartoum, officials said. Sudan's Arab leadership has fought multiple civil wars with regional groups over the country's oil and other resources, and U.S. officials believe Sudan's leaders are fearful of any moves that might threaten their grip on power.

Sudan's economy is largely dollar-based, meaning many commercial transactions flow through the United States and making it especially vulnerable to Treasury actions. Indeed, U.S. intelligence, which has stepped up reporting on Sudan in recent months to prepare for a confrontation, believes Khartoum set up a government committee to explore ways of obtaining oil revenues that did not involve dollars, such as barter deals, one official said. Sudan's government has also unsuccessfully sought new oil contracts that would provide for large upfront payments.

The core of the Treasury plan rests on an executive order issued by President Bill Clinton in 1997 that blocked all Sudanese government assets, including companies connected to it, and curtailed financial dealings with Sudanese entities. Bush last year issued a second executive order that blocked the property of people connected to the conflict in Darfur. The existing orders already result in regular freezes or rejections of some Sudanese transactions, but U.S. officials believe they also give the Treasury the authority for an aggressive crackdown on a much larger group of companies connected to Sudan.

Officials hope a ripple effect of Treasury's actions would extend to other countries and companies doing business with Sudan, forcing them to reconsider whether they want to be tainted or, more troubling, subjected to Treasury's scrutiny. "Anything that is controlled by the government we can go after," a senior administration official said. "But the effectiveness will be driven by the participation of our partners," meaning other countries.

Sudan produces about 500,000 barrels of oil a year, which at current market rates is worth about $10 billion. As much as 200,000 barrels are kept for internal consumption, Morrison said, with about 75 percent of the rest sold to China. Partly because some aspects of the plan are still classified, administration officials yesterday were vague about how the plan would cripple Sudan's oil revenues. One official said Treasury will "have the ability to touch things that touch oil revenues."

The regional government of South Sudan, created through a peace deal two years ago, is supposed to get 50 percent of oil revenues. Officials said they think they had designed the plan so it would harm Khartoum but without impacting the government in the south.

Darfur Heroics: Piccadilly Activists

"Campaigners will then bed down for the evening in Piccadilly train station ­ just as several refused asylum seekers from Darfur (Sudan) have been doing on a regular basis throughout the winter. "



MANCHESTER - 7 February 2007 - 300 words

Manchester: campaigners sleep out in solidarity with destitute asylum seekers

Campaigners from Church Action on Poverty, the Boaz Trust and other charities working with refugees in Manchester will be sleeping out in Piccadilly on Monday 19 February in support of the growing numbers of destitute asylum seekers on Manchester's streets.

The sleepout is timed to coincide with an event being organized by the Refugee Council in Parliament Square, on the eve of the publication of the latest Government asylum statistics.

The sleepout will highlight to the public, politicians and the media that destitute asylum seekers have no home - and that destitution is not working as a policy. Asylum seekers whose claims are turned down are not leaving the UK ­ they are here and they are homeless and hungry.

The event will start with a vigil outside Piccadilly railway station from 5pm ­ 7pm, followed by a vigil and music in Piccadilly Gardens from 7pm ­ 8pm. Campaigners will then bed down for the evening in Piccadilly train station ­ just as several refused asylum seekers from Darfur (Sudan) have been doing on a regular basis throughout the winter.

Niall Cooper, national coordinator of Church Action on Poverty said: "In 1999 the Prime Minister said "It is a scandal that there are still people sleeping rough on our streets. This is not a situation that we can tolerate in a modern civilised society." Destitution is now being used as a tool of public policy ­ and it is time to put an end to it."

Source: CAP


© Independent Catholic News 2007


Contact Independent Catholic News tel/fax: +44 (0)20 7267 3616 or email

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Darfur Heroics: Pareles & Levine of U Chicago

My guess is that this Open letter in response to the U of C’s rejection of Darfur divestment is a principled, RISKY, SACRIFICIAL STAND by what I presume to be students at U of C. THIS IS UNHEARD OF - People actually taking personal risks to stop the Darfur genocide! Presuming that I am correct, GOD BLESS YOU Michael Pareles and Aliza Levine.

Open letter in response to the U of C’s rejection of divestmentChicago Maroon, IL Hope Franklin, the last surviving drafter of the Kalven Report, agreed that the genocide in Darfur qualifies as an “exceptional instance” under its terms.

Darfur Heroics: "My Jesus would be in Darfur..."

It is so rare to find any shred of courage or truth in the media. Thank you Mr. Stephens.

"My Jesus would be in Darfur, saving his children from genocide instead of escalating an ungodly war. Lastly, the Jesus I know sees every life as precious. Whether you are an Iraqi mother, the parents of a fallen war veteran, or the president of the United States, we are all equal in his eyes. Christians understand that." full article below
Stephens is a Black Star News contributing columnist.

Right-Wingers Don’t Represent All Christians

By Andre Stephens

February 6th, 2007

The mainstream media has done a poor job of differentiating Evangelical Christians from more mainstream Christians. This failure by the media to properly define the differences in people of the Christian faith has led to false perceptions by both Christians and non-Christians as it pertains to their political beliefs.

Merriam-Webster defines the word evangelical as:1: “of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel, emphasizing salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion.”

Merriam –Webster also defines a Christian as “one who professes belief in the teaching of Jesus Christ.” Therefore, by definition, an Evangelical Christian is a person that adheres to the teachings of Jesus Christ and has accepted Christ as their personal savior.

I have been around people that fit that description all of my life. In fact, I count myself among them. What’s strange to me is that I don’t recognize the rhetoric I hear from people that the mainstream media appoints as Evangelical Christian leaders. Their message is inconsistent with the teachings of the Jesus I know.

At one time the group we now know as Evangelicals were referred to as The Christian Right. That name seemed more appropriate since it identified their political aspirations. The brand of religion they subscribed to seemed to be front loaded with patriotism, as if God only extends his blessing to America and its allies. They also align themselves with conservative politicians. While I would never question their faith, I do question their political agenda. It’s their political agenda that concerns me when the mainstream media identifies them as Evangelical Christians or just Christians rather than The Christian Right.

The mislabeling of the Christian Right by the mainstream media creates a false perception that is twofold. When people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are referred to as Christian leaders, the public perception is that they represent all Christians. When Robertson and Falwell use their pulpit to call for the murder of another country’s president –Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez-- support the oppressive minority ruled government of apartheid South Africa, or say that a town is headed for damnation because it approved intelligent design, it creates backlash against Christians. That backlash sometimes turns into Christian-bashing, even though many mainstream Christians are just as outraged.

When conservative Christian leaders get attacked for their outrageous views, people of faith hear the affront and confuse it as an assault on Christianity itself—sometimes it is. The galvanizing effect of these attacks is that in defense of their faith many Christians close ranks and start identifying themselves with more conservative Christian groups that really don’t represent their true beliefs.

Robertson, Falwell and Dr. James Dobson have used the scripture to become very powerful and rich men. Their wealth and influence has been enhanced by the millions of additional dollars funneled to them by Bush’s faith based initiatives. These men have created and funded their own special brand of American/Political Christianity.

The media has bestowed the power to win or lose elections in the hands of the Evangelicals and Evangelical leaders gladly languish in that perception. Candidates have now bought into the idea of Evangelicals as a power base and routinely seek to win their support.

In the 2004 presidential election, Christian voters were almost exclusively identified by the media as Republicans. There was never any sort of in-depth analysis that differentiated the so-called Evangelicals from other people of faith. Even when the Republicans were routed in November 2006, the media speculated that Evangelicals must have stayed home. A poll conducted by The Washington Post showed that 58% of people that attend church weekly voted for Bush in 2004. In 2006, only 44% of weekly church goers voted for the Republican candidates, 43% voted for Democrats. Christians didn’t stay at home; they were incorrectly identified as being staunchly Republican.

While the talking heads in the media would have us believe that people of faith vote Republican and non-believers vote Democrat, the issue is clearly far more complex and their faulty analysis leaves viewers with the wrong perception.
I never bought that line. I think there are millions of Christians that do not subscribe to the words of Robertson, Falwell and Dobson. I think the Jesus they worship is the same Jesus that I have a relationship with. The Jesus that is more concerned with saving the planet and its species from man’s destructive path than he is with condemning gays.

My Jesus would be in Darfur, saving his children from genocide instead of escalating an ungodly war. Lastly, the Jesus I know sees every life as precious. Whether you are an Iraqi mother, the parents of a fallen war veteran, or the president of the United States, we are all equal in his eyes. Christians understand that.

Stephens is a Black Star News contributing columnist.

To comment on this article, or to advertise with us, or to subscribe to New York’s favorite Pan-African weekly investigative newspaper, or to send us news tips, please call (212) 481-7745 or contact miltonallimadi@hotmail.com

Darfur Heroics: Jerusalem Post/Irwin Cotler

Feb. 5, 2007 21:59 Updated Feb. 5, 2007 22:32
Meltdown in Darfur - what happened to 'Never Again'?
By IRWIN COTLER

"The genocide by attrition in Darfur is being accelerated." It is painful - almost incredulous - to have to repeat these words, which I first spoke at the Save Darfur rally on September 17, 2006, the first anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine (the "R2P doctrine").

Yet tragically, incrementally, the genocide in Darfur has moved into high gear, a standing repudiation of the R2P doctrine, both mocking the lessons of history while betraying the people of Darfur.

For the enduring lesson of history is that the genocide of European Jewry occurred not only because of the ideology of hatred, but also because of crimes of indifference and inaction. Indeed, we have witnessed in our own days an appalling indifference and inaction which took us down the road to the unspeakable - the genocide in Rwanda.

Unspeakable, because this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. We knew and we did not act. We know what is happening in Darfur and we have yet to act. The moral injunction of "never again" has become "yet again" - again and again, a particularly poignant and painful reminder as the UN has just commemorated the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust.

Moreover, Darfur is in "freefall" or "meltdown," as Chief UN Aid Coordinator Jan Egeland recently put it, going beyond his ominous predictions in conversations with me in September on the occasion of the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Full article here - 3 more excellent pages

Hero & villain: Save Darfur/David Rubenstein

David Rubenstein
Worldwide Director
Save Darfur Coalition

Dear David,

FINALLY you are taking some risks. Thank God! Today's piece shows some courage on your part and begins to be commensurate with the enormous moral responsibility you assume as the head of an organization that claims the title: "Save Darfur." "Rubenstein told Bush he was disappointed by the "lack of concerted and sustained action" to end the tragedy. "It is time for effective American leadership to end this genocide now," he added."

BUT DAVID, "American Leadership" you say, THAT MEANS YOU DAVID! HOW CAN YOU ASK BUSH TO PUT HIMSELF ON THE LINE IF YOU DO NOT!?!?!? What price are you paying David? What price are you leading others to pay? The answer so far David is that you have been leading us to pay NOTHING/NO RISK/NO SACRIFICE!

I pray that your recent shows of some courage is just the beginning. David, please LEAD US. I'LL FOLLOW!

Full article:

U.S. says China sends "mixed signals" on Darfur
Mon Feb 5, 2007 3:59pm ET

A 7,500-strong African Union peacekeeping mission has struggled to maintain a ceasefire in Darfur. Khartoum rejected a U.N. takeover of the force and has instead given loose approval for a U.N.-AU hybrid force.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met U.S. actor Don Cheadle, an activist on Darfur, to discuss what was happening there.

McCormack declined to provide any details of Rice's meeting with the actor, whose roles include one in a film about the Rwandan genocide, except to say the two had a good discussion.

Cheadle and other personalities have been putting pressure on the Bush administration to do more to stop the carnage in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in the past four years and about 2.5 million driven from their homes.

The Save Darfur Coalition, one of the most vocal advocacy groups for Darfur, wrote to President George W. Bush on Monday, urging him to take specific actions to help what the president himself calls genocide.
"It's not an exaggeration to fear that the degradation of the humanitarian situation in Darfur may soon result in a catastrophe dwarfing all that has gone before," said Save Darfur Coalition executive director David Rubenstein.

Rubenstein told Bush he was disappointed by the "lack of concerted and sustained action" to end the tragedy. "It is time for effective American leadership to end this genocide now," he added.

Darfur Genocide Hoax: U Chicago will not divest

Come on! We're talking about the institution that spawned such moral giants as Saul Alinsky This is one of the great educational, humnizing institutions of the world. Isn't it?

Of course it is! If they will invest in Sudan, OF COURSE THERE IS NO GENOCIDE. It MUST be a hoax!

University of Chicago won't divest in companies tied to Darfur

CHICAGO Despite months of student protests, the University of Chicago will not divest in companies that support the ruling regime in the Darfur region of Sudan.U of C President Robert Zimmer said Friday that the Hyde Park school will not change its investment policy. He says the school has a long-standing practice of not taking explicit positions on social and political issues that don't have a direct bearing on the university.
U of C officials won't say how much of the school's five (B) billion-dollar endowment is invested in companies that do business in Darfur. But officials say it's usually a small amount.
Michael Pareles is a student who co-chaired the campaign for university divestment. He says his group is extremely disappointed at the board of trustees' decision.
_____
Information from: Chicago Sun-Times: http://www.suntimes.com

Board: No Darfur divestment
Chicago Maroon, IL - The University will not divest from any company whose business has supported the ruling regime in Darfur, Sudan, according to a statement released late Friday by the office of president Robert Zimmer.

Darfur Genocide a Fraud/Hoax/Scam

Below are recent posts at Darfur Genocide a Fraud (IF YOU KNOW AND YOU DO NOT DO, YOU DO NOT KNOW. Confucian saying.)

$4.8 Mil from China for Darfur? Genocide a Hoax!

Wash Post Exonerates Bush/US?!!?! Darfur Genocide a Hoax

Japan donated $200,000?!?!?: NO Darfur Genocide

"Banners springing up??!?": Darfur Genocide a Hoax!

Darfur Genocide is a Hoax - Proof: US State Dept. "Concerned?!?!?"

Darfur Genocide Hoax: Ki Moon/Bashir photo op!

Darfur Genocide Fairytail: Would Kristof just "Talk" after 4 years?

Darfur Genocide Hoax: Proof - MA Churches remain moderate

Darfur Genocide a Fraud proof: Holocaust Museum Inaction

Darfur Hideous: Gabriel Staurling - "pressure on the top"

""Gabriel Stauring, a co-founder of Stop Genocide Now and the organizer of the mock refugee camp, agreed that putting pressure on politicians is the most effective method. "The biggest bang for your buck would be to go to the top," he said. “Call the president. "" [full article blow]

Mr. Staurling, when, WHEN in history has "put pressure on the top" through phone calls brought social justice, social change? Are your examples Civil Rights? Gay Rights? Women's Rights? Ending the Genocide in Vietnam??? You have a responsibility to the people of Darfur. Your words can KILL them. What experience and expertise do you have, what precedents can you site to justify your recommendations? Yes, your behavior enables you to continue your grants for this nice, "feel good" dog and pony show (Camp Darfur) you do to support yourself, but what else qualifies you? By the way, do you still feature those nice pretty photos in your Darfur tent - the ones that dissipate any and all emotion regarding genocide - those pretty women and smiling photos? Are you still just one more of the efforts that uses Darfur and the Holocaust to aggrandize and advance the material interests of Jews (and Darfur nonprofits)?

The virtues of "call the President" and similar lobbying are what besides:
* Entirely acceptable to the "status quo" power structures that have allowed every genocide to go unstoped?
* Safe?
* Easy?
* No cost?
* No risk?
* No time required?
* Comfortable?
* Good training to become a cigarette lobbyist?
* Looks good on a resume?
* Makes the rich, white, upwardly mobile college kid feel less guilt about all their other advantages that they squander on themselves?
[You might add to your list of suggestions - sitting under a poster of Darfur Genocide and masturbating. Just a thought. Is also really big "bang for the buck."]

This (photo from South Africa STUDENT anit-apartheid struggle) is how STUDENTS have brought about social change. Or, were the real anti-aparheid heros the rich US college kids that from the safety of their campuses, and to the advancement of their connections/careers got companies to divest; and these stupid kids in the photo (and the 1000's like them) were just ignorant idiots throwing their lives away for nothing (for the glory of it)?


Mr. Staurling -
a. I may be entirely misinformed and if infact there is some significant level of personal risk, cost, sacrifice that your effort involves for you I humbly appologize. If indeed you are in some way behaving with the heroism that Genocide demands of the human being I am deeply and truly sorry for any discomfort that this blog entry may cause you. But if you are extremely sacrificial here, you will forgive me because you see that you and Eric Reeves are the only ones!
b. If I am NOT incorrect in my information then you sir are not alone, not to be singled out (see Darfur Genocide a Fraud), and it is not my intention to do so. You are in great company as far as I can see: USHMM, Save Darfur, Nick Kristof, Samantha Power, Jerry Fowler, George Bush, State Department, Senate, House, WE THE PEOPLE, Catholic Church, Judaism, Islam, "Christians".... These in the Save Darfur "movement" will leave no stone unturned (provided that it is of low personal cost, risk, discomfort and provides considerable upside to current and future career opportunities.)
c. It is neither my desire nor intention to hurt you or anyone else personally. However, you have assumed a position on the Darfur Genocide stage, what you do matters, and to the degree what you do is Heroic you should expect as much or more attention from the likes of me as you have received in this post; and as others have received on this site.

Genocide Conference Spotlights Darfur
BY Corinna Matlis
Contributing Writer
Monday, February 5, 2007

Opening with a talk by well-known author Dave Eggers and concluding with a mock refugee camp, the last of six regional anti-genocide conferences took place at UC Berkeley this weekend.
The event was organized through the Berkeley chapter of STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, a national organization mobilized largely to take action against the ongoing genocide in Darfur, the western region of Sudan.

“Our goal is to train Darfur activists in lobbying, divestment and in dealing with the media,” said Jordan Steiner, a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in peace and conflict studies, who organized the event.

The conference started Friday night and ended Sunday afternoon, attracting just shy of 200 people, Steiner said.

“It was amazing,” she said. “We achieved our goals, so I hope we can help in some way.”

In addition to Eggers’ talk, the conference included a documentary on Darfur, a talk by Jerry Fowler, the former staff director of the Committee on Conscience at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and workshops all day Saturday and Sunday morning. The mock refugee camp on Memorial Glade, called Camp Darfur, ended the conference on Sunday afternoon.

After speaking about his recently released book following the struggles of a Sudanese refugee, Eggers said the most important action to take to stop the Darfur genocide is to write a letter to a senator or representative.

“Action in Darfur would be a good legacy for the new Congress,” he said.

Gabriel Stauring, a co-founder of Stop Genocide Now and the organizer of the mock refugee camp, agreed that putting pressure on politicians is the most effective method.

“The biggest bang for your buck would be to go to the top,” he said. “Call the president.”

Stauring currently travels around the country bringing Camp Darfur wherever it is requested.

The project began after Stauring returned from a refugee camp in Chad

at the end of 2005, said Tsai Yi Chan-Beal, a member of Stop Genocide Now

who travels with Stauring.

The eight tents set up on Memorial Glade Sunday presented information about the ongoing genocide in Darfur as well as the genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, and the Holocaust.

“We start with Armenia as the first genocide of the last century and end with Darfur, the first genocide in this century,” Stauring said. “We haven’t learned anything in 100 years.”

Camp Darfur also gives those who attend a chance to record a video, delivering a personal message for the refugees that Stauring said he will bring to refugee camps in Chad.

“On my first visit, a lot of refugees asked if people even knew about them,” Stauring said. “It was a powerful experience to show people do care about them.”

After the Sunday morning workshops, many of those at the conference staged a “die-in” in the center of the ring of tents.

“It’s about being in solidarity with people across the world,” said Natalia Khalifa, a sophomore at UC Berkeley majoring in development studies and one of the co-chairs of publicity for the conference.

Ashley Newman, the regional outreach coordinator for STAND, said the conference was a success.

“It was really about forming a community of activists,” she said. “I think people have been empowered to keep doing what they’re doing.”

Contact Corinna Matlis at cmatlis@dailycal.org.

Darfur Heinous: China Palace for al-Bashir?

A Palace For Sudan
China's No-Strings Aid Undermines the West
By Sebastian MallabyMonday, February 5, 2007; Page A15
Last week China's leader, Hu Jintao, provided Sudan with an interest-free loan to build a presidential palace. With that gesture, Hu demonstrated his contempt for the Western understanding of the world -- and for Western policy toward his own country.

Sudan, you will recall, is the scene of the Darfur genocide. Since the killing began three years ago, the United States and its allies have flown in food and medicines, provided logistical help and money for a token African peacekeeping force, and done their best to isolate the Sudanese regime, which orchestrates the massacres. They have done this not because they have a selfish interest in Darfur but because tossing babies into bonfires is a crime against humanity.

In the run-up to Hu's visit to Sudan on Friday and Saturday, there were hopes that the Chinese leader would back the West's Sudan policy.

China's diplomats are forever reassuring the world about their country's "peaceful rise," and Hu duly expressed support for an expanded peacekeeping force in Darfur. But everything else about his visit demonstrated the gap between Chinese and Western priorities.

Hu called on nations to "respect the sovereignty of Sudan." But since the end of the Cold War, the Western view of sovereignty has grown increasingly contingent. If a nation slaughters its civilians (think Rwanda, Kosovo), harbors terrorists (Afghanistan) or refuses to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors (yes, Iraq), it forfeits its right to sovereignty. It may not be invaded, but it certainly can expect to face sanctions.

Sudan, by these standards, is an easy candidate for sanctions. But China's talk of "sovereignty" is code for the opposite policy. As well as paying for a presidential palace, Hu used his trip to cancel $80 million of Sudanese debt, to announce a plan to build a railway line and to visit an oil refinery that China partly owns, basking in the fact that 80 percent of Sudan's oil goes to his country.

Hu's visit was a statement that, in the Chinese view of the world, the principle of sovereignty trumps even the most appalling human rights abuses: It brushed aside the memory of the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust. But at the same time, Hu was saying more than that. He was advancing an understanding of modernization that the West discarded 15 years ago.

By pursuing commercial ties with Sudan, Hu was implicitly saying that economic development comes first and that political development is unimportant. This was once the view of Western development organizations, which financed projects in health, education, infrastructure and so on -- but steered clear of human rights, corruption and anything else that could be deemed "political." But in the early 1990s, the Western approach changed. Development experts pointed out that independent courts and newspapers help to limit corruption and so make economic development possible. In the absence of minimal political accountability, aid money is stolen. Rather than helping Africa's poor, it is siphoned off to pay for presidential palaces.

China is not financing a presidential palace by mistake; it is doing so deliberately. It is not financing just any presidential palace; it has chosen a president so odious that his fellow African leaders hold their noses at him. But this gesture is only the tip of the iceberg. To read the accounts of Hu's Africa visit in China's People's Daily is to recall Western development thinking of a half a century ago. "From 1995 to 2003, China administered 43 sessions of the 'Advanced Education and Scientific Research Program' in 21 African countries," the paper's online version crowed yesterday. Development, in this conception, is all about technical transfers. Politics plays no part.

This Chinese understanding of development threatens to undermine the Western one. Western development aid is increasingly linked to measures of good governance, and investment from Western corporations and banks comes with conditions designed to ensure that ordinary people benefit. This promising advance cannot succeed if African dictators can ignore Western conditions with Chinese assistance.

But then there is an even more disturbing question: What does China's policy toward Sudan say about the West's policy toward China? The West is engaging with China on the theory that economic modernization will bring political modernization as well; otherwise, the West would merely be assisting the development of a communist adversary. China's Sudan policy is an assertion that this link between economic and political modernization is by no means inevitable, even in the extreme case. You can construct oil refineries, educate scientists, build ambitious new railways -- and simultaneously pursue a policy of genocide.

smallaby@cfr.org

Darfur Heroes: U of Chicago STAND

Initially, the group was excited simply to draw a sizable crowd on a day when temperatures hovered around 10 degrees below freezing. When Zimmer (University President) appeared, protesters began to think that their efforts were finally paying off.

Divestment decision to come next week

Darfur Heroes: 200 Students Sit-in

Darfur Students in Imam Al Hadi University Terminate Strike
Saturday 3 February 2007
Khartoum (smc)About 200 students at Al imam Al Hadi university from Darfur have terminated sit in strike. The strike was terminated in response to intervention from presidential advisor Dr. Majzab Al Khalifa and SLM peace wing chairman engineer Ibrahim Madibo.Madibo told (smc) that Abuja agreement stated that universities should exempt Darfur students from paying fees.He said that Darfur students should settle their situation with Darfur authority and ministry of higher education.

Darfur heroes or Hedonists? New School Northern Virginia

Conference/Activism(?): February 10th, 11th, and 12th at the New School of Northern Virginia

For most, for the vast majority of Darfur "activists" the so-called Darfur Genocide (a Hoax!) has been the coolest way to have fun at no risk and little effort since the invention of mast-------n. The historic and truly heroic David Dellinger spoke of the phenomenon, activist-self-pleasuring, in somewhat more genteel terms:

P296-7 in his book "Yale to Jail" Dellinger, an activist hero of Howard Zinn speaks of the mid 1960's power of activism/demonstrations:
"For a long time, the demonstrations played a crucial role, not just in showing the public, the traditional peace organizations, the government... how widespread and serious the opposition was but also in giving heart to the demonstrator's.... The main effect of the participating was energizing and empowering. [Participants] went back to their local communities ready to play a more confident and active role."

But then he saw develop what is rampant today in what shamefully calls itself a "Save Darfur" movement. Ha! Dellinger:
"After a while, though, the demonstrations tended less and less to work that way. Periodic demonstrations began to take on a life of their own as the be-all and end-all of the movement. [today with Darfur it is not demonstrations (too much work and sacrifice!) but rather Lobby/email/write the do-nothing/say ANYTHING congress and White House] The line got blurred between participating to end the war and participating in order to enjoy the exhilarating experience of expressing one's antiwar views in solidarity with thousands of like-minded people. There were indications that some people were going to a demonstration much as some people go to a church, synagogue or meditation center. For them, the marches and rallies had become periodic self-satisfying rituals that weren't consistent enough in leading to follow-up activities elsewhere. Instead of helping people to gain new insights and energy to go home and express them in new relationships and practices, they were becoming almost a substitute for doing so."

Will the efforts described by the New School of Northern Virginia be different than the self-serving nonsense of the Save Darfur "movement" thus far? We can only pray. Our only real hope for Darfur is the young people. But will Ms. Scully's effort be of the ilk we've seen - STAND's 1 day Fasts from Luxuries - or of the nature of the 1000's of youngsters in the 1960's that went to jail to stop racial discrimination in the US, or that were fired upon by South African police?