Solidarity With Darfur

April 13th, 2008

Today is “In Solidarity: Global Day for Darfur”. I hope you’ll take a little time to educate yourself on the five year genocide transpiring in Darfur, and think about how such atrocities effect humanity. Think about the ramification of having a world where people are willing to do this to one another; and think about what it means to our humanity when we sit back and do nothing as it goes on.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” - Edmund Burke

Before I get off into this post I want to let you know that today we need you to do more than just read; but we need you to take action. You can see what those proposed actions are and links to them towards the bottom of this post, under the Please Act Now section.

Yobachi Darfur Picture

The Crisis in Darfur:

The Sudanese Government in Khartoum started a campiagn in the Western Provence of Darfur in 2003, arming a militia known as the janjaweed (the devil on horce back) to raid villages of other ethnic groups, slaughtering them, displacing millions, and burning their villages so that they do not return. The government has used gunships and airplanes to bomb communities as well.

200,000 to 400,000 dead
2.5 million displaced
Thousands of rapes in a policy rape agenda
Ethno-centrically driven attacks; though underlined by other factors
Civilians systematically targeted

On top of the wholesale slaughter, there has been a brutal campaign of “policy rape” ; that is where rape is used as a weapon of war and is conducted as a matter of policy as opposed to a consequence of rouge soldiers individual behavior.

Further, the Sudanese government’s interest in Darfur are not simply a counter-insurgency against outlaw rebels, as it is framed by some; but that the rebels have just been used as an excuse to displace the Darfurian people for economic and ethnocentric reasons. The Sudanese government did the same thing in the Nuba Mountains in the 90s.

This “Genocide: Darfur” video may help you to grasp the crisis more

During this time of the Olympics we want to use attention on the Olympics games to bring the Olympic Dream To Darfur. The Olympics are a particularly potent weapon this year because the host, China, is Sudan’s major military supplier, and major buyer of Sudanese oil; giving China unrivaled influence over the government in Khartoum.

Reading China’s Genocide Games may help you learn more on this point

Please Act Now: Three simple ways

1. Email or call the Olympic Corporate Sponsors.
Send a letter to companies sponsoring the 2008 Olympics, hosted by China. (Dream for Darfur’s email system will let you do this with the touch of a button.)
2. Pledge to turn off the commercials of Olympic Sponsors during the Games.
Olympic corporate sponsors have been silent about China’s financing of the Darfur genocide, even as the sponsors are spending billions to enhance China’s image as Olympic host. If sponsors continue to ignore China’s complicity in the Darfur genocide, we will ignore their million-dollar ad campaigns.
3. Petition the International Olympic Committee.
Urge the IOC to work with the international community to ensure that China uses its leverage with the government of Sudan to help stop the genocide in Darfur, and avoids tarnishing the 2008 Games in Beijing.

The Currrent Situation

Deployment of a peacekeeping force was agreed upon and passed in the U.N. back in July; yet the countries that voted for it have simply failed to follow through. The joint UN/AU force has only seen about a third of the peacekeepers deployed, and hence are thus far quite ineffectual. Sudan keeps stonewalling on “allowing” the force to be deployed, and the governments of the world simply keep capitulating. SaveDarfur has more on this, along with a petition to sign asking them to stand up to Khartoum www.savedarfur.org/blog/entries/the_deception_continues/.

The European Union recently took a strong step to impose pressure towards ending the Darfur crisis: “EU turns up heat on China over Darfur crisis and divest from PetroChina”:

“March 17, 2008 (BRUSSELS) — The European parliament took an unprecedented step to sanction China over its unwillingness to pressure Sudan to halt violence in Darfur.
The Independent newspaper reported that the EU divested the shares it owned in Chinese oil giant PetroChina.

The latest move by the EU will likely worry policymakers in Beijing who are desperately trying to contain growing criticism for shielding Khartoum from sanctions in the UN Security Council.”

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5 Responses to “Solidarity With Darfur”

  1. Sojourner's Place on April 14th, 2008 2:51 am | link

    In reading all of the posts today as well as doing background for my own, I have found it amazing that our government continues to call this a war. Just words? I think not. SjP

  2. MrsGrapevine on April 14th, 2008 3:28 am | link

    I like the picture idea. I’m glad to see people put their personalities into their post, and are helping to spread the word.

  3. D. Yobachi Boswell on April 14th, 2008 4:05 am | link

    Hmmm, Sojourner, I don’t know about our government calling it a war; surprisingly even Bush has called it a genocide, they’re just not doing anything substantial about it.

  4. D. Yobachi Boswell on April 14th, 2008 4:06 am | link

    The pic comes from a previous Blogging Against Genocide capaign we did back in october. Part of it was a virtual march:

    www.blackperspective.net/index.php/blogging-against-genocide/

    And the date is what it is just because my sister’s camera wasn’t set but I took the pic last October.

  5. SjP on April 14th, 2008 8:07 pm | link

    oops…my bad…and really my bad. Got to correct this on my post asap! Much obliged for the correction. SjP

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  • D. Yobachi Boswell

  • Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.

    I created this site to give new voice to socio-political issues that are in need of thoughtful consideration and redress.

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