Will the killing ever stop?

Three Darfur war crimes suspects inaugurate new health facilities

(KHARTOUM) — Three Sudanese officials accused of taking part in the Darfur war crimes inaugurated health facilities in the town of Merowe 350 km north of the capital Khartoum.

Salah Gosh (left); Ahmed Haroun (Center); Musa Hilal (right) The officials included Salah Gosh, the head of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Service; Ahmed Haroun, minister of state for humanitarian affairs and Musa Hilal adviser to the ministry of Federal Affairs.

Gosh has been accused by human rights group of being one of the Sudanese officials responsible for orchestrating the war crimes in Darfur and counter insurgency campaign. He was identified by the UN panel of experts as an individual who should be sanctioned. Read more >>>>>>>>>

Darfur Activists Plan Beijing Protest

By JOE McDONALD –

BEIJING (AP) — Activists will demonstrate in Beijing during the Olympics to press China to help end bloodshed in Darfur, a group said Thursday, adding to the government's public relations headaches as it tries to quell protests in Tibet.

The announcement came as two U.S.-based groups released a report that accused Beijing of blocking efforts to compel the Sudanese government to end fighting in its western Darfur region.

"We are planning some actions during the games themselves in Beijing," Dream for Darfur's executive director, Jill Savitt, said in a conference call with reporters. Savitt said the group was keeping details secret "for fear we would not be able to pull off those events."

Activists are calling on Beijing, a diplomatic ally of Sudan and buyer of its oil, to help end fighting in Darfur. They have been pressing Olympics sponsors to lobby Beijing for action or face pickets at their headquarters or other protests.

In their report, Dream for Darfur and Save Darfur rejected Beijing's assertions that it has been trying to bring peace to the region.

They accused China, a permanent Security Council member, of blocking or weakening U.N. measures to compel Sudan to end the violence while supplying Khartoum with weapons.

"The actions of China, more than the actions of any other country besides Sudan, have facilitated the atrocities in Darfur," the report said. "For the past five years, essentially all of China's actions supported the government in Khartoum, thereby enabling the atrocities Khartoum committed."Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Social Injustice Darfur

EU force starts mission in Chad, CAR

NDJAMENA (AFP) — An EU force of 3,700 troops still deploying in Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) on Monday announced the official start of its year-long mission to protect refugees and displaced people.

A statement released by the EU peacekeeping force said it had reached 'initial operational capacity'.

"This declaration is an important step since its marks the effective start of the 12 months of the force's mandate," it said, referring to as provided for by a UN Security Council resolution passed on September 25 last year.

The mission's duty is to protect refugees in both countries from Sudan's conflict-wracked western Darfur region across their border, as well as Chadians and CAR villagers displaced by internal strife. They total more than 450,000 people. Read more >>>>>>>

Sudan: Islamic Community Failing Darfur Victims, Rights Groups Say

Dakar

Human rights advocates and religious leaders are using a conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar to tell leaders of predominantly Muslim countries they are failing the people of Darfur.

"It is the OIC's [Organisation of Islamic Conference] responsibility to say 'enough is enough' and to put pressure on the government of Sudan - which is a member state of the OIC - to end the killing in Darfur," Amir Osman, international advocacy director for the Washington-based group Save Darfur, told IRIN.


The international community must act "whenever a government is killing its own citizens", Osman said. "Some of the Arab and Muslim leaders are hesitant to speak out because of their economic and political interests with Sudan."

Islamic scholars and representatives of human rights and aid groups met in Saly, Senegal, on 9 March to finalise a declaration to be submitted to OIC heads of state - expected to include Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir - due to gather in Dakar on 12-14 March. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>

FEED DARFUR

Sarkozy condemns Sudan over French EU soldier death

By Elizabeth Pineau

PARIS, March 7 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned on Friday what he called the "deliberate and disproportionate" use of force by Sudan in the killing of a French soldier serving with European Union forces in Chad.

France's defence ministry said that a body found by Sudanese authorities near the Chad border was identified by French officials in Khartoum as that of a special forces sergeant who went missing after a clash with Sudanese troops on Monday.

The soldier was killed and another was wounded after they accidentally crossed from Chad into Sudan, in a remote region near the Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic frontiers. The wounded man rejoined EU forces.

The death was the first fatal casualty in the EU military force which is still being deployed in eastern Chad. More than half of its members are being provided by France.Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>

Jan Pronk voor de klas over vredesproces Darfur

Maandag 3 maart ‘08, 10.00 uur
Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden, Fruinlaan 15 in Leiden

Op dit moment speculeren duizend scholieren in het vredesproces van Darfur. Het educatieve beursspel Markt voor Vrede 2.0 is in volle gang. Maandag start de bijbehorende scholentour: verschillende experts zullen voor de deelnemende scholieren een lezing geven over het conflict in Sudan. Voormalig bijzonder VN-gazant Jan Pronk trapt af met een gastles op het Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden.


Is Darfur op 1 januari 2009 veilig genoeg om te beginnen met het herstel van de regio? Dat is de hamvraag van deze serious game, waarmee vredesorganisatie Euro's voor Vrede middelbare scholieren stimuleert om zich te verdiepen in de werking van een aandelenmarkt en tevens in het maatschappelijke vraagstuk rondom het vredesproces in Darfur. Spelenderwijs krijgen de jongeren inzicht in de complexiteit van wederopbouw in een conflictgebied en de vorming van de publieke opinie hierover.


Scholentour
Maandag start de scholentour van Markt voor Vrede 2.0. Voormalig bijzonder VN-gazant Jan Pronk trapt af met een gastles op het Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden. Andere experts die de komende tijd zullen deelnemen aan de scholentour van Markt voor Vrede 2.0 zijn Tineke Ceelen, directeur van Stichting Vluchteling; Edwin Ruigrok, oud-projectcoördinator Hoorn van Afrika van IKV Pax Christi; Jort Hemmer en Ayaan Abukar Ali, landenspecialisten Sudan van Amnesty International. Lees meer >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Darfur- Doha Debate

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Part 6

Scorched-Earth Strategy Returns to Darfur

They came to this dusty town in the Darfur region of Sudan on horses and camels on market day. Almost everybody was in the bustling square. At the first clatter of automatic gunfire, everyone ran.

The militiamen laid waste to the town — burning huts, pillaging shops, carrying off any loot they could find and shooting anyone who stood in their way, residents said. Asha Abdullah Abakar, wizened and twice widowed, described how she hid in a hut, praying it would not be set on fire.

“I have never been so afraid,” she said.

The attacks by the janjaweed, the fearsome Arab militias that came three weeks ago, accompanied by government bombers and followed by the Sudanese Army, were a return to the tactics that terrorized Darfur in the early, bloodiest stages of the conflict.

Such brutal, three-pronged attacks of this scale — involving close coordination of air power, army troops and Arab militias in areas where rebel troops have been — have rarely been seen in the past few years, when the violence became more episodic and fractured. But they resemble the kinds of campaigns that first captured the world’s attention and prompted the Bush administration to call the violence in Darfur genocide.

Aid workers, diplomats and analysts say the return of such attacks is an ominous sign that the fighting in Darfur, which has grown more complex and confusing as it has stretched on for five years, is entering a new and deadly phase — one in which the government is planning a scorched-earth campaign against the rebel groups fighting here as efforts to find a negotiated peace founder. Read more >>>>>>>>>