"زكاة الفطر" لدعم العمل الانسانى فى دارفور و معسكرات اللاجئين/ات بتشاد -

Quote: قضية دارفور في شقه الأنساني .. في حاجة ملحة الي القيام بمثل هذه المبادرة

Quote: قلوبنامع اهلنا فى دارفور

) و ارجو ان تحثى كل من تعرفين للمساهمة.

ندى

Quote: جولي: وضع دارفور مرعب لدرجة يصعب تصديقها: وصفت الممثلة أنجلينا جولي الأزمة في منطقة دارفور السودانية بأنها ''فظيعة إلى حد لايصدق'' وذلك عقب زيارة للمنطقة استغرقت ثلاثة أيام· وسبق لجولي وهي سفيرة للنوايا الحسنة بالمفوضية العليا لشؤون اللاجئين ان زارت لاجئين في العديد من البلدان التي تمزقها الحروب ولكنها قالت : إن دارفور صدمتها باعتبارها أسوأ ما رأت بسبب استمرار انتهاكات الحقوق وأعمال العنف وأنه لايوجد مكان آمن بها· وقالت : ''يمكني القول إن هذا أسوأ موقف شاهدته على الإطلاق وإن مايحدث للناس هنا···فظيع الى حد لايصدق·· الحقيقة ان هذا من أسوأ الأشياء التي وقعت لبشر على كوكب الأرض'' · تقول الأمم المتحدة إن الصراع في دارفور والذي أجبر 1,6 مليون شخص على الفرار من ديارهم أدى إلى واحدة من أسوأ الأزمات الإنسانية في العالم· وهددت المنظمة الدولية السودان بفرض عقوبات إذا فشل في وقف أعمال العنف التي تصفها الولايات المتحدة بأنها إبادة جماعية· وزارت جولي وتبرعت بأموال للاجئين سودانيين في مصر وتشاد وقابلت لاجئين في سيراليون وساحل العاج وكمبوديا وكوسوفو ودول أخرى· وقالت ان الصراع في دارفور معقد ومن الصعب فهمه ولكن كان واضحا أنه لايوجد مكان آمن بشكل تام في المنطقة الشاسعة· وقالت للصحفيين في الخرطوم ''لم يسبق لي إطلاقا أن شاهدت شيئا كهذا هذا يبدو لي وضعا لانهاية له···انه مستمر حاليا··إنه لاينتهي والمساعدات تصل··وهو مستمر·'' وأضافت أنها تحدثت الى العديد من النساء اللاتي تعرضن للاغتصاب بينما قال لها أطفال إنهم يريدون الأمن فقط ليعيشوا حياتهم في سلام· وناشدت جولي المجتمع الدولي تقديم التمويل بشكل كامل للعديد من منظمات الإغاثة العاملة في دارفور· العدد 10709 السبت 16 رمضان 1425 هـ / 30 - 10 - 2004 م صحيفة الاتحادالاماراتية

Quote: Pambazukanews. Editorial HOW CAN WE NAME THE DARFUR CRISIS: PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON DARFUR Mahmood Mamdani How can we name the Darfur crisis? The US Congress, and now Secretary of State Colin Powell, claim that genocide has occurred in Darfur. The European Union says it is not genocide. And so does the African Union. Nigerian President Obasanjo, also the current Chair of the African Union, told a press conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 23: "Before you can say that this is genocide or ethnic cleansing, we will have to have a definite decision and plan and program of a government to wipe out a particular group of people, then we will be talking about genocide, ethnic cleansing. What we know is not that. What we know is that there was an uprising, rebellion, and the government armed another group of people to stop that rebellion. That's what we know. That does not amount to genocide from our own reckoning. It amounts to of course conflict. It amounts to violence." Is Darfur genocide that has happened and must be punished? Or, is it genocide that could happen and must be prevented? I will argue the latter. Sudan is today the site of two contradictory processes. The first is the Naivasha peace process between the SPLA and the Government of Sudan, whose promise is an end to Africa's longest festering civil war. The second is the armed confrontation between an insurgency and anti-government militias in Darfur. There is need to think of the south and the west as different aspects of a connected process. I will argue that this reflection should be guided by a central objective: to reinforce the peace process and to demilitarize the conflict in Darfur. Understanding Darfur Conflict Politically The peace process in the South has split both sides to the conflict. Tensions within the ruling circles in Khartoum and within the opposition SPLA have given rise to two anti-government militias. The Justice and Equality Movement has historical links to the Islamist regime, and the SLA to the southern guerrilla movement. The Justice and Equality Movement organized as part of the Hassan Turabi faction of the Islamists. Darfur, historically the mainstay of the Mahdist movement, was Turabi's major claim to political success in the last decade. When the Khartoum coalition - between the army officers led by Bashir and the Islamist political movement under Turabi - split, the Darfur Islamists fell out with both sides. JEM was organized in Khartoum as part of an agenda for regaining power. It has a more localized and multi-ethnic presence in Darfur and has been home to many who have advocated an 'African Islam'. The SLA is linked to SPLA, which first tried to expand the southern-based armed movement to Darfur in 1990, but failed. The radical leadership of that thrust was decapitated in a government assault. Not surprisingly, the new leadership of SLA has little political experience. The present conflict began when the SLA mounted an ambitious and successful assault on El Fashar airport on April 25, 2003, on a scale larger than most encounters in the southern civil war. The government in Khartoum is also divided, between those who pushed the peace process, and those who believe too much was conceded in the Naivasha talks. This opposition, the security cabal in Khartoum, responded by arming and unleashing several militia, known as the Janjawid. The result is a spiral of state-sponsored violence and indiscriminate spread of weaponry. In sum, all those opposed to the peace process in the south have moved to fight in Darfur, even if on opposing sides. The Darfur conflict has many layers; the most recent but the most explosive is that it is the continuation of the southern conflict in the west. De-demonize Adversaries For anyone reading the press today, the atrocities in Sudan are synonymous with a demonic presence, the Janjawid, the spearhead of an 'Arab' assault on 'Africans.' The problem with the public discussion of Darfur and Sudan is not simply that we know little; it is also the representation of what we do know. To understand the problem with how known facts are being represented, I suggest we face three facts. First, as a proxy of those in power in Khartoum, the Janjawid are not exceptional. They reflect a broad African trend. Proxy war spread within the continent with the formation of Renamo by the Rhodesian and the South African security cabal in the early 1980s. Other examples in the East African region include the Lord's Redemption Army in northern Uganda, the Hema and Lendu militias in Itori in eastern Congo and, of course, the Hutu militia in post-genocide Rwanda. Like the Janjawid, all these combine different degrees of autonomy on the ground with proxy connections above ground. Second, all parties involved in the Darfur conflict - whether they are referred to as 'Arab' or as 'African' - are equally indigenous and equally black. All are Muslims and all are local. To see how the corporate media and some of the charity-dependent international NGOs consistently racialize representations, we need to distinguish between different kinds of identities. Let us begin by distinguishing between three different meanings of Arab: ethnic, cultural and political. In the ethnic sense, there are few Arabs worth speaking of in Darfur, and a very tiny percent in Sudan. In the cultural sense, Arab refers to those who have come tospeak Arabic as a home language and, sometimes, to those who are nomadic in lifestyle. In this sense, many have become Arabs. From the cultural point of view, one can be both African and Arab, in other words, an African who speaks Arabic, which is what the 'Arabs' of Darfur are. For those given to thinking of identity in racial terms, it may be better to think of this population as 'Arabized' rather than 'Arab.' Then there is Arab in the political sense. This refers to a political identity called 'Arab' that the ruling group in Khartoum has promoted at different points as the identity of power and of the Sudanese nation. As a political identity, Arab is relatively new to Darfur. Darfur was home to the Mahdist movement whose troops defeated the British and slayed General Gordon a century ago. Darfur then became the base of the party organized around the Sufi order, the Ansar. This party, called the Umma Party, is currently led by the grandson of the Mahdi, Sadiq al-Mahdi. The major change in the political map of Darfur over the past decade was the growth of the Islamist movement, led by Hassan Turabi. Politically, Darfur became 'Islamist' rather than 'Arab.' Like Arab, Islam too needs to be understood not just as a cultural (and religious) identity but also as a political one, thus distinguishing the broad category of believers called Muslims from political activists called Islamists. Historically, Islam as a political identity in the Sudan has been associated with political parties based on Sufi orders, mainly the Umma Party based on the Ansar and the DUP based on the Khatamiyya. In sharp contrast to the strongly Sudanese identity of these 'sectarian' and 'traditional' parties is the militant, modernist and internationalist orientation of the type of political Islam championed by Hassan Turabi and organized as the National Islamic Front. Not only in its predominantly urban social base but also in its methods of organization, the NIF was poles apart from 'traditional' political Islam, and in fact consciously emulated the Communist Party. Unlike the 'traditional' parties which were mass-based and hoped to come to power through elections, the NIF - like the CP - was a cadre-based vanguard party which hoped to take power in alliance with a faction in the army. The fulfillment of this agenda was the 1989 coup which brought Turabi's NIF into power in alliance with the Bashir faction in the army. As a political identity, 'African' is even more recent than 'Arab' in Darfur. I have referred to an attempt by SPLA in 1990 to confront the power in Khartoum as 'Arab' and to rally the opposition under the banner of 'African.' Both the insurgency that began 18 months ago and the government's response to it are evidence of the crisis of the Islamist regime and the government's retreat to a narrower political identity, 'Arab.' Third, both the anti- and the pro-government militia have outside sponsors, but they cannot just be dismissed as external creations. The Sudan government organized local militias in Darfur in 1990, using them both to fight the SPLA in the south and to contain the expansion of the southern rebellion to the west. The militias are not monolithic and they are not centrally controlled. When the Islamists split in 1999 between the Turabi and the Bashir groups, many of the Darfur militia were purged. Those who were not, like the Berti, retained a measure of local support. This is why it is wrong to think of the Janjawid as asingle organization under a unified command. Does that mean that we cannot hold the Sudan government responsible for the atrocities committed by Janjawid militias that it continues to supply? No, it does not. We must hold the patron responsible for the actions of the proxy. At the same time, we need to realize that it may be easier to supply than to disband local militias. Those who start and feed fires should be held responsible for doing so; but let us not forget that it may be easier to start a fire than to put it out. The fight between the militias on both sides and the violence unleashed against the unarmed population has been waged with exceptional cruelty. One reason may be that the initiative has passed from the communities on the ground to those contending for power. Another may be the low value on life placed by the security cabal in Khartoum and by those in the opposition who want power at any cost. What is the solution? I suggest a three-pronged process in the Sudan. The priority must be to complete the Naivasha peace process and change the character of the government in Khartoum. Second, whatever the level of civilian support enjoyed by militias, it would be a mistake to tarnish the communitieswith the sins of the particular militia they support. On the contrary, every effort should be made to neutralize or re-organize the militia and stabilize communities in Darfur through local initiatives. This means both a civic conference of all communities - both those identified as Arab and those as African - and reorganized civil defense forces of all communities. This may need to be done under the protective and supervisory umbrella of an African Union policing force. Finally, to build on the Naivasha process by bringing into it all those previously excluded. To do so will require creating the conditions for a reorganized civil administration in Darfur. To build confidence among all parties, but particularly among those demonized as 'Arab', we need to use the same standard for all. To make the point, let us first look at the African region. The U.N. estimates that some 30 to 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur and another 1.4 million or so have been made homeless. The figure for the dead in Congo over the last few years is over 4 million. Many have died at the hands of ethnic Hema or Lendu militias. These are Janjawid-type militias known to have functioned as proxies for neighboring states. In the northern Ugandan districts of Acholiland, over 80% of the population has been interned by the government, given substandard rations and nominal security, thus left open to gradual premeditated starvation and periodic kidnapping by another militia, the Lord's Redemption Army (LRA). When the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, flew to Khartoum recently, I was in Kampala. The comment I heard all around was: Why didn't he stop here? And why not in Kigali? And Kinshasa? Should we not apply the same standards to the governments in Kampala and Kigali and elsewhere as we do to the government in Khartoum, even if Kampala and Kigali are America's allies in its global 'war on terror'? Internationally, there is the daunting example of Iraq. Before the American invasion, Iraq went through an era of U.N. sanctions, which were kept in place for a decade by the US and Britain. The effect of the sanctions came to light when UNICEF carried out a child mortality survey in 1999 at the initiative of Canada and Brazil. Richard Garfield, professor of Clinical International Nursing at Columbia University and chair of the Human Rights Committee of the American Public Health Association calculated 'on a conservative estimate' that there had been 300,000 'excess deaths' of children under 5 in Iraq during the sanctions. But the sanctions continued. Today, the US does not even count the number of Iraqi dead, and the U.N. has made no attempt to estimate them. Iraq is not history. It continues to bleed. This backdrop, regional and international, should prompt us to ask at least one question: Does the label 'worst humanitarian crisis' tell us more about Darfur or about those labeling and the politics of labeling? Are we to return to a Cold War-type era in which America's allies can commit atrocities with impunity while its adversaries are demagogically held accountable to an international standard of human rights? Some argue that international alignment on the Darfur crisis is dictated by the political economy of oil. To the extent this is true, let us not forget that oil influences both those (such as China) who would like continued access to Sudan's oil and those (such as USA) who covet that access. But for those who do strategic thinking, the more important reason may be political. For official America, Darfur is a strategic opportunity to draw Africa into the global 'war on terror' by sharply drawing lines that demarcate 'Arab' against 'African,' just as for the crumbling regime in Khartoum this very fact presents a last opportunity to downplay its own responsibilities and call for assistance from those who oppose official America's 'war on terror.' What Should We Do? First of all, we the civilians - and I address Africans and Americans in particular - should work against a military solution. We should work against a US intervention, whether direct or by proxy, and however disguised - as humanitarian or whatever. We should work against punitive sanctions. The lesson of Iraq sanctions is that you target individuals, not governments. Sanctions feed into a culture of terror, of collective punishment. Its victims are seldom its target. Both military intervention and sanctions are undesirable and ineffective. Second, we should organize in support of a culture of peace, of a rule of law and of a system of political accountability. Of particular importance is to recognize that the international community has created an institution called the International Criminal Court to try individuals for the most heinous crimes, such as genocide, war crimes and systematic rights abuses. The US has not only refused to ratify the treaty setting up the ICC, it has gone to all lengths to sabotage it. For Americans, it is important to get their government to join the ICC. The simple fact is that you can only claim the moral right to hold others accountable to a set of standards if you are willing to be held accountable to the same standards. Finally, there is need to beware of groups who want a simple and comprehensive explanation, even if it is misleading; who demand dramatic action, even if it backfires; who have so come to depend on crisis that they risk unwittingly aggravating existing crisis. Often, they use the call for urgent action to silence any debate as a luxury. And yet, responsible action needs to be informed. For the African Union, Darfur is both an opportunity and a test. The opportunity is to build on the global concern over a humanitarian disaster in Darfur to set a humanitarian standard that must be observed by all, including America's allies in Africa. And the test is to defend African sovereignty in the face of official America's global 'war on terror.' On both counts, the first priority must be to stop the war and push the peace process. Copright: Mahmood Mamdani. Reproduced with the permission of the author. * Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Director, Institute of African Studies, at University of Columbia, New York * Please send comments to [email protected]

Quote: Darfur crisis: How to help About a million of Darfur's residents are now displaced Global aid organisations have launched urgent appeals for donations to help people fleeing from fighting between rebel groups and government militias in western Sudan. Aid agencies believe over one million people have been forced to flee thier homes. Many are camped along the border with Chad, where food and water are in short supply and they are still vulnerable to attacks. The area is remote and the rainy season has begun, making transportation difficult. The Disasters Emergency Committee - www.dec.org.uk - is an umbrella group of UK aid organisations who are working to provide shelter, clean water and sanitation as well as food to refugees. The United Nations World Food Programme - www.wfp.org - is seeking $130 million to feed refugees in the area. "The situation in Darfur is becoming more critical every day; the worst is still to come," said WFP Country Director for Sudan, Ramiro Lopes da Silva in a statement. Medecins Sans Frontieres - www.msf.org - is working to combat malaria and malnutrition in west Darfur. Oxfam - www.oxfam.org.uk - is providing clean water supplies and sanitation to the refugee camps where one Oxfam worker described "80 families living together in one compound without any shelter and only one latrine." Islamic Relief - www.islamic-relief.com - has also launched an appeal and food has already been distributed to around 18,000 people. The United Nations Childens Fund, Unicef - www.unicef.org - is seeking to vaccinate children against disease in the refugee camps. It has appealed for $46m. Save the Children - www.savethechildren.org - has already distributed food to 250,000 people in the area. Anti-poverty organisation Care International - www.care.org - is working in Chad to help alleviate conditions for refugees who have crossed the border as well as those in Darfur. Cafod, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development - www.cafod.org.uk/sudanappeal - is working with partners in Southern Darfur to provide clean water, shelter, supplementary feeding in camps for the displaced. UK residents can donate via the British Red Cross - www.redcross.org.uk - who have launched an appeal for food and blankets for the region. Medair - www.medair.org/en_portal/index.php- is providing treatment kits for malaria, cholera, and dysentery. The UN High Commission for Refugees - www.unhcr.ch/donate/redirect.html - is helping to relocate refugees on the border with Chad. World Vision - www.worldvision.org.uk - has also launched an appeal and is providing shelter material, water containers, purification tablets, mosquito nets, cooking utensils and blankets as well as distribute food. Christian Aid - www.christianaid.org.uk - is working to provide supplementary food rations for under-fives, educational services, shelter material, mosquito nets, blankets, kitchen utensils, and the distribution of seeds and tools to 500,000 people in southern and western Darfur. Christian charity Tearfund - www.tearfund.org - is working to provide emergency feeding, health and sanitation services to refugees in six camps in Darfur. Concern - http://www.concern.net/ - have launched an aid operation hoping to provide nutrition, sanitation and water supplies to 300,000 people in Western Darfur. The International Rescue Committee - http://www.theIRC.org - is providing assistance to tens of thousands of people fleeing ongoing violence in Darfur and has also been launching programs to monitor human rights in the region. You can donate to all the campaigns via their websites.

Quote: 'They raped me, one after the other' Hundreds of women gathered to tell their stories Panorama travelled across the Darfur region and heard stories of atrocities being committed by Arab militia soldiers against black Africans. One of the worst cases came when the team reached the mountains of Jebil Mara, where some areas here have been cut off from the outside world for years. It is in places like this that the killings have yet to be documented. When the Panorama team arrived at one village - hundreds of women had gathered. Everyone wanted to talk about the ordeals they had been through. Dozens of women from the African Fur tribe told of seeing their children being killed in attacks by the Janjaweed. Darfur He (Janjaweed attacker) grabbed my son from me and threw him into a fire Kalima One said: "(I've lost) two girls and one boy, in the school." Another added: "(I lost) a boy, in the house." Everywhere that Panorama went, there was a similar story. In the village of Kidinyir, the women went into more detail about the abuses that they allege were carried out by the Arab tribesmen known as Janjaweed. One woman called Hawa told the programme: "Five of them surrounded me I couldn't move I was paralysed. They raped me, one after the other." Another woman, called Kalima, spoke of the brutality used in the attacks. She said: "My son was clinging to my dress. An Arab looking man, in a uniform with military insignia, stopped his car next to me. He grabbed my son from me and threw him into a fire." A third villager Hikma, claimed the Janjaweed hurled racist insults as they carried out their attacks. She said: "They were saying 'the blacks are slaves, the blacks are stupid catch them alive, catch them alive, take them away with you, tie them up'. Foreign aid The conflict has created hundreds of thousands of refugees "They were terrorising our civilians. They would say 'kill them'". When Panorama travelled to the crowded refugee camps the story was also one of extreme suffering. At Mornei in Chad, a woman called Juma told the BBC that she had walked for miles with her 10-month-old daughter Nadia to reach the camp. She said: "The Arabs attacked our village in the early morning. They opened fire. Women and children escaped here. They burnt the village. Everything was burnt. They killed young children. My brother was shot whilst he was trying to escape." Both Juma and Nadia were painfully thin when they were interviewed in June, their food rations had run out 20 days previously. The situation was made worse in the camps because Sudan's government had blocked much foreign aid with bureaucracy. And when cameramen returned to the camp in July - Nadia had died. Darfur They started beating us. We tried to resist and defend ourselves but we failed because they threatened us with knives Khatra In another camp in Kebkabiya, the refugees who had fled there still felt in serious danger. One woman called Khatra told the programme the camp was like "a prison" as the women were frightened to step over the boundaries and into Janjaweed controlled territory. However, she felt she had no choice but to leave the camp to collect much needed firewood. Khatra said her worst fears were realised just four days before the Panorama team arrived in the camp, when she was attacked and raped by the Janjaweed. She told the programme: "We went to get the firewood at eight o'clock in the morning. Suddenly we were confronted by the attackers. "They started asking us: 'Where are you going, fur women?', and calling us donkeys. 'Where are the rebels?' "They started beating us. We tried to resist and defend ourselves but we failed because they threatened us with knives. Four of them raped me."