Sudan – next in line?

[Truth Seeker]

There have been clashes claimed to be between an Arab militia supported by the Sudanese army and rebels in Darfur that have killed at least 10,000 people and forced more than a million from their homes, according to UN estimates. The government in Khartoum has been held responsible for this and under this backdrop, there has been an increasing call for physical intervention within the US.

 

Donald Payne, Democratic representative from New Jersey, told a pressconference, "We urge the Secretary of State, Colin Powell to support an immediate intervention to stop the killing. If we fail to act a million people could die before the end of the year.”

 

More forceful was the statement from House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California who recently stated:, "We must act now to avoid more slaughter and avoid a repetition of the genocide in Rwanda 10 years ago. This is a crisis, an emergency. We have the legal obligation under international law to act.”

 

Powell visited the region on Wednesday the 30th of June.

 

Sudan is just another jigsaw piece in this US colonial drive. Such statements from within the US may not equate to actual military intentions, but put further pressure on the Sudanese leadership to succumb further to US control.

 

The interest for the US, specifically in western Sudan, aside from the division of Muslim land and the further weakening of the Muslim Ummah’s body, is fuelled by the powerful capitalist lobbies and the recently discovered oil fields in western Sudan. It therefore comes as no surprise that the US have begun to train militia in neighbouring Chad at a cost of $600 million over 5 years to combat so-called cross border terrorism.

 

All this compares well to the disinterest that the US took in intervening in Rwanda while the well documented genocide was occurring.

 

Clearly the Sudanese government, who has conceded the South to the Southerners and has compromised all else at the behest of the US, just does not understand what else it needs to do to please the US. Such a situation sounds very similar to that of President Musharraf of Pakistan. Musharraf has effectively turned the Pakistani army into a US military unit under the command of the CIA/FBI, permitted his master to bomb Afghanistan and negotiate the denuclearisation of Pakistan. Yet even with the crumbs of being accorded the recent status of a 'major non-Nato ally' – the US appetite to enslave Pakistan and force further concessions remains.

 

The leadership in Khartoum should well understood when Allah (Subhanahu wa ta’Allah) commands:

 

“They will never be pleased with you, until you leave your Deen.” [2:120]

 

And,

“The disbelievers are ever unto you open enemies” [4:101]

 

It seems that over the past few years where the US publicly tore-up and discarded books and statutes on international law and human rights in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan (such as the illegal US bombing of a pharmaceutical facility in Khartoum) – suddenly they have found these legal books again.

 

Such is the nature of the US’s selective enforcement of international law and Human Rights – one wonders whether the international community will finally realise the futility of international law, raise a strong voice of condemnation and take action against the double standards that the US has applied to herself and ‘her allies’. Allies like Israel and Uzbekistan continue their physical onslaught against the Muslims in blatant contravention of international law and human rights, but with the blessing of the US.

 

Clearly the ‘war on terrorism’ has provided the US a legitimate cover to justify its actions and pursuit of the world's resources and global strategic control and domination. Sudan may be next in line but it is not last in line.

 

Source: KCom Journal

[Valenteenah.]

^^ I think the above article is very misleading. There is a huge humanitarian disaster unfolding in Sudan, where thousands of people are being killed and starved to death every week. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, most of these people being destroyed every day are MUSLIMS! Please don't try to make the government blameless in what's happening. They are fully to blame and something needs to be done (other than lamely bashing the US for action yet to be taken).

 

 

Sudan crisis

 

In our silence we are complicit

 

"The Janjawid militias and the soldiers arrived on market day in Abu Jidad. The soldiers cordoned off the market and the Janjawid got inside to take the money and the cattle. They killed several persons. I saw the bodies of those killed. Some were killed by the gun, others by bayonet."

Ercouri Mahamat, Koranic student, from the village of Abu Gamra, near Kornoy town, in North Darfur.

 

Darfur is situated in the West of Sudan and covers an area the size of France (the size of Texas). For a number of years it was the scene of sporadic clashes between farming communities such as the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, and nomadic groups, which led to many deaths and the destruction and looting of homes. The government blamed competition over scarce resources for the clashes.

 

In February 2003 a new armed opposition group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) took up arms against the government, because of what they perceived as the lack of government protection for their people and the marginalisation and underdevelopment of the region. The support base of this armed group came mainly from the agricultural groups in the region. Shortly afterwards another armed group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) emerged.

 

The government of Sudan responded by allowing free rein to Arab militias known as the Janjawid (guns on horseback) who began attacking villages, killing, raping and abducting people, destroying homes and other property, including water sources and looting livestock. At times government troops also attacked villages alongside the Janjawid, and government aircraft have been bombing villages sometimes just before Janjawid attacks, suggesting that these attacks were coordinated. The links between the Sudanese armed forces and the Janjawid are incontrovertible, the Janjawid are now wearing uniforms provided by the army.

 

"The Janjawid arrived and asked me to leave the place. They beat women and small children. They killed a little girl, Sara Bishara. She was two years old. She was knifed in her back."

Aisha Ali, from the village of Sasa, near Kornoy town in North Darfur.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of actions by the Janjawid and the government forces and large areas of Darfur have been depopulated. The UN estimates that there are now almost one million internally displaced people in Darfur who have fled from their burnt villages and taken refuge within Darfur, mostly in towns and camps, often in very poor conditions, while more than 120,000 have crossed the border into Chad.

 

Source: Amnesty International

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/sdn-index-eng

 

More...

[Truth Seeker]

The article does not absolve the government but rather it makes it complicit with the US as to the massacre it is creating.

[BiLaaL]

Truth Seeker,

 

The editor of the London Daily, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Abd AL-Rahman Al-Rasheed wrote the following, I myself read it in 'The Australian', it is News Limited owned.

 

Abd AL-Rahman Al-Rasheed accuses Arab intellectuals of rating the death of one palestinian at the hands of of an Israeli higher than that 1000 sudanese. "They are not the victims of Israeli or American aggression; therefore they are not an issue for concern," he wrote in condemnation the attitude of many Arabs towards the problem in Sudan. He further adds "As for Arab intellectuals who see nothing in the world but the Palestinian and Iraqi causes, and who consider any blood not spilled in conflicts with foreigners to be cheap and its spilling justifiable - they are accomplices to the crime."

 

I tend to agree with the above comments. The people Kofi Annan and Colin Powell addressed were mostly women covered in their islamic clothing . Where was the Arab League, why didn't they interfere and call on Khartoum to act. Sudan is part of the Arab league is it not.

 

We wouldn't have to be debating the motives of U.S. senators and their rhetoric towards Sudan, if the Arab League got their act together earlier and help save innocent Muslim women and children. It was ironic that most of the people that both Powell and Annan addressed were mostly women, where were their men, forced to flee by other people calling themselves Muslims!

 

What is happening to the Fur of Sudan is similar to the Bantu people of our country. They are muslims just like us, testing to the creator, the majestic, the sustainer and provider of all, ALLAH (A'za Wa Jallah). Yet how did the Somali's treat the Bantus, we gave them derogatory terms such as 'Adoon', 'Jareer' and the list goes on.

 

The Bantus are today being hoarded to outback U.S. towns and converted to Christianity. They are by far the biggest number of refugees given settlement status from East Africa. Why is this? Simply because they are the perfect kind for the Missionaries. They rightly have something to complain about and this gives the missionaries an opportunity to scold our religion and at the same time mislead as many as they can.

[SomeAlien]

copy and paste job, sometimes, nothing else needs to be added.

Salaam,

 

below is an email and an email a good biradur wrote about the problem of muslim chrities, and their lack of focus on 'internal' problems.

 

as far as can be known, there is ONLY ONE Muslim charity doing work for the Darfur refugees.

 

Islamic Relief (www.irw.org). Please contribute either to IRW or to any other charity. and also, if you can, write to other muslim orgs and charities and ask them why they havent highlighted the problems in Sudan, or contributed aid.

 

peace

 

 

FWD:

 

What About Darfur?

 

Salaam,

 

Sorry to start another thread... but this has been bothering me for a while now. This is

the third in a series of Op/Eds Nick Kristof has written from Chad regarding the Darfur

crisis. He quotes estimates of 340,000 who have already died as a result of the actions

of the Sudanese government.

 

Due to the debacle at Benevolence International, I personally have forsworn all Muslim

charitable organizations that work outside this country. I of course still get the

heartfelt fliers and emails to help Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine, Chechnya, and

Kashmir; but I have not heard a single peep - not in CAIR emails, not local listservs,

nothing - about Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of Muslims have already died.

 

Why is this? I have the feeling that Muslims don't want to criticize another Muslim

country in general; my fear is that somehow the Muslims in Darfur, due to their ethnicity,

are not considered 'real' Muslims, or that somehow we as Muslims only care about the

suffering of our brothers and sisters if they are being persecuted by non-Muslims.

 

One last thought from Kristof's blog:

 

"Most big aid groups, including all the major faith-based ones, are helping, from

Catholic Relief Services ( http://www.catholicrelief.org ) to World Vision (

http://www.worldvision.org )to American Jewish World Service ( http://www.ajws.org ).

Indeed, one of the big gaps has been Islamic charities, which have tended -- inexcusably --

to show sympathy for Sudan's Arab government. So the sad and ironic outcome is that the

people of Darfur, who are virtually all Muslims, are getting significant help from

Christians and Jews but almost nothing from fellow Muslims. I hope some Muslim aid groups will

quickly remedy that."

 

Needless to say, this makes me feel like helping Muslim charities working outside the US

even less.

 

WS,

---Jihad

 

Magboula's Brush With Genocide

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

 

Published: June 23, 2004

 

Magboula Muhammed Khattar with Nada.

ARTICLE TOOLSE-Mail This ArticlePrinter-Friendly FormatMost E-Mailed Articles

 

Columnist Page: Nicholas D. Kristof

Kristof Responds: The Columnist Addresses Readers' E-mail

Forum: Discuss This Column

E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com

 

ALONG THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER — Meet Magboula Muhammad Khattar and her baby, Nada.

 

I wrote about Ms. Khattar in my last two columns, recounting how the Janjaweed Arab

militia burned her village, murdered her parents and finally tracked her family down in the

mountains. Ms. Khattar hid, but the Janjaweed caught her husband and his brothers, only 4,

6 and 8 years old, and killed them all.

 

Ms. Khattar decided that the only hope for saving her two daughters and her baby sister

was to lead them by night to Chad. They had to avoid wells where the Janjaweed kept watch,

but eight days later, half-dead with hunger and thirst, they staggered across the dry

riverbed that marks the border with Chad.

 

That's where I found Ms. Khattar. She is part of a wave of 1.2 million people left

homeless by the genocide in Darfur.

 

Among those I met was Haiga Ibrahim, a 16-year-old girl who said her father and three

older brothers had been killed by the Janjaweed. So Haiga led her crippled mother and

younger brothers and sisters to Chad. But the place they reached along the border, Bamina, was

too remote to get help from overtaxed aid agencies.

 

So when I found her, Haiga was leading her brothers and sisters 30 miles across the

desert to the town of Bahai. "My mother can't walk any more," she said wearily. "First I'm

taking my brother and sisters, and then I hope to go back and bring my mother."

 

There is no childhood here. I saw a 4-year-old orphan girl, Nijah Ahmed, carrying her

13-month-old brother, Nibraz, on her back. Their parents and 15-year-old brother are missing

in Sudan and presumed dead.

 

As for Ms. Khattar, she is camping beneath a tree, sharing the shade with three other

women also widowed by the Janjaweed. In some ways Ms. Khattar is lucky; her children all

survived. Moreover, in some Sudanese tribes, widows must endure having their vaginas sewn

shut to preserve their honor, but that is not true of her Zaghawa tribe.

 

Ms. Khattar's children have nightmares, their screams at night mixing with the yelps of

jackals, and she worries that she will lose them to hunger or disease. But her plight

pales beside that of Hatum Atraman Bashir, a 35-year-old woman who is pregnant with the baby

of one of the 20 Janjaweed raiders who murdered her husband and then gang-raped her.

 

Ms. Bashir said that when the Janjaweed attacked her village, Kornei, she fled with her

seven children. But when she and a few other mothers crept out to find food, the Janjaweed

captured them and tied them on the ground, spread-eagled, then gang-raped them.

 

"They said, 'You are black women, and you are our slaves,' and they also said other bad

things that I cannot repeat," she said, crying softly. "One of the women cried, and they

killed her. Then they told me, 'If you cry, we will kill you, too.' " Other women from

Kornei confirm her story and say that another woman who was gang-raped at that time had her

ears partly cut off as an added humiliation.

 

One moment Ms. Bashir reviles the baby inside her. The next moment, she tearfully changes

her mind. "I will not kill the baby," she said. "I will love it. This baby has no

problem, except for his father."

 

Ms. Khattar, the orphans, Ms. Bashir and countless more like them have gone through hell

in the last few months, as we have all turned our backs — and the rainy season is

starting to make their lives even more miserable. In my next column, I'll suggest what we can do

to save them. For readers eager to act now, some options are at

www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds, Posting 479.

 

 

--------------------

"Whoever among you sees an offensive or evil act, he must change it with his hand, if he can not then (he must change it) with his tongue, if he can not then (he must feel it) with his heart, and that is the WEAKEST Iman (faith)." (Muslim)

- Prohpet Muhammad (pbuh)

 

“Stand out firmly for Justice as witnesses in front of God, even against yourselves, against your kin and against your parents, against people who are rich or poor. Do not follow your inclinations or your desires, lest you should deviate from Justice. Remember God is the best of all Protectors and well acquainted with all that you do.”

-Qur’an 4:135