nakedemperor
Senior Member
Today Andrew Loewenstein of the State Department's team that went to Darfur on an information gathering expedition came to Brown and spoke to my Modern Genocide class. What he said was very disturbing..
He said that, contrary to Western Media coverage,the Janjaweed militia is not an independant faction randomly harassing the black Muslim population of Darfur. The Janjaweed attack villages alongside the Sudanese militia, and wear the same uniform as Khartoum's soldiers, and in fact have done significantly less damage than the Sudanese regulars. Khartoum has done a good PR job of keeping the Janajaweed, in popular opinion, "outside of their control"; to the rest of the world, it seems, Khartom must "reign in" the Janjaweed; in fact, they give them their orders.
70,000 are dead. 200,000 are displaced in Chad. 1.2 million are displaced in Sudan. IT IS A GENOCIDAL EFFORT. There are confirmed reports of Khartoum delivering explicit and direct orders to kill all males, of all ages. LITERALLY. We saw pictures of 5 year old boys with their throats slashed, hands and feet removed, etc. 50% of women in attacked villages are estimated raped. Fetuses are removed from the uterus of pregnant women and destroyed.
AS WE SPEAK, the women in the refugee camp "safezones" have to venture out of the camps (the desolate, barren, fruitless camps) to collect firewood. The Sudanese army and Janjaweed militia surrounding these camps routinely rape and kidnap these women.
Our own government has labeled this a genocide. Our own government cited humanitarian reasons for going to war in Iraq, why is this even more dire situation being ignored. Sanctions, political pressure, yadda.. GET PEOPLE ON THE GROUND AND STOP THE MURDERS.
The EU will not do it. the AU will not do it. The UN CERTAINLY will not do it-- we have an obligation to our fellow humanbeings that Clinton ignored and now Bush is doing something arguably even worse-- acknowledging it and STILL not doing anything to halt it.
Who is going to save Darfur?
He said that, contrary to Western Media coverage,the Janjaweed militia is not an independant faction randomly harassing the black Muslim population of Darfur. The Janjaweed attack villages alongside the Sudanese militia, and wear the same uniform as Khartoum's soldiers, and in fact have done significantly less damage than the Sudanese regulars. Khartoum has done a good PR job of keeping the Janajaweed, in popular opinion, "outside of their control"; to the rest of the world, it seems, Khartom must "reign in" the Janjaweed; in fact, they give them their orders.
70,000 are dead. 200,000 are displaced in Chad. 1.2 million are displaced in Sudan. IT IS A GENOCIDAL EFFORT. There are confirmed reports of Khartoum delivering explicit and direct orders to kill all males, of all ages. LITERALLY. We saw pictures of 5 year old boys with their throats slashed, hands and feet removed, etc. 50% of women in attacked villages are estimated raped. Fetuses are removed from the uterus of pregnant women and destroyed.
AS WE SPEAK, the women in the refugee camp "safezones" have to venture out of the camps (the desolate, barren, fruitless camps) to collect firewood. The Sudanese army and Janjaweed militia surrounding these camps routinely rape and kidnap these women.
Our own government has labeled this a genocide. Our own government cited humanitarian reasons for going to war in Iraq, why is this even more dire situation being ignored. Sanctions, political pressure, yadda.. GET PEOPLE ON THE GROUND AND STOP THE MURDERS.
The EU will not do it. the AU will not do it. The UN CERTAINLY will not do it-- we have an obligation to our fellow humanbeings that Clinton ignored and now Bush is doing something arguably even worse-- acknowledging it and STILL not doing anything to halt it.
Who is going to save Darfur?