Stand

Water Wars

2009-12-15T16:01:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the Copenhagen climate negotiations I thought it would be appropriate to discuss Darfur in the context of climate change. Darfur is perhaps the first armed conflict sparked by environmental erosion –particularly drought- and judging by the severity of the fighting it is rather disturbing to imagine how resource conflicts between major armed powers (for example, competition for water between Pakistan, India and China) might unfold in the near future. Indeed, professional militaries around the world have already commissioned studies into the potential for climate change-induced warfare. For these reasons Darfur is more than another example of civil war, of which it is not even the latest, but a dark omen for a future that may well materialize around the world if the Copenhagen talks fail to decisively address climate change.

Darfur activists have been accused of ignoring the environmental roots of the conflict, arguing that such attention absolves the Sudanese government of any wrong-doing despite its brutal military response to the region’s suffering. However, it is critical that we recognize desertification as the crucial element of the conflict’s outbreak, and acknowledge that without an alternative source of water no lasting peace can be sustained in the region.

In recent years climate scientists have plugged historical records of sea-surface temperatures into atmospheric computer models and concluded that African monsoons will decline still further, leaving the continent with less water. As the Sahara desert maintains its relentless march southward nomadic herders from northern Darfur are becoming increasingly dependent on the more plentiful water supplies of southern farmers. Where historically cultivated water agreements once governed the peaceful distribution of the precious resource, northern arrivals are now finding themselves forced to pay for access to wells. With a 40 percent decline in annual rainfall over the past 25-30 years, sedentary farmers feel obligated to guard their water against outsiders.

The competition for water does not end in Darfur, however, but reaches across the border into Chad where countless refugees queue up every day for miserable rations of water from humanitarian agencies. Water is no more plentiful in Chad than it is in Darfur with Lake Chad, that great inland sea that once sustained twenty million people in west-central Africa, losing 90 percent of its surface area over the past three decades. With Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger heavily dependent on the fast disappearing reservoir, a far broader conflict threatens to erupt on the very doorstep of Darfur.

Underground reservoirs may offer an alternative, though temporary, source of water. A more permanent supply of water may be provided by artificial catchment basins, a system that is simple enough to be built at the community level and therefore easier to repair and maintain in the absence of technical experts from humanitarian agencies. Whatever the response, without arable land Darfur refugees can never return to their homes, and without land local authorities cannot build political alliances, conclude land deals or buy-off other tribes. In short, without land the social fabric of Darfur unravels. Darfur, Sudan and the entirety of central Africa can expect no permanent peace without water. The world should take heed, for what were problems once considered exclusive to Africa are fast becoming global.

Relief Web, “Sudan: Climate change escalates Darfur crisis,” http://www.reliefweb.int/rwarchive/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EKOI-75H3R9?OpenDocument&Click=

Global Policy Forum, “Shrinking of Lake Chad,” http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/198/40377.html

Stephen Faris, “The Real Roots of Darfur,” The Atlantic Monthly April 2007.

Also see Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer.

We've moved

2009-10-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

The STAND Blog is no longer being updated at this address. Please continue to read the blog on our main website at www.standcanada.org. For those reading us through RSS, please update the feed URL to standcanada.org/feed.

Darfur Digest - October 2009

2009-10-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

The October 2009 issue is now available.

Stand Canada's Darfur Digest is a report which contains analysis on current events relevant to the crisis in Darfur and offers a unique Canadian perspective. This month, the digest chronicles developments in four areas: The Negotiations and Peace Process, Humanitarian Affairs and Security, The Friends of UNAMID, and Darfur in Canadian Politics.

NEW: The Digest has undergone a design overhaul. We will be continuing to improve the format over the next months.

A Big Day!

2009-10-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

Vote for google to give money to create a genocide early warning system!
http://www.project10tothe100.com/vote.html

AND

BREAKING NEWS: Canada supplies Darfur peacekeepers with equipment http://ow.ly/tbNs

Peacekeeping Privatized: Mercenaries and the future of humanitarian intervention

2009-09-02T16:45:00.000-07:00

The fighting in Sierra Leone ended rather abruptly, considering three years of civil war had been resolved in little more than a month. In Freetown, the British Parachute Regiment had secured the international airport and was busy evacuating British nationals. Just offshore a powerful British naval task force, one of the largest assembled since the Falklands War, waited in support. While international media was riveted by British efforts to prop up the failing UN peacekeeping mission, British forces were not acting alone. On land, deep in the interior of the tiny West African nation, another army was busy mopping up the shattered remnants of Liberian President Charles Taylor’s proxy child militias. This army wore no patches revealing identity and belonging, and while it was fighting under the banner of Sierra Leone, it was beyond the reach of that government’s jurisdiction. This army was in fact Executive Outcomes of South Africa, one of the first private military companies (PMCs, better known as mercenaries) to offload responsibilities from militaries that were either too weak (such as Sierra Leone) or too expensive (such as the United States) to go it alone. It is likely that PMCs will see more business in civil wars and humanitarian operations. So the question is: if Executive Outcomes was so effective in ending the fighting in Sierra Leone, could another mercenary firm provide better security for Darfur?

Hundreds of mercenary firms are operating around the world today, most offering training and logistical support to their varied clientele (sometimes governments, sometimes rebel movements, sometimes crime lords). The largest firms, however, such as Executive Outcomes during the late 1990s and Blackwater Worldwide today (now Xe Services LLC), are capable of deploying their own self-sufficient combat units trained in VIP and convoy protection and offensive operations. With mercenary firms handling a rapidly expanding repertoire of military operations it was inevitable that peacekeeping would be suggested as well.

In the July/August 2009 issue of the Atlantic Monthly (“Quick Fixes”) James S. Gibney argued that mercenaries offer the most effective solution to civil conflicts around the world. Gibney points out that despite the deployment of more than 18,000 peacekeepers to the Congo the UN has failed to protect the lives of millions since first arriving in 1999. With echoes of Srebrenica, one contingent of UN soldiers “failed to stop a massacre of 150 people taking place less than a mile away.” Other troops have rearmed militias by trading their weapons for ivory, gold and drugs.

Gibney argues that mercenaries, “small, highly-trained” strike forces who are proven insurgency-killers, offer the most promising future for peacekeeping. Most importantly, mercenaries will “go where they’re paid to go” (Gibney), allowing governments to act regardless of public opinion or military constraints. Prominent military historian Max Boot worries that without the more formidable security capabilities of PMCs, the many “pieces of paper” produced by the recurring rounds of negotiations will never carry any significance. So should the United Nations start thinking about deploying mercenaries on peacekeeping missions? Or is the use of private military forces more dangerous than Gibney and Boot would have us believe? A review of the following considerations may help clarify the issue.

-Casualties have undermined Western war efforts since Vietnam, and the images of a dead American soldier being dragged through the dusty streets of Mogadishu in 1994 effectively killed Operation Restore Hope. However, because mercenaries are not members of national militaries, their deaths are not included in the official casualty counts released to the public. If you want more sustained support for a combat mission use mercenaries to lessen the number of casualties that appear on the evening news. Few people can sympathize with shadowy organizations whose official presence is secreted by the government, and media will not be as interested in reporting their losses.

-Possibly the most professional soldiers in the world, many mercenaries are veterans of elite commando units such as the British Special Air Service. Their ranks are filled by adventurers, fortune seekers, unemployed soldiers and idealists. Whatever their individual backgrounds they make for a highly potent rank and file. However, few mercenaries have any familiarity with the more delicate demands of humanitarian intervention, operations that require significant restraint and flexibility (as we will see below, these are not skills common to PMCs).

In addition to employing soldiers with elite military training, security companies also arm their mercenaries with considerable firepower. While operating in Iraq, for example, employees of Blackwater Worldwide regularly hit the streets of Baghdad armed with M4 rifles, M240B machine guns and M203 40-millimeter grenade launchers, backed up by armoured cars and attack helicopters. The larger firms are also equipped with significant intelligence and logistics assets which can be used to support their own armies or those of national governments.

For small and medium military powers like Canada, mercenaries offer governments a readily available force multiplier, that is, they provide a trained and self-sufficient army ready for deployment upon payment. The Canadian government can hire a mercenary firm to provide such services as logistical support and intelligence in Darfur, even though most of the Army’s strength is already committed to Afghanistan.

-The occupation of Iraq has demonstrated that private military contractors operate in a legal grey zone, apparently immune from both civilian and military law. This is particularly worrisome given the amount of firepower they carry and their willingness to use it. In 2007, while escorting a VIP convoy, Blackwater operatives massacred 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square after receiving enemy fire. While it was quickly established that the convoy had not come under attack and the killings unjustified, Blackwater was not seriously punished and resumed operations after a short hiatus.

The legal vacuum that protects PMCs is partially a result of their sudden reappearance in conflict zones. Where state security forces are subject to a detailed legal code developed over hundreds of years, there has been insufficient time to integrate mercenary forces into military law, or develop parallel legal structures for PMCs alone. Nor is this likely to happen anytime soon. Because civil law prohibits the state from interfering in the personnel affairs of a private corporation, it is up to the PMC to ensure that its mercenaries respect national laws and international regulations.

-But modern military contractors have raised more ethical challenges than legal ambiguities alone. As Rolf Uesseler wrote in his introduction to Servants of War,
“Seldom is it clear for whom they’re fighting, or who pays them or has sent them into action. Often no one can say to whom they’re responsible, if indeed anyone. Nor is anyone in any great hurry to inquire where they acquired their state-of-the-art military hardware, including tanks, attack helicopters, grenades, and missiles.”

-Finally, even if mercenaries were deployed in place of national soldiers as UN peacekeepers, they would (presumably) still have to operate under a United Nations mandate, one that is just as prohibitive to private soldiers as public ones. Gibney and Boot can argue that PMCs would bring their professionalism and resources to Darfur and deal with insecurity more effectively than the present UN mission, but it seems unlikely that Khartoum would consent to anything other than a traditional UN deployment, that is, one with national contingents and Security Council mandates. Using mercenaries as peacekeepers would be too tempting a loophole for Khartoum to ignore, and its inevitable demands for immediate withdrawal would carry some real legitimacy.

Some more pros and cons in point form:

-Pro: Rapid deployment of military forces to conflict zones.
-Pro: Potential UN area of operations expanded.
-Con: Use by the UN endows PMCs with significant legitimacy.
-Con: Refugees protected by PMCs viewed as "taking sides", making them
more legitimate military targets. (Uesseler 196).
-Con: Aid organizations protected by PMCs lose their neutrality.
*See Uesseler Servants of War
So what do you think? Should we “unleash the dogs of peace” as Gibney and Boot advocate, or resist the temptation to use (probably more effective) mercenary forces in Darfur, thereby confronting the ethical dilemmas of using mercenaries more generally?

James S. Gibney, "Unleash the Dogs of Peace?" Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2009.

Max Boot, "Send in the mercenaries: Darfur needs someone to stop the bloodshed, not more empty UN promises. Council on Foreign Relations", http://www.cfr.org/publication/10798/send_in_the_mercenaries.html

Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army, (New York: Nation Books, 2007).

Rolf Uesseler, Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict, (Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2008).

Nicholas D. Kristof, "Sending Mercenaries Into Darfur", The New York Times
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/sending-mercenaries-into-darfur/

Blackwater’s ‘humanitarian’ subsidiary: Greystone LTD., http://www.greystone-ltd.com/security.html

What ARE they doing? Part Three

2009-08-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

Photograph from Government of Canada, http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/sudan-soudan/assets/images/10-03-10.jpg.

I’d like to start this entry by apologising for the long hiatus in my blog entries. This was partly due to the fact that I spent the month of July doing research in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which was fascinating, difficult, and above all, time-consuming!

I’m now back and would like to pick up where I left off, which is with looking at security, the third and final pillar in Canada’s three-pronged strategy towards Sudan (the other pillars are aid and diplomacy). Here I return to the Canadian government’s website on Sudan – which, just to remind you, can be found at http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/sudan-soudan/index.aspx. According to this site, Canada is a contributor to both of the UN peacekeeping operations in Sudan: the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS). The government reports that “in addition to diplomatic, financial and material support, Canada has committed up to 50 Canadian Forces personnel and 25 civilian police officers to these peacekeeping operations in Sudan.”

The website explains that “Canada provides, on a voluntary basis, training and equipment for African countries deploying civilian police, military and Formed Police Units (FPUs) to UNAMID” – the example given is Canada’s provision of GILA armoured vehicles and non-armoured equipment to four African FPUs taking part in UNAMID: two units from Senegal, one from Burkina Faso, and one from Uganda. Apparently Canada also funds training “to help prepare peacekeeping personnel and units deploying to UNAMID,” part of which was carried out by the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, but concrete details of this training are not provided on the site.

Operation Saturn, the website tells us, refers to the deployment of “Canadian Forces personnel...to UNAMID to provide needed expertise.” Task Force Darfur is the name given to Canada’s UNAMID contingent, which is commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Ken Moore and is headquartered at El Fasher. The contingent has seven members of personnel: three logistics experts working at the headquarters of UNAMID, and four soldiers who train UNAMID troops in the operation of Grizzly and Husky AVGPs (which stands for ‘armoured vehicles, general purpose’) lent to the mission by the Canadian government.

Finally, Canada is currently the co-chair (with the US) of the “Friends of UNAMID,” a group made up of UN member states with an interest in the mission, as well as UN personnel. According to the website, this group meets regularly “to facilitate the swift and full deployment of UNAMID and coordinate donor support for the mission.”
Previous to Canadian support to UNAMID, Canada also supported the old African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) – the precursor to UNAMID – from 2004 to 2007. The website states that Canada was “one of the most important donors to AMIS,” providing “essential airlift and ground transportation, as well as targeted expert deployments of civilian police and Canadian Forces personnel to the mission” within the framework of Operation Augural.

Operation Augural, as Canada’s military involvement with AMIS, had the aim of building “capacity in the areas of strategic planning, air operations, contracting, logistics and operations planning, and land operations with the Canadian “armoured vehicle, general purpose”, or AVGP.” Canada began supporting the mission in 2004, contributing “basic army equipment, including helmets, body armour, and maps,” totalling over 104 million dollars. Then, in 2005, the Canadian government lent 105 AVGPs, to Senegal, Rwanda, and Nigeria, three troop-contributing countries. As mentioned above, this loan was later extended to UNAMID for a three-year period from 31 December 2007 to 30 June 2009 under the auspices of Operation Saturn). Finally, the website refers to “[a]viation assistance provided by Canadian contracted helicopters to AMIS,” particularly during the transition from AMIS to the UNAMID mission. Canada’s mission of support to AMIS was named Task Force Addis Ababa., made up of 11 members of the Canadian Forces. This included five working in mission support, as well as with the Darfur Integrated Task Force (DITF) in Addis Ababa, two working on contracts and logistics in Khartoum, and four based in El Fashir in Darfur, providing “logistics support” and training Nigerian, Rwandan, and Senegalese troops in the use of the AVGPs.

Finally, Canada also supports the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the Sudan, or UNMIS, through Operation Safari, which is “the military component of the Canadian whole-of-government engagement in southern Sudan.” This refers to the deployment of members of the Canadian Forces, as well as civilian police officers, who have been deployed to Sudan’s southern region “as peacekeepers and military observers.” The contingent of Canadian Forces personnel, Task Force Sudan, includes 30 members. 20 of these act as United Nations Military Observers (UNMOs) across southern Sudan; another eight are staff members at UNMIS Headquarters in the Sudanese capital; and another two are with the “Canadian support element in Khartoum.”

UNAMID’s ongoing shortfall is well-known – particularly in terms of troops and helicopters – but could Canada do more than what it is already doing? In terms of troops, it is certainly falling woefully short, with no more than 50 Canadian Armed Forces personnel committed throughout the different peacekeeping missions that have been established for Sudan. What of helicopters and other essential equipment for the mission – can Canada be doing more than it is? According to the website itself, other than the “GILA armoured vehicles and non-armoured equipment” that Canada is providing to UNAMID, it appears that much-needed helicopters have not been a part of what Canada has able to provide, or willing to press other countries to provide. What is the reason for this? What is Canada currently doing as co-chair of the Friends of UNAMID? Watch this space...

Stand in the Summer

2009-08-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

Guest Post by Anne Wagner, Principal Director

It's a Thursday in August - I would surmise that the majority of young Canadians, and our Stand members, are trying to make the most of their summers today, be it by working to earn money to get through the year, relaxing with friends and family while they can, traveling to see the world...all things we need to do rejuvenate ourselves and keep ourselves sane and functioning throughout the next year.

Summer is a relatively quiet time for Stand, at least outwardly so. We don't put on major events, our chapters aren't making splashes in the local and national news, our members aren't hosting and speaking at rallies...but the organization hums along quietly and with building momentum in the background. Summer is the time when here at National we take a step back and review our year, to try to gauge the impact of what we have done, and plan for the upcoming year. We toss around ideas, formulate plans and agree on a vision.

But that vision needs to be shared by all of Stand, which is why we hold a National conference, where we invite our members from all of our teams and chapters to attend and plan and learn to advocate even better together. This year we're changing our pattern - we used to have our conference in May so that we could have meetings with Members of Parliament in Ottawa before the House of Commons rose for the summer. This year, we will be having our conference in very early October to strengthen our chapters and team at the beginning of the year, once they have recruited new members. And this year, our action item won't focus on advocacy meetings, it will focus on activism in another context and on the focus for the year - growth. Now is the time to focus on growing the grassroots support for the anti-genocide movement, to give strength to our policy recommendations. Our conference will have a large component focusing on growth, and on capturing the attention of your community and new supporters. Check back at www.standcanada.org and here for further details about conference applications in the coming weeks.

I used to feel like we weren't doing enough in the summers, that I personally could have been doing more that would tangibly make a difference for the people of Darfur. But I've come to realize that the work of planning, of getting ourselves organized, inspired and pulling in the same direction, actually elicits better results in the long run. We are able to execute bigger campaigns, have stronger teams and see more impact and change when we take a step back over the summer and figure out our next moves. So Standers, enjoy your summers, take a break and rejuvenate, and spend a little time planning your next move. We'll speak to you in a few weeks.

Point of Resistance

2009-07-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

In recent years cash-strapped media services have closed foreign bureaus around the world and dropped foreign correspondents from their permanent payrolls. Inevitably, the quality of journalism has declined, with correspondents reporting from distant cities or traveling abroad only when a promising story develops (called ‘parachute journalists,’ they often lack the regional expertise necessary for effective reporting). The trend towards lean coverage is worrying, with reporters failing to convey the many ambiguities that make conflicts so difficult to resolve. Worse, with such diminished numbers of correspondents in the field, the public no longer benefits from the “diversity [of opinions and analysis] and competition” that once defined foreign correspondence. Darfur itself has been effortlessly described as an ethnic struggle between identifiable aggressors and victims, invaders and invaded, foreigners and natives. This frame is sufficiently concise to satisfy the lean editorial standards of the ‘wire,’ but not the kind of image Darfur needs to establish a lasting peace.

Of course, so long as media consumers show no appetite for more comprehensive and time-consuming analysis, media outlets will not bother to front the money necessary to provide it. But in a world where global problems demand global solutions, where even the distant conflict in Sudan is only days away by plane, reliable and accurate journalism must be joined with an attentive public. Without a committed public, the thinning ranks of foreign correspondents have little choice but to rewrite Darfur in sensationalist frames. These frames offer nothing to the conflict’s resolution but are vastly more user friendly, that is, they pack a lot of excitement and emotion in a very small package.

The power to reverse media’s march towards bare-bones sensationalism lies in the internet, both in its ability to globalize local political issues and to redefine the functions of more traditional mediums such as newspapers. More detailed and problematic coverage has already appeared among some major publications, owing largely to the growing dominance of internet news feeds. The Wall Street Journal, for example, is “shifting the coverage of breaking news to its website, while directing longer, in-depth stories to the print newspaper.” The Los Angeles Times has announced similar plans for its web and paper publications, while the Globe and Mail may adopt the new format in 2010. If media users take advantage of the more comprehensive coverage offered in the remodeled newspapers, the quality of journalism may very well improve.

However, because media providers are owned and operated by business moguls with implicit political agendas and the power to label people and actors, major news providers are never entirely dependable. While Western citizens were shocked by the violent British response to the Irish Troubles of the 1980’s, particularly the events of Bloody Sunday, journalists and editors insisted on describing the warring factions as mindless religious extremists and the British military as benevolent but hapless peacekeepers. Alternatives to mainstream media are readily available online, and in Darfur radio broadcasters have used the web to relay their local programming across the world. A new point of resistance (this time a badly needed pacifist one) has emerged in Darfur’s Radio Dabanga. Established by the Project of the Radio Darfur Network –a coalition of non-governmental organizations, Sudanese journalists and international sponsors- the new station employs fifty correspondents covering Darfur and provides news in three, soon to be four, local languages. English transcripts of broadcasts are posted on the station’s website.

More broadly, the entire Sudanese press is vibrant and relatively free of dissident persecution, while also available in English. Op-ed pieces, columns, editorials and letters on Darfur make frequent appearances in Sudanese papers, while six papers maintain their own correspondents in Darfur. Sudanese journalists have the advantage of being Sudanese and understanding the culture and politics of their own country in a way parachute correspondents rarely can.

The benefits of local journalism are obvious, with plenty of critical coverage of issues often ignored by Western media (such as the atrocities committed by Darfur rebel groups). In addition, by utilizing the Sudanese press international media providers can supplement their meager presence on the ground. Finally, if media audiences are more willing to learn about the complex realities of a conflict by following local coverage, correspondents may respond with more nuanced coverage of their own.

johnmatchim84@gmail.com

Radio Dabanga: http://www.radiodabanga.org/

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, “The Darfur Deception,” http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/06/the-darfur-deception/

John Hughes, “US media can’t cover the news if they don’t cover the world,” Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0207/p09s01-cojh.html

Fred Hiatt. “The Vanishing Correspondent,” http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=193&paper=2770

Sudan's World Bank Woes

2009-06-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

Activists must oppose the imposition of structural readjustment policies and neoliberalism in general, which have generally impoverishing effects on the targeted country’s population, and serve to further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a small elite sector of society (Fake and Funk, 2009: 125).
While Sudan divestment campaigns have enjoyed sympathy and success across the United States and Canada, two core institutions of First World economic power remain active in Khartoum: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Since their inception following the Second World War, the IMF and World Bank have promoted free market values around the world, offering substantial loans to developing nations and encouraging the formation of vibrant capitalist markets with minimum state intervention. However, when a recipient nation defaults on its loan, harsh social and economic policies are imposed. As we will see, those policies have been decisive instruments of environmental degradation, starvation and ineffectual governance in Sudan. For these reasons, Steven Fake and Kevin Funk suggest that advocates must seriously consider encouraging action against the IMF and World Bank.
As a ‘reward’ for lending Arab support to the 1978 Egyptian-Israeli Camp David peace agreement, Sudan was loaned billions of dollars in development aid by the IMF and World Bank. However, the money “quickly vanished in the corruption ridden government and Western expatriate aid administrators, leaving Sudan with a debt equivalent to its entire GDP.” In response, the IMF ordered a slashing of the state budget and privatization of government services and corporations. The IMF and World Bank also encouraged the continued development of an export-based economy (particularly agricultural products).
These policies have damaged Sudan in the recent past and threaten further harm in the future. With cutbacks and privatization, the quality of public services (such as schools and hospitals) inevitably declined, while national wealth has been absorbed by Sudan’s upper classes. Equally troublesome are the potential consequences of low oil prices or disrupted production. As Fake and Funk demonstrate, privatization reduces the opportunity for government patronage -often the only way for weak national authorities to buy off dissenters- leaving foreign investors to seek protection from a black market economy of violence. While the discovery of oil has buttressed the Sudanese government and averted (for now) an authority meltdown, any long-term decline in prices or disrupted production could expose the Sudanese government to dissenting forces. Because Darfur is challenged by desertification, lawlessness and a communications disconnect with Khartoum, a lasting peace for the region depends largely on a strong and responsive Sudanese central government. Unfortunately, even a stable government under IMF sponsorship may feel more accountable to the concerns of its “external backers” than those of its domestic constituents.
The IMF’s agricultural policies have also negatively affected Darfur. Traditional agricultural practices throughout Sudan emphasized the preservation of bush and forest fallow (for animal protein, timber and private crop production), and smaller scale production that left adequate reserves for personal consumption and did not depend on experimental hybrids. Under IMF encouragement, however, hundreds of thousands of acres were clearcut, “reducing humidity and cloud formation and increasing soil salinity.” Famines became more frequent throughout Sudan and the climate dryer, forcing farmers to open up new lands. Despite the surge in oil prices and production, agriculture remains a valuable export industry for Sudan. Now, with IMF approval, foreign companies are buying up huge tracts of Sudanese land, securing new food supplies as global agricultural output falls behind rampant population growth. To date, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates have purchased a combined total of 720,000 hectares, with another 378,000 in development. Unfortunately for the people of Darfur they will see none of that food anytime soon.
A new approach to Sudanese aid should be crafted, one that does not force the dismantling of state machinery and plants the interest of Sudanese people (including Darfurians) firmly before those of international creditors. The consequences of failure are already evident today, and under current regime no aid is better than IMF aid.

Gwynne Dyer, “African Land Grab”
http://www.gwynnedyer.com/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20Afric
an%20Land%20Grab.txt

Joseph Winter, “Khartoum booms as Darfur burns”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6573527.stm

Steven Fake and Kevin Funk, “The Scramble for Africa: Darfur- Intervention and the
USA,” (Montreal; New York; London: Black Rose Books, 2009). (particularly
pages 28-30)

Jay O’Brien, “Sowing the seeds of famine: the political economy of food deficits in
Sudan” in World Recession and the Food Crisis in Africa ed. Peter Lawrence,
(London: Review of African Political Economy, 1986).

See also IMF and World Bank websites.

John R. Matchim

With charming ease, three young activists 'be the change'

2009-05-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

Hello Standers!

I want to share a story with you posted by The Globe and Mail (below) about three extraordinary high school students that are making a world of difference for our cause, and making it easy to act against genocide.

A few months ago, Hannah Clifford, Daisy King, and Sarah Byres, three students from Northern Secondary School in Toronto, contacted me about a planning a benefit concert to raise awareness for the victims of the genocide in Darfur; a cause that we all have tirelessly championed.

I was struck immediately by their passion, enthousiasm, and dedication to making a difference for the people of Darfur - to being 'the change' they wished to see in the world.

This passion to 'be the change' drove the three girls to accomplish some extraordinary things in planning this event. The girls, mostly themselves, but with a little help from supportive parents, managed to receive sponsorships, book a live venue, build an event website, and most impressively, attract The City's 'Tamarama' and some local T.O. rock bands to perform at the concert. Like the Globe and Mail Article says, "As though organizing a benefit concert ain't no thing."

I can truly say that working with Hannah, Daisy, and Sara has been an incredible privilege and an inspiration. At every turn, through every bump in the road, the three girls have exemplified young leadership, determination, and kindness, and have made one thing very clear: You can make a difference at any age.

And so, I urge all of you that can, especially those in the GTA, to turn out to the Berkely Church and Event Centre (315 Queen St. E) this Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:30 PM, for what promises to be an incredible event organized by three extraodinary young activists.

Tickets are $25 at the door, but can also be purchased online at http://web.me.com/darfur/DARFUR/Home.html, or through the Stand website for $20.

Consider this event one of the easiest (and fun) ways you can act against genocide!

Cheers,
The Dreamer
Evan Cinq-Mars

---------------------
Globe and Mail Article
"With charming ease, three young activists 'be the change'
May 30, 2009

Last week, three teenage girls from Northern Secondary School ended up channelling Gandhi. They were trying to come up with a name for their upcoming benefit concert and finally settled on the name “Darfur: Be the Change” – an unwitting reference to the maxim “you must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

“It was a nice coincidence,” said Daisy Kling, Hannah Clifford and Sara Byres in a collective e-mail. “His meaning behind the quote is so in sync with what the three of us are trying to accomplish.”

This trio of 11th graders are hoping that their musical fundraiser will raise awareness – and money – for the victims of the genocide in Darfur. On June 2 at the Berkeley Church, local bands The Cheap Kicks and Birds of Whales will appear along with guest speaker Debbie Bodkin, formerly of the United Nations in Darfur. Most notably, perhaps, the tenacious teens secured Tamarama, a folk-rock duo from Australia, famed for their recent appearance on MTV's The City .

“We contacted them through MySpace and then were directed to their booking agent,” said the girls, as though they've been booking famous headliners for years.

They're part of a generation that approaches activism with a charming ease. They came of age with Craig Kielberger, the now famous activist from Thornhill who founded Free The Children at the age of 12. Like Daisy, Hannah and Sara, he read something that didn't sit well with him and responded with action, perhaps a novel concept to older (or lazier) individuals.

Consider the 100 students camping out all night at Queen's Park (in the rain) last month, raising awareness for child soldiers. Or the week-long conference for young activists earlier this month, organized by Toronto's Youth Action Network.

Daisy, Hannah and Sara name Mr. Kielberger as an inspiration, but are quick to point out the real source of their motivation: the people in Darfur whom they are aiming to help. “Learning about the cause and knowing something must be done makes us determined.”

In addition to a night of great tunes, consider your $25 ticket ($20 in cash) an investment in two worthwhile causes: the aid effort in Darfur, and the gutsy activism of the next generation. “You can make a difference at any age,” they write.

As though organizing a benefit concert ain't no thing.

Proceeds will benefit the Canadian Red Cross, and STAND, a youth-based initiative promoting advocacy and activism. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit the website at www.darfurbenefitconcert.com. Special to The Globe and Mail

What ARE they doing? Part Two

2009-05-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

In my last blog entry, it was my aim to look at what Canada is concretely doing to take action on the situation in Darfur. I wrote about Canada’s relations with Sudan, and, drawing on the Canadian government’s website, outlined Canada’s approach to Sudan in the realm of diplomacy (one of three pillars including aid and security). I will now turn to the first of two remaining pillars, aid, looking at what the Canadian government website says it is doing to assist Sudan in this area.

Through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Canada “provides humanitarian assistance to meet the immediate basic needs of conflict-affected populations in Sudan, mainly in the Darfur region, as well as support for the return and reintegration of millions of people displaced by the separate civil war in southern Sudan.” According to the government website, Canada has made over $143 million available in relief aid to civilians affected by war in Sudan.

Through CIDA, Canada also makes early recovery support available to underpin the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This refers to CIDA’s support for “governance, education, health care, mine action, and reintegration of internally-displaced and refugee populations.” According to the website, since January 2006 Canada has made over $89 million available for early recovery efforts.

Finally, in addition to Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK, moreover, Canada is part of the Joint Donor Team, which is “mandated to assist to Government of southern Sudan to promote policies in support of sustainable peace, poverty reduction and the attainment of Millennium Development Goals.”

There is no mention on the government website about Sudan’s recent move expelling 13 foreign aid agencies from the country following the issuing of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Sudanese President Bashir – an act that, in my view, has tainted the rosy picture painted of Canadian involvement in Sudan. Of late, moreover, the situation for aid workers (including Canadians) has become more perilous, with several of these workers having been kidnapped in recent months. How will the Canadian government respond to the imperilling of humanitarian activity in Darfur, which will further compromise the lives of Sudanese civilians?

The briefness of this section of the website makes it seem like a dollar figure should be sufficient for Canadians to feel that we are doing our very best to help those in need of humanitarian assistance in Darfur. It isn’t enough, for these aggregate figures can disguise many realities. If you go to the link http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/sudan, there’s the good stuff, for it gives concrete figures for what has been accomplished in Sudan. These figures, however, are problematic for they do not assess CIDA’s specific contribution, only the global results that CIDA has contributed to along with other donors. A useful resource may be the Mid Term Evaluation carried out by the Joint Donor Team in February 2009, which is available at http://www.norad.no/items/14798/38/4592453832/Mid-Term%20Evaluation%20of%20the%20Joint%20Donor%20Team%20in%20Juba,%20Sudan.pdf.

In my next blog entry: I will look at the last element in Canada’s three-pronged approach to Sudan, security. As always, I invite your comments and suggestions!

-Sarah Katz-Lavigne

Armed Humanitarianism: Can it work in Darfur?

2009-05-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

This entry will examine military intervention (not including the No-Fly Zone, which was discussed previously) and its applicability to Dafur. I wish to emphasize my belief that Darfur is a conflict that will require international attention for years or even decades after the actual cessation of hostilities. Without long-term efforts to promote reconstruction and reconciliation of the Darfur provinces, the causes of the conflict will only fester and find expression through renewed violence in the not so distant future. We therefore need to consider policies that extend well into the future, while also considering the long-term ramifications of policies designed to immediately address the conflict. A military solution to the conflict, while not widely discussed at present, should nevertheless be seriously contemplated –both for its potential to end the conflict, and also to destabilize Darfur and Sudan for years or decades to come.
At its most basic, armed humanitarian intervention is the use of threat of military force to coerce an aggressor into respecting basic human rights. Usually, the violating power has not attacked any external enemies, nor has it challenged in any way those nations threatening its capacity of wage war. In principle, the lone justification for military action is empathy for the victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide (though in practice, the motives for humanitarian intervention are often grounded in more traditional geo-political considerations).
In Sudan today the United Nations and African Union are slowly deploying a 26,000 personnel peacekeeping force to the provinces of Darfur. With so few troops (Darfur is roughly the size of France), limited logistical and transport support, and a weak mandate, UNAMID has been unable to effectively monitor the entire region, while it is also vulnerable to attack by rebels, government forces and bandits. It therefore seems natural to consider a more forceful mandate or perhaps something more aggressive, such as a NATO-led intervention, as the obvious solution. Afterall, external military power has been applied to Sierra Leone, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and East Timor, among other places, so why not Darfur as well? As will be outlined below, there are a number of problems regarding the use of military power to resolve conflicts, while it would also damage any prospects of establishing a permanent peace in the near future.
Short-term considerations leading to military interventions, without adequate situational understanding and driven only by a sense of urgency, can unleash a range of unanticipated developments. A most basic but serious problem is the inability of modern militaries to manage humanitarian tasks. As Gwynne Dyer observed in his book War, Western military powers (those capable of launching humanitarian interventions) are trained and equipped to fulfill a doctrine of decisive victory, achieved by the unrelenting application of superior firepower (witness the ‘Shock and Awe’ bombing of Baghdad). Western forces have so far failed to adjust to the post-Cold War developments of humanitarian warfare, operations that require patience, restraint and a thorough understanding of regional culture, society, language, history and political system. Lacking the necessary training, background and expertise, soldiers and commanders can make insensitive decisions based on fear and frustration, slowly but surely fuelling resentment and building resistance against them.
Resentment and resistance can fester in other ways as well, as veteran Canadian war correspondent Paul Watson observed many time over the last two decades. For example, in Somalia Watson argued that powerful warlords perceived intervention as an attempt to deny them their rightful inheritance of the government, while in Kosovo he witnessed fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Amy attacking Serbian forces and civilians under the umbrella of NATO airpower. For these reasons Alton Frey, an analyst for the Council on Foreign Relations, warned that the short-term deployment of military forces “can make little or no contribution to mitigating the conditions that led to the atrocities.”
The use of military power in Darfur today (either a better mandated United Nations, or another country or organization) would explicitly claim the Darfur provinces as protectorates of the international community, while branding Sudan the enemy of peace and justice. Considering that political dialogue (or lack thereof) was a significant cause of the current conflict, the editors of Explaining Darfur argue that armed intervention could have very serious repercussions for the foreseeable future.
What do you think? Has Darfur passed beyond the point of no return? Has the time finally and truly arrived to risk the perils of more aggressive humanitarian intervention?

See these books for information on armed humanitarianism and its discontents.

Frye, Alton. Humanitarian Intervention: Crafting a Workable Doctrine. New York:
Council on Foreign Relations, 2000. (particularly pages 1-20)

Dyer, Gwynne. War. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2005. (see chapter on guerilla warfare)

Watson, Paul. Where War Lives. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2007.

van Ardenne, Agnes, Mohamed Salih, Grono, Nick and Mendez, Juan. Explaining
Darfur. Amsterdam: Vossiuspers UvA, 2006.

John R. Matchim

Yes or No to a Darfur No-Fly Zone?

2009-05-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

During the 2007-2008 Presidential election campaign, both Barack Obama and his running mate Joe Biden expressed support for the imposition of a (probably NATO) no-fly zone (NFZ) over Darfur, much like the one maintained by Anglo-American air forces over northern Iraq following the Gulf War. In 2006 Obama co-sponsored a bill broaching a Darfur NFZ, and reiterated his call in May of 2007. The previous month, in April of 2007, Biden expressed disgust at the Khartoum government and stated that he would use “American force now,” and specifically American airpower, to resolve the conflict in Darfur. More recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked that a NFZ over Darfur was a real possibility. But would the insertion of external military power in the form of a NFZ deter the government of Sudan and stabilize Darfur, or would it further intensify the fighting and erode any prospect for a negotiated settlement?

In a March 5 article that appeared in The Washington Post, Merrill A. McPeak and Kurt Bassuener argued that instead of “decisive action,” the international community provided Darfur refugees with “the palliatives of a sputtering aid effort.” Because air power –helicopter gunships, Fantan ground-attack jets and Antonov cargo planes improvised as bombers- is “central” to Janjaweed and government ground operations, McPeak and Bassuener urged NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Darfur that would operate out of Abeche, Chad. Equipped with fighter squadrons, aerial refuelers and command-and-control aircraft, the operation would quickly ground anything flyable west of Khartoum. With air superiority the West would be better positioned to negotiate a more effective peacekeeping mission. Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times agreed, even suggesting that 10,000 Sudanese People’s Liberation Army troops could be moved into Darfur from the south.

Nicholas D. Kristof, “Watching Darfuris Die,” The New York Times, March 7 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08kristof.html?_r=1

Merrill A. McPeak and Kurt Bassuener, “Grounding Sudan’s Killers, The
Washington Post, March 5 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/04/AR2009030403022.html

One week after the McPeak and Basseuener article, Guardian journalist Micah Zenko pointed out that despite a comprehensive NFZ over northern Iraq, a Kurdish rebellion in 1996 was still crushed after five Republican Guard and regular army divisions marched into Kurdistan as Anglo-American warplanes watched from above. Zenko also wondered why clearing the skies of Sudanese military aircraft would necessarily translate into inactivity on the ground. In addition, a letter to the editor that appeared in The Washington Post argued that a NFZ would change the balance of power on the ground, emboldening the rebel groups to take the offensive (much as the Kosovo Liberation Army did in 1999 under the cover of NATO air power). Finally, injecting air power into Darfur, rather than increasing Western/United Nations leverage, could only further distance the combatants by picking sides. Considering political dialogue (or lack thereof) was a significant cause of the current conflict, armed intervention could have very serious repercussions for the foreseeable future.

Micah Zenko, “Say no to a Darfur no-fly zone,” Guardian, March 12 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/12/darfur-no-fly-zone

Alan J. Kuperman, “No to a Darfur No-Fly Zone,” The Washington Post, March 10 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902475.html

Also see Agnes van Ardenne, Mohamed Salih, Nick Grono and Juan Mendez, Explaining Darfur (Amsterdam: Vossiuspers UvA, 2006): 22.

The debate around the feasibility of a Darfur NFZ has only been touched upon here, and a simple Google search will yield dozens of hits. So consider the different arguments presented in this entry, do some research, and post your thoughts on a Darfur NFZ here.

John R. Matchim

What ARE they doing?

2009-04-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

If you have been following the Canadian government’s action on the crisis in Darfur, you might feel that they – like the majority of governments around the world – have fallen short when it comes to taking action on the Darfur. There is no better proof than the fact that this sad situation persists even though the uprising of Darfuri rebel groups, and the corresponding counter-insurgency campaign launched by the Sudanese government, dates back to 2003. We all know that the failure to find a way to stop the atrocities sponsored by the Sudanese government in the Darfur region has been paid for largely with the blood of Darfur’s civilians. If more countries had taken a real stand on this issue, the situation might be very different today.

But for a moment, rather than focusing on what the Canadian government isn’t doing, let’s take a look at what they ARE doing. The following statement, which opens the “Canada: Active in Sudan/ Le Canada à l'œuvre au Soudan” section of the Canadian government’s website, makes it clear that Canada sees itself very much as part of the solution, not part of the problem:

“Canada is part of a concerted international effort to support a just and lasting peace in all of Sudan. Canadian contributions focus primarily on resolving the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Darfur, and supporting the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended the southern civil war in January 2005.”

According to the website, moreover, “Canada’s whole-of-government approach applies to all of Sudan and is based on three pillars of activity: aid, diplomacy and security.”

Canada’s Measures

In this entry I’ll be focusing specifically on the diplomacy pillar (see later blogs for the rest!) According to the website, the areas where Canada has been active in diplomacy specifically relating to Darfur are:

Diplomatic involvement in the Darfur Peace Process (particularly with respect to the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) – including providing financial and diplomatic resources and supporting “the efforts of the United Nations and the African Union towards bringing the rebel movements together to prepare for the next round of negotiations.”
Multilateral initiatives: “Canadian diplomats take every possible opportunity to raise the issue of the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Darfur in international and multilateral fora such as the G8, the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, the International Organization of La Francophonie and other informal groups.”
Peacebuilding: “Canada’s Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Group, a component of the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START), is working with the international community to facilitate the full implementation of Sudan’s peace agreements, with special emphasis on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement…Canada is supporting the political and social consolidation of peace in Sudan by promoting initiatives in several key areas including: strengthening judicial institutions, federalism, corrections reform, improving community security, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), as well as building the capacity of all stakeholders to participate in the renewed talks for peace in Darfur.”
Bilateral relations: this refers to an “ongoing dialogue with the Sudanese government,” maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum, and members of the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations in New York, in addition to other “senior Canadian officials and diplomats throughout the world.”
For instance, “in March 2008, the former Foreign Affairs minister made an official visit to Sudan – the first visit to that country by a Canadian Foreign Affairs minister. The former minister took this opportunity to raise Canada’s concerns to senior Sudanese officials, including the Sudanese Foreign Minister.”
Measures: The measures Canada has put in place “ against Sudan in response to the current human rights and humanitarian situation, and in support of its policy for peace in this country…include: the withholding of support for commercial support services, including export finance and trade and investment development activities; and the withholding of government-to-government development cooperation.”
“In addition, Canada has implemented in Canadian domestic law the sanctions mandated by the United Nations Security Council, including an arms embargo as well as an asset freeze and travel ban directed against designated persons.”

Finally, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) has set up a Task Force on Sudan “In order to coordinate Canada’s whole-of-government contribution to the pursuit of sustainable peace throughout Sudan.”

Key elements

I’ll point to some key items that stood out to me, and some questions that arose in my mind, when I was reading about Canada’s approach to the Sudan/Darfur situation.

Canada’s approach is a holistic one, which sees the Darfur situation within the larger context of the rest of Sudan, which includes the North-South dynamic and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This is surely a good thing, but may obscure the urgency of the situation in Darfur if one of Canada’s top priorities rests on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)
Does the tendency to refer to the situation in Darfur as a “humanitarian and human rights crisis” obscure the Sudanese government’s responsibility in causing the crisis? Can the Canadian government employ language that does not do so?
In terms of the support that Canada is allocating the “political and social consolidation of peace in Sudan,” what does this mean in practical terms? How is Canada “promoting” different initiatives? What form has Canadian support taken, and how much of it has there been?
Has Canada taken a strong enough stance in its bilateral relations with Sudan? What tone have Canadian diplomats taken with Sudanese government officials, and has it reflected the urgency of resolving the situation?
Has Canada reviewed the measures it has taken to sanction Sudan, and whether these measures have been sufficient or have proven to be effective?

More to come! Please feel free to share any thoughts you might have!

Toronto Rally for Darfur TODAY!

2009-04-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

A RALLY AND CANDLELIGHT VIGIL WILL BE HELD TODAY (April 12) at 7 pm on Queen's Park South Lawn to urge the Canadian government to take action.

Featuring renowned speakers and performers, including the Honourable Irwin Cotler and Rwandan genocide survivor & musician The Mighty Popo.

As the genocide in Darfur enters its sixth year, it is crucial that Canadians unite to send a message to our government: the people of Darfur require immediate protection and relief and the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity should be brought to justice.

JOIN US AS WE STAND FOR THE DEAD AND ADVOCATE FOR THOSE WHO NEED OUR HELP.

www.darfurtoronto.com

The Guns of Darfur

2009-04-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

John R. Matchim

The conflict in Darfur has been fuelled by a decades long influx of foreign weaponry, ranging from small arms to helicopter gunships. China and the Russian Federation have been the most prominent suppliers of weaponry, but there are and were many other sources, some unknown. This entry will provide some basic background regarding Darfur’s weapons importers and highlight the international nature of the conflict, with both national governments and hidden gunrunners vying for a share of the slaughter's profits. The plethora of actors and factors involved in the arming of the region highlight the futility of international intervention without real negotiations between the warring factions.

The People’s Republic of China

Though Africa contains some of the largest proven reserves of oil in the world, its fields have been largely ignored by Western companies. China has recognized the potential of African oil to satisfy the demands of its growing economy, and has made some of its most significant investments in Sudan. In exchange for oil, China has offered Sudan large quantities of small arms as well as some its most sophisticated military equipment. The arrangement is doubly beneficial to Beijing as it provides a rare opportunity for its inefficient and poor-quality arms industry to manufacture for the export market. Because Sudan has no significant arms industry of its own, equipment received from China outfits a large number of military units, and also provides China additional opportunities to provide maintenance and operational training. While the Sudanese army has been the recipient of most of the heavy equipment, small arms have been supplied to the Janjaweed. Chinese manufactured Fantan ground attack aircraft have also been photographed operating from El-Fasher.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGAFR540192007&lang=e

The Russian Federation

The Russian state-owned arms industry is another major source of military equipment for the armed forces and militias of Sudan. After oil and natural gas, arms are one of Russia’s most lucrative exports. Because Moscow considers an independent (not reliant on foreign technology) and sophisticated defence-industrial complex vital to its national security interests, it is eager to export weapons wherever the opportunity arises. In 2002 Russia signed a military-technical cooperation agreement with Sudan and forced through the sale of MiG-29 combat aircraft despite opposition from human rights groups. The infamous helicopter gunships that have shaped public imagination are also of Russian origin. Like China, Russia is interested in expanding its central African influence and developing untapped oil and gas fields.

http://globalpolicy.org/security/issues/sudan/2004/0812russia.htm

Libya, Sudan and Small Arms

The government militias and fractured rebel groups of Darfur have never found themselves for want of weapons. While some of that weaponry has been supplied by China, there are many other sources of assault rifles, heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and light mortars. Many of those weapons were transferred by the government of Sudan decades ago, arming villages and groups considered loyal to the Khartoum regime at a time of increasing environmental tension. The government, wanting to remain clear of societal stresses, chose to flood the region with weapons and let the problem sort itself out. During the 1980’s Muammar Gadaffi of Libya also funneled small arms into Darfur as part of a larger effort to establish a pro-Libyan sphere of influence throughout the North African region. Most recently, instability in neighboring Chad has left government arsenals vulnerable to attack by rebels, with many of the seized weapons easily finding their way across the vast and undefended border of Darfur.
Iran, Belarus, Egypt and the United Arab Emirate are other major suppliers of Sudanese weaponry. However, arming Darfur is not limited to state governments alone, and the profit potential of Darfur is no less significant than that of any other conflict. Indeed, because of the official United Nations arms embargo, gun running is a very lucrative venture. In September of 2007 a United Nations Security Council Panel of Experts estimated that between September 2006 and July 2007 private cargo companies transported a combined capacity of 13,000 tons of equipment and supplies into Darfur, much of it military.

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/policy/field-report/darfur-time-uphold-arms-embargo

The multitude of actors, vital interests, vast and porous borders, regional instability and the profit motive have left Darfur awash in weaponry. Any United Nations arms embargo, no matter how tough, would be difficult or impossible to enforce without a significant military presence. However, easy access to weaponry practically makes armed resistance to such an effort inevitable. The problems of Darfur perhaps complicate and transcend the potential of armed international intervention, with a renewed emphasis on negotiations the best alternative. After all, if the causes of conflict are resolved, the demand for weapons will gradually disappear.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR54/019/2007

Attention Ottawa Standers: Rally for Darfur TOMORROW: 7 April 2009!

2009-04-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

The rally will begin on the University of Ottawa campus (in front of the Morisset Library terrace) at 1 pm and will proceed to the Embassy of the Republic of Sudan, located at 354 Stewart Street in Sandy Hill. At both the university and the embassy, political and community leaders, members of the Darfuri Community and student activists will speak about the need for public condemnation of recent events on the ground in Darfur. NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar, Sudanese activitst Tragi Mustafa and Darfuri community leader Abdul-Ghaffar Ahmed are confirmed as speakers.

Our goal is to raise public awareness of the dire and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Darfur following the ICC indictment of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. We will unite to demonstrate our commitment to the people of Darfur, and our hope that Canada will take on a greater role in alleviating this crisis.

The date of the event is of utmost significance, as it is the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. As we reflect on the international community's failure to act in Rwanda, we will draw attention to the ongoing crisis in Darfur, which has been described as "Rwanda in slow motion". The theme of enduring hope will be represented through a constant beating of drums.

For more information, please contact Jackie Bonisteel at jbonisteel@standcanada.org. Hope to see you there!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2009-04-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

Bashir shows his defiance in the face of the International Criminal Court’s warrant for his arrest (Photo from De Welt).

Some recent news coming out of Darfur is that a Sudanese aid worker with Canadian agency Fellowship for African Relief (based in Ontario) has been shot to death. It has been suggested that there is a link with the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of Sudanese President Bashir, though at this stage it’s only speculation (UNAMID is investigating the crime). A clearer link can be made between the indictment and the kidnapping about two weeks ago in Darfur of three aid workers, including Laura Archer, a Canadian nurse. Happily, the kidnapped workers were released three days later, but Médecins sans frontières (MSF) had to withdraw almost all of its expatriate employees from the region. This will only compound the already drastic effects of President Bashir’s expulsion of a number of humanitarian NGOs from Darfur in the wake of the ICC indictment.

A dangerous trend is apparent here. There is no justification for transferring anger about the application of international criminal justice to aid agencies. Yet President Bashir has managed to take this position to the extreme with his expulsion of aid agencies from the country. But is it the government or other actors who are behind the latest attacks? World leaders, including the Canadian government, need to make sure that a high-quality investigation is carried out into these latest attacks, to prevent the impunity that already surrounds the expulsion of humanitarian agencies from going any further.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a plea for the international community to pressure Bashir to reverse his decision to expel aid agencies from Sudan. This is certainly a welcome move, but I fear that without a targeted approach, international condemnation will only harden Bashir’s resolve. It’s time to get creative! Can some of the Arab states that Bashir considers his allies – who have already said they will not arrest Bashir on their soil – be harnessed to put some (friendly) pressure on Bashir to allow humanitarian agencies pursue their work in the country?

In this increasingly desperate situation, what will work best with Bashir – international condemnation, or a more conciliatory approach? Bashir is, after only, only a human being. Humans can be persuaded, but they can also be stubborn and inflexible. It’s an indication of how bad things have gotten that in this particular scenario, what’s at stake are thousands upon thousands of lives.

Stand Events Coast to Coast tonight!

2009-04-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

Stand Chapters coast to coast are holding events to make it easy for you to raise your voice in support of Canadian action in Darfur. Attend your nearest event(s) this month and show your support!

TONIGHT:

Toronto Benefit For Darfur
Featuring Birds of Wales & We Are the Take

April 2nd, 9 pm, Tattoo Rock Parlour (567 Queen St.W)

Stand Canada is having a concert with our friends Birds of Wales and We Are the Take! Come out to see some photos from our last trip to Sudan, and hear some great music.

Tickets are only $10 - order now! Space is limited. Cover is $15 at the door.

Email awagner@standcanada.org for more information.

Stand UBC Presents: Children of Darfur Film Screening
April 2nd, 6 pm, Room 106A in Buchanan A, Main Mall, UBC

Featuring the highly acclaimed short film, Children of Darfur, and special guest speaker Dr. Clement Apaak.

Come find out what you can easily and effortlessly do to initiate crucial and expedient change in Darfur.

Email ubc@standcanada.org for more details.

Stand McGill presents: Pub Night Fundraiser for Darfur

April 2nd, 10 pm, Brutopia (1219 Crescent Street)

Featuring Tara Hall and First You Get the Sugar.

Tickets $5 - all proceeds go to Stand & Doctors without Borders.

Email mcgill@standcanada.org for more details.

April is Genocide Prevention Month

2009-04-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

In what can only be called a gruesome coincidence, six acts of genocide and mass atrocity crimes have anniversaries in April: Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Holocaust and Armenia.

This month, anti-genocide organizations and advocates are focusing on the repeated pledge of "never again" and asking the question: what have we learned? It is important for us to look to our mistakes and learn from them in order to honour that pledge. Genocide Prevention Month calls for a strong policy framework that focuses on drawing from these lessons for prevention of genocide. Stand chapters across the country will be holding events and rallies to urge the Canadian government to make acting against genocide a key foreign policy issue.

Stand Canada friend and supporter Education for Change has launched a blog project to join the movement. A new entry will be up daily to examine what genocide prevention really entails. The blog will focus on a different perspective with each entry: whether it is the voices of those whose families and friends have been affected by conflict, or discussion on how our generation have many choices to make in the face of genocide in order to prevent future occurrences. Check it out, and join in the discussion.

The rationale for supporting Stand: A handy guide to inspiring supporters.

2009-03-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

So I am standing with a new acquaintance, a friend of a friend at a social gathering. She recently read about Darfur because of Bashir's indictment in the news. She seems concerned about Darfur. We start to talk. After a few minutes, it seems she believes it is important to care about Darfur. She wants to know what she can do about it - but she is a busy person and she wants to make sure any action she takes with Stand actually impacts Darfur.

You've probably experienced this yourself, maybe volunteering at a Stand booth or discussing at family dinner or chatting when out with some friends. You begin to talk about Stand, but find yourself losing your audience. You know Stand and its advocacy is important, but you can't seem to articulate it.

Here are some of my ideas to make that conversation easy:

I want do help, what does Stand do?

We make it easy to act against genocide.

What do I mean "making it easy"? Genocide is a massive issue that most people find overwhelming. Most people care about genocide and want to do something but they don’t know how to do so effectively. We create simple and effective ways for people to take action against genocide.

What kinds of "simple and effective" things do you actually do?

Just a few examples: we create a monthly Darfur Digest that summarizes all of the key information on Darfur to make government action easy; we make it easy for ordinary people to influence government by calling 1-800-GENOCIDE; we train people who care about Darfur in how to advocate, we subsidize their trips to Ottawa and we set up meetings for them with MPs. You can multiply the impact of your individual efforts right now by joining a team of passionate Darfur advocates - on your campus, or working on a national project.

How do these tools you create actually have an impact?

Picture the desk of a Canadian politician. There is a stack of "issues" she needs to address. Each time she receives a call (through 1800GENOCIDE) about Darfur, it moves Darfur a little bit up the stack. 10 calls move Darfur up the list higher. 100 calls really raises her eyebrows. 1000 calls makes Darfur impossible to ignore. Through our Stand for the Dead campaign we want to send 10,000 calls to Ottawa.

As a US Senator once said: “If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different.”

We make writing those letters easy.

But what happens when Darfur ends up on the top of the stack of issues? What does Canada actually do?

The Canadian government has the international power and influence to lead the fight against genocide. It has proven that when it makes an issue like Land Mines its top foreign policy priority, the country can change the world for millions of people.

The Ottawa Process led by Canada was an impressive undertaking: in than one short year in the late 1990s over 100 countries has signed a treaty that banned landmines outright, led my small and medium-sized countries, outside the UN system, unimpeded by Superpower resistance (See http://www.icbl.org/tools/faq/treaty/significant). As of 2007, at least 38 nations have stopped production, and global trade has almost halted completely.

We are aiming for the day when Canada's top foreign policy priority is ending genocide. We want ending genocide to be Canada's next Land Mines.

If this is up to the government, what do I have to do with it?

Public pressure changes government priorities. Consider the issue of the Environment. In 2006, North American governments did nothing about the Environment. In 2008, every government had a "green plan" because a groundswell of citizens demanded it. After people like Al Gore helped transformed the latent energy in millions into a loud voice on the environment, governments began to listen.

Help us tell the government: we want to live in a world free of genocide.

Why should I support Stand and not a humanitarian organization?

Humanitarian aid is critical but not enough. Bags of rice alleviate suffering; they don't end genocide. When you support Stand’s advocacy you help achieve two important humanitarian outcomes:

First, you multiply your dollars for humanitarian aid. You could raise $100,000 for a single program in Darfur or directly advocate for $1,000,000 our (government) dollars sent to the right programs impacting Darfur.

Second, we can reduce the need for humanitarian aid by preventing genocide.

I think all we need to do is educate people about Darfur, or raise more awareness.

You educate people so that they will be compelled to act against genocide. One million "educated" people make no impact on Darfur unless they take action. Join us so that we can show the "educated" easy ways to get into action.

Any questions you seem to get stumped with? Any questions seem to veer you off course? Send them to me, post them here, and I am happy to offer my 2 cents. Or if you have good answers to share, please do!

Stand Chapter Digest: March 2009

2009-03-19T05:58:00.000-07:00

The Stand Chapter Digest is dedicated to connecting Stand members across the country by sharing news, events and advocacy ideas!

Attention Stand Supporters! Stand is holding a national 1-800-GENOCID(E) Day this Friday, March 20th. Please help us out by calling repeatedly, and recruiting others to do the same! It is now more urgent than ever to push our elected officials to act for Darfur. Sign up here and spread the word!

Stand Chapter Director Evan Cinqmars is excited for you! Watch our latest video blog to find out why.

Darfur 101
This is a new ongoing series by McGill chapter leader Laurie Drake.

Whenever I try to learn a new subject, or catch up on current events in a particular part of the world that I’m not to savvy about, I often wish for a nice little summary detailing some the pertinent background necessary to understand the current situation. I guess you could say I like context. So, when I was asked why it was so hard for many to understand the current conflict in Darfur, the answer seemed pretty easy: context. Over the next little while, in order to help others understand some on the simpler issues at hand, like who’s who, why is this significant, and what does this all mean in the greater scheme of things, I’ve decided to write about Darfur basics..

Khartoum
Khartoum in the capital of Sudan, and name attributed to the current government led by Omar al-Bashir.Khartoum is located in the Northern part of the country and is often associated with the Arab and Islamic world. The Khartoum government has been associated with the Janjaweed and is accused of proliferating the genocide, which has been taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan since 2003.

Omar al-Bashir
Omar al-Bashir is currently the president of Sudan and the National Congress Party. He acceded power in 1989 during a military coup, which ousted the democratically elected Sadiq al-Mahdi. Al-Bashir ended the Second Sudanese Civil war in 2004 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). However, he has since been reprimanded for his support of the Janjaweed, and has recently come under harsh international criticism, including an indictment and a possible arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Janjaweed
Taken to mean “Devil on horseback” the Janjaweed is an umbrella term given to armed militia groups who have and are currently attacking the Southern and Western region of Sudan (mostly Darfur) and Chad. The Janjaweed receives its funding from the Khartoum government, despite their many denials. Largely consisting of Arab speaking Africans, the Janjaweed are often described as nomads, a term used to describe the age-old conflict between sedentary populations (mostly found in the South) and nomadic tribes (mostly located in the North).

Rebel Groups in Sudan
The number of rebel groups and armies has escalated since the outbreak of the conflict in 2003. With increasing factionalism occurring among many of the groups I will only cover some of the larger and more prominent groups whose names appear more often in literature on the subject.

Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M): This is a political (SPLM) and militant (SPLA) rebel movement that originated in the South mostly among Christians. Originally led by John Garang, this movement turned political party fought the North (aka: Sudanese government) in the Second Sudanese Civil War, and signed the CPA in 2005. SPLA/M is currently part of the oppositional party within Sudan’s government, and is the main constituent in the semi-autonomous Southern State, whose capital is located in Juba.

Sudanese Liberation Army or Movement (SLA or SLM): Although this rebel group looks like the previous one, it isn’t. The SLA was created in 1992 during the Second Sudanese Civil War. They are a multi-ethnic, secular party that argues for the secession of the South. There has been less literature on this rebel group in recent years because it was forced to retreat in 2006 and has since been unable to effectively reorganize itself.

Justice and Equality Movement (JEM): Led by Khalil Ibrahim, JEM, is once of the most prominent groups since the outbreak of the crisis in Darfur. This group traces its origins to the “Black Book,” a text published in 2000, which argues for more equality for the marginalized groups in Sudan, namely Southerners and Darfurians.

Stand on the Hill: Member of Parliament Justin Trudeau

On February 24th, Stand Parliamentary Engagement Chair Luke Kujawa and Advocacy Director Jackie Bonisteel met with Liberal MP Justin Trudeau. Mr. Trudeau was very responsive to Stand's message, and expressed his willingness to continue working with us going forward.

Upcoming Stand Events

1800Genocid(e) Day (March 20th, all day): Call 1800Genocid(e) and let the Canadian government know you care about Darfur!

Stand Western Presents: Dunks for Darfur (March 21st, 2-5 pm):
*A round robin basketball tournament of teams with 3-5 players
*Free refreshments and snack food, lots of cool prizes!
*Email western@standcanada.org for more information.

Stand UofT Presents: Remembering Rwanda (March 20-22):
*A three day conference focusing on the lessons learned and not learned from the Rwandan genocide. Featuring some of the world's most renowned genocide scholars and genocide activists.
*Visit www.rememberingrwanda15.webs.com for more information.

Stand UBC Presents: UBC Improv (March 20th & 21st, 7 pm):
UBC's annual international improv tournament—a part of IMPULSE: the UBC Improv Festival.
* All profits benefit the Darfur Stoves Project, an organization that helps women displaced by the Darfur conflict.
* Email ubc@standcanada.org for more details.

Once You've Started, You Just Can't Stop...

2009-03-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

USA Today reports that President Bashir is now kicking out every aid group in Sudan within the next year.

I guess once you start, it's difficult to stop. I worry that this is a slippery slippery slope. And with the entire world caught up in debates over financial stimulus measures, Bashir has a free pass to do what he would like.

This cannot continue. What am I going to do about it? Write a letter, send an email and make a phone call.

What are you going to do about it?

Let me know in the Comments section so that other people can do it too.

Darfur and the Media

2009-03-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

The New York Times Nicholas Kristof was among the first journalists to report extensively on Darfur, and his writings contributed immensely to a gradually expanding awareness of the volatile region. However, like many reporters, Kristof described the conflict as a struggle between Arab rulers and ‘black Africans.’ While Kristof glossed over the more complex realities of the conflict, his approach served a useful purpose and was widely emulated by the international press. Matched with ‘genocide,’ the native African versus oppressive Arab rendition offered a badly needed angle. It made Darfur simple. It made Darfur saleable. It made Darfur a war of religion and ethnicity.

When reporters describe the combatants as ‘black Africans’ and Arabs, they imply that non-Muslim native Darfurians are being expelled by foreign Arabs, people totally unlike themselves in culture, language and ethnicity, recent arrivals searching for new lands to conquer. Understanding the conflict in these terms only raises the misconception that the Government of Sudan is not responsible for the violence, that the fighting is waged for localized reasons only. It also reinforces false stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings against Arabs perpetuated and strengthened by other ongoing international conflicts. Encouraging such assumptions, even unintentionally, perhaps threatens to discourage people from believing that a solution can be reached. Put bluntly, it angles the conflict as "just another Jihad."

It is this misconception that I would like to address here. This entry will only serve to provide a brief introduction, while a forthcoming entry will offer an alternative way for media to report on Darfur that is just as saleable as the current one.

Painting Darfur as a war of religious and racial tensions is a tempting mistake to make. The idea that Darfur is a race war extends from our popular understanding that Africa is divided between two distinct halves. To the north, we assume, are the Arab lands stretching the length of the Mediterranean coast and the Red Sea, with the non-Arab, non-Islamic and black Africa south of the deserts. Sudan, and particularly Darfur, simply does not conform to this tidy geographic fault-line. Sudan is among Africa’s most diverse countries, with a plethora of distinct religious practices, languages and ethnicities. To package Darfur’s conflict as one between ‘black Africans’ and ‘Arabs’ is simply untrue.

To begin with, the majority of Darfurians are Muslims, either followers of the Sufi Tijoniyya sect from Morocco or the Ansar followers of the Mahdi, a movement that originally arrived from the Middle East. Darfur’s adherents adopted a relaxed approach to Islam and became renowned for their memorization of the Qur’an. Islam was adopted as the state religion of the Dar Fur Sultanate, and remains central to the spiritual and social lives of Darfurians today.

The ‘native black Africans’ are composed of six principle peoples, though in reality there are many more. The Fur were the founders of the ruling Dar Fur Sultanate and the engine of Islamic expansion, but they have always been a minority. In the north there is the Tunjur and Zaghwa, in the east the Berti and Birgid, and to the west the Masalit.

Darfur’s Arabs arrived in their greatest numbers between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. They predominately emigrated as two groups: from east and west Africa came scholars and traders; and slowly moving south from the northwest came nomadic Juhayna Bedouins in search of grazing lands. For hundreds of years Arabs and non-Arabs intermarried, traded and co-existed peacefully. A common and resilient culture naturally emerged between them. Therefore, it is unreasonable to imply that the conflict is a war between native black Africans and foreign Arabs.

So who is fighting and why? The long answer is best left for another entry. While it is true that resource conflicts in Darfur during the 1980’s intensified because of ethnicity, and while it is true that both rebel groups and the Sudanese government are promoting the conflict as one of ethnicity to bind disparate groups under a common banner, the conflict does not strictly adhere to such simplicities. Darfur is ultimately a conflict about resources. It is about access to water and arable land, precious commodities that are found in increasingly short supply. It is also about having a voice in the central government, about a political disconnect with the capital Khartoum that overrides local differences.

Links and Sources:

An excellent article found in a news magazine often overlooked in the West: Carina Ray, “Are ‘Arabs’ killing ‘Black Africans’ in Darfur?” New African (January 2009) http://www.africasia.com/services/opinions/opinions.php?ID=2059&title=ray

For an explanation of Nicholas Kristof’s Darfur reporting see: Nicholas Kristof, “Genocide in Slow Motion,” The New York Review of Books (February 2006)http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18674

Alexander De Waal, “War in Darfur and the Search for Peace” (Harvard: Global Equity Initiative, 2007). Of particular interest is Chapter 4, “Islam and Islamism in Darfur” by Ahmed Kamal El-Din.

Special Envoy Woes

2009-03-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the latest must-have fashion accessory for Western countries is…a special envoy to Afghanistan. Now that the United States, Britain, France, and Germany have them, it seems that Canada needs one as well, for fear of being left behind in the race to wield influence on the world stage.

This begs the following question: why isn’t Canada considering the appointment of a special envoy to Darfur or even Sudan? We did, after all, have one, in the person of Senator Mobina Jaffer, who was Canada’s Special Envoy to the Peace Process in Sudan from 2002 to 2006. Why now, when the crisis in Darfur is entering its sixth year, has the momentum on this country seemed to fade in favour of the (it seems) more immediately relevant to our national interest? Perhaps a better question to ask would be how we can make Sudan and the ongoing genocide a national priority once again.

Sudanese President Bashir’s move to expel aid agencies from Sudan in response to the International Criminal Court’s issuing of a warrant for his arrest is a shining example of what a Canadian special envoy to the region could have brought to the table. The UN Security Council flailed about in search of a statement in response to the expulsion, ultimately failing to agree on one. A Canadian envoy could have added his or her voice to that of Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, to publicly speak out against Sudan’s move. A Canadian envoy could have put pressure on the Security Council to enact a strong response to the expulsion. With a special envoy to Sudan or Darfur, Canada would have been in a position to provide a coordinated response to the expulsion of humanitarian NGOs from Sudan. Without one, Canada was just flailing like the rest.

Save Darfur Action Alert

2009-03-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Check out the Executive Director's Corner on the Save Darfur website. I have included some of the action alert below.

16 aid organizations expelled from Darfur in response to the ICC indictment of President Omar El-Bashir

A defiant Omar El-Bashir (right) threatens further repercussions for his indictment by the International Criminal Court (Reuters)

On March 4th, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced its decision to indict Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes for atrocities committed in Darfur, Sudan, since 2002. There will be no "quick way" to arrest Bashir and bring him to trial.

In response, the Sudanese government made good on its threats for retaliation against an indictment and expelled 16 humanitarian organizations from Darfur. Together, the 16 agencies provided more than 50-70% of all essential relief to Darfuri civilians, and up to 40% of aid workers in Darfur have been affected by the move. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, warned "that the effects could shake the region," and launched an "urgent appeal" to Sudan to reverse its decision.

Learn more about the ICC announcement in Save Darfur Canada's March 4th Executive Summary. Read Reuters' "Snap Analysis" of the consequences of the indictment.

See a list of organizations affected by the recent aid agency expulsions which include 13 international and 3 Sudanese groups. The list is provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

A Canadian nurse was one of four aid workers from the Belgian branch of Doctors Without Borders abducted by armed men in Darfur on March 12th. The Sudanese government is currently negotiating with the kidnappers of the aid workers.

The United Nations (UN) is investigating whether the expulsion of aid organizations is a war crime, but for the moment, the UN Security Council is "deadlocked" over how to respond. Bashir is threatening further aid agency expulsions, as well as the expulsion of foreign diplomats, and says that his indictment will affect the Darfur peace process.

Human Rights Watch criticized the aid agency expulsion, calling on the Government of Sudan to respect its "obligation under international humanitarian law to ensure that relief aid reaches people in need in conflict situations." Amnesty International warned that "2.2 million people face the risk of starvation and disease," accusing Sudan of "effectively holding the entire civilian population of Darfur hostage – an aggressive act that must be condemned in the strongest possible terms by the African Union, the League of Arab States and the international community as a whole." Save the Children has estimated that 1 million of those affected will be children.

Canada must continue to condemn the expulsion of aid agencies from Darfur, and push the Sudanese Government to comply with its international obligations to protect civilians within Sudan.

ADD YOUR OWN TEXT AND SEND AN E-MAIL ABOUT THE ICC INDICTMENT to the Prime Minister and party leaders.

Darfuri advocates in the United States and across Europe celebrated the ICC's announcement, with 100 international Darfuri leaders issuing a public letter of support for the indictment which included diaspora signatories in Canada. Read responses from Darfurians in and outside of Sudan.
.
Not everyone is in agreement that the Bashir indictment was a positive development. Academics Alex de Waal and Julie Flint accused the ICC's Chief Prosecutor, who made the case for Bashir's indictment, of going too high in the chain of command and of having bad timing. However, the Chief ICC Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, responded that he was given the mandate to end impunity in Darfur by the UN Security Council in 2005, and that it is not his role (but the UNSC's) to make political considerations. He went on to explain that as the Chief Prosecutor, it is his job to present evidence for the crimes in Darfur, and that in this case, three ICC Pre Trial Chambre judges agreed that the evidence was sufficient to proceed with charges. He noted that "Mr. Bashir is killing, torturing, raping, exterminating entire communities today." Click here and fast forward to the 9:20 mark to listen to a CBC radio interview with Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

On March 10th, the Canadian ICC president defended Bashir's indictment, explaining that the Court's mandate is not to interpret politics but to prosecute the most senior war criminals.

State members of the Arab League and African leaders continue to call for an Article 16 deferral of ICC's investigations by the United Nations Security Council, though reports suggest that Arab leaders may â€œbe hesitant to receiveâ€ Bashir as a result of the ICC warrant.

Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lawrence Cannon, issued a statement urging Sudan to cooperate with the ICC, citing its obligation to do so under UN Resolution 1593. CIDA's Minister, Beverly Oda, urged the Sudanese Government to "reconsider its decision [to expel aid agencies] and to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law to facilitate full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to assist those in need."

Help Alleviate the Suffering

2009-03-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

This is a letter from a prominent Sudanese human rights defender.

Service to God is Service to Humanity

To: Every kind and loving heart, to help alleviate the suffering of people
through peace and Justice

I am born of Darfur soil. I am Darfurian and I am a Sudanese human rights
defender. I am a humanitarian aid worker with 4 years of experience, having worked in
South and West Darfur with Internally Displace Persons (IDPs) providing water,
medicine, food and shelter.

Since I came to the US five months ago, I have been asking for help with addressing
the needs of IDPs. In over 25 events and 30 meetings, I share with my audiences my
views about the current situation of IDPs; how IDPs lack essential services and security and how their suffering is vast.

I am now writing to you because of the current actions by the Government of
Sudan (GoS). The GoS has unjustly closed 13 non-governmental Organizations NGOs
working in Darfur who have been assisting 3,000,000 IDPs over the past six years. IDPs
depend 100% on these NGOs for the provision of basic life-saving services. To perhaps
better understand the severe negative impact the Government of Sudan has had on the
lives of these people with the closing of these NGOs, try to imagine the following:

• Imagine you do not have food when you are hungry!
• Imagine you do not have water when you are thirsty!
• Imagine you do not have access to medicine when you are sick!
• Imagine you do not have shelter when it is raining!

These are the conditions the 3,000,000 IDPs and affected populations remain in, that
these 13 NGOs were forced to leave behind. 70% of the IDPs constitute women, children,
the elderly, and the disabled. Imagine what will happen when the rains come in 4
months? This will absolutely lead to a state of further crisis.

When a Government, that is intended to protect and serve its people, instead punishes
them by denying them food, water, and health care.... is that not inhumane? If so, is that not, a crime against humanity? If so, are you going to stand by and allow that to happen with out taking action? If not, then take action by:

• Sending a letter to the UN Security Council to take urgent and
immediate action to help those suffering people and eliminate Article 16. Let the Humanitarian Affairs take over the intervention in Darfur
• Sending a letter to the Chinese mission at the UN and the Chinese
Embassy to act responsibly and humanely
• Encouraging the Government of Sudan to act responsibly and
mercifully toward its people and rescind their decision to closing NGOs
in Darfur
• Writing to the African mission at the UN, as well as their respective
Embassies to get involved with ending directorship on their continent
• letting human rights organizations the freedom to monitor human
rights violations more closely
• Raising money and launching food-drops, if necessary

With best wishes for Justice and Peace,

A Sudanese human rights defender

Notes From an Aid Worker

2009-03-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

Dear xxxx,

As you may have heard in the news, one the implications of an arrest warrant against the president of Sudan has seen Save the Children US (SCUS) along with 12 other major NGO's getting expelled by a presidential decree earlier today.

Yesterday (WED 4th) evening, as the rally in the city centre was wrapping up, I was aware of Save the Children UK office was being raided by government officials, however, today about 10 am it came as a shock, when armed police and plain clothes security elements with senior ministry of humanitarian affairs officials came to our office and presented a letter accusing the agency of spying and started the takeover process to seize everything from our files to our computers and all vehicles, HF Radios, SAT phones in all 22 sub offices across the country. In one instance, approx 1700 people SCUS employs in Sudan are jobless. Our program delivery has stopped, essential lives saving interventions of the agency have stopped and the livelihoods of thousands of employees have been affected.

We have been accused of spying and providing the ICC with information against the state. As one security official from the humanitarian ministry put it to me (while he was reaching over me and my desk trying to snatch the mouse to shut my machine off), that I should be glad as most of us are not being arrested with crimes accounting to treason against Sudan... we are just being told to leave the country.

What saddens me is the resulting impact of the general populations and IDPS in the camps. Just with SC US programs in Darfur, approximately 400,000 people in 5 major camps and surrounding villages received food through daily distributions, 200 health clinics overlooked treatment of thousands of patients daily, and 400,000 ppl had access to clean water. The list is endless, South kordofan and Nuba have seen major developments in terms of Save programs in water, sanitation, livelihoods, health, nutrition, education, women and child protection. We are just one agency, collectively, the 13 NGOs meant the whole Sudan though these agencies was receiving millions of dollars in rehabilitation and development funds in the post conflict transition phase. Where will all these people turn for help to? Did the ICC even think about what the backlash was going to be? They have made it worse for the very people they are looking to help.

xxxxx (my brave sister working with SCUS as well) on the phone from Darfur where the whole team awaits flights to evacuate, during our conversation stopped talking and asked me to listen to the announcement being made on loud speakers by armed men on horses roaming the streets of Geneina town (janjaweed) warning all the people, as to anyone seen celebrating this warrant issue will be publicly humiliated and killed. I hope she and the others can make it back by Sunday so we all can breathe easy again.

We have been given a few days to leave the country, our country director is working very hard to buy us time to wind up and keep the process smooth, but as it seems we all will be out of Sudan with the coming week if not earlier. So far all staff is being sent to Addis Ababa.

I thought of giving you an update, as i'm sure you would be closely monitoring the situation.

All the best
xxxx
Apologies for the scattered ideas and thoughts in this message, the last two days have been very tough

On acting locally...

2009-03-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Guest Post by Jan Kool

“Canada protects us. Canada feeds us. Canada covers us with blankets. We will protect Canada. We are Canadian.”

These words come from Muhammad Abkar, a Darfuri refugee who came to Canada in 2007, and who was recently part of a meeting between STAND Western and members of London’s local Sudanese population. This latest meeting – one in a series of meetings that began last December – was held at the home and gathering place of one of the many Sudanese refugees who have come to call London their new home.

Crowded onto couches in the living room, with a European football match playing on the small TV in the background, members of STAND Western heard harrowing personal testimony from those who had seen and lived firsthand the crisis in Darfur, some as recently as only three months ago. Much of the testimony had to be translated from Arabic into English as our media person scribbled notes furiously. Two and a half hours later, after several glasses of pineapple juice and numerous offers of coffee and tea, the meeting concluded with an earnest request:
“People like you [STAND]. We would like you to forward on our information [about the conflict in Sudan]. We need you to advertise for us.”

These are not helpless people. They are strong, proud, and intelligent. They understand the situation in Darfur better than anyone. They are also faced with enormous challenges here in Canada as they try to adapt to a new culture and way of life. Poverty is rife, it is tough to find jobs, and their children have difficulty adjusting to the Canadian curriculum. They are thankful to be here, but finding peace and good governance in their homeland is what they want most.

Muhammad, for example, has lost his father and brothers to the conflict. He still has many family members in refugee camps in Chad, Darfur, and South Sudan. He and his wife had their first child two months ago. Even before fatherhood, however, Muhammad was supporting 17 family members here and in Sudan.

Stories like this help us better understand the human cost of the conflict. Meeting local Sudanese and hearing their experiences firsthand allows us to realize the importance of what we are doing as student activists here in Canada.

These meetings have also led to a new STAND Western initiative that has gathered widespread support and attention on campus and in the community: an afterschool tutoring program for Sudanese and other children from London’s other refugee populations. With over forty excited volunteer tutors signed up and currently undergoing cultural awareness training, the program is set to launch in two locations, twice a week, in early March.

For STAND Western, meeting with London’s local Sudanese population has proven enormously enlightening and beneficial for both groups. Most major cities in Canada have their own refugee populations. We encourage all STAND chapters to reach out into their own communities and see what they can do locally to help. Once you have these personal stories, the advocacy part gets a whole lot easier.

Video Blog on the ICC

2009-03-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Stand Dalhousie in the Chronicle Herald

2009-03-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

The Chronicle Herald has an article today about Stand Dalhousie's divestment campaign. The chapter has been working to find out whether the university holds investments that are supporting the Government of Sudan and have met quite a few administrative roadblocks along the way. The article has stirred up a lot of emotions over whether or not the students are entitled to this information. Chime in with your viewpoint here.

Great work to Kate, Tara and their awesome team!

We Can't Let This Happen

2009-03-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

So the ICC made it's announcement...and now the fallout.

Apparently, 10 humanitarian groups have already been asked to leave, including Mercy Corps, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, and Doctors Without Borders. These groups are responsible for millions of lives in Darfur.

Additionally, the Justice and Equality Movement has just announced that it is pulling out of peace talks with the government. This is unacceptable.

I've said before that the ICC announcement will be what we do with it. Now it has happened and it is up to us to ensure that it is a positive development rather than a negative. So get calling or writing and tell the government that it is unacceptable that Sudan is kicking out aid groups, that it is unacceptable that the peace process doesn't continue, that it is unacceptable that the violence continues.

PS. Go sign the IRC petition to let them back in.

Stand in Support of ICC Arrest Warrant

2009-03-05T06:08:00.000-08:00

Stand Canada Action Alert

Attention Stand supporters!

Today, the ICC announced that it has issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. This is a remarkable development: the international community has just taken a bold stance against a murderous regime.

But this announcement also carries grave risk in the short-term. Bashir may respond with violent backlash against civilians or aid workers. We must be vigilant to ensure that this does not occur. It would be a travesty for an unprecedented step forward for justice to be followed by ten steps backward for those already suffering in Darfur.

Friends, this is a pivotal moment for Darfur. The world's attention will be focused on Sudan as the ICC announcement is publicized. This is an opportunity for Canada to assert its commitment to Darfur. And it is an opportunity for us to push our leaders to act!

Join us in calling on our government to:
1) Express support for an ICC process against Bashir that is robust, efficient, and sensitive to its short-term impacts on civilians.

2) Honour our commitments to UNAMID, and advocate for the Mission's full deployment. For the ICC's work to be effective, it must be supported by a robust peace process.

How can you do this? It's EASY:

1) Call 1-800-GENOCIDE and leave a message for Prime Minister Harper.

2) Email Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon at Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca. A few lines will suffice – the important thing will be to get as many emails as possible flooding his inbox over the next few days! Here's a template:

Dear Honorable Minister Lawrence Cannon,

Thank you for for your statement acknowledging Canada's commitment to Sudan and support for the ICC process. In light of this important development, I would request that the Government of Canada: 1) Commit to ongoing support for an ICC process against Bashir that is robust, efficient, and sensitive to its short-term impacts on civilians. 2) Honour its commitments to UNAMID, and advocate for the Mission's full deployment. For the ICC's work to be effective, it must be supported by a robust peace process. This is Canada's Forte.

Many thanks for your time.

Kind Regards,
xxx

3) Write a Letter to the Editor of a local or national newspaper. Let them know what you think about the ICC process, what Canada can do, why they should be covering the story more prominently … whatever you feel is important!

4) Spread the word! Forward this message to friends, or post a link to the Stand blog on your Facebook profile (http://standcanada.blogspot.com/).

Many, many thanks for your ongoing support. Our work is making a difference!

In solidarity,

Jackie Bonisteel

Stand Canada Advocacy Director
jbonisteel@standcanada.org

Q & A on ICC and Darfur

2009-03-04T11:03:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Kristof has a Q & A on the ICC arrest warrants over at the New York Times website that are worth taking a look at.

A Great Day For Justice

2009-03-03T18:32:00.000-08:00

Today is a great day for justice. One of the world’s greatest perpetrators of human rights abuses, a man who presided over a civil war in which 2 million of his countrymen were killed, and today presides over the 21st century’s first genocide, stymieing international efforts to quell it, was brought one step closer to justice.

Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, has been charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC). As you read this, the answer to the big mystery will be known, whether or not al-Bashir was charged with genocide. Regardless, the charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and/or genocide signify one thing, since they cannot be reversed, for the rest of his life, President al-Bashir will be a wanted man.

Not everybody, including Darfur advocates, is happy about this. The uncertainty and complications that will follow leave some feeling more harm than good will come of this, but that is simply not true. Two areas of concern warrant responses.

The first area is the probability over whether or not al-Bashir will ever appear before the ICC, thus making this a futile exercise like all the rest. After all, it has been almost two years since the ICC’s first warrants were handed down for suspects in Dafur and they have, thus far, escaped justice. In fact, Ahmed Haroun, one of the two, is currently serving as Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs in al-Bashir’s government.

However, one must never say never. As it has been said, the warrants do not expire. Some scholars are wondering if a provision in the ICC’s statute, article 16, which allows the UN Security Council to suspend an investigation, might allow for the nullification of the warrants. Yet, a careful reading of article 16 makes it plainly clear that this is not the case, there is no mention of reversing warrants. Thus, as the ICC Prosecutor has stated in the past about Ahmed Haroun, whether in one year or five years, al-Bashir’s destiny “is in the dock of the Court”.

Other sceptics will argue that al-Bashir can evade justice by hunkering down in Sudan for the rest of his life, away from the ICC’s reach. This is true, but it does not account for the fact that domestic enemies, of which he’s made many, might somehow orchestrate his arrest and handover. (There is even talk now that members of al-Bashir’s government are starting to think he’s the one doing more harm than good and; thus, needs to go.) The recent apprehension of ex-Serbian President Radovan Karadzic, who had evaded an arrest warrant for almost 13 years from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia by hiding in the Serb capitol Belgrade, stands to support this contention.

And for the families of victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, which Karadzic presided over, 13 years might’ve been a long time to wait, but when they saw him standing in court, I’m sure they felt it was worth it.

The other, more complicated and larger point of debate in charging al-Bashir is that it will destabilize efforts to reach a negotiated settlement between the government and rebels in Darfur. The truth is, in the short term, it might.

Just recently the government concluded an accord, however disingenuous, with one rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement. Yet, any observer of Darfur’s drama over the past six years knows that al-Bashir has proved very adept at playing Western governments and institutions. In 2006, the Darfur Peace Agreement was hailed as a major step forward. Later that year, UN Security Council Resolution 1706 set out to help enforce the agreement, al-Bashir stonewalled. Today, the peace agreement and resolution 1706 and all the resolutions that followed are reminders of what hasn’t materialized.

President al-Bashir has blocked every international attempt over the past six years to end genocide in Darfur. He acts only when his back is pressed up against a wall, doing the bare minimum to grant himself some breathing space. Those who advocate reversing the warrants, so as not to provoke this man, root their contentions in the reality of Darfur, but we must also acknowledge the reality of the man.

He has never been genuine. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the country’s 19-year north-south civil war is hanging by a thread. But not because efforts to end genocide in Darfur aggravate the situation, instead, because the man with the biggest role in its implementation, al-Bashir, is more concerned with co-opting it. His priority is not reconciliation. It is to remain in power, continue his iron-fisted rule over the country and expropriation of its resources to benefit the Arab north.

Justice cannot play politics. The ICC’s creation signalled that the world saw justice as a priority. It was an attempt to institutionalize accountability and erase impunity. When the UN Security Council referred Darfur to the Court in 2005 it reaffirmed that commitment. Today the Court took one step further in that direction. There will be complications and uncertainties that stem from this, but really, they’d have been there anyway.

Josh Scheinert is the past advocacy director of Stand Canada. He studies international law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.

2009-03-03T13:55:00.000-08:00

Hello,

My name is Evan Cinq-Mars, and I’m a dreamer.

And that’s what I’ve been asked to do. I’m here to dream ideas that will change the world and how it responds to genocide.

But I won’t be able to do this alone. I’ll need your help to change how the world responds to genocide.

After all, you’re reading this because you care. You have seen how the world responds to genocide and you want to change it.

If you’re like me, you were born in 1989 or just years before or after that.

While you may have been too young to remember, you watched Rwanda burn on the evening news with your parents. You heard of Srebrenica. As you grew older, you learned of the Nazi extermination of the Jews, Slavs, Roma, mentally ill, and homosexuals in your history class. You learned more about the Khmer Rouge, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. You began to understand the scope and brutality of the word genocide.

If you’re like me, you’re watching as the same word has claimed lives of more than three hundred thousand people in Darfur and displaced millions more.

If you’re like me, you’re asking, “How? How is this still possible?”

“Never Again” has become a hollow promise. But it need not be that way anymore. I ask that you share your ideas to change the world and how it responds to genocide so that we can fulfill the promise of “Never Again”. Because something needs to change. The world needs us. The world needs our ideas.

We are here to dream ideas that will change the world and how it responds to genocide.

And we will succeed! In our posts, we will refuse to assume the tragic fate of dreamers and idealists. The dreams and ideas that you will read will not fall to the confines of reality. Instead, we will fuse our dreams and ideas for a better world with practical policy recommendations and realistic next-steps.

That is where my blog posts find their spirit: I believe that our dreams can become a reality. I believe that we can change the world and how it responds to genocide.

Let’s get to it.

The Dreamer

Where is the partnership on Darfur?

2009-03-03T05:17:00.000-08:00

If you watched or followed Obama’s visit to Canada and the Obama-Harper encounter – and chances are you did – you may have noticed that despite the urgings of STAND members and a number of other voices, the issue of the ongoing genocide in Darfur was not on the agenda. Obama’s visit was hailed as a success, but it did not reflect the hopes of many that Obama’s administration will be the one to push for a real breakthrough on Darfur.

Trade was on the agenda, as was NAFTA and the strengthening of economies at a time when the credit crunch is the most pressing concern for many. The environment and climate change were, of course, a top issue, and rightly so. In their discussion, Prime Minister Harper and President Obama highlighted our mutual interdependence and looked ahead to a strong partnership between Canada and the United States. Foreign policy did come to the fore, but when it did, it was in relation to the controversial mission ongoing in Afghanistan, and the future of Canadian involvement there.

For those who were expecting the two “partners” to come out with a common stance on the issue of genocide, particularly with relation to the Darfur region, Obama’s visit was a disappointment. It hit all the key issues that one would expect, but neglected the much-anticipated question of Darfur and genocide. The failure to mention the question, still pressing, of how the world should react to Darfur in particular and situations of genocide more broadly was not addressed in the discussion between Obama and Harper. Yet one might have expected at least a mention – Harper, after all, is the top official of the country that actually spearheaded the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), while the US has been an important player in diplomatic efforts to pressure the Sudanese government to take concrete steps to improve the human security situation in Darfur. Yet sadly, domestic issues and issues of national interest clearly carried the day. Despite the promises of a strong partnership between the neighbour countries going forward into the new administration, there was no suggestion of a partnership on Darfur.

The absence of any mention of Darfur belies the reality that behind the scenes, much work is still ongoing at the level of US policy. Nicholas Kristof, for instance, has reported that Obama’s administration is actually reviewing its Darfur policy, with Samantha Power, well-known and respected for her seminal work “A Problem from Hell,” part of that effort. One can only hope that this review will have real meaning and will not remain behind the scenes for long. Like the partnership proudly proclaimed by Harper and Obama in Ottawa, Darfur should be front and centre for Obama’s new administration.

Every Death Has A Name

2009-03-01T17:39:00.001-08:00

A Grim Milestone

2009-03-01T17:12:00.000-08:00

This month we mark a milestone. The genocide in Darfur is now the longest modern genocide, ever. It is longer than the Armenian genocide, the Cambodian genocide, the genocides against Bosnian Muslims and Rwandan Tutsis. And yes, it is longer than Holocaust.

February 2009 is the six year anniversary of genocide beginning in Darfur. And it’s still going on.

A realization that we are now marking six years of genocide, which have unfolded and will continue to unfold before our very eyes as we largely engage in business as usual, raises three questions: the first is what does this mean, the second, why should we care, and third, what can we do.

What does this mean?

When asked why the world didn’t stop the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis, now president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, answered without blinking, “They didn’t care.”

For six years we’ve been hit with images of Darfur’s murdered men, women and children, burned out villages and survivors clinging to life in camps. We pause, shake our heads in despair and, for the most part, move on. Could it be that Kagame was right – that then, and now, we just don’t care, or care enough, to stop genocide?

Sure, there are obstacles to us being able to prioritize ending genocide. Our economy is crumbling, bills have to be paid and homework has to be done. Genocide isn’t a priority. Not now, later – when we have the time and energy, maybe.

Also, Darfur’s location and victims are almost too unfamiliar for us to relate too. But on their recent trip to Sudan, our colleagues met some of Darfur’s 3 million-plus displaced persons and discovered that our differences are trumped by our similarities. They share in the hopes and dreams common to people around the world – of life, health and sustenance for themselves and their families.

Truthfully though, obstacle is a synonym for excuse. Darfur doesn’t have to take the backburner in light of other seemingly more immediate priorities; it doesn’t have to seem so far away. Those are choices we make, because they are easy. Kagame might’ve been right.

So why should we care?

No human act is worse than genocide. It is a deliberate attempt to eradicate a people from this world for no reason other than who they are. In international criminal law it is referred to as the crime of crimes. Committing genocide means exterminating human beings.

One of the more sobering things one can do in one’s life is walk through Auschwitz, Cambodia’s killing fields or any other piece of earth stained by genocide. When you stand in Auschwitz’s gas chamber, or face to face with the ovens that cremated its 1.1 million victims, it becomes crystal clear – the cruelty and insanity of what happened can never, ever happen again. But it is. So we have to care.

What can we do?

We can be heard, in Ottawa and Darfur. Karashi, who after his village was burned, walked for nine days through scorched desert to reach safety. He told our colleagues, “Darfur is a forgotten place. The government is killing us and nobody helps.”

As members of a global community, we have to remember Darfur. Thus, the burden falls to us, ordinary Canadians to demand from our elected officials that we live up to our commitment to a world without genocide. When the government is confronted by our chorus demanding a more productive and effective Canadian response to Darfur’s genocide, by engaging more with the diplomatic attempts to end the genocide and with humanitarian efforts to protect and provide for its victims, they will be forced to act.

Six years is too long. Until now Canada’s politicians haven’t gotten the message. Only we can change that and force them to confront pledges they’ve already made.

In the guestbook at the Auschwitz museum there is an inscription from visit on April 5, 2008: “Let us never forget these things and work always to prevent their repetition.” The visitor was Stephen Harper. For Karashi and the millions of others, time is running out for the Prime Minister to make good on that pledge. Batika, another displaced person, once a mother of eight, now a mother of six, told our colleagues that for her the reality of Darfur is simple: “To die because of war or to die because of hunger.”

We have a choice to make. A year from now, will Darfur mark another grim milestone?

Ben Fine is the founder and past Executive Director of Stand Canada and a student in the Faculty of Medicine at University of Toronto. Josh Scheinert, Stand’s past Advocacy Director, is a student at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Call for Submissions - What Can Be Done?

2009-02-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest challenges of Stand's work is confronting helplessness in the face of a conflict that is dizzying in its levels of complexity. The feelings of helplessness on not limited only to private citizens but also politicians who don't know what their realistic options are sometimes.

Well, now's your chance to weigh in. On the Stand blog we want to hear from you: how does Canada help bring a solution to the conflict in Darfur? How does Canada make sure that poor men, women, and children are no longer slaughtered, raped or forced to flee their homes in Darfur? I want to hear big ideas, crazy ideas, or practical and subtle ideas...anything. Discuss in your campus groups. Send me a post about it. Write up a post in the comments section and then battle it out among yourselves about which solution is more effective.

Below, I have included Stand-Canada's current policy recommendations. Please engage with them, debate them, and let us know what you think. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Policy Recommendations:

1. Build on Canada's recent commitments to Darfur by appointing a Special Envoy to the region. A Special Envoy could strengthen Canadian policymaking on Darfur in three key ways: 1) providing the world with a public face for Canada's efforts on Darfur, 2) providing a presence on the ground in Sudan, and 3) coordinating an integrated "all of Sudan" approach to Canadian peacebuilding. Specifically, a Special Envoy could play a key role in assisting efforts of the Darfuri rebel groups to form a unified and coherent bargaining position, a critical success factor for renewed negotiations.

2. Form an all-party parliamentary special committee on Darfur whose goal it will be to determine viable actions for the Canadian government to undertake to lead in ending the crisis in Darfur. The committee should 1) exist for a specified period of time, 2) travel to Sudan to collect facts, 3) be fully resourced by the Canadian government and 4) have equal party representation.

3. Engage more actively with the Obama administration to identify new opportunities for collaboration and cooperation on Darfur.

4. Engage more actively in multilateral diplomacy at the UN to bring renewed prominence to the Darfur issue internationally and rally greater international support for conflict resolution efforts.

Halifax West High School Shout Out

2009-02-18T21:52:00.001-08:00

Way to go Halifax West High School!

They have an article about their efforts in the Chronicle Herald.

Action Alert from Save Darfur Canada

2009-02-18T21:44:00.000-08:00

Darfur must remain a Canadian foreign policy priority

February 16, 2009

Dear friends,

Your action is needed.

Recent violence in the South Darfur town of Muhajiriya is a sobering reminder that the cycle of violence in Darfur continues. In early February, fighting for control of Muhajiriya displaced 30,000 and left 30 dead. A peace agreement is desperately needed in Darfur so that the violence can end and people will be safe.

On January 26th, the Canadian government set its agenda in the Speech from the Throne. Focusing almost entirely on the economic crisis, there was no mention of ongoing foreign affairs priorities, or of Canada's commitments in Sudan. At a critical time for peace and security in Darfur, and when Canada has been an indispensable supporter of peace, security and relief in the region, we must ensure that Canada does not turn away.

Take action: tell Prime Minister Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Cannon that Sudan must remain a foreign policy priority.

Canada must:

1. Continue to make Sudan, including Darfur, a foreign policy priority;
2. Increase support to the neglected Darfur peace process, which is the key to ending violence in the region; and
3. Assign a special Canadian government representative to Sudan to ensure that policy in Sudan is well-informed and coordinated and that decision-makers have access to relevant and timely information from the ground.

Please take one minute to take action today.

Sincerely,

Tara Tavender
Executive Director
Save Darfur Canada

Recent headlines: Read the latest news and commentary about Darfur
Videos and photos: Learn more about Darfur
The Darfur Challenge: Find out more about the nationwide student campaign
Get involved: Check out volunteer and internship positions in Montreal and across the country
Make a donation: Help the coalition grow

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Save Darfur Canada is a bilingual national coalition of organizations, groups, and individuals advocating for an end to the Darfur crisis

Stand Chapter Digest

2009-02-16T18:54:00.000-08:00

The Stand Chapter Digest is dedicated to connecting Stand members across the country by sharing news, events and advocacy ideas.

In this issue:

1. Principal Director Anne Wagner explains why some tribal leaders may not be thrilled about the rumored ICC arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Watch here.

2. Stand on the Hill: Member of Parliament Paul Dewar has been working for years to make Darfur a key issue on the hill. Read more here.

3. Featured Chapter Stand Western is still going strong 4 years later.

---
A Message from Anne
After meeting with tribal leaders in Sudan last month, Anne's opinion of the rumored ICC arrest of Bashir may surprise you. Watch:

Stand on the Hill: Featured MP

Paul Dewar, MP for Ottawa-Centre and NDP Foreign Affairs critic, recently met with Stand's Ottawa advocacy group to discuss strategies for engaging with parliamentarians. Paul has been a long-time champion for Darfur on the Hill. His contributions include initiating a major study on Darfur at the Foreign Affairs Committee, promoting Corporate Social Responsibility in the Sudan, and calling for greater Canadian commitments in the region. Stand applauds Paul for his tireless work on behalf of the people of Darfur.

Featured Chapter: Stand Western

Four years ago, Stand Canada began at the University of Western Ontario, when a small group of students decided that they would not remain idle while a horrific genocide unfolded in Darfur. Today, Stand has grown to over 70 chapters across the country, but the original chapter remains one of the strongest, currently with an executive of 25 members and a core membership of 200.

Last term, the chapter collaborated with other students on a number of successful initiatives, including a Busk for Darfur event that raised funds and awareness on the streets of London, Ontario. Members of the chapter also worked to create the Western Advocacy Alliance, a collection of social justice clubs on UWO campus, and participated in a number of collaborative events such as the region's Gulu Walk.

This spring, the chapter is launching a number of fantastic events, including a regional art contest and silent auction, their annual Dunks for Darfur basketball tournament, and a screening of the film Rwanda: Hope Rises. The chapter will be flying in the director of the film, Trevor Meier, for the event. "The film shows people the impact of genocide", says Leah Meidinger, the chapter's current president.

Stand Western is also in the process of partnering with the Sudanese community in London to launch a tutoring program for children of refugees in the region. Over 30 volunteers have already signed up for the program. "The community has really come together" to make the program a reality, notes Leah. "It's a great way for students to get involved."

If you are interested in working with Stand Western or attending any of their upcoming events, you can reach them at western@standcanada.org.

Obamarama

2009-02-15T00:34:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Jackie Bonisteel.

On February 19th, President Obama is coming to town. Canadians have been repeatedly advised to temper our expectations: the visit will be short and limited to no-nonsense discussion of the economic crisis. There will be no welcome rally, no Rideau Canal skate, no inspiring speech to the Canadian people. So settle down, we are told.

But since Obama himself stands for "the audacity of hope", perhaps the Darfur advocacy community should have the audacity to hope for more. In that spirit, I propose that Darfur should be a top priority on the Canada-US bilateral agenda.

As a close neighbour, and a chief architect of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, Canada is ideally poised to stand at Obama's side as his administration acts decisively to end the violence in Darfur. Setting aside a change of course in recent years, we are a nation with a history of peacekeeping and strong international diplomacy. We are one of the largest contributors to UNAMID. Together, Canada and the US can take decisive action for Darfur that will motivate other key international players to follow suit.

Granted, the decisive action we would like to see from Obama has yet to materialize. The economic crisis will of course be the new administration's overwhelming focus for some time. However, there are encouraging signs that US leadership in Darfur is on its way. During his Presidential campaign, Obama spoke of the need for a no-fly zone and greater US logistical support to UNAMID. He has surrounded himself with advisors such as Susan Rice, Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, Anthony Lake and Samantha Power who are strong advocates for greater US commitment in Darfur. With US resources being freed up from Iraq, the time appears to be ripe for a shift in focus to Darfur.

Yes, there is an economic crisis, but there is also a crisis in Darfur of the utmost severity. Obama may offer the hope we've been waiting for—but only a strong push will turn hope into reality. With our commitment and solidarity, Canada can be part of that push.

Tell Prime Minister Harper that you would like to see Darfur become a top priority on the Canada-US bilateral agenda. It's EASY:

Call 1-800-GENOCIDE to be connected directly to Prime Minister Harper's office. It will only take a few minutes!

You can also write to the prime minister at pm@pm.gc.ca or

Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2

Tell your friends! Post this link to your Facebook profile or forward it in an email.

Write to the media! Share your views with the public - let's gather more support. Tell your community members why they should care.

No, Wait, It's On Its Way...

2009-02-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

While the International Criminal Court has not actually announced yet that it is going to issue an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, it is expected any day now. This announcement is both a big opportunity and a big danger for the people of Sudan depending on how we, and the rest of the world, use it.

The chief danger lies in the possibility that President al-Bashir will find himself backed into a corner with no reason to work for peace. In this case, he may try to kick out humanitarian aid workers who are saving millions of lives in Darfur, increase attacks on his enemies, the rebel groups, and kick out the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID). Additionally, such a response would endanger the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and South that President al-Bashir signed in 2005. The resumption of war between the North and South would be a devastating increase of violence and suffering for the Sudanese people. Also, President al-Bashir might be tempted to cancel the elections that are meant to happen later this year.

The opportunities, however, are also numerous. If the international community supports the decision of the ICC and offers real protection to the civilians, this could be the first real substantial pressure on the government of Sudan for a meaningful peace process. Similarly, this sort of pressure may also persuade the President of Sudan to actually implement the peace agreements he makes, something that he has rarely done up to this point.

Although it's extremely unlikely right now, it is also possible that the President of Sudan will actually be arrested. In this case, the best we can hope for is a scenario like that which has befallen Charles Taylor, the former leader of Liberia who is now on trial in The Hague.

Needless to say, the most important thing is that the international community ensures that the response to this arrest warrant is one that moves the country in the direction of peace rather than more war. This is an opportunity and a dangerous situation. It is partly up to Canada to determine which way it unfolds.

Call for Submissions - What can be done?

2009-02-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

Breaking the Ice - Rebels to Sit Down with Khartoum?

2009-02-08T22:08:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have seen some devastating violence in South Darfur around a city called Muhajeriya. Some 30,000 people fled their homes as the largest Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), battled with government soldiers and members of another rebel group called the Sudanese Liberation Movement - Minnawi. To cut a complicated story short, the rebel group JEM took a town from a rival rebel group which was allied with the government and then endured a series of government bombings and retaliations which killed dozens of civilians. Some of you may have seen the recent post about Canada's condemnation of this violence.

Now it seems like the violence has halted momentarily with the rebels withdrawing from the town and the government allowing UN officials and aid agencies access. Even more promising, the JEM rebels have announced that they may start preliminary peace talks this week in Qatar.

There are many reasons to be skeptical about these talks, but also many reasons to be optimistic. The last time JEM spoke with the government, they refused to sign onto the peace agreement with the government and took up arms again claiming that the agreement did not adequately address their concerns. Since then, however, they have shown very little interest in meeting with government officials. For that reason, this is a very positive turn-around. Also, JEM is the most powerful rebel group in Darfur at the moment and may be able to act as a leader in negotiations, especially if other groups see JEM as getting a good deal or worry about losing out if an agreement goes through.

From the government's perspective, officials are trying to do everything in their power to deflect the arrest warrant that may be released against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in the next week or so by the International Criminal Court (ICC). This may be pushing them to play nice. It is yet to be seen, however, how far they are really willing to go to divert the possible arrest warrant. Similarly, the whole process could be thrown into disarray if the arrest warrant is indeed announced and the President decides there is no longer any reason to try to play by the rules.

Canada and the international community can once again influence the process and reinforce peace talks by supporting the negotiations and trying to pressure other rebel groups into joining peace talks. In fact, if peace talks start next week, it would be a great time for everyone to contact their representatives and urge that Canada support negotiations, monitor agreements, and otherwise make sure that the parties do not revert to violence again.

Stay tuned for more information on this exciting development...

Express Thanks - Write a Letter

2009-02-03T09:27:00.000-08:00

The Minister of Foreign Affairs released a statement yesterday deploring the recent increase in violence in Darfur (more on this to come soon). In the meantime I encourage all readers of this blog to take a moment to write a letter of gratitude to the Minister at Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca. One of the best ways to build momentum on this issue is to show that there is a large mass of people who care about it when the government takes actions like this. Below is the text of the statement and a possible letter.

Canada Deplores Upsurge of Violence in Darfur

The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement regarding the recent upsurge in violence in Darfur:

“Canada deplores the increased violence in Darfur. Military activities conducted by the Government of Sudan and by Darfur rebel forces are seriously undermining prospects for peace in Sudan and impeding humanitarian efforts in the region. Their actions threaten the lives of thousands of innocent civilians.

“Canada also notes that the Government of Sudan has not implemented the ceasefire it announced in November. We call on the government and all rebel forces to cease hostilities and to resume the negotiation process led by the United Nations and the African Union.

For information on Canada’s contribution to establishing long-lasting peace in Sudan, please consult the following website: www.canadainternational.gc.ca/sudan-soudan/index.aspx.

Possible Letter:

February 3, 2009

Re: Minister's Statement on Darfur

To the Honorable Lawrence Cannon,

I am writing to express my sincerest gratitude for your remarks deploring the recent upswing of violence in Darfur. The wording of your statement reflects both the seriousness of the situation and the responsibility of all parties to cease hostilities and protect civilians.

The ongoing violence in Darfur and deplorable humanitarian conditions is a blight on our common humanity. While your statement condemning the violence is a strong step in the right direction, I urge you also to consider other possible options such as appointing a Special Envoy to the region.

I applaud your efforts to end the violence and look forward to hearing more from you in the future on this vital issue.

Sincerely,

[enter name here]
Stand-Canada
[Address]
[Any other info - phone number, email, etc.]

Stand Campus Digest

2009-02-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

The Stand Campus Digest is dedicated to connecting Stand members across the country by sharing news, events and advocacy ideas.

In our premiere issue:

Principal Director Anne Wagner shares what it was like running into an old friend at Rumrol IDP Camp. Watch Anne's video blog here!
Stand on the Hill: read about two Members of Parliament who are true champions of the cause.

Featured chapter Stand UBC is making huge strides in raising awareness in their community. Find out more here.

Want to attend a Stand event this week? Read about our upcoming events here.

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A Message from Anne

2009 marks exciting new opportunities for Stand – exciting collaborations, exciting events, exciting stories. This is the first edition of our new bimonthly newsletter –we look forward to sharing ideas and events throughout the coming year! I returned from Sudan last week – an inspiring journey that motivates me to continue advocating for change in Darfur and strengthen Canadian policy on genocide.

I look forward to working with you for Darfur, and to stop genocide, in 2009.

All the best,

Anne Wagner
Principal Director
Stand Canada
awagner@standcanada.org

Stand On the Hill: Featured MPs

Stand had the great pleasure of traveling to Sudan with the Honourable Glen P earson and Dr. Carolyn Bennett this month. After a week of engrossing discussions, sharing ideas, and renewed agreements to work together, one step at a time, to make a difference for the people of Sudan, we left Sudan with a renewed belief that Glen and Carolyn are true champions of the cause. Their openness to inventive ideas and new approaches are inspiring and heartening as advocates.

Featured Chapter: Stand UBC

University of British Columbia’s Stand chapter held a very successful music night this past week in partnership with UBC’s Caribbean African Association. The event, which featured music from Robin Layne, Free City Collective, and local DJ Mmeli, raised $1000 for Darfur advocacy. Over 150 people attended the event.

Under the leadership of Aneil Jaswal and Rebeka Ryvola, this Stand chapter is continuously seeking new ways to raise awareness about Darfur in Vancouver. Last term, UBC actively participated in Stand’s Speak The Name election campaign, meeting with all candidates in the region, as well as implementing a very successful Stoves for Sudan initiative that raised enough money for 185 stoves for families in IDP camps. They are continuing both of these efforts this term by meeting with Member of Parliament Joyce Murray in the next few weeks, as well as continuing to raise money for the Berkeley Stove Project with their Firewood Run planned in April.

One of Stand UBC’s key projects this term is to hold a series of high school workshops about the genocide in Darfur in their community. “High school students are the next generation of Darfur advocates”, says Jaswal, who has been working with Stand for over two years. “They are idealistic and realistic enough to know that they can make a difference”.

Congratulations to the UBC chapter on a successful start to a new term!

If you are interested in joining the UBC chapter, you can reach them at ubc@standcanada.org.

Upcoming Events

Stand Alberta Presents Genocide in Darfur: On Canada's Watch

Join experts to discuss what Canada can do to stop the killing.

Featuring Dr. Tom Keating & Edward Akufo.

Tuesday Feb 3

11:00-12:20 pm

Dinwoodie Lounge

Students' Union Building

University of Alberta
For more information email uofa@standcanada.org

Stand Victoria Presents Dance For Darfur

Dance the night away for Darfur! Featuring free beginner’s salsa lesson and silent auction. Proceeds to help the women, men and children victimized by the atrocious acts of violence committed in Darfur.

Friday, February 6th, 2009
Tickets $10
8:30 pm
Victoria Event Centre (1415 Broad Street)
For advance tickets email victoria@standcanada.org

Darfur Digest - February

2009-02-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

Due to a technical problem, our listserv software has been nonfunctional for the past five weeks. This has meant that we weren't able to send out the January Digest via the listserv and we won't be able to send out the February Digest via the listserv either, unfortunately. Please share the Digest (attached) with anyone who might need it. The executive summary is below. Apologies again for the inconvenience - we are working to resolve the issue.

Executive Summary

Canadian Politics and Darfur: The confluence of American President Barack Obama's inauguration and the return of Canadian parliament may create new opportunities for Canadian action on the Darfur crisis.

Security in Darfur: Tensions in Sudan are growing as the possibility of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, looms on the horizon. The last two weeks of January saw an upswing in violence as rebel groups in Darfur jostled with each other and government forces for land and power. The Government of Sudan (GoS) broke the unilateral ceasefire it announced in November by bombing positions of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the largest rebel movement in Darfur. Meanwhile, the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) continues to try to make a difference but remains overstretched and ill-equipped.

Negotiations and Engagement in Darfur: The International Criminal Court (ICC) continued to examine the evidence against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to determine whether or not a warrant should be issued for his arrest. While China maintained its support for the Government of Sudan (GoS), the new American administration made a number of strong statements on the crisis in Darfur. The Qatar-based Arab-African Committee on Darfur, whose main function is to discuss Arab-African action to restore peace in Darfur, finally met after a number of delays. An increase in rebel factions over the past year and new friction between rebel groups is stalling the peace process.

The Humanitarian Situation in Darfur: The resiliency of the aid community in Darfur is apparent as they continue to plan long-term operations in the face of uncertainty. If an arrest warrant is issued for Sudan's President, a backlash restricting access to the United Nations mission and to humanitarian relief work could be damaging for Darfur's civilians. Tension is mounting in the country as the UN makes contingency plans. Sudan's government has sent a team of traditional leaders from Darfur to address the International Criminal Court in favour of Omar al-Bashir. Yet aid work continues as NGOs begin to plan in advance of the rainy season.

Policy Recommendations

1. Build on Canada's recent commitments to Darfur by appointing a Special Envoy to the region. A Special Envoy could strengthen Canadian policymaking on Darfur in three key ways: 1) providing the world with a public face for Canada's efforts on Darfur, 2) providing a presence on the ground in Sudan, and 3) coordinating an integrated "all of Sudan" approach to Canadian peacebuilding. Specifically, a Special Envoy could play a key role in assisting efforts of the Darfuri rebel groups to form a unified and coherent bargaining position, a critical success factor for renewed negotiations.

2. Form an all-party parliamentary special committee on Darfur whose goal it will be to determine viable actions for the Canadian government to undertake to lead in ending the crisis in Darfur. The committee should 1) exist for a specified period of time, 2) travel to Sudan to collect facts, 3) be fully resourced by the Canadian government and 4) have equal party representation.

3. Engage more actively with the Obama administration to identify new opportunities for collaboration and cooperation on Darfur.

4. Engage more actively in multilateral diplomacy at the UN to bring renewed prominence to the Darfur issue internationally and rally greater international support for conflict resolution efforts.

Collaboration: Help or Headache?

2009-01-27T07:45:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Elham Bidgoli

When we first started the UofT chapter, we jumped at any opportunity to collaborate with other student groups. Amnesty? We'd love to help with your bake sale. International Health Program? We want a table at your conference. Bollywood Association? We've always dreamed of working with you.

When you are new and unknown on campus, especially one as vast as UofT, collaboration opens up tons of opportunities. It can mean sharing in resources you otherwise would not have access to, and meeting lots of new people with whom you can share your message. It can open up new avenues of ideas for creating a buzz around campus. But as I've learned over time, it can also mean one huge headache after another. Here are my three tips on when collaboration can cause more hassle than opportunity.

1. Wanting World Peace is Not Common Ground
As advocates against genocide, we often feel that every advocacy, humanitarian and awareness organization is in line with our policies. After all, who doesn't want genocide to stop? None of our chapters have had to deal with any pro-genocide groups on campus. The problem, however, lies in the word genocide. Collaboration with other groups on genocide awareness can often result in a down spiral where the use of the word is debated in its use for other crimes against humanity. This can detract from the efforts of your chapter to raise awareness about Darfur.

How can you avoid being overshadowed by controversy without giving up opportunity? One way around it is to participate in a multiple day initiative where your event is separate from other groups. This way you benefit from the promotion and collaboration, but avoid the negative press.

2. Kittens have nothing to do with genocide
As I mentioned, it is tempting to work with every group out there. But it is important to also keep your audience - and the message that you are trying to send - in mind. Yes, the Association for Cruelty Against Kittens also speaks out against unnecessary violence, but are they really related to your cause? More importantly, will people intuitively see the connection at the event, or will they leave scratching their heads? It's important to keep your message as clear as possible, and the groups you choose to work with are a part of your message.

3. Step Up or Step Out

When Stand UofT was approached to collaborate with ten other groups on genocide awareness week a few years ago, we entered into it thinking it involved minimal effort on our part. A little promotion here, hosting a small speaking event there, all for the opportunity to participate in a huge event. The problem is that all the groups had come together with the same intention, and no one was in charge. It was chaos until the current Stand leader at the time took over and clearly outlined who was doing what. Clearly, this kind of responsibility was not what we signed up for. If you're not prepared or willing to take over, it may not be worth your team's time and effort to get involved.

These tips are based on my own experiences. What are your experiences with collaboration? How do you approach working with other groups? Leave a comment and let us know!

photo credit to peter_hasselbom, jeff-bauche, charlesdenton

Want to help stop a genocide? Make it easy.

2009-01-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

Imagine.

You are in a crowded room near home surrounded by your mother, father, aunt and uncle, their kids and some close friends. The doors are locked. You hear men's voices outside. You know that they have guns. You are scared and wonder, “what is going to happen to me?” Now, you hear banging on the door. You have no delusions about their intentions: they are here to kill you.

The reason? It’s nothing you did. It’s just because of who you are.

You are waiting, hoping, praying for somebody to protect you.

You wish you could call 9-1-1. But this is Darfur. Here, twice the population of Toronto don't have anyone to call. They face almost certain death, rape, or the loss of an eye or an arm. Many Darfuri men, women, and children hoped for help, but it never came. Like the Armenians in 1910s, Jews during the Holocaust, Cambodians in 1970s, Rwandans and victims of Srebrenica in 1990s they have been left alone.

The results have been devastating.

"The story of the eldest girl who was sent to get needed firewood for her mother and young brother, but was raped", "The story of the young boy who awoke in his hut to the roar of engines, only to look outside and see family and friends running from bombs and armed men on horseback" and "The story of the woman hearing 'now your babies will be Arab' as she's being violated" are a stories that paint a picture of life as a victim of genocide.

These stories are maddening. The images of these people's experiences sear into our minds. If you believe, as I do, that no man or woman should be a target simply because of his or her ethnicity, that every children born into this world should never have to see men on horseback rape their mother and kill their father, that no person should ever be victim of genocide sixty years after the “lesson” of the Holocaust, then these actions are an affront to your beliefs.

These attacks against your entire worldview, stir your emotions. You feel, as I do, sadness, fear, rage and most importantly an urgency to "do something" about it.

But – unfortunately for victims – too often, our outrage is followed by a sense of helplessness. I experienced this four years ago. I was riled after reading a story in the New York times about a woman who was told 'now your babies will be impure' while being raped. But I was stuck.

"What can I do? This is a genocide – the crime of all crimes. This is happening so far away. The situation seems so complicated. The names of key players are hardly pronounceable. "

“Yes,” we say, “people are dying. But it is so big and so far away. I have to work today and pay my bills. What can one person actually do?”

We all get stuck.

This is the true challenge that the world faces with Darfur: how can we, the mass of people who care about Darfur, overcome the set of obstacles that prevent each one of us from acting to end genocide in Darfur?

Collectively, we have the manpower, will, influence, and money to end the crisis. We have put a man on the moon, ended cold wars, defeated fascism in Europe, and freed millions from apartheid in South Africa, and so too we can end a genocide. But feelings of apathy and powerlessness, a lack of information and motivation prevent us from tapping our world-changing potential.

Enter Stand. The job of each of our volunteers, supporters, and allies: make it easy to act against genocide. Make it easy to overcome the challenges - one by one – to help each person that feels "I must do something about Darfur". Help them take action.

If it isn’t easy for you to make your difference for Darfur, we’ll make it so.

Feel powerless to make a difference?

We are there to tell you that you can. The Stand volunteer on your campus will tell you stories to convince you so. We will share stories of meeting the Prime Minister, of Canada sending 100 armoured personnel carriers to protect those protecting civilians, of students traveling to Darfur with Members of Parliament to forever make them allies in our fight. You can make a difference.

Don't know where to start?

A Stand volunteer can show you how easy it is to begin to make a difference. You can start by meeting like-minded friends in your community through Stand - in-person or online. You can work on a project of significance to Darfur: plan a rally to put Darfur's story in the headlines, invite your Member of Parliament to meet your group, create a calendar to raise money for the cause. Thousands of people have attended hundreds of events put on by dozens of groups from communities across Canada. The net impact is obvious: each new voice can inspire an action for the cause. Each action may be the one to tip the scale towards life for a Darfuri teetering on the brink. You can have impact with Stand.

Don't have the time?

Everybody has three minutes to act against genocide. Call 1-800-GENOCID(E). Get talking points about what Canada can do for Darfur. And leave a message for the Prime Minister. Each call to 1-800-GENOCIDE moves Darfur up the list of issues important to the Prime Minister. One high school in Toronto called the Prime Minister’s office so many times in one day, that the Office called the principal of the school and asked students to stop calling. Thankfully, the principal told them no. That day, the Prime Minister noticed Darfur. A few minutes can make a difference for Darfur.

Want to call your MP right now but don't know what to say?

Read Stand's Darfur Digest. Just by glancing at the executive summary, you can know more about Darfur than 95% of MPs and have the confidence to voice your opinion about what's right for Canada to do to prevent on-going genocide in Darfur. It is read by high school students and national not-for-profit CEOs, and everybody in between. A few minutes can make you an effective advocate.

Consider a world without Stand and its allies. People read about Darfur. We are "educated" about it. We care, but our engagement stops there. The world would exist with a massive gap: a body of people who need help in Darfur, and a mass of people who care about Darfur but feel helpless. In that world, millions fall victim to genocide in Darfur, and the next Darfur in Asia, or South America or Africa. The idea "never again" dies along with the hope of a generation.

Stand bridges that gap, making it easy for those caring people to act against genocide in Darfur and wherever else it may next appear.

Back to that crowded room with armed men pounding at the door. Darfuris don't have 9-1-1. But we have 1-800-GENOCIDE. Let's keep calling on their behalf until we create a world free of genocide.

Ben Fine
Volunteer, Founder
Stand
www.standcanada.org

Pursuing a world without genocide

2009-01-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

It has been four years since one moment changed my life.

Acol Dor, a Sudanese refugee, stunned an audience of 200 young people with her story of Darfur. As the crowd sat silenced, one student stood up and said "I think we all agree. We need to do something about this." That was the flap of the butterfly's wing that started the hurricane that is Stand and Canada's Darfur advocacy movement.

This blog had been used for a number of purposes so far: discussing policy ideas, sharing analysis of Darfur, reporting on Darfur news, reporting on Stand’s successes. But I want to add something new and important: telling the stories of the Darfur advocacy movement. I will be clear about my intent: I want more people to hear our story. I want more people to be inspired to join us. I want more people to see that they are not alone in their convictions and can stand with us. I want young people already volunteering with Stand to feel apart of something greater, and to have the confidence to know that I - and thousands of others - are supporting their work.

The tone of these blogs may exude an aura of importance. Don't be turned off. The reason is simple: fighting to end genocide is important. It is too great an ill in this world. After 4 years of Darfur advocacy we must be ready to declare: we are not satisfied just planning "events"; this cause is important enough to demand that we fight until genocide never happens again.

And I want to hear from you. We will have differences. Let us learn from them. Consider your challenges to these ideas a benefit for Darfuris in our important mission.

In my first blog, I will take on a modest task: tell the story - as I see it - of what we all need to do to help stop a genocide. Read on.

Ben Fine
Volunteer, Founder
Stand Canada

Back From Sudan - Anne Wagner

2009-01-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry to have been so derelict in my blogging duties of late, but luckily there are many Stand'ers out there doing really interesting, inspiring things to cover for me. The blog post below was written by Anne Wagner, a Stand leader who just returned from her second trip to Sudan. Anne is consistently one of the loudest voices for action in Darfur and has accompanied Members of Parliament to the region to see first hand the results of the genocide. She has found that visiting Sudan turns MPs into stronger advocates and supporters of Stand's message.

If you would like to hear more about her trip, you should stop by the South Dining Hall of Hart House at the University of Toronto at 7 PM on Monday, January 26th.
--

I returned from Sudan last week – an inspiring journey that motivates me to continue advocating for change in Darfur and strengthen Canadian policy on genocide.

I interviewed Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), tribal leaders and camp administrators. Notably, I was also very fortunate to track down some of the people I interviewed last year. Here is Amou's story:

Last year, I interviewed Amou as she was surrounded by her six children. Two of her children, infant twins, did not look strong enough to survive. Amou described to me the atrocities she had survived—her husband was killed in Darfur, and she had to lead her children here to the camp, where they did not have shelter, or enough food or water.

Twelve months later, I ran into Amou again during my first walk around the camp. At first, she was shy to talk to me, but her face lit up as soon as I asked her about her children. She was amazed I remembered she had six. I was surprised and thrilled to find out all of her children were still alive. The resilience of the people in the camp, who found enough food, water and shelter to sustain Amou's family, had ensured the survival of these children through the harshest of conditions.

The people in the camp witnessed nearby floods that ruined crops; they received very little aid and an influx of new residents. They are still surviving. I told Amou that I had been showing the picture of her and her children back in Canada, and was explaining to people what I had seen in the camp. She asked me what I planned to do this year.

What do we plan to do this year? This is where you can help me, Stand supporters! What will Stand tell Amou and her children next year?

Never Again....Again

2009-01-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

Stand'er Josh Scheinert has an opinion piece in the Canadian Jewish News that is a must-read. The Stand blog has it in all its glory. Thanks, Josh, for spreading the word!

--

The history of genocide is a Jewish one in every sense of the word. The Holocaust was a seminal event in modern history that made the world confront its horror.

Less known, however, is the story of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer and anti-genocide crusader. The term genocide never existed until it was coined by Lemkin, who managed to escape the Holocaust to America. He created the word by combining geno, the Greek word for race, and cide, the Latin word for killing. His efforts led to the 1948 Genocide Convention, making the act of genocide illegal, everywhere.

Lemkin's crusade was an effort to make sure that the Holocaust was the last genocide. To use Elie Weisel's phrase, it was, "So that my past does not have to be someone's future."

Oh, how we have failed them.

Genocide is the world's problem. No nation or people can turn away from it. But more so than for anyone else, genocide is a problem for Jews.

We bear the unfortunate burden of being the reason for the vow "Never again." With that burden comes a responsibility that we will never, like it or not, be able to shake. If there is genocide in the world, Jewish communities everywhere must be up in arms, working tirelessly to do what very few were willing to do for us.

Our track record so far is less than laudable. We failed in Cambodia, and two million people died. In Srebenica, we failed as 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were murdered in a United Nations safe zone. The death of 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis was another mark of shame upon our vow.

What would Lemkin say? What would our relatives, looking down on us, say?

Yes, you can say that Jews aren't the only ones who failed, and that would be true. But politics cannot factor into our excuses and cloud our morality. We've been cast in our role more firmly than others – not only is it moral, it's personal.

Jan. 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Jews and non-Jews around the world are supposed to gather and remember. We will recall how the world stood idly by as our parents and grandparents were gassed. In the end, we will have a moment of silence and vow the hypocritical vow, "Never again."

Just a few days later, in February, the world will mark the start of the sixth year of genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, making it, in length, a longer genocide than the Holocaust. And "Never again" will cement its transition to "Ever again."

How much longer does Darfur have to suffer before we get the electric shock needed to jolt us into action? I wrote a piece in this paper three years ago on this very subject. In an attempt to highlight the need for Jewish leadership on Darfur, I recalled the verse in Isaiah that says Jews must be a light unto the nations.

Lemkin helped brighten that light. We have played a role in extinguishing it.

Darfur's genocide has been happening for longer than the Holocaust – let me say it again: longer than the Holocaust – and it's been going on right before our eyes. The region is filled with harrowing tales of mass murder, rape and destruction that have targeted three ethnic groups – the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. The number of victims is still growing.

Where are our rabbis crying out from our bimot? Why are our community federations, schools and agencies not sounding the alarm bells, organizing and rallying? Until our reaction stops being one of business as usual, with an occasional mention in a sermon or at a fundraising table, we will continue to fail as a community.

I don't want to be completely negative. I know we care and that there have been a few initiatives for Darfur that originated in our community.

Yet, until it can be asserted that efforts from Canada's Jews have translated into measurable improvement in the lives of Darfuris and helped accelerate and boost the inadequate efforts by our government to end the genocide, we have not done enough. Taking minimal action to placate our collective guilt as a community of genocide survivors is of no comfort to those in Darfur who are praying that they, too, will be a genocide survivor instead of a statistic.

There is a lot we can do, and I could list those things here. But first, before we even get to that stage, we have to want to do something. In six years of Darfur's genocide, we have not shown that we do.

In the Majdanek concentration camp there is a giant dome. Underneath it, in plain sight, are the ashes of tens of thousands of Jews. On top of the dome, there is an inscription that reads: "Let our fate be a warning to you."

For the past six years, we have squandered their warning. Oh, how we have failed them.

Josh Scheinert is a student at Osgoode Hall Law School and a past advocacy director of STAND Canada (Students Taking Action Now Darfur). To learn how you can help Darfur, visit www.standcanada.org, www.sdcanada.org and www.savedarfur.org.

The New Rice

2009-01-14T20:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some Susan Rice quotes to get us all excited about Obama's inauguration, courtesy of the Save Darfur Coalition. (Susan Rice is the incoming US Ambassador to the United Nations)

“The Bush administration has remonstrated for five years about the genocide in Darfur. Yet we have imposed only the mildest of sanctions, and we have given only lip service to standing up a [joint] African Union-United Nations force. The imperative has to be to pressure the regime to stop the killing, and to allow the A.U.-U.N. force to deploy effectively.”

[National Journal, July 12, 2008]

“There are only two ways to end a genocide: to apply powerful enough pressures or inducements to persuade the perpetrators of genocide to stop; or to protect those who are the potential victims of genocide. A negotiated solution would do neither, though it is necessary, ultimately, to resolve the underlying conflict.”

[Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 11, 2007]

“How can the administration explain to the dead, the nearly dead and the soon to be dead people of Darfur that, at the end of the day – even when we declare that genocide is occurring, even when we insist repeatedly that we are committed to stopping it – the United States has stood by for so long while the killing has persisted.”

[Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, February 8, 2007]

Memories of all-nighters and William Zartman...

2009-01-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

Stand Director of Operations and all-around smart guy Yoni Levitan recently commented on one of my posts, saying that in his mind the situation in Darfur is just about "ripe" for resolution. If he had known how long I stayed up researching that concept for my thesis in senior year, he may have chosen different words. Ahhhh, coffee gut, sleepless nights, five minute dance breaks, how I miss it all!

Anyways, the point is that this guy I. William Zartman basically began the academic study of civil wars by suggesting that they only end when the time is "ripe for resolution." A civil war is considered ripe for resolution when both sides find themselves in a "mutually hurting stalemate": i.e. no one has the upper-hand, both sides feel that they have little to gain from continued violence, and both sides will continue to take losses if the situation remains the same. Since Zartman first suggested the idea, there have been lots of additions and elaborations to the theory, but it's still the same basic idea: international pressure to end a civil war will be most effective when the timing is right. Often the timing is right after some big event or change happens that makes both parties realize the pain and loss of continued fighting.

Other factors that affect the timing and effectiveness of a resolution would be:

- the role of outside actors
- the presence of spoilers (parties with nothing to gain and everything to lose from peace, e.g. warlords who gain power and money during war by hoarding valuable resources such as coltan or diamonds but would lose it all if peace allowed the government to establish legitimate trade avenues and businesses)
- the cohesion and unity of the negotiating parties.

I agree with Yoni in many ways. I believe the time is ripe for resolution right now for a number of reasons many of which he points out.

1. The government has recently realized that it can be painful to continue fighting, both because of the attack on the capital by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement last May and because of the possible arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. In the beginning of November, President Bashir of Sudan declared a unilateral ceasefire and began offering some concessions to the rebel groups, a step in the right direction.

2. The impending arrival of the Obama Administration with Senator Clinton as Secretary of State and Susan Rice as top UN diplomat signals a new era in American foreign policy, including pledges of multilateralism and action against genocide. It's not clear how this team will react yet to the situation in Sudan, but it clearly presents an opportunity for a new approach.

3. There seems to be a concerted effort by both African and Arab leaders to convince President Bashir of the benefits of peace. This has not always been the case (especially on the part of Egypt) so it is welcome news. In particular, people are talking about the Qatari initiative, which seems to hold some very good ideas.

4. Oil prices are down, exposing the government to economic realities a bit more. China also seems to be taking less interest in protecting Sudan recently, possibly because of their own economic worries.

The key challenges?

1. Getting the rebels together. There are still numerous different groups in slight competition with each other, leaving no real negotiating partner. The Justice and Equality Movement and Sudanese Liberation Army led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur are the two major groups, but there are tons of other little ones. Many of them feel like their position can only get better from here so are not super-eager to negotiate, partly because of international criticism of the government. The key is to make sure that the most important ones who are capable of disrupting any peace process are included while the trouble-makers are ostracized.

2. Implementing and monitoring any agreements, including disarming Janjawiid and other militias. There are so many disparate and rogue elements within the region of Darfur now that it is hard to say who really has enough control there to implement agreements or take steps towards peace.

3. Making sure that the camps for internally displaced people do not ignite fresh violence. Generally speaking, people in these camps have no interest in peace with the Government after so many years of abuse and must see some sort of benefit to negotiations in order to support them.

4. Making sure that the North-South peace agreement continues to be implemented and does not fall apart.

There are probably many more factors that I can't pull into my head right now, but those are some ideas to stew on for now. If now really is a "ripe" time for resolution, then it is the perfect time for Canada to step up its diplomatic role. Especially with the international coalition that seems to be forming around the Qatari initiative. With some serious pressure, Canada and the US could help the situation become even more ripe and push both sides towards peace. They could also help monitor any agreements that are made to build confidence on both sides.

And if you have managed to read through this tome of a post, then you might as well leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Reading Up

2009-01-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

Ruth Gonzales, a reader of this blog, recently contacted me with a great idea about recommended books for people interested in learning more Darfur, Rwanda, and the history of genocide. She also very generously sent a list of recommended books to me, which I have been hoping to compile for some time but of course never got around to. So keep an eye out on the recommended reading list in the sidebar as I add many new books to check out. And big shout out to Ruth for all the work and energy on this!

Of the books on there, many of them I personally have not yet read. I have mentioned Not on Our Watch before, the quintessential advocate's guide to Darfur complete with suggestions, tools, and calls to action. For the avid scholar, anything by Alex de Waal is recommended. He is THE recognized expert on Darfur and Sudan, although he raises some interesting questions about the advocacy movement, particularly celebrity activism. For a history of genocides, Samantha Power's A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide is a must-read, although personally sometimes the style of writing is too journalistic for me - ie. policy-makers are damned if they do, damned it they don't. However, it is definitely the best compiled history of genocides I have encountered yet.

In terms of gut-wrenching, emotive writing, I would point to either Dallaire or Philip Gourevitch's accounts of Rwanda. The Philip Gourevitch book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, sparked my interest in human rights and preventing mass atrocities. It is really well-written, mixing anecdotes, interviews, and well-researched histories of the conflict and country. Highly recommended.

I would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on recommended reading. Please send me an email with suggestions and ideas. And thanks to Ruth once again!

UPDATE: Check out the Comments section for some more good recommendations!

Oh Sudan, Sudan, Sudan...

2009-01-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

The more I read about Sudan, the more there is to read about Sudan. How can one country be so complicated?

I have recently been given the privilege of reading a briefing paper about one expert's opinions about the future of Sudan. Unfortunately, I am still awaiting the word as to whether I am allowed to say who or what this paper was, but I thought that in the meantime I would transmit some of its extremely illuminating and troubling details.

The Premise: How to prevent the entire country of Sudan from erupting into a huge war when the South votes for independence in the referendum scheduled for 2011?

For those who don't know, the peace treaty between the North and South signed in 2005 between President al-Bashir and Southern hero John Garang guaranteed a referendum on the status of the South to be held in 2011. The thinking was that this time could be used to convince the political elites from the North and the South of the benefits of working together, so they could subsequently either come up with a new agreement or convince the Southern people that a unified Sudan is not that bad. Unfortunately, with the violence in Darfur, the ICC indictment, and the unfortunate death of John Garang, the elites have been more than a little distracted.

If the vote were held today, the vast majority of Southerners would vote to secede from Sudan, a situation that is unlikely to change in the next two years. The North would not be too happy about this because of oil and the effect that would have on the rest of the country. Similarly, the South Sudan Government is not known as the most well-functioning government around and could quite possibly turn into a fragile or failed state itself.

Basically, the possibilities for violence in the case of a secession by the South are all-too-likely, even as it appears that this situation is an eventuality. So how do we prevent a possible future humanitarian crisis even while trying to solve the one that is happening right now?

The writer of the briefing paper has a few ideas to this end, but none of them are simple. Along the basic things that need to happen to prevent catastrophic war in 2011 are:

1) Ending the violence in Darfur.
2) More implementation of the parts of the Comprehensive Peace Treaty that have still not been implemented.
3) An agreement between political elites in the North and the South about how to proceed with the referendum. Postponing it could lose the Southern leaders their legitimacy; holding it could lose the Northerners a large chunk of their country.
4) Coming up with a contingency plan for how to deal with the possibility of a vote for secession.

Is that all? That should be easy in a country that has had a total of 13 years peace since 1956.

I hope you are all up for challenges...

Along the Border

2009-01-05T07:50:00.000-08:00

There is an article in a recent New Yorker that gives a really good anecdotal account of life in the refugee camps in Chad. It's a long read but full of first hand accounts, historical narratives, and in-depth commentary on the situation along the border between Sudan and Chad. It begins with this juicy line...

"Everything is fine, until the moment when it is not. And when that moment comes it can be very quick and very bad."

It continues to talk about the aid workers who enter such situations and what they encounter upon arrival. This story comes from 2003, the outbreak of violence in Darfur:

"In mid-afternoon, [the UNHCR worker] arrived in Adré, a town of ten thousand inhabitants directly across the border with Darfur. Travelling along the border, he saw hundreds of people encamped in makeshift shelters of reeds and straw, with rags and tattered blankets suspended overhead on sticks. Under the midday sun, the temperature could soar to a hundred and ten degrees. Dry winds and sand storms parched the terrain and sucked moisture from anything animate. Women and children dug deep into the sand of the dry riverbeds to find water and foraged miles into the countryside collecting wood to sell at the markets. As Sturm and his team continued along the border, the hundreds became thousands. About seventy-five per cent were women and children, hollow-eyed and lank-skinned from hunger and despair and fatigue. Interviews conducted later by Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders told of families being burned alive in their homes, and of men who had been forced to watch, in the moments before their own deaths, as their wives and daughters were raped. Some refugees had been there for months, and more came every day. Every so often, they saw in the distance a column of black smoke rising from another burning village. In the month before Sturm’s arrival, thirty thousand new refugees had crossed into Chad. The total number gathered along the four-hundred-mile border with Darfur, by rough estimates, came to seventy-seven thousand."

Darfur Digest - January 2009

2009-01-04T16:08:00.000-08:00

I. Executive Summary

Canadian Politics and Darfur: With the prorogation of parliament until January 26, there have been no new developments on Canadian politics and Darfur this month. This month‟s section will therefore take the opportunity to examine the past year‟s key developments in Canadian politics regarding the crisis in Darfur.

Security in Darfur: The situation in Darfur remained unstable in December despite renewed
efforts at peace negotiations. The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping
Operations warned that violence has not decreased since the deployment of the joint United
Nations-African Union peacekeeping force one year ago. The camps for internally displaced
persons continued to be a source of violence and tension in the region and there have been
reports of the use of child soldiers by almost all groups involved in fighting. Clashes occurred
throughout the region, with police officers being killed and the reported assassination of a rebel
group leader. Sexual slavery and forced labour was the focus of a report released this month that
said thousands of people were affected.

Negotiations and Engagement in Darfur: More UNAMID troop contributions were deployed to the Darfur region by Gambia, Ethiopia and Uganda. Ban Ki-Moon asserted that a mission should be deployed in Chad to deal with the overflow of the conflict from the Darfur region. Susan Rice was appointed as the UN Ambassador for the United States and is expected to bring positive change to the Darfur issue. Chief ICC Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo continues to push for the indictment of President al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and genocide. The peace process is once again put on hold with the SLM‟s rejection of Qatar as a mediator.

The Humanitarian Situation in Darfur: As 2008 ended, refugees were killed and injured in several IDP camps, while six aid workers were abducted and beaten. Sudanese officials are
interfering with non-governmental organizations who they accuse of spying for the ICC,
according to several UN reports. An activist group also launched accusations at Khartoum for
abducting Darfur civilians during raids and forcing them into sex work for soldiers. Significant
amounts of money were donated to fund humanitarian work in Darfur through charities and the
European Commission.

II. Policy Recommendations

1. Build on Canada's recent commitments to Darfur by appointing a Special Envoy to the region.
A Special Envoy could strengthen Canadian policymaking on Darfur in three key ways: 1)
providing the world with a public face for Canada's efforts on Darfur, 2) providing a presence on
the ground in Sudan, and 3) coordinating an integrated “all of Sudan” approach to Canadian
peacebuilding. Specifically, a Special Envoy could play a key role in assisting efforts of the
Darfuri rebel groups to form a unified and coherent bargaining position, a critical success factor
for renewed negotiations.

2. The Canadian government should pursue targeted divestment from Sudan conditioned on the
Sudanese government's cessation of atrocities in Darfur and active engagement in the peace
process.

3. Canada‟s mission to the UN should engage more actively in multilateral diplomacy at the UN
to bring renewed prominence to the Darfur issue internationally and rally greater international
support for conflict resolution efforts.

Guest Post - Comments Needed

2008-12-25T00:12:00.000-08:00

Here is a guest post from an anonymous Stand'er seeking feedback:

Recently, I've been asked to share my thoughts on Darfur as it stands today. That deadline has sharpened in my mind some of the questions I have on region right now. Obviously, situations change, and the Darfur we see today is not the same as that of four or five years ago.

Darfur has evolved to become far more complex than its original two- or three-sided conflict (the Government vs. one or two major rebel groups). I am also aware that rebel groups are guilty of adding to the chaos, having recruited child soldiers and engaged in acts of violence themselves (to what degree is an underreported issue). So, one question is, who much power does Sudan actually have to stop the violence? If the GoS suddenly wanted to bring peace to Darfur (and to its strained relations with South Sudan), would they be able to?

Given the painfully sluggish attempt to get 26,000 peacekeepers on the ground (I think we've reached about 50% of that goal), I am unclear on how much of this is Sudan's fault, and how much is the fault of UN Member States. Certainly, the GoS has in the past shown a lot of intransigence, and back-and-forth on UNAMID--rejecting contributions by certain nations, and flip-flopping whether or not to accept UNAMID or componenets thereof. Where my knowledge lags is in Sudan's actions of late--has the threat of ICC arrests made her more cooperative, or is this same-old, same-old? A final question is this: is targeted divestment still the right way to go with Sudan? Is it possible that it's no longer the correct remedy for the problem?

Knowing who holds the most influence in Sudan should directly affect where we focus our activist energies. I have my own hunches on all this, but what better place than the Stand blog to ask my peers for some research help!

We're in the thick of the holidays, but any links or responses you can give would help--short or long.

--

Here are a couple links to get us started:

http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/darfur/2008/12/22/protecting-darfurian-civilians-the-icc-and-the-ncp/
http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article227.html

Both place continued blame strongly on Khartoum. From the former, here is an interesting side note: "Since July this year the Government and specially the National Congress Party priority has sharply changed. The issue of the ICC Chief Prosecutor's endeavour to indict President Omer al Bashir has become the only agenda in their calendar....[the GoS] has changed their instinct for common survival into individual concern for self-preservation. Every single one of them is looking back to see whether he has any link with the violations committed in the Darfur conflict and what responsibility he may have which could take him to The Hague. Some of the NCP leaders are even contemplating handing over President Bashir to save the Islamic movement. This movement recently elected Mr Ali Osman Taha to become its Secretary General, the post which used to be occupied by Dr Hassan al Turabi before the 1999 split."

End Slavery in Darfur

2008-12-21T11:04:00.001-08:00

This just in from Stand'ers Scott Fenwick and Joel Stephanson - Thousands Made Slaves in Darfur. During the North-South war, Sudan became famous for the slave trade. Armed by the government as proxy militias, Arab tribes on the border with the South would raid Southern villages and kidnap children to sell as slaves in the north. The justification for this practice in many ways was based on ethnicity...in fact, many in the "Arabized" north refer to the more "African" southerners as "abeed," which means slave in Arabic. Because the southerners were viewed as an inferior race, the practice of slavery was accepted all too often.

This BBC article points out that the slave trade is still alive in Darfur, even among government soldiers who kidnap young boys and girls as slaves. I don't know whether there is still the same "rascist" element to it, but it would not surprise me considering the government-sponsored militias and government troops see themselves as more "Arab" and thus superior to ethnic groups like the Fur. (just to remind people, almost everyone in Darfur is a muslim).

Unfortunately, in civil war scenarios like Darfur, it is extremely difficult to combat something like this. Joel Stephanson has recommended checking out the Darfur Consortium, a group of Africa-based and Africa-focused NGOs working to bring peace and justice to Darfur. Otherwise, we need to continue working to bring attention to ongoing human rights abuses like this and demand action from our leaders. If anyone has any other ideas on how to take action to prevent slavery in Sudan, please sound off in the comments section.

And thanks to Joel and Scott for bringing this issue to our attention!

The Problem with the Camps

2008-12-21T09:49:00.000-08:00

Here at Stand-Canada, we've been talking for quite some time about the dangers and difficulties associated with the camps for Internally Displaced Persons and refugees in and around Darfur. Today, the New York Times has a really good article illustrating some of the problems associated with the camps, particularly the upending of traditional authority structures and the empowerment of radical elements. It focuses in particular on the rise of angry youths in the camp who are rabidly anti-government:

“You cannot call them a unified group with one political ideology, but they are all angry...That is the factor unifying them.”

This article touches on a couple really good points that I'd like to stress here:

1) the situation in the camps drastically complicates the rebel groups' ability to negotiate. We've already seen that with exiled rebel leader Abdul Wahid al-Nur who frequently takes an extremely hard-lined position in order to consolidate his support among radical elements in the camps. This article suggests that the inhabitants of the camps are so anti-government that any rebel group seen to negotiate would immediately lose legitimacy in their eyes and possibly even put people of their similar ethnicity in danger of reprisals (rebel groups tend to line-up with ethnicity in Darfur).

2) The article briefly touches on something that jumped out at me from this article. Does anyone else see the resemblance in this scenario of situations in Afghanistan, Somalia, or Lebanon? Basically, in a lawless environment, people turn to radical elements that are able to provide meaning and bestow some semblance of order in an unstable world. The Taliban did this in Afghanistan following the country's many civil wars in the '90s. The Shabab, or Islamic Youth, in Somalia are also seen as the only real possibility for order in the country, despite their brutal tactics. The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are still sources of trouble in that country as well.

Basically, this is a worrying scenario. The government doesn't know how to deal with it (and is probably unable to deal with it actually). These youth are angry, frustrated, and disillusioned with both the international community and the rebel groups. And, something that the article does not touch on is the fact that they all have guns - I recently spoke with someone who returned from the camps and was just floored by the sheer number of guns available. These "mobilized" youth could become a source of violence and trouble for a long-time to come in the country.

I don't really know that there is any easy way to deal with this situation, other than try to stem the number of weapons entering the camps, provide some sort of opportunity for the youth, and work to end the war. I'd love to hear more thoughts, but this situation is definitely something to look out for...

Voices of Victims

2008-12-15T17:33:00.000-08:00

For all you Winnipeggers out there...

Tutsi genocide survivor and human rights activist speaks at the Berney Theater, Asper Jewish Community Campus

December 9, 2008 (WINNPEG) The Jewish Students’ Association/Hillel in partnership with the East Indian Students’ Association, The African Students’ Association, Walk4Darfur and STAND are proud to present Eloge Christian Butera on January 8th, 2009 at 7pm at the Berney Theatre inside the Asper Jewish Community Campus.

Butera will be speaking about his experience as a survivor of the 1994 Tutsi genocide and the need to prevent genocides and other human rights violations.

Butera is currently a second year law student at McGill University and previously studied religions and psychology at the University of Manitoba, where he was actively involved in various human rights awareness and advocacy initiatives. He has spoken to dozens of audiences across Canada about his experience.

Winnipeg composer Zane Zalis, along with his talented musical troupe Prodigy, will also perform excerpts from I Believe, which will premiere on May 21, 2009. I Believe documents the Holocaust experience as seen and lived by those directly involved -- the perpetrators, the victims, the observers and, in a plea for informed hope and peace, ourselves.

Tickets are $5.00 and can be purchased at any of the following locations:
∑ Answers – University of Manitoba at University Centre
∑ Info-booth – University of Winnipeg
∑ Jewish Federation of Winnipeg – C300-123 Doncaster Street

A portion of all ticket sales will be donated on behalf of the partners, organizations and students to Tubahumarize, a women’s collective based in Kigali, Rwanda. The organization was founded by Butera’s mother, Jeanne Mwiliriza, to provide trauma counseling and support to widows and orphans of the genocide. Since then, the collective has grown to help hundreds of women and children escape domestic violence.

One Year Later

2008-12-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

The New York Times recently had this important editorial on Darfur. It's good to see that there is still some attention out there for Darfur, an issue that it seems many people have started to give up on. It starts with this:

"In January, President Bush said this about Darfur: “My administration called this genocide. Once you label it genocide, you obviously have to do something about it.”

Yet, last week — nearly one year later — this is what the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, told the United Nations Security Council about Darfur: “Genocide continues. Rapes in and around the camps continue. Humanitarian assistance is still hindered. More than 5,000 displaced persons die each month.” How can this still be?

One of the most interesting parts of this article to me was that the author seemed to be celebrating the role of the International Criminal Court and Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for finally putting some real pressure on the government in Sudan. While the killing has not stopped, the government of Sudan has taken a few superficial steps towards peace, such as calling a ceasefire and pledging to prosecute war criminals. Although these steps at the moment seem to be merely aimed at saving face rather than genuinely working towards peace, it is precisely these sorts of moves that Canada, the US, and other nations should pick up on and build off of. Even a superficial step can turn into reality if there were other nations holding the government accountable to the pledges it makes and the words it speaks in this time period. So I tend to agree with the author of this article - Moreno-Ocampo has generated some real pressure....now it's just time for some one else to pick up on the "ripe moment" he has helped create.

Susan Rice for a Change of US Policy?

2008-12-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

While the Canadian government is in shambles, Stand'er Ben Fine recently sent me this article about US President-elect Obama's new choice for UN Ambassador. Like Clinton, it is expected that Obama will make this position a Cabinet-level position, critical to making foreign policy decisions.

This could very seriously represent a change of US policy when it comes to Darfur or response to genocide. As the VOA article mentions, Rice gained some notoriety when she called upon the US to use force against the Sudanese government to end the crisis in Darfur. Here is an op-ed she wrote in the Washington Post outlining her policy recommendations. The basic outline of her argument is that the US should not be afraid to bomb Sudanese military targets or blockade Sudan from oil exports in order to enforce compliance with UN resolutions.

Clearly, this is a very controversial stance and built upon the US actions against Serb targets in the late 1990s in response to Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Would force end up making the situation worse? Could it empower an even more radical elite within the National Congress Party (NCP) that currently rules Sudan? Could it unravel the fragile north-south peace treaty and plunge the country back into a larger civil war, even as (supposedly) the possibility of elections approaches for next year? Would it make the UN peacekeepers currently deployed sitting ducks for government retaliation? In that case, there could be a very serious escalation in which US ground troops would have to get involved eventually. And with military interventions, it is almost inevitable that some civilians will be killed...

On the other hand, I would welcome an Obama presidency that made it clear from the outset what sort of actions it would accept and wouldn't accept, while at the same time ensuring that the US complies with international law to maintain its own moral legitimacy. The Bush Administration, despite forceful action to bring about the end of the North-South civil war, has had its hands tied on Darfur, partly because of Iraq, the war on terror, and the loss of legitimacy due to Gunatanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. I think Obama might have a little more leeway because of the street cred he already seems to have in the rest of the world.

So basically, it would be great to see Susan Rice and Obama outline a strategy from day one that is both consistent and coherent. There will be much more international support for the use of force in Sudan if it is clear that other steps have been taken and the Sudanese Government has clearly violated resolutions or agreements. I also believe that other countries would jump behind the US if they seriously took the lead on pushing for peace negotiations.

At the very least, I think we can be fairly confident that Rice will keep the issue of Darfur on the agenda, as well as other possible scenarios of genocide, considering her research interest in failed states and responsibility to protect.

If only we had some similar hope in Canada right now...

Darfur Digest - December

2008-12-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

Stand’s Darfur Digest is a monthly report which contains analysis on current events relevant to the crisis in Darfur and offers a unique Canadian perspective. It chronicles developments in four areas: Canadian politics, the security situation, negotiations and engagement, and humanitarian affairs.

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

I. Executive Summary

Canadian Politics and Darfur: Newly-appointed Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon issued a statement supporting the Government of Sudan’s announcement of a unilateral ceasefire in Darfur. There was no mention of Darfur in the Speech from the Throne. Defence Minister Peter MacKay hinted that Canadian troops could still play a role in Afghanistan after the 2011 end-date for the mission, but if not, Canadian Forces could be called to participate elsewhere in the world.

Security in Darfur: The security situation in Darfur came under international attention in November as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced a ceasefire in the region. Despite this, days after the ceasefire announcement there were reports of bombings and UNAMID peacekeepers being attacked. The Indonesian Formed Police Unit (FPU) conducted its first confidence building mission to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Northern Darfur.

Negotiations and Engagement in Darfur: The ICC Prosecutor presented evidence against three rebel commanders for their role in the September 2007 attack against peacekeepers in Darfur. The Arab League and the African Union called on the UN Security Council to suspend the July 2008 ICC charges against al-Bashir. However, the Bush administration has stated that it will veto the effort. In mid-November the Sudanese government called for a ceasefire. This ceasefire, however, was short lived as rebel groups accused the government of attacking an area in northern Darfur. One of the rebel groups (JEM) demanded direct talks with Khartoum and said it would not go to a planned peace conference in Qatar if it involved a large number of Darfur's fractured insurgent movements.

The Humanitarian Situation in Darfur: The United Nations launched the 2009 Work Plan for Sudan in November, valued at $2.2 billion, but a global recession could make it hard to attract the necessary money. On the ground, aid workers fear that Darfur IDP camps will breed long-term dangers, as frustration mounts among the civilian population and violence hampers humanitarian work. A recent UN investigation uncovered that Sudanese officials are working with Chadian rebel forces against the aid community. Meanwhile, dry roads means more access for aid vehicles to reach isolated populations, while the UN relief chief visited Darfur at the end of November.

II. Policy Recommendations

1. Build on Canada's recent commitments to Darfur by appointing a Special Envoy to the region. A Special Envoy could strengthen Canadian policymaking on Darfur in three key ways: 1) providing the world with a public face for Canada's efforts on Darfur, 2) providing a presence on the ground in Sudan, and 3) coordinating an integrated “all of Sudan” approach to Canadian peacebuilding. Specifically, a Special Envoy could play a key role in assisting efforts of the Darfuri rebel groups to form a unified and coherent bargaining position, a critical success factor for renewed negotiations.

2. The Canadian government should pursue targeted divestment from Sudan conditioned on the Sudanese government's cessation of atrocities in Darfur and active engagement in the peace process.

3. Canada’s mission to the UN should engage more actively in multilateral diplomacy at the UN to bring renewed prominence to the Darfur issue internationally and rally greater international support for conflict resolution efforts.

Please forward this to other people interested in making a difference for the people in Darfur.

To receive a copy of the Digest, feel free to send me an email at itemple@standcanada.org

6 Signs of a Good Activism Organization

2008-12-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a little while since I posted anything, so I thought I would give a rundown of the Six practices of great non-profits that was discussed at a recent meeting I attended. I believe the list initially comes from Not on Our Watch, the book by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast (though it may have changed slightly as it was passed down the line).

1. A comprehensive range of activities, from working with governments to working in the field to advocacy. Advocacy tends to be improved by in depth knowledge of the situation in the field, while humanitarian activities can be well-supplemented by working with governments to find solutions to the problems a non-profit may be addressing.

2. Harness market forces and partner with businesses.

3. Turn individuals into evangelists.

4. Build and utilize non-profit networks and alliances.

5. Adapt to changing circumstances.

6. Share leadership.

Stand performs a couple of these functions uniquely well. A couple of them don't really apply to us. And some of them I believe we could probably improve on. Stand does not have too much difficulty turning individuals into committed advocates. The national conference last year was a great example of how the organization tries to share leadership (though I believe that internal communication is still something that can be worked on to give everyone more of a sense of what people are doing). We are also fairly good at adapting to changing circumstances, which has been proven by some Stand'ers' willingness to take up the cause of civilians suffering in the Democratic Republic of Congo right now.

On the other side of the coin, we are not uniquely situated to provide humanitarian aid (clearly), although perhaps there is room to make partnerships with groups that do. And although we have some good connections with other groups in the Save Darfur movement, I think there is probably room to establish more connections with groups within Sudan itself, or around the world. Unfortunately, I don't really know about whether we have partnered with business, although the divestment campaign has been a success on this front. Anyone else care to comment?

I know it is not traditional to put an organization's internal discussions in a public forum, but Stand has always been an inclusive and interactive organization and we'd love to hear your opinions. Meanwhile, I leave you with six ways you can be an activist on your own.

1. Raise Awareness
2. Raise funds
3. Write a Letter
4. Call for Divestment
5. Join an organization
6. Lobby the government (through personal meetings/calls to your representatives)

The Problems of Peacekeepers

2008-11-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

To pick up on an interesting discussion that was happening earlier on this blog, I'd like to point out an interview with Alan Doss, the head of MONUC, the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in TIME Magazine. Here are some excerpts:

What implications does the success or failure of MONUC have for other peacekeeping operations?
Every case is different. Darfur is very different. Every time a U.N. peacekeeping force deploys, it raises lots of questions. But yes, there are issues raised by our experience that will have a long-term effect. There is a very fine line between peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Our mission was equipped for peacekeeping. And as one of my officers says, you don't go to war in blue helmets and white tanks. When we shift from a monitoring group to one that takes on military elements, we have to change the way we operate...But I think that one should not forget that there have been a lot of achievements. Three to four years ago, the country was dividing into three parts. That was overcome. Most of the country now has peace. This is a country that is literally back from the dead. There is progress...

One important point to take from this statement is the fact that peacekeeping has to be adapted to every scenario. There are distinctions to be made between peacekeeping - the monitoring of a peace agreement; peace enforcement - the enforcing of a peace agreement through force; and peace making - the imposition of peace through the use of force. It is generally agreed that the UN is only capable of peacekeeping because of its lack of resources, confused command structure, inability to make quick decisions, and other challenges. Peacekeeping, however, in its traditional form is meant to be a symbolic protection force more than anything else - a way to overcome the security dilemma whereby neither side will disarm for fear that the other side will not disarm. They deployed to countries that have recently had a peace agreement and allow the rival factions to disarm without losing face while also holding them to their agreements. A more recent version of traditional peacekeepers, like those in Congo or Darfur, are able to use violence to protect civilians or themselves but are still not meant to be actual "peace enforcers". The fact that peacekeeping works in certain scenarios is evident in the progress that has been made in other parts of the Congo.

But what happens when a peace agreement doesn't hold and complex violence breaks out as in Darfur or Congo? There is still no real agreement on what is to be done when the situation is not amenable to peacekeeping. The peacekeepers surely can't start attacking government troops who are committing atrocities because they will be attacked or kicked out of the country. Furthermore, as we've all heard in both Darfur and Congo, they don't have enough troops or resources to effectively "wage war" against violent elements that may be targeting or attacking civilians.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to make peacekeepers better. When it comes down to it, people need to start discussing the practicalities of these scenarios. How do you adapt different mandates to different environments? Is peace enforcement by the UN possible or even desirable? What is clear is that peacekeepers on their own are not able to be the "solution" to a civil war, whether in Darfur or Congo.

I'll end this post with Mr. Doss's quote about R2P, which I think supports this discussion nicely.

The Responsibility to Protect [or R2P, a concept of humanitarian intervention] was only adopted by the U.N. in 2005. How much is MONUC feeling its way here? Is MONUC an experiment?
R2P is a huge step forward ... But the question remains: How do we actually do it? We have come up against the sharp end of R2P. We can claim that responsibility, but actually doing that in North Kivu, with a collapsing army, a resurgence of ethnic groups — well, that raises fundamental questions. When we make these statements, we have to be careful that we have the means to match our mandate.

Hand in Hand for Peace

2008-11-19T13:43:00.000-08:00

Here's an encouraging new initiative just sent to me by an enterprising Stand'er:

Please take a moment to join this effort to ask the Canadian government to take action in Congo. If you don't know what is going on and want to learn more go here:r http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7724088.stm or search news sites. This petition was designed by a great group called Hand in Hand for Peace and what they are asking from our government is reasonable and necessary to stop the current crisis. It only takes a minute to add your name to the list and tell your friends and family about this!

http://www.petition.fm/petitions/25/1000/

Once again, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one that we at Stand are clearly interested in. Over 5 million deaths in the past 10 years. People are still dying at the rate of....wait for it....45,000 a month (mostly from disease and malnutrition)! (according to a study by the International Rescue Committee). While it's important to remember that some parts of the country have made great strides, including a landmark election a few years ago, the situation in the eastern province of North Kivu is a disaster and threatens to pull surrounding nations into a large conflict.

I, for one, strongly encourage advocacy on this issue. Even a little bit of attention is a big step for one of the most under-reported places on the planet.

Nevermind

2008-11-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

Reports are already coming in of government attacks following the ceasefire. Now is the time when international outrage should be loudest.

What does it all mean?

2008-11-13T16:10:00.001-08:00

The comments below do not reflect the official position of Stand, but are intended to start a discussion:

While governments, groups and individuals are issuing statements left, right and center about the announcement of a ceasefire by the Government of Sudan, it is sometimes difficult for us concerned to really have any idea what it means. Let's try to look at this move with a little perspective.

First off, the number of ceasefires that the government of Sudan has violated in the past is uncomfortably large. No one is denying this. A ceasefire is very tentative measure that can be overturned on a dime, and is often no more than an excuse to regroup, rearm, and redeploy. As Alex de Waal points out, the Government and government-supported militias have undoubtedly broken more ceasefires than the rebels over the past year. So you can't blame the rebels for being skeptical.

There are reasons to be positive about this effort, however. Partly, because there has been no real peace process for a year or so now, and partly because the ceasefire comes after a "peace conference" with no rebels but a few opposition voices, including the Southern SPLM and the Umma Party. In fact, the recommendations of the conference offer some really interesting criticisms of the government, including calling on them to release Darfuris who may be arbitrarily detained, establish a fund to help internally displaced persons and refugees return home safely (and voluntarily!), and create a new Vice-President position in the government for someone from Darfur. Those are some solid, good ideas that, if truthful, could lead to good negotiations.

Finally, from our point of view, I'm glad the UN and Canadian Government are issuing statements of encouragement, but seriously, is that all that's going to happen? If this ceasefire is really to be turned into an opportunity, a few things need to happen on our end.

1. UN mediators (or a Canadian Envoy....hint hint...) need to sit down with the rebels and discover what sort of monitoring methods would convince them of the government's commitment to this initiative, and then set up those mechanisms. It is not implausible to me that the Canadian government would set up some sort of benchmarks that the government of Sudan would need to meet step-by-step to prove their commitment. The US did precisely that during the negotiations for the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement, responding to the attainment of a benchmark with rewards and the failure with punishment. Such benchmarks could include allowing UN troops access to places they have otherwise had trouble monitoring, disarming the Janjaweed militias, setting up real trials for crimes and providing compensation to victims, or allowing unfettered humanitarian access to the entire region. Halting bombing campaigns is assumed also....

2. UNAMID (the joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force) needs to focus on verifying the implementation of the ceasefire and needs to yell really loudly if it is broken.

3. As already mentioned, the rebels need to be brought on board. Discussions about a Qatar-backed peace conference are already circulating. The UN and/or Canada et al. need to meet with Qataris, government and rebels and reach a compromise about how such a conference would take place and where. While I'm glad to see that the peace process is slowly getting started, it won't be a peace process for long if the rebels don't jump on board at some point.

As de Waal mentions, we should all encourage and support a "homegrown" Sudanese solution to Sudanese problems; that said, the international community now needs to help make sure those solutions are actually carried out. Luckily for us, this is something we CAN do (unlike so many of the prescriptions that have been passed around over the past five years), through monitoring and verification, trust-building exercises, mediation, diplomacy and public statements, neutral locations for peace conferences, providing peacekeepers as a way to break the security dilemma, and more such "soft-power" actions of referee-ing. So let's get on it.

A whole other question arises should it prove that the ceasefire is merely dead air...

As always, I welcome thoughts and comments.

Canada's Reaction to the Ceasefire

2008-11-13T16:06:00.001-08:00

Ceasefire called by government accused of genocide in Darfur: what does this mean for Canada?

Sudanese President Omar-al-Bashir recently announced a unilateral government ceasefire in Darfur. This release provides contacts to help make sense of what this means for Canada.

On Tuesday, November 12th Sudanese President Omar-al-Bashir announced a unilateral ceasefire in Darfur. He stated that his government would start disarming militias and restrict the use of weapons among armed groups. Darfuri rebel groups did not take part in talks, and have not agreed to reciprocate.

This move follows the International Criminal Court's application to indict Bashir for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.

The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, issued the following statement:

"Canada is encouraged by the Government of Sudan's announcement of its unilateral ceasefire in the Darfur region. The Sudanese government must now fully implement this ceasefire and resist all provocation. Canada urges rebel and other armed groups to cease hostilities as well, in the interest of the security of Darfuri civilians.

"A comprehensive ceasefire is the first step toward creating favourable conditions for the resumption of peace talks and ensuring the protection of civilians and humanitarian workers in the region. Therefore, Canada calls on all parties to the conflict, which has devastated the lives of so many Sudanese people, to resume the negotiation process led by the United Nations and the African Union."

Darfur in the Canadian News: Weekly Round-Up

2008-11-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

With the news that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has declared a ceasefire in Darfur as part of the government's peace initiative, the Canadian media is suddenly swamped with stories about Darfur. Personally, I believe this presents a very real opportunity for the international community.

Everyone should therefore take a minute to either write a letter to the editor (200-300 words, one message) or post a comment on a website. I've listed some below as well as a sample letter.

Sudan president offers Darfur ceasefire - CTV

Sudanese president announces Darfur ceasefire - CBC

Sudan declares ceasefire in Darfur - Globe and Mail

Sample Letter

The announcement of a ceasefire by the Government of Sudan presents a very real opportunity for the international community to push for a just and lasting peace in Darfur. Canada and its international partners should support the move by the Government of Sudan, hold it to its word, and work to bring the rebels to the negotiating table.

I understand cynics and detractors who point to broken ceasefires in the past as reason that this one too will not work; however, it is precisely for that reason that we need to help this move build momentum. There has been far too little progress on peace talks for the past year. It is time that changed.

A few ways that the Canadian government could take the lead on this issue would be to appoint a Special Envoy, create benchmarks testing the Sudanese government's commitment, and setting up a contact group of like-minded nations willing to support the process. It is time that this "genocide in slow-motion" is brought to end.

Standing up to John Bolton

2008-11-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

Stand's Scott Fenwick recently sent around an article that has been generating some discussion on email so I thought I would transfer it to the blog where everyone can pipe in. The article is written by a Mr. John Bolton, who if you haven't yet heard of him, is famous for being the only US Ambassador to the UN who wanted to get rid of the UN entirely. He is a notoriously polarizing figure in the neo-conservative vein whose period as the Ambassador to the UN was never approved by the rest of the government and was marked by an intimidation-heavy approach to diplomacy.

That said, his article in the Globe and Mail does have some interesting points. It's about "humanitarian intervention," that nebulous concept that is firmly embedded in our work and appears often in the world of international politics. Below I relate the main "points" in the discussion:

Scott Fenwick: "Although the topic is on "humanitarian intervention," it wrongly suggests that the only way to end war/rights abuses is to send in the troops. Bolton's article doesn't even suggest using diplomatic action as an alternative."

Josh Scheinert: "I don't think there's anything wrong with this article. In fact, I think it's very well done and presents real challenges for the human rights/ngo/r2p community that we need to be able to meet. His goal wasn't to talk about tough diplomacy, sanctions or anything else. Merely to give a defence of realpolitik in the face of a subject largely premised on idealism...

"at the end of the day, Americans, Canadians, and the citizens of other signatories to R2P (Responsibility to Protect), aren't convinced "why the should put their sons and daughters.... where there are no vital interests (humanitarian aside - because I'll put myself in the category that does feel situations like these affect the national interest). So then the second challenge, is making people understand that this is part of the vital interest. But as of now, it's not and people don't consider it to be. So with that void looming and crippling our ability to act, like Bolton says, "we have to be able to explain.....".

Evan Cinq-Mars: "While I do agree that Bolton's article articulates very well the challenges on intervention posed by domestic opposition and realpolitik, there is a portion of his article that I find must be addressed:

"And as tragic as the situation is in Darfur, in a democracy we have to be able to explain to American citizens why they should put their sons and daughters at risk, in an area of undoubted humanitarian tragedy, but where there are no vital US interests."

During conscience-shocking situations - like we are experiencing in Darfur - it is this ideology that has allowed atrocity to continue... The pursuit of national self-interest has already crippled the attempts at collective action to protect the people of Darfur (As Bolton points out with China, Russia and the veto). How will responding to genocide become "easy" if the 'vital interests' of a nation condemn it from acting, whether it be the US, Canada, Indonesia, Fiji, etc...

There must be a shift towards an ideology where the responsibility to protect ciitizens from genocide is synthesized with the 'vital interests' of a nation.

While aspirations don't make foreign policy, aspirations are all these people have. Aspirations empower us to make responding to genocide a cornerstone of Canadian policy."

These guys are smart. Those are some really well-articulated arguments and questions: what is "intervention," merely military or military, diplomacy and other? what defines our national interests? What does the responsibility to protect doctrine refer to? How do you reconcile idealism with reality? What is the future of sovereignty? I feel that everyone should weigh in on these questions.

As for myself, I tend to believe that the phrase "humanitarian intervention" is a bit of fallacy, or maybe just poorly defined. Am I an "interventionist," as Bolton claims, because I want my government to take action on Darfur? What if the actions I'm calling on my government to take are diplomatic, not military? Basically, as Scott mentions, there are a whole range of "intervening" tools in a government's handbook and any one of them may work better or worse at different times.

That said, (though I hate to say it) Bolton is absolutely right that there is much confusion right now over the "responsibility to protect." Josh and Evan are absolutely right that we no longer know exactly what state interests are. In a globalized world, how is averting a humanitarian disaster that could destabilize the global system (eg Afghanistan, Rwanda) not in our national interests? And then even more importantly, how the heck do we go about that? Someone else smarter than me recently argued with me that the evoking of R2P too often by advocacy groups is delegitimizing the concept for when it is really needed....either way you look at, the modalities are poorly defined, to say the least.

As I have previously on this blog, I would argue that averting humanitarian crises requires forceful, consistent and coherent multilateral actions in a range of areas, diplomatically, economically, and possibly as a last resort militarily. In the case of military action, there is still the most work needed, as Bolton rightly points out, as the road is unclear, the commitments tend to be half-hearted, and the mandates weak (I recommend people interested read Lakhdar Brahimi's review of the UN Peacekeeping functions....among its proposals are a UN rapid response army, clear mandates, and more preventive actions).

Those are some thoughts to get people going...Please let me know what you are thinking in the comments. Or send me an email to be posted if you have particularly strong opinions...

Letter of Congratulations from Save Darfur Canada

2008-11-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

To everyone in the STAND Canada team,

I just wanted to commend you all for your Darfur advocacy activities during the recent election campaign, and the impact you have had so far.

Your national team's analysis of party positions going into the election, your chapter-led local engagement of candidates, and your participation in Save Darfur Canada's online elections campaign helped ensure that Darfur is now on the minds of newly elected decision-makers across the country.

You should be incredibly proud of your contributions - but this is only the beginning! In a few short weeks, Canada's 40th Parliamentary Session opens, and there is so much for us to do to help bring an end to the Darfur crisis. We must move forward with the same enthusiasm as we did during the elections period, and work just as hard to ensure that Canadians and decision-makers make Darfur their issue.

There are several upcoming dates of importance that you should be marking on your calendars, including the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention (December 9th), International Human Rights Day (December 10th), the first anniversary of the UNAMID mission (December 31st) and the International Criminal Court's announcement on whether they will indict Omar al-Bashir for 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity (likely in December or January). I encourage you to remind members of your community, your local media and your MPs of these important dates, and of the need for Canada to make peace and long term stability in Darfur and all of Sudan a foreign affairs priority.

On behalf of everyone at Save Darfur Canada, we look forward to working with STAND Canada in upcoming months, and to seeing more results from the larger and ever growing national Darfur advocacy movement.

Keep up the good work - and don't forget that your efforts are making a difference!

Best,

Tara Tavender
Executive Director
Save Darfur Canada
www.SDCanada.org

Darfur Digest - November 2008

2008-11-02T21:02:00.000-08:00

Stand's Darfur Digest is a monthly report analyzing developments related to Darfur in four key areas: Canadian politics, security, negotiations and engagement, and the humanitarian situation.

I. Executive Summary

Canadian Politics and Darfur: The federal election dominated Canadian politics this month, but Liberal candidates Irwin Cotler and Bob Rae spoke out about the crisis in Darfur during their campaigns. John McNee, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, highlighted Canada’s contributions to Darfur in addressing the General Assembly.

Security in Darfur: The security situation in Darfur has deteriorated dramatically over the past two months. In September, North Darfur saw heavy fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and three of the largest rebel groups following a series of offensives by the Government of Sudan (GoS). In early October, the SAF and government-sponsored “Janjaweed” militias attacked numerous villages throughout South Darfur killing civilians and causing large-scale destruction. Meanwhile, the number of people displaced by the fighting continues to rise even as the camps they inhabit grow more unstable and violent.

Negotiations and Engagement in Darfur: The first meeting of the AU, UN and GoS Tripartite Committee on the deployment of UNAMID met on October 7. The meeting emphasized the need for cooperation between the three bodies for the success of the mission. President al-Bashir announced that attempts by the ICC and the international community to indict him for charges of war crimes would derail Darfur peace negotiations and increase regional instability. Major General Emmanuel Karake Karenzi, the second-highest UN commander in Darfur, has been accused of overseeing Tutsi troops which committed war crimes in Rwanda.

The Humanitarian Situation in Darfur: Peace talks led by the Government of Sudan may signal a step forward, but the victims of Darfur are far from safe. Tribal infighting and attacks by government forces continue to claim lives. Recent violence has displaced thousands of Darfuris. A bleak UN report said that security in Darfur is so bad that the UN-African mission cannot be effective. The environment within internally displaced persons camps remains tense after a fatal attack in Kalma IDP camp in August left many civilians dead. According to UN officials, aid organizations are evaluating whether they can continue their work. This comes as the number of attacks against aid workers in 2008 surpassed the number of attacks in all of 2007.

II. Policy Recommendations

1. Build on Canada's recent commitments to Darfur by appointing a Special Envoy to the region. A Special Envoy could strengthen Canadian policymaking on Darfur in three key ways: 1) providing the world with a public face for Canada's efforts on Darfur, 2) providing a presence on the ground in Sudan, and 3) coordinating an integrated “all of Sudan” approach to Canadian peacebuilding. Specifically, a Special Envoy could play a key role in assisting efforts of the Darfuri rebel groups to form a unified and coherent bargaining position, a critical success factor for renewed negotiations.

2. The Canadian government should pursue targeted divestment from Sudan conditioned on the Sudanese government's cessation of atrocities in Darfur and active engagement in the peace process.

3. Canada’s mission to the UN should engage on more actively in multilateral diplomacy at the UN to bring renewed prominence to the Darfur issue internationally and rally greater international support for conflict resolution efforts.

Please forward this to other people interested in making a difference for the people in Darfur.

Sign up here to receive the Digest: http://www.speakthename.org/digest.html

A Vision of Chaos

2008-10-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

I would like to take a moment away from the focus on Darfur to highlight the worrying events of the past week in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. While Stand focuses almost exclusively on Darfur and Sudan in its activities (with good reason), it is important to our fundamental mission of making preventing genocide a cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy to stay informed about all pertinent events in the world.

For those who don't know, over the past week the eastern region of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has embarked on a spiraling descent into further violence and chaos. North Kivu is a resource-rich area that has been more or less at the center of the various wars and violent conflicts in the region since the end of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 (many of the Hutus responsible for the Rwandan genocide fled to this region). Last year, a mortality survey conducted by the International Rescue Committee concluded that 5.4 MILLION people have died as a result of war and violence in the DRC since 1998. That's the most amount of people killed in a conflict since World War II. DRC currently plays host to the largest peacekeeping force in the world, at 17,000.

The most recent bout of fighting began in late August when a peace agreement between the government and a rebel group led by Gen. Laurent Nkunda collapsed. Since then some 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.

In the past week the situation has deteriorated dramatically due to a very serious and well-crafted offensive by Nkunda's rebels. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, especially around the provincial capital Goma. Many aid agencies including Oxfam, MSF and IRC have suspended their most if not all of their activities and evacuated most of their personnel. The rebels are now besieging Goma, although things have momentarily calmed down following a cease-fire last night. It is yet to be seen whether the cease-fire will hold. Nkunda claims that he is fighting to protect ethnic Tutsi populations and make sure they get a fair share of the region's resources. Most experts seem to think that he is being supported in some way by the Rwandan government (though of course Rwanda denies this).

Unfortunately, eastern DRC must be one of the most difficult regions in the world to provide minimum standards of protection, with its volatile mix of ex-genocidaires, ethnic tensions, warlords, resources, weak and corrupt government, and interfering neighbors. Outside interference and interventions are difficult enough in a case like Sudan where its more obvious who "the enemy" is. In North Kivu government soldiers have been accused of raping, pillaging and killing civilians as they flee in the face of the better-trained enemy. The rebels also commit horrible acts of violence and are responsible for the majority of the displacement. The UN peacekeeping force (MONUC) has had some notable successes in the past, including by enforcing agreements with gunships at times, an approach to peacekeeping that would more accurately be called "peacemaking" or "peace enforcing" and is controversial to say the least.

So what can we do? Not much, unfortunately. The first thing I would recommend to everybody is to get informed. Do some research, find out about the situation, ask your professors about it. Also, a letter to a newspaper or politician is never a bad idea when trying to bring attention to a bad situation. Getting attention to the conflict is definitely the first step.

I would welcome anybody else's thoughts in the comments section about what we can do to help settle the conflict and prevent the deadly violence that seems all too often to consume the DRC.

A Few Items of Interest

2008-10-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

I would just like to highlight a few items from Save Darfur Canada (SDC).

1. SDC just announced the Darfur Challenge, a fundraising competition for elementary, middle and high schoolers. Check it out or get involved here.

2. I just received a mailing from SDC called the Darfur Advocacy News which has the following to say about Stand Canada's election performance:

Stand Canada acheived some important successes over the course of this election. Notably, their new elections website and blog. 51 candidates who publicly expressed their support for Stand`s Speak the name! campaign were elected across the country, including 8 Members of Parliament (MPs) from the Conservative Party, 27 from the Liberal Party, 14 from the NDP and 2 from the Bloc Québécois.

They also give a shout-out to the blog!

3. At the end of the mailing they point out a few upcoming events:
- US Save Darfur Coalition national conference, Nov. 7-9 in Washington D.C. (apparently FREE)
- 2008 Annual Royal Society of Canada Symposium: The Cultures of War and Peace, Ottawa, Nov. 14;
- Holocaust Memorial Week Toronto, November 2nd to 9th :
- Save Darfur Human Rights Fair Kitchener - Waterloo, November 28th

Canada Gives Turabi Something to Remember

2008-10-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

When studying Sudan, there are a few names that keep appearing over and over again: Omar al-Bashir, John Garang, Sadiq al-Mahdi and Hassan al-Turabi, to name a few.

The last one, Hassan al-Turabi, is arguably the father of Sudan as it now looks. It was Turabi who was the force behind implementing shari'a (Muslim law) in the North of Sudan and who led the Islamist movement that ended up dominating the political scene. It was his ideology that inspired Omar al-Bashir to take charge of the country in 1989. He remained the real power behind Bashir for about a decade. In fact, it was Turabi who invited Osama Bin Laden to hang out in Sudan in the mid-1990s.

It was also Turabi who inspired and taught Khalid Ibrahim, the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement. I even heard an expert on Darfur once suggest that Turabi was a big force behind the Darfur uprising of 2003-4, which he encouraged in a bid to gain leverage over Bashir while the two men were struggling for power. Now, I believe, he is under house arrest in Khartoum after splitting with the ruling coalition of Bashir (the NCP) in 1999.

Anyway, I bring him up because I just came across a surprising story about Hassan al-Turabi's last trip to Canada. Turabi, the man of power behind so many events in Sudan over the past 30 years, was visiting the country in 1992 when he was suddenly beaten up in the Ottawa airport by a black belt in karate. Apparently, the former Sudanese martial arts champion just happened to be walking through Ottawa airport when he saw the man whom he blamed for so many of Sudan's problems and decided to give him a few karate chops to the head. Turabi ended up with serious injuries and stayed in the hospital for four weeks. The BBC also mentions the incident.

Now while I don't think we can include karate chops as a suggestion in our policy prescriptions, it is a telling story about some of the anger that has built up against members of the northern elite over the last 50 years of mismanagement.

Needless to say, I don't think Turabi'll be visiting Canada again in the near future...

Walking 4 Darfur in Winnipeg

2008-10-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

Check out this article in the Jewish Tribune on Winnipeg's Walk 4 Darfur. While I personally was not in the area to partake, it sounds like it was a great event with some 500 people in attendance. Special shout out goes to Bobbie Whitman for "doing a fan-tab-ulous job with the event."

A Blogger in Darfur

2008-10-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

Everyone interested in an in-depth look at Darfur from a counter-insurgency perspective should really check out the commentary over on one of my favorite blogs, Abu Muqawama. It's really interesting to hear the perspective of someone who was recently "on the ground" in Darfur and Khartoum, talking with rebels, government officials, and Khartoum residents. There are three different sections to the commentary, all of which give the sort of eye-witness accounts and analysis that we haven't seen enough of in relation to Darfur.

Worth checking out.

Have Spoken the Name...and Were Elected

2008-10-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

This (hopefully) should be the first of many posts following up on the elections last month. Stand'ers were out in big numbers all over the country, hosting events with candidates, asking candidates tough questions on Sudan, volunteering with big supporters of Stand, and generally making some noise over Darfur. For some evidence, see some of the 30 or so posts on this blog...

...And it was a big success. 51 friends and supporters of Stand were elected across the country, including 8 members of the Conservative Party, 27 members of the Liberal Party, 14 from the NDP, and 2 from the Bloc. These were all candidates who mentioned Darfur or Sudan and helped to make it an election issue this year.

So congratulations to Stand'ers and Stand supporters across the country for making a difference in this year's election. Now all we need to do is hold these worthy politicians to their word and help them make Canada a world leader in ending genocide and crimes against humanity.

Sounds easy?

Back to Darfur

2008-10-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

With all the excitement over the elections over the past few weeks, events in Sudan have been a little ignored. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the situation has improved at all. In fact, it may just be getting worse again.

To update everyone on the situation, I would like to highlight an article in the Christian Science Monitor from last week:

"Last month saw heavy fighting between government troops and rebel factions in North Darfur. Many of the areas targeted by the government were under control of the only rebel group to have made peace with the government in 2006, contrary to the agreement's cease-fire. Tens of thousands of Darfuris are believed to have been displaced, many of them still hiding in the mountains afraid the bomb-dropping Antonov planes will return...

...Analysts have characterized the current conflict as low-level, compared to the height of the conflict in 2003-04, when government troops and allied militias allegedly burned villages, raped women, and looted animals en masse. But many Darfuris say the conflict is worse today than it was almost five years ago. Rape, looting, and killing by government police are weekly occurrences in camps for the displaced, residents say...

..."People who have been here a long time say this conflict is as bad now as it has ever been," one UN official said. "Things are going to worse before they get better."

So business as usual in Darfur. The government threatens and attacks people in the camps for displaced people. Humanitarian organizations which are supporting millions of people with life-saving work are constantly harassed and pressured to leave. Lawlessness and insecurity are the name of the game.

Meanwhile, in what has become almost a signature move, Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, is once again making a mockery of international peace and justice. This time, he has convened a conference in Khartoum to elaborate a comprehensive vision for peace in Darfur. The only problem: no rebels were invited. None. Zero. Zilch.

Not surprisingly, I don't have a lot of faith in this initiative, which seems very clearly designed to try to deflect the possibility of an arrest warrant against the President from the International Criminal Court. That said, there are a lot of actors involved, including the members of the African Union, the Arab League (traditional Bashir supporters), some civil groups, and international mediators, so wouldn't it be great if I were proven wrong? As I've mentioned before, I think it would be amazing if Sudan's own fledgling civil society were gradually able to hold some sort of peaceful influence on the government. Still, I wouldn't hold your breath...

Speak the Name Rewards

2008-10-13T10:00:00.001-07:00

As part of the Speak the Name campaign, Stand'ers have offered publicity as well as the occasional volunteers to politicians who talk about the issue of Darfur on the campaign trail. Here's a picture of Stand's own Ben Fine with Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the Liberal candidate for Etobicoke, in exchange for his past commitments to Sudan and Darfur.

Well done, guys!

They Just Keep Coming: David McGuinty

2008-10-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a Letter about Darfur from David McGuinty, the incumbent candidate for Ottawa-South:

October 11, 2008

Dear Stand Canada,

I appreciate having the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the tragedy in Sudan. The brutality in Sudan has reached staggering proportions. Civilians have starved, been beaten and raped, and hundreds of thousands have died of malnutrition, disease, neglect or violence. Millions more have been displaced. We must work to end this crisis.

Upon re-election I will work with my Liberal colleagues to try to mitigate an all-party caucus to address the crisis in Darfur. Many Liberal Caucus members, myself included, have already called for a comprehensive policy for Darfur. Among these measures is the appointment of a high-level regional coordinator. We have also called for an increase of Canadian aid to Africa.

I will lobby for increased resources and support to the UNAMID mission. Deployed January 2008 the UNAMID mission is mandated to protect civilians and uphold the Darfur Peace Agreement. Canada has a duty to ensure this mission succeeds, and a Liberal government will ensure Canada does its part. As a first step, a Liberal government will contribute badly needed resources for the mission, so it can contract the tactical and heavy lift helicopters it needs. I will also encourage our United Nations ambassador to re-energize the Darfur peace process through the US-Norway-Canada UN contact group, and also to re-engage China.

I will push to send more Canadian expert staff to the region for professional capacity building. I have spent much of my life designing and teaching programs for mid-career legal professionals throughout the developing world. By training mid-career professionals in key areas, such as education, law, and governance, Canada can play a crucial role in fostering local civil society and stability. We need to train the leaders of Sudan for tomorrow, so they can gain the expertise they need to succeed.

I look forward to continuing to work with you on these issues in the future.

Kind regards,

David McGuinty

Paul Dewar

2008-10-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

This just in from Paul Dewar, NDP candidate seeking re-election from Ottawa-Centre:

Thank you for writing regarding Canada`s role in the crisis in Darfur. It
is an issue that I have worked hard on in Parliament.

New Democrats are united in their support for all efforts to end the
violence against civilians in the Darfur region. We continue to support the
work of STAND and the Sudanese Diaspora to keep the Sudan crisis on the
Canadian government's agenda.

I am the NDP foreign affairs critic and have taken the lead on Darfur. I
have worked hard to move the issue forward in the House of Commons by
initiating a study at the Foreign Affairs committee. I am also vice-chair
of the parliamentary group against genocide and has been active on Darfur in
that capacity as well.

There is a growing concern among everyday Canadians that their public and
private investments may be directly or indirectly contributing to the crisis
in Darfur. Despite opposition from Conservatives, the Foreign Affairs
committee last year adopted my motion to undertake a study of Canadian funds
invested in Sudan and explore legislative initiatives to regulate such
investments in light of the worsening crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

In May of this year, we called on the Harper Conservative's take leadership.
This is exactly the kind of peacekeeping role that Canadians have always
supported. Canadians would want us to be in Darfur. That sentiment is found
right across the country.

Our Party wants Canada to take a lead role in any UN mission to stop the
bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur province. Canada could and should commit
immediately to the following measures:

-support the United Nations Mission to Sudan (UNMIS)

-offer Canadian troops to complement the advance party requested by the UN

-push for a stronger UN resolution on Sudan

-offer logistical support to the United Nations-African Union hybrid force
carrying out its mandate to protect the population in Darfur.

I will continue to speak out on both Canadian and international inaction on
Darfur and will support all efforts to bring peace to this tragically
neglected region.

Thanks again for writing, and I hope I can count on your support on October
14th.

Paul Dewar

One from Todd Smith

2008-10-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a heartfelt note from Todd Smith, Green Party candidate for Miramichi:

I would like to thank you for your efforts!

I am ashamed by the yearly abandonment of
peacekeeping. The conflict of Darfur is not 'another' conflict in
Africa, the history of weapon build up from Cold War politics along
with global warming has played an important role in the development of
the violence.

We must recognize that our nations actions as a Western
cold war ally have contributed to the flooding of weapons in the Darfur
region, along with major contribution to Global Warming. It is
difficult to label the conflict as Genocide as the Janjaweed's desires
are to seize lands not destroy another ethnic group. First and foremost
it is depressing that the purely academic debate of labels has such
political power.

These crimes against humanity are frightening and the
UN and Canada must commit to aiding the Africa Union. I believe that
the diplomacy is where we must move towards, me must be willing to
place Canadian peace keepers feet on the ground in order to provide
opportunity for realistic negotiations.

I believe Canada's foreign
policy should turn back to Mackenzie King's vision of a middle power,
one which promotes peace negotiations. In the meantime with true UN-AU
commitment we can stop the current violation of women and children
until a resolution can be negotiated.

http://wintermiller.com/

Todd Smith
Rape of a Nation's women, is the rape of a nation, an ever lasting
crime, a crime against humanity.

Miramichi - Green Party

Talking It Up: Irwin Cotler in the National Post

2008-10-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

Irwin Cotler has an op-ed in the National Post today entitled "The Issue this Election Forgot." In case you can't tell from the title, this article is right up our alley (e.g. see every other post on this blog). Below are a few excerpts and comments:

In this federal election campaign, important questions about Darfur need to be addressed by the leaders of Canada's major parties: How do we respond to the Sudanese government beginning its sixth year of genocidal warfare by launching ferocious ground and air assaults on its African civilian populations? How do we protect the Darfurian people as the Sudanese government attempts to destroy the relief efforts set up to offer food and shelter to those in need? How do we reassure aid workers whose own lives are threatened by a government-orchestrated campaign of terror? How do we respond to the bloodshed in the Kalma displaced persons camp last month, where the Sudanese government killed 31 people, including 17 women and children?...

...As I have previously recommended, what is desperately needed now is a "Darfur Summit" convening the leadership of the African Union, the European Union, the UN, the Arab League, NATO and the Sudanese government, to implement a "Save Darfur/ Sudan" action plan. This would include the urgent mobilization and effective deployment of the UN-African Union protection force, which could include the 10,000 South Sudan volunteer peacekeepers who are ready to act, the enhancement of humanitarian assistance and protection of aid workers, the rescue of the Darfur Peace Process and the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement, both of which are in a coma, the leveraging of China to end its arms sales to Darfur and the implementation of a no-fly zone to stop the indiscriminate bombing of civilian villages.

I have stressed numerous times on this blog that the biggest problem with the international response to Darfur (that is, other than the obvious ones) is a lack of Consistency. There is no strategy, no unity, and no coherency. Cotler's suggestions are precisely the sort of thing the situation needs for the international community to develop a strategic plan that encompasses diplomacy, justice, military protection, and humanitarian concerns. For example, a large group of nations standing together and saying to the Government of Sudan, "you will be supported if you stop the bombings, proceed with elections, hand over international criminals, etc, but you will be punished in these specific ways if you don't."

My only concern with the idea of a "Darfur Summit" is that it would likely be co-opted before it even began by the Government of Sudan's friends in China, the AU, the Arab League and elsewhere. Basically, President Bashir and his cronies have shown a remarkable ability to rally support from other nations when they need it. For this reason, Canada, the US, the UN, and other concerned parties should get together and make sure they are all on the same page before any such meeting (or regardless of whether such a meeting actually occurs anyway). I think Bashir would have a much more difficult time rallying support against a forceful, unified message from the world's most powerful nations.

One of the questions that I'm really glad Cotler points out involves the protection of the humanitarian aid community who are supporting close to 5 million people in Chad and Sudan yet could be thrown out any day by the Government (which threatens precisely that). A possible first step of an international contact group for Sudan could be to make it abundantly clear to the Government of Sudan that any attempt to shut down or seriously interfere with the life-saving aid effort will absolutely not be tolerated. If the humanitarian effort is shut down (piece by piece), this crisis could turn suddenly a lot worse.

Thank you Irwin Cotler for your emphasis of this issue.

Another Point for the Green Party

2008-10-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

This just in from Laura Bisaillon, Green Party candidate for Charlottetown:

I offer several thoughts on Darfur:

First, Elizabeth May is the candidate who first made and routinely
makes reference to Darfur. She impresses the need for concerted and
effective action in Sudan. You will have read about her ideas and
those endorsed by the Green Party on Point 9 of the Party Platform
Brief, "Looking Forward" at: http://www.greenparty.ca/en/platform

Second, faraway conflicts are the concern of global citizenry for
reasons relating to common resources, ethics, human security, and
human rights. For those in doubt, I urge them to read up on Complexity
Theory. I speak from experience in the field and research in refugee
health in Africa and Canada. I have worked as a Social Support Worker
for Rwandan Genocide survivors in Montréal and Ottawa. I worked in
refugee camps in the Horn of Africa, and was involved in health policy
and evaluation work during the same period. I am personally
disheartened that resolve is not brought to this conflict several
years after I lived in neighbouring Ethiopia. While there are no quick
fixes to complex situations, I am frustrated that this conflict is
unresolved.

Third, I am aware of the links between war and illness, which is a
further reason for *serious* global action to resolve this conflct. I
am involved with the AIDS movement in Canada and internationally, and
see first hand the impacts of war. For a time I was involved with the
Canadian Council for Refugees, and I am knowledgeable about refugee
and immigrant health issues; these are subject of my doctoral research
in Population Health.

I applaud and support you in your advocacy/lobby efforts to bring
about a cease to violence and human rights violations.

Please contact me if you would like to discuss in further detail.

Warm wishes,

Laura Bisaillon
Green Party of Canada
Candidate for Charlottetown

NDP on Darfur

2008-10-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't had enough of the major parties' positions on Darfur, here's one from the NDP:

Jack Layton and Canada’s New Democrats are united in their support for all efforts to end the violence against civilians in the Darfur region. We continue to support the work of STAND and the Sudanese Diaspora to keep the Sudan crisis on the Canadian government’s agenda. New Democrat MPs, including Alexa McDonough, Paul Dewar, Tony Martin and Bill Siksay, have consistently spoken out about the need for the Canadian government to do much more for the people of Darfur.

Paul Dewar (MP for Ottawa-Centre) is the NDP foreign affairs critic and has been our lead on Darfur. As you may know, he has been instrumental in moving the issue forward in the House of Commons by initiating a study at the Foreign Affairs committee. Paul is also vice-chair of the parliamentary group against genocide and has been active on Darfur in that capacity as well.

There is a growing concern among everyday Canadians that their public and private investments may be directly or indirectly contributing to the crisis in Darfur. NDP Foreign Affairs critic, Paul Dewar noted, "Knowing what we know about Darfur, business as usual is unconscionable." Despite opposition from Conservatives, the Foreign Affairs committee last year adopted an NDP motion to undertake a study of Canadian funds invested in Sudan and explore legislative initiatives to regulate such investments in light of the worsening crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

In May of this year, we have called on the Harper Conservative’s take leadership. Jack stated that "this is exactly the kind of peacekeeping role that Canadians have always supported. Canadians would want us to be in Darfur. That sentiment is found right across the country."

Our Party wants Canada to take a lead role in any UN mission to stop the bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur province. Canada could and should commit immediately to the following measures:

support the United Nations Mission to Sudan (UNMIS)
offer Canadian troops to complement the advance party requested by the UN
push for a stronger UN resolution on Sudan
offer logistical support to the United Nations-African Union hybrid force carrying out its mandate to protect the population in Darfur.

New Democrats will continue to speak out on both Canadian and international inaction on Darfur and will lend our support to all efforts to bring peace to this tragically, neglected region.

While I believe this position shows a lot of commitment to the issue and a great deal of promise, I have to reiterate the point that has been made before on this blog: DIPLOMACY. A peace process is absolutely necessary, but unfortunately it is unlikely to come about without a consistent and coherent international position supported by numerous nations. Along these lines, we've suggested the idea of a Special Envoy (or even a all-parliamentary committee) to create a point man in the diplomatic effort. We really appreciate the NDP stance on Darfur and like the fact that they are making it a priority, but if I could add one thing, it would be about diplomacy.

Thanks NDP!

Winnipeg's Walk/Run for Darfur (with friends)

2008-10-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

Guest Post: Bobbie Whiteman

This sunday was Winnipeg's second annual Walk/Run for Darfur. It was a really great turn out, close to three hundred people participated, a Winnipeg radio celebrity from a popular radio station kicked the whole thing off, we had support from numerous provicial MLA's and of all the federal candidates that the University of Winnipeg chapter of Stand invited, Anita Neville, Liberal MP and candidate for Winnipeg South Center and John Loewen Liberal candidate for Winnipeg South were there standing up for Darfur and participating in the walk. We at UofW Stand would like to thank them both for attending and for continuing to bring Darfur into attention.