UPDATE:
Looks like I missed a big bit of information. The AU troops have been given leave to stick around for another 6 months, howEVER - they need funding and help. There's a push on to get Congress to approriate another 6 million dollars to help cover expenses for those added 6 months, and to get the UN to send in the peacekeepers they've already approved.
I'm updating this to remove the reference to the Dec. 31st date. This is still time-sensative so PLEASE - make some calls today.
People are gonna start to die on a massive scale soon.
And I’m not talking 30 or 40 a day like in Iraq.
It’s more like thousands (if not tens of thousands) a day.
Until 3 million people have joined the nearly half a million already lying in graves.
Make the jump you heartless bastards...
So what am I talking about?
Darfur.
The genocide that’s been going on for the last 3 years in Darfur. Just look at the face of any child in the linked photos and tell me you can just click back to yet ANOTHER diary about Obama or Hillary, and forget that these children WILL DIE once the African Union troops leave - and they won’t be alone.
Three million people will be at the mercy of the Sudanese government and their militias when the AU troops leave. The execution date’s been set and I’m asking you to make a fuckin’ phone call or two to try to head off that boy’s death.
I posted a diary Monday that got all of 25 or 30 comments, and some kind soul suggested I post my call to action over at EpluribusMedia.org to spread the word to another group of good-hearted bloggers. Within a short while, the site front-paged my diary.
It was also front-paged over at My Left Wing. And it made it up to the rec list on Booman’s site.
Not so much luck over at MyDD, but this experiment tells me that progressive folk do in fact give a shit about genocide.
I found an old diary I’d posted over on Booman’s site a year and a half ago (July of 2005) - sad to say many of us are STILL trying to generate discussion and action on sites like this over this issue...
After putting the kids to bed last night, we settled down to watch Hotel Rwanda. I'd actually forgotten that a million people were brutally slaughtered in this sub-Saharan nation in 1994. A million people - that number is absolutely staggering. And the world did nothing to stop this slaughter of innocents.
There was one scene early on in the film that really stuck with me. Some reporters had snuck out and gotten some film footage of the slaughter taking place around them. The manager of the hotel (and the main character in this movie) said that surely, when the world sees this footage they'll HAVE to send help. How can someone see that and not act?
The cameraman said that more than likely, people will see that on their television, say "how horrible" and then go back to eating their dinner.
Well now we’re talking about the potential slaughter of 3 million people. If the AU troops pull out as planned this will happen just as quickly as it did in Rwanda.
The difference now? We know it’s coming and we can - MUST do something to stop it!
I've been bugging folks since the summer of 2005 to get involved - to try to do something to help stop this slaughter. And so have others.
Take MaryScott O'Connor's diary from March of this year. She wrote in part...
The distilled facts are these: prior to the Indonesian tsunami, many eyes were focused on Darfur - and the killing and dying diminished. Noticeably. Then came the tsunami, and as our collective heads turned toward that catastrophe, the killing and dying in Darfur resumed its former frequency.
Is it that you can't bear the thought of it, and so turn away, finding the unimaginable come to life too unbearably painful to witness? It's true - it is the unimaginable sprung forth, AGAIN. Don't fucking kid yourselves - this is a genocide no different than Rwanda's. It's just younger so the numbers haven't reached that arbitrary level that makes the world take notice. Gotta get to half a million I guess, before it warrants more than 2 minutes a week on a network news program.
The time has come for me to step up and acknowledge MY culpability in this tragedy. I have wept and ranted, wrung my hands and howled at the moon... But I have DONE NOTHING. I can't remember the last time I wrote about Darfur. I gave up, you see. Didn't hit on the magic formula that would get enough people talking and raging and yelling loudly enough for long enough. No instant gratification, here, girlie, move along.
That lady knows how to rally the troops where genocide's concerned. I hope her words can help now.
I hope to goddess you’re asking, "ok so what can one person do to help stop this slaughter?"
Well I've got an action list for you - what follows is some of what I posted over the last few days. A few people have found this to be helpful and thanked me for putting it up in one place...
I'm guessing we all have wives, daughters, sisters or mothers right? We may even know and love a little girl of say 8 years of age. My own daughter's just a little younger than that and I hugged her tight to me as a speaker at Sunday's rally told us that little girls as young as 8 are being raped in camps in Darfur.
Eight years old - just imagine that happening to a little girl you know and love. Put her face on one of the many victims of the government sponsored terrorists in Darfur.
The Sudanese government and their militias are using rape as a weapon to eradicate the Africans of Darfur. Women and girls are not only raped when they leave the camps to get food or wood for cooking, but now they're being attacked INSIDE these camps. There's no safe haven for them any more - they're walking targets for the terrorists of the very people who should be protecting them from these attacks.
You can imagine the terror if you're a woman reading this. If you're a guy with a family, imagine the choice the men of Darfur face daily... go out or send your son out to find food and wood and risk being killed - or send your wife or young daughter out knowing she may well be brutally and violently raped.
Some choice - huh?
A speaker at that rally reminded us that there are real people behind the numbers coming out of Darfur.
Two to three million displaced people living (if you can call it living) in camps inside Darfur and in Chad.
Four to six hundred thousand dead.
Eighty children under the age of 5 - dead each day from starvation & disease.
These are people - not numbers. It's easy (or convenient) to forget that after so many have been killed. Call it a defense mechanism - call it laziness. Either way - we have got to keep these people in our hearts and do all we can to help those who've managed to survive thus far.
Someone was handing out fliers at that rally calling for immediate action Here's what they're calling for and it's up to us to help make it happen...
Time is Running Out.
We need action.
DEPLOY the already authorized UN peacekeeping force.
STRENGTHEN the understaffed African Union force already in Darfur
ENFORCE a No-Fly Zone in Darfur already established by the UN.
INCREASE humanitarian aid and ensure access for delivery.
PRESIDENT BUSH must back the strength of his words with the power of his office. He must work with other world leaders to ensure that the United Nations has the leadership and the tools it needs to do the job he is asking it to do.
CONGRESS must provide both the oversight and the funding necessary to ensure that the will of the American people to help end the genocide in Darfur is being carried out effectively.
THE UNITED NATIONS and all of its member states must put the real needs of the Sudanese people in Darfur ahead of the false concerns of the Sudanese government in Khartoum by placing already agreed upon targeted sanctions on regime officials, enforcing the already approved no-fly zone, and providing troops for and deploying the already authorized UN peacekeeping force to Darfur.
SO here's what you can do - right now...
Get informed - go to the news page at www.savedarfur.org (http://www.savedarfur.org/...) and get the latest news on this situation.
Call the White House and demand action - 202-456-1111. Or go to www.savedarfur.org and send a message to Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Call your congresscritters at 202-224-3121 and ask them to push for increased funding to keep the AU troops on the ground for another 6 months.
Show a film to your friends family - Inspire by showing movies such as Hotel Rwanda, Schindler's List, Sometimes in April, Darfur Diaries, or the Killing Fields.
Invite a speaker - Raise public awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur by emailing speakers@savedarfur.org to invite an expert to speak about this issue.
Generate media coverage - keep Sudan in the spotlight by writing letters to the editor, meeting with editorial boards, and encouraging community leaders to write op-ed pieces about Deafur.
Write an LTE to your local paper via http://www.democrats.org/...
Here's a sample letter -
Dear Editor:
Every day, the 2.5 million people chased from their homes in Darfur face the threat of starvation, disease and rape while the few lucky enough to remain in their homes risk displacement, torture and murder.
A UN peacekeeping force remains the only hope to bring peace to the region. Our world leaders must ramp up the pressure and demand that the peacekeepers are admitted immediately.
Sincerely,
So there you have it – your to-do list. Even if you just make a phone call or two PLEASE – I’m begging you – just do it.
No more excuses. The 2008 primaries can wait.
The people of Darfur can't.
UPDATE:
NathanialPowell posted the following info on great sources of news regarding this crisis. Check it out...
Here are some very useful websites:
www.icg.org --International Crisis Group, a great conflict analysis group that has put out many conflict reports (30-50 pages each) on the war in Darfur, as well as many policy recommendations.
www.allafrica.com --- collects online African newspaper sources from around the continent, in English and French
www.pinr.com Strategic analysis, some of their Darfur stuff is decent
www.alertnet.org Reuters' news network for Humanitarian organizations
Also, along the same lines, the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks
www.irinnews.org
Hope this stuff helps