Sudan

Google does something new...... They have set up a link through which visitors can view refuge camps and the damage done to villages in Darfur.

The Independent

Quote:

For the new project, the company has updated its service with even higher resolution images and has integrated the pictures with icons that represent destroyed communities and displaced people across the Darfur region of southern Sudan.

By clicking on an icon, users can access more information, eyewitness testimony and photographs about what has happened in specific locations

You'll have to download google earth. Once there, scroll down the list of option in the lower left window and click on Global Awareness. You'll see an option for looking at Darfur. It is quite amazing and physically gut-wrenching.

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The Sudanese government has agreed to allow 3000 UN troops to lend heavy support to the UA (African Union).

BBC

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NPR is reporting that Sudanese government planes are being used to drop bombs in Sudan while painted as U.N. planes. Could this be true?

Quote:

Report: Sudanese Planes Strike Under U.N. Guise

Day to Day, April 19, 2007 · A United Nations report, first published in the New York Times, details the use of Sudanese government planes and helicopters in strikes on Darfur. The aircraft have been painted to look like U.N. vehicles and are being used for bombing runs and surveillance. Khartoum-based reporter Noel King speaks with Alex Chadwick.

NPR

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I don't want to believe this--but I accept that it may be possible.

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edgarblythe wrote:

littlek wrote:
WNPR has a several audio pieces on Darfur.......

Naming war criminals in the international court: War Criminals

Susan Rice calls for U.S. military intervention in Darfur: Susan Rice

A little of the above and life in the camps: Refugees

I am in sympathy with what you are trying to do here. Just haven't been posting about it.

What is littlek trying to do here?

Sanctimoniously pontificate about how we should not ignore the suffering in Darfur?

OK, let's not.

Now what?

There is some silly twit in DC who calls himself something like "Why Not Love?" and has tattooed the sentiment on his forehead. He is, currently, engaged in a hunger strike for some bizarre reason that he believes it will have an influence on the real live facts on the ground in Darfur.

Blah, blah, blah, blah blah!

What will save the poor sods in the Sudan?

Silly postings by a dilettante on Abuzz, and the "support" of her fellow dilettantes?

What do you want President Bush to do?

Economic and political pressure have proven to be totally ineffective.

Last month I was on a plane sitting beside an official of the World Bank. This fellow was responsible for the Caribbean, Latin and South America, and so, presumably, a player.

Obviously he had nothing to do with The Sudan, but he did educate me on why the World Bank can be an ineffective power.

The WB can offer billions of dollars to Third World countries, and yet the autocratic ruling class in these countries will not accept it because:

A) In doing so they must promise reform
B) No matter what the misfortunes of the country they rule, they will always reside among the very elite.

Given the choice of risking power for the economic welfare of the down trodden, and maintaining their elite status which results in the masses suffering, what will the megalomaniacal, egoistic ruling few choose?

The answer, unfortunately, but undeniably, is force.

Will littlek and edgar join me in urging our government to send troops to the Sudan and violently, if need be, put an end to the genocide?

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Sitting next to someone in the WB on a flight doesn't make you any less a dilettante.

I don't think there was any focus on GWB on this thread. No one was saying GWB should take the reigns and ride on into Sudan. Did you read the whole thing? I just reread. By my quick count, I mentioned Rice, Walter mentioned Bush once each. Maybe there are more mentions, but not many.

Finn, you posted a few pages back yourself.

I think some here misunderstand my intentions with this thread. It is meant as a source of information. It is meant to be a small gesture to show that someone is watching. For whom? <shrug> I dunno.

I don't think we should send money, I never said I did. I never said we should send troops. I wrote about the UN, the AU, the WHO, etc.

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Speaking of Sudan.

Amnesty International accuses, UN responds.

Quote:

BBC

Amnesty's report backs UN findings leaked this month that Sudan is flying weapons into Darfur in breach of UN Security Council resolutions.

Sudan denied those accusations, saying it was just moving materiel. It has not yet replied to the latest report.

The four-year conflict in Darfur has seen more than 200,000 deaths.

In its report, Amnesty called on the UN Security Council to strengthen the arms embargo on Darfur, which was extended in March 2005 to cover all parties......

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What up Finn? No snappy comeback?

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Progress? I am ever hopeful....

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article22873
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article22871

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littlek wrote:

What up Finn? No snappy comeback?

This is hardly a "snappy" reply but:

If everyone in the world (outside of The Sudan) became painfully aware of the situtation in Darfour, there would be no change in that situation unless everyone felt compelled to insist that their government join in an effort to forcibly produce change.

You, it seems, are one of a rather large group of individuals who believe that cognizance alone can effect change. It cannot. Only action can.

Economic sanctions are effective only if the offending Tyrant stands to lose. This is very very seldom the case. Today's tyrants are not perverse and profligate fat boys like King Farouk. They will have what they want and need no matter how tight the economic situation of their nation becomes.

The only real hope of sanction success in that the ordinary folk will suffer so much that they will arise and overthrow the tyrant. Unfortunately this only has a chance when the tyrant is less than absolute and the sanctions deprive a middle class of its luxuries. Such is not the case in The Sudan.

Sanctions, very very rarely hurt the tyrant; they always hurt the populace.

So if righteous indignation doesn't work and The Sudan could not care less whether or not in fields a team in the next Olympics, and if economic sanctions don't work, what is left?

Force.

An imperfect answer, but the only one that has a chance of success.

Force, by no means, assures success - witness Iraq. Force can and often is applied without much skill and therefore fails, but force is a powerful option and sometimes the lone one.

It should be clear, by now, that there are some people on this planet who will only stop their foul deeds if they are imprisoned or killed. This applies to the "common" thug as well as the thug who comes to rule a nation.

Efforts to stop these thugs through force will always hold the possibility that innocents will perish. It's a calculation, plain and simple.

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I think you're wrong. I think public 'cognizance' can help the situation. I think that if the government in Sudan thinks the whole world is watching they'll be less inclined to support the genocide.

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littlek wrote:

I think you're wrong. I think public 'cognizance' can help the situation. I think that if the government in Sudan thinks the whole world is watching they'll be less inclined to support the genocide.

I'm sure you do, despite the fact that there is nothing whatsoever to support this pollyanna notion of geo-politics.

The whole world is watching. Do you think that the government in Sudan is not fully aware that their actions are reported throughout the world? It doesn't seem to phase them and why should it? These are not people who will flinch because you or I "tsk tsk" them.

If they are capable of the atrocities that have and continue to occur in The Sudan, they are hardly going to be put off by an international scolding.

Widespread public awareness is the most feeble of means to halt the genocide unless it creates the impetus of national action. The Sudanese responsible for these horrors could not care less what you or millions of like minded people think about them. They really don't care.

They will change their ways, however, if they believe that continuing these ways will lead to their downfall. They are not religious zealots willing to die for their beliefs. If we put a gun to their heads, they will change rather than perish. There is no ecomomic gun available, only the real thing.

If you really abhor the genocide then you will join me in calling for military intervention.

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The world is watching China and they are responding to shoddy manufacturing processes.

Darfur rebels meeting in Tanzania in a UN-run peace conference.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6928899.stm

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littlek wrote:

The world is watching China and they are responding to shoddy manufacturing processes.

Yeah...right

Darfur rebels meeting in Tanzania in a UN-run peace conference.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6928899.stm

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Did I post about the article about the Genocide Intervention Fund before? A bunch of college kids that decided not to wait for the clowns upstairs to do something and decided to fundraise and help get troops on the ground themselves.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0911/p20s01-usfp.html?page=2

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Major set back.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7020596.stm

Quote:

An attack on an African Union army base in the Sudanese region of Darfur has killed at least 10 peacekeepers.

Thirty vehicles overran the base, and 50 AU soldiers were missing and seven seriously injured. Vehicles and property were looted or vandalised.

Rebel sources told the BBC that the raiders were members of breakaway factions from two rebel groups.

The attack came as S African Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrived in Sudan bringing a new peace initiative for Darfur.

The casualties were the most serious suffered by the AU mission since it arrived in 2003, an AU statement said.

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Some casualties and a number of people are apparently missing.
Worrisome, since the West responds badly to such news. It worked in Rwanda (Belgians pulled their troops out, leaving Dallaire stretched insanely thin)... hopefully it won't alter the deployment plans for next year.

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