OUR NEWS
Dublins Day for Darfur May 2008
We will be hosting an awareness day for Darfur bringing people up to date as to the awful situation in Darfur. There will be music, talks, and we will show films on genocide, all to create awareness on Darfur. Furthermore you will be able to sign our petition and express your disgust as to the awful continued genocide in Darfur. The exact date will be announced shortly.
April 29th 2007
We had a special screening of "Shooting Dogs",along with informal talks with founders and friends of Silent Masses, and heard testimonials from Darfurian people who have escaped the genocide. The venue was The Sugar Club, Leeson St.,Dublin 2.Thank you to all who attended.
Achill Half Marathon 2007
The Achill half marathon took place again on July 7th last year and kicked off the second fundraising and awareness campaign for Silent Masses. There was over 850 entrants and the race was full of cheer and rose to new higher levels of achievement than the previous year. The event was chosen because it is all about participation and human endevour for a cause which is all about people. This event is the main annual fundraiser and awareness provider for our cause and we are indeed looking forward to a much bigger event this year on July 5th 2008. We would like to thank all our sponsors and contributors and participants for their continued support.
Click on www.achillmarathon.com to find out more.
News on Darfur
France Blames Sudan Over Missing Troop
PARIS (AP) -- France on Tuesday pinned the blame on Sudanese forces for a shooting near the border with Chad that left one French soldier wounded and another missing -- the first casualties for a troubled European peacekeeping mission in Africa.
Defense Minister Herve Morin said the soldiers had unwittingly crossed the border from Chad to Sudan on Monday when they were attacked.
The whereabouts of the missing soldier, who collapsed during the shooting, are still unknown, Morin said. It wasn't clear from the minister's comments if the soldier is feared dead. The other soldier suffered light burns.
''They found themselves about ten meters (yards) from forces that a priori were Sudanese,'' Morin told reporters. ''They immediately gave their identity and were engaged.''
Sudan has been hostile to the European mission that at least 14 countries plan to take part in. The mission, known as EUFOR, is being deployed in Chad and the Central African Republic. It is aimed at protecting refugees from the neighboring Sudanese region of Darfur.
Morin suggested that the Sudanese troops acted more out of instinct than politics.
''We cannot think that the Sudanese profited from the incident. I think we find ourselves in a situation where soldiers whom we believe to have been Sudanese found themselves facing two men, two soldiers, and very likely out of reflex decided to use their weapons,'' said the French minister.
He said one of the French soldiers ''collapsed'' while the other escaped from their jeep and took shelter.
''These two men and their vehicle crossed the Sudanese border without realizing,'' said Morin.
He said France has asked Sudanese authorities for help in locating the missing soldier, a sergeant.
Africa’s Next Slaughter
NY Times 1/03/08
This dusty little town of rutted dirt streets is surrounded by janjaweed, Arab militias armed by the Sudanese government and paid to do its dirty work.
But this isn’t Darfur, where the janjaweed have played the central role in the genocide that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Rather, Abyei is on the edge of southern Sudan, in a region that is supposed to be at peace.
In the 1980s and 1990s, it was here that the government perfected the techniques that later became notorious in Darfur: mass rape and murder by armed militias, so as to terrorize civilians and drive them away. Now Sudan is coming full circle, apparently preparing to apply the same techniques again to Abyei and parts of the south.
With international attention distracted by Darfur and the United States presidential race, the Sudanese government now is chipping away at the 2005 peace treaty that ended the north-south war in Sudan. If war erupts, as many expect, the flash point will probably be here in Abyei, where the northern government is pumping oil from wells it refuses to give up.
“War is going to take place,” Joseph Dut Paguot, the acting government administrator in the Abyei region, said bluntly.
Chol Changath Chol, a representative of South Sudan in Abyei, agreed: “If there are no changes, war will come. It will break out here and spread everywhere.”
Since late November, there have been repeated clashes in the Abyei area between South Sudan’s armed forces and a large tribe of Arab nomads, the Misseriya, which is armed and backed by the Sudanese government in Khartoum. Mr. Paguot said that several hundred people had been killed in these clashes, and that some of the gunmen were government soldiers who had taken off their uniforms to masquerade as tribal fighters.
On Feb. 7, gunmen from the Misseriya shot up and looted a bus arriving in Abyei and began blockading the road that leads into the town from the north. That has cut off supplies, so shops in the town market are running out of fuel and food, and prices are rising.
“It is reaching a critical point for the poor,” said Jason Matus, a United Nations official in Abyei.
A group of Misseriya has appointed officials to create their own government for Abyei and has threatened to march in with thousands of armed men to install it. This is almost exactly the same approach that President Omar al-Bashir has taken in Darfur: arm the janjaweed and unleash them on a black African population, then dismiss the slaughter as just “tribal fighting.”
Mr. Paguot said that 16,000 militia members were gathered on the north side of Abyei, backed by a few tanks and many pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, ready to invade. They aren’t called the janjaweed, but it’s the same idea.
Some local officials and Misseriya elders have worked heroically to avert violence, but state-controlled newspapers in Khartoum are carrying false reports of attacks on Arabs, inflaming tensions.
In the 2005 peace agreement that ended 20 years of war between North and South Sudan, both sides agreed to accept the “final and binding” ruling of the Abyei Boundary Commission. But President Bashir has rejected the findings because they would mean giving up oil wells.
The agreement came about because of tireless diplomacy by the Bush administration, but since then Washington has dropped the ball. It is still possible to avert a new slaughter here, but only if there is a major international effort — involving the United Nations, Egypt, China and Europe as well as the United States — to ensure that the peace agreement is followed and that President Bashir will pay a price for attacking the south.
A crucial step would be for China to suspend transfers of arms to Sudan until the Khartoum government works for peace with the south and in Darfur. Unfortunately, China refuses to take that step.
Mr. Bashir’s plan seems to be to encourage Arab nomads to drive out other ethnic groups from areas with oil. Then once fighting begins, he would have an excuse to cancel national elections next year — which he would almost surely lose — and he might be able to rally Sudanese Arabs behind him in a nationalist campaign to hold on to the oil fields.
So remember this little town of Abyei. It’s the tinderbox for Africa’s next war, which will probably resemble Darfur but be carried out on a much wider scale.
“If there is just one bullet in Abyei,” said Col. Valentino Tocmac, the commander of the south’s forces here, “that will be the end of the peace.”
Britain Calls for Sudan to End Bombing
CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press
February 28, 2008 BEIJING
-- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called Friday for Sudan to speed up the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur and to end aerial bombing in the troubled region's western districts.
Miliband said the international community is united in the need for a hybrid United Nations-African Union force, but the effort is stalled by a lack of necessary support from Khartoum.
"The government of Sudan has to facilitate (peacekeepers') entry in sufficient numbers and ensure they can do their job properly," Miliband said in a speech to students at prestigious Peking University on the final day of his visit to China.
Sudan must also end the "terrible bombings in West Darfur," Miliband said, referring to a fresh offensive by government soldiers and Arab militiamen against rebels in the war-torn region where hundreds of thousands have been killed in bombings and raids by militias.
At least 12,000 refugees have fled to Chad this month to escape the escalating violence, the U.N. says, while renewed aerial bombardments by the Sudanese government in West Darfur are endangering tens of thousands of civilians.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission to Darfur, UNAMID, was launched in January. It has been tasked with preventing such violence but still lacks most of the 26,000 peacekeepers planned for the mission.
Only about 7,500 military personnel -- including many from China -- and 1,500 police officers are now in Darfur.
Sudanese officials deny the government is obstructing the deployment and blame the delay on a lack of necessary Western funding.
At Sudan's insistence, the U.N. Security Council agreed that the force would be predominantly African.
But the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist and military coup in 1989, has refused to approve non-African units from Thailand, Nepal and Nordic countries, which withdrew their offers.
More than 200,000 have died in Darfur and 2.5 million have fled their homes since 2003, when local ethnic African rebels took arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Sudan denies backing the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads accused of the worst atrocities in the conflict.
China's close ties with Sudan have seen it come under heavy pressure from non-governmental organizations, celebrity campaigners, and the U.S. Congress, who say China's failure to use its influence to persuade Sudan to end the Darfur violence could tarnish this summer's Beijing Olympics.
Gunmen Kill 20 In Darfur Village: Military
KHARTOUM (Reuters)28/02/08
- Unidentified gunmen have attacked a village in Darfur, killing about 20 civilians, a spokesman for the Sudanese armed forces said on Thursday.
Raging violence has caused a breakdown of law and order in Darfur in western Sudan, with inter-tribal clashes and rebel infighting adding to the suffering of civilians.
A Darfur rebel group blamed pro-government militiamen for the dawn raid on Wednesday against the village of al-Sunta in southern Darfur.
"The militias of the regime attacked an area in southern Darfur. They assassinated about 25 people, all civilians," said Al-Hadi al-Tijani, who identified himself as a spokesman of a rebel coalition called the New Sudan Brigade.
The armed forces' spokesman denied government involvement.
"It was a tribal clash, the armed forces had nothing to do with it," the spokesman said.
"It is a criminal case. Police are chasing the attackers and they have not yet identified which tribe did it."
Among the dead were the mayor of the village and a prayer leader, he said.
Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, said: "We have a report about a tribal clash in the area." He had no further details.
International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been forced to flee their homes since the conflict flared in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the central government, accusing it of neglecting the region.
The government mobilized mainly Arab militias to quell the revolt. The United States calls the violence a genocide. Sudan rejects this and says only 9,000 people have lost their lives.
Sudan has accepted the deployment of a 26,000-strong AU-U.N. force to stabilize the region. Only 9,000 troops are on the ground in the vast, arid region.
Western powers accuse the Sudanese government of using conditions such as the composition of the force as delaying tactics. Khartoum has so far rejected the notion of accepting non-African troops until all African soldiers have deployed to Darfur.
China's dilemma over Darfur
| By Michael Bristow BBC News, Beijing 13/02/08 |
China has worked hard over the past few months to show it is doing all it can to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.
It has appointed a special envoy, sent peacekeeping troops to the region and embarked on a publicity campaign to persuade others it is being responsible.
This was done in part to prevent anyone linking China's close relationship with Sudan to the Olympics Games.
But for Steven Spielberg it was still not enough.
His decision to withdraw as artistic adviser to the Games' opening and closing ceremonies will be seen as a huge blow.
Lucrative friendship
Beijing and Khartoum have long had strong political, economic and military ties.
China imports two-thirds of Sudanese oil - estimated at 500,000 barrels a day. Last year, it imported a total of $4.1bn ($2.0bn) worth of goods from Sudan, mostly oil.
China is also believed to be Sudan's biggest arms supplier.
Because of this strong relationship, Chinese leaders have traditionally resisted international pressure to use their clout to bring peace to Darfur, where there is conflict between government-back militias and rebels.
Beijing has even used its veto at the UN Security Council - to block moves to impose sanctions on Sudan if it fails to stop the fighting in the troubled region.
China's stock response to outside criticism about its Darfur policy always used to be that other countries should not involve themselves in Chinese affairs.
More involvement
But last year Beijing made a slight adjustment to that policy, appointing an envoy to Darfur, Liu Guijin.
He is an experienced diplomat who knows Africa well, having served as ambassador to both Zimbabwe and South Africa.
China also agreed to send in peacekeepers to the region as part of a UN force.
A total of 135 soldiers, who will not be engaged in frontline duties, have already arrived in Darfur.
| Most sponsors have anticipated this kind of an issue, are prepared to deal with it David Wolf, media consultant |
The London-based human rights organisation, Amnesty International, also claimed that China was selling weapons to Sudan in violation of a UN arms embargo.
Other human rights activists have called on countries to boycott the Beijing Olympics this August because of China's close relationship with Sudan.
And Hollywood star Mia Farrow voiced her own criticism, coining the phrase “genocide Olympics”, words that must have made Beijing officials shudder.
Olympic pressure
So China is currently attempting a delicate balancing act - trying to manage the expectations of the international community while maintaining close ties with Khartoum.
It adjusted its Darfur policy because it wants to be seen as a responsible player on the world stage, with a diplomatic stature to match its growing economic might.
More importantly, it does not want anything to impact on the Olympic Games.
It is not clear how Mr Spielberg's decision will affect the Olympics. But some analysts doubt it will lead to others cutting their links with the event.
“Most sponsors have anticipated this kind of an issue, are prepared to deal with it, and will continue to support the games,” said David Wolf, from media consultants Wolf Group Asia.
Chinese leaders will be hoping he is right.
China’s Genocide Olympics
The New York Times 24/01/08
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The Beijing Olympics this summer were supposed to be China’s coming-out party, celebrating the end of nearly two centuries of weakness, poverty and humiliation.
Instead, China’s leaders are tarnishing their own Olympiad by abetting genocide in Darfur and in effect undermining the U.N. military deployment there. The result is a growing international campaign to brand these “The Genocide Olympics.”
This is not a boycott of the Olympics. But expect Darfur-related protests at Chinese Embassies, as well as banners and armbands among both athletes and spectators. There’s a growing recognition that perhaps the best way of averting hundreds of thousands more deaths in Sudan is to use the leverage of the Olympics to shame China into more responsible behavior.
The central problem is that in exchange for access to Sudanese oil, Beijing is financing, diplomatically protecting and supplying the arms for the first genocide of the 21st century. China is the largest arms supplier to Sudan, officially selling $83 million in weapons, aircraft and spare parts to Sudan in 2005, according to Amnesty International USA. That is the latest year for which figures are available.
China provided Sudan with A-5 Fantan bomber aircraft, helicopter gunships, K-8 military training/attack aircraft and light weapons used in Sudan’s proxy invasion of Chad last year. China also uses the threat of its veto on the Security Council to block U.N. action against Sudan so that there is a growing risk of a catastrophic humiliation for the U.N. itself.
Sudan feels confident enough with Chinese backing that on Jan. 7, the Sudanese military ambushed a clearly marked U.N. convoy of peacekeepers in Darfur. Sudan claimed the attack was a mistake, but diplomats and U.N. professionals are confident that this was a deliberate attack ordered by the Sudanese leaders to put the U.N. in its place.
Sudan has already barred units from Sweden, Norway, Nepal, Thailand and other countries from joining the U.N. force. It has banned night flights, dithered on a status-of-forces agreement, held up communications equipment and refused to allow the U.N. to bring in foreign helicopters. The growing fear is that the U.N. force will be humiliated in Sudan as it was in Rwanda and Bosnia, causing enormous damage to international peacekeeping.
Another possible sign of Sudan’s confidence: an American diplomat, John Granville, was ambushed and murdered in Khartoum early this month. Many in the diplomatic and intelligence community believe that such an assassination could not happen in Khartoum unless elements of the government were involved.
Chinese officials argue that they are engaging in quiet diplomacy with Sudan’s leaders and that this is the best way to seek a solution in Darfur. They note that Sudan has other backers, and that China’s influence is limited.
It is true that since the start of the “Genocide Olympics” campaign (www.dreamfordarfur.org) a year ago, China has been more helpful, and it’s only because of Chinese pressure on Khartoum that U.N. peacekeepers were admitted to Darfur at all. But the basic reality is that China continues to side with Sudan — it backed Sudan again after it ambushed the U.N. peacekeepers — and Sudan feels protected enough that it goes on thumbing its nose at the international community.
Just a few days ago, Sudan appointed Musa Hilal, a founding leader of the Arab militia known as the janjaweed, to a position in the central government. This is the man who was once quoted as having expressed gratitude for “the necessary weapons and ammunition to exterminate the African tribes in Darfur.”
Other countries also must do much more, but China is crucial. If Beijing were to suspend all transfers of arms and spare parts to Sudan until a peace deal is reached in Darfur, then that would change the dynamic. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan would be terrified — especially since he is now preparing to resume war with South Sudan — and would realize that China is no longer willing to let its Olympics be stained by Darfuri blood.
Without his Chinese shield, Mr. Bashir would be more likely to make concessions to Darfur rebels and negotiate seriously with them, and he would no longer have political cover to resume war against South Sudan. That would make long-term peace more likely in Darfur and also in South Sudan.
I’m a great fan of China’s achievements, and I’ve often defended Beijing from unfair protectionist rhetoric spouted by American politicians. But those of us who admire China’s accomplishments find it difficult to give credit when Beijing simultaneously underwrites the ultimate crime of genocide.
China deserves an international celebration to mark its historic re-emergence as a major power. But so long as China insists on providing arms to sustain a slaughter based on tribe and skin color, this will remain, sadly, The Genocide Olympics.
Security Council, US slam Darfur attack
10/01/08 Agence France Presse
The UN Security Council and the United States Wednesday slammed a recent attack on a supply convoy of UN-African Union troops in Darfur as a senior UN official said Sudan admitted responsibility for the incident. Libya's UN envoy Giadalla Ettalhi, the council chair this month, said after consultations on Monday's attack in west Darfur that all 15 members "made it clear that the attack on UNAMID (the UN-AU peacekeeping force) was unacceptable and must never happen again." He added that all members "expressed their condemnation of any aggression on UNAMID or any other peacekeeping forces." "The United States condemns the January 7 attack by the Sudanese Armed Forces on United Nations peacekeepers who were traveling in a supply convoy in Darfur," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. Saying the attack "against peacekeepers in white vehicles clearly displaying UN markings is unacceptable," he said in a statement that it "demonstrates the need for a stronger arms embargo for Sudan." Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of the UN peacekeeping department, told the council that a Sudanese area commander had confirmed that "a Sudanese armed force unit fired upon a clearly marked UNAMID convoy" in west Darfur. But earlier Wednesday, Sudan's UN envoy Abdalmahmood Mohamad instead blamed Chad-backed rebels for Monday's attack. "If we had had helicopters capable of flying at night and quickly reinforcing a convoy under attack, of course we would have been in a position to deter, probably the attack would never have occurred," Guehenno said. He renewed his plea to member states to provide 24 crucial transport and light attack helicopters for UNAMID and for Khartoum to end its apparent foot-dragging in approving key non-African contingents for the force.
Sudanese Soldiers Fire on U.N. Peacekeepers in Darfur
09/01/08 Associated Press
Sudanese soldiers shot at a convoy of United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur, critically wounding a local driver and destroying a fuel tanker barely a week into the force's new mission in the region, United Nations officials said Tuesday. South African peacekeepers protecting the convoy did not return fire, and United Nations troops suffered no casualties, officials said. The attack was the latest challenge for the United Nations force, which has been heralded by the international community as having the ability to quell the violence in Darfur, though it took the field with only a fraction of the anticipated troops. The United Nations condemned the attack, which occurred late Monday, and said it had protested to the Sudanese government that "a clearly marked supplies convoy was attacked by elements of the Sudanese Armed Forces while on its way from Um Baru to Tine in West Darfur." "The government of Sudan has to provide unequivocal guarantees that there will be no recurrence of such activities by its forces," the United Nations said in a sharply worded statement. A United Nations peacekeeper in Darfur said Sudanese troops apparently mistook the convoy for Darfur rebels who operate in the area near the border with Chad. "It was nighttime," he said. "It seems the soldiers lost their calm." A senior official with the peacekeeping mission, known as Unamid, an abbreviation for the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, said the Sudanese soldiers stopped shooting after 10 minutes. United Nations vehicles are painted white and marked with the United Nations logo to signal their neutrality. It was unclear how the Sudanese soldiers could have mistaken them for rebels, who usually drive camouflaged pickup trucks.
Too few troops deployed in Darfur-U.N.’s Ban
08/01/08 Reuters
The situation is deteriorating in the western Sudanese region of Darfur and an existing peacekeeping force is too small to deal with it, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday. Last week a joint U.N.-African Union (AU) mission took over peacekeeping in Darfur from a purely AU force, seeking to end almost five years of fighting. But the swapping of green AU berets for U.N. blue ones is unlikely to bring rapid change. "I as the secretary-general and the United Nations as a whole ... must ensure the rapid deployment of hybrid operations as agreed to the level of 26,000 (peacekeepers) as soon as possible," Ban told reporters at his first news conference of 2008. "We have now 9,000 re-hatted soldiers in Darfur. That's not sufficient. That is why we are very concerned about the ongoing deteriorating situation in Darfur." The so-called hybrid force of AU and U.N. troops replaces a struggling AU mission. The plan is for it ultimately to comprise 20,000 soldiers and 6,000 police, but only a little over a third of those are so far in place. Ban said he spoke by telephone with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir last week and planned to meet with him in person at an upcoming AU summit in Addis Ababa. Bashir has opposed non-African troops, delayed allocating land to the force, demanded the right to disable the mission's communications during "security operations" and refused night flights. Ban made it clear that the international community, too, must help the deployment by providing necessary helicopters and other heavy transport vehicles seen as vital for the mission to function effectively in a region the size of France.
UN / AU Peacekeepers Ambushed In Sudan’s Darfur
08/01/08 Reuters
Armed men opened fire on a U.N./African Union supply convoy in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the first attack on the newly formed joint peacekeeping mission, officials said on Tuesday. A diplomatic source working in the region told Reuters Sudanese Army soldiers had fired at the convoy from the UN/AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) late on Monday, apparently confusing the peacekeepers for rebels. But UNAMID spokesman Noureddine Mezni said they were still investigating the incident and could not confirm the identity of the attackers. One civilian Sudanese driver was in a critical condition after being shot seven times, UNAMID said in a statement. Its forces were now at a "high state of alert" in Darfur. "The convoy came under fire from the Government of Sudan forces," said the diplomatic source in Darfur. "It is not clear how it happened. The convoy was traveling after 10 p.m. in the dark. They could have mistaken them for rebels. There have been a lot of things going on in that area recently." UNAMID said the convoy was taking food and fuel to a UNAMID outpost near the town of Tine close to the border of western Darfur state and Chad. "A UNAMID Supplies convoy was attacked last night, 7 January 2008, at approximately 2200 Hrs (1900 GMT), on its way from Umm Baru to Tine in Western Darfur. "The road convoy was on a re-supply mission to UNAMID team sites in the area between Um Baru, Tine and Kulbus, an area which has witnessed violent clashes between the government of Sudan and rebel movements and where UNAMID air operations have been restricted due to the security concerns." UNAMID troops guarding the convoy had not returned fire and none were injured, said the statement.