Sunday, August 20, 2006

...and now put your money where your mouth is! Darfur.

CRISIS IN DARFUR, the Responsibility To Protect organization




Thanks to Gary for bringing it to my attention.So much effort to forge a peace treaty, and so much more that is needed to keep the peace in the Sudan. Factions have split off and continue fighting, and those who have signed the peace treaty, do not keep them:
"There has been more conflict since the Darfur Peace Agreement was signed, not less, more displacements of people, not fewer, and more human rights violations perpetrated without any progress towards justice. And what's more, there now is a very real danger that this conflict, as it spills over the border, will continue to spread beyond Sudan."

The African Union mission in Sudan (AMIS) does not have the means -- or, frequently, the will -- to protect civilians. A refugee woman who spent two years in Mornay camp before fleeing to Chad told Amnesty International that AMIS "does not take any action when displaced people complain. Even if a woman is raped, they just take her back to the camp."

An AMIS officer, complaining about diminishing resources, told Amnesty International in despair, "We can't protect people as we ought to. It's a sham."

In north Darfur, in the Korma region, 72 people were killed over the course of five days in early July. Their attackers were members of the Minni Minawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Army -- the only party, in addition to the government, to have signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). The attackers told their victims that they were being punished for opposing the DPA. AMIS troops did not answer the victims' cries for help, nor apparently did AMIS investigate the killings -- saying that the villagers attacked were associated with a group that had not signed the DPA.
This is what you can do;
Sign the Petition to Help Stop the Killing in Darfur!
Sign the Petition! Amnesty International has again raised the urgency of its work on Darfur in an effort to stop the atrocities taking place there, but we need your help to make peace and security a reality. Help us make a difference. Sign our petition today!

Also, if summer seems almost done to you (and with our hot TX weather it doesn't), you can still join the Darfur Action Summer Series.

Your help is but a click away, please check out the links.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:55 PM

    I signed it.

    Also here the heat is unbearable.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Yohay! You never know what your own action can do in the grand scheme of things; big things happen with many of such actions..
    It's about 38 or so Celsius I think but it's humid on top of that. Not as much as it was in Houston last week where we were but still...phew!
    Ingrid

    ReplyDelete