|
|
 Re: نداء للاستماع، نداء للمشاركة/ أصوات نسائيه من دارفور في كلية ماشسيوستس للفنون ببوسطن. (Re: عبد المنعم ابراهيم الحاج)
|
thank you ya Monem, and let us talk soon.
Committee on Conscience
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
TOMORROW: Friday, March 18
2 p.m.
R.S.V.P. at 202-314-7868
Darfur Eyewitness: Brian Steidle
"Steidle and the monitors ... have persisted and become witnesses to
systematic crimes against humanity." -- Nicholas Kristof
Brian Steidle, a former U.S. Marine, was a member of the African Union team
monitoring the conflict in Darfur, where he took hundreds of photographs
documenting atrocities. Join us to learn what he witnessed in Darfur and to
see the evidence he gathered.
For more information, please find below Nicholas Kristof’s editorial about
Brian Steidle.
An American Witness to Sudan’s Systematic Killing
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times
March 3, 2005 -- American soldiers are trained to shoot at the enemy.
They`re prepared to be shot at. But what young men like Brian Steidle are
not equipped for is witnessing a genocide but being unable to protect the
civilians pleading for help.
If President Bush wants to figure out whether the U.S. should stand more
firmly against the genocide in Darfur, I suggest that he invite Mr. Steidle
to the White House to give a briefing. Mr. Steidle, a 28-year-old former
Marine captain, was one of just three American military advisers for the
African Union monitoring team in Darfur - and he is bursting with
frustration.
"Every single day you go out to see another burned village, and more dead
bodies," he said. "And the children - you see 6-month-old babies that have
been shot, and 3-year-old kids with their faces smashed in with rifle
butts. And you just have to stand there and write your reports."
While journalists and aid workers are sharply limited in their movements in
Darfur, Mr. Steidle and the monitors traveled around by truck and
helicopter to investigate massacres by the Sudanese government and the
janjaweed militia it sponsors. They have sometimes been shot at, and once
his group was held hostage, but they have persisted and become witnesses to
systematic crimes against humanity.
So is it really genocide?
"I have no doubt about that," Mr. Steidle said. "It`s a systematic
cleansing of peoples by the Arab chiefs there. And when you talk to them,
that`s what they tell you. They`re very blunt about it. One day we met a
janjaweed leader and he said, `Unless you get back four camels that were
stolen in 2003, then we`re going to go to these four villages and burn the
villages, rape the women, kill everyone.` And they did."
The African Union doesn`t have the troops, firepower or mandate to actually
stop the slaughter, just to monitor it. Mr. Steidle said his single most
frustrating moment came in December when the Sudanese government and the
janjaweed attacked the village of Labado, which had 25,000 inhabitants. Mr.
Steidle and his unit flew to the area in helicopters, but a Sudanese
general refused to let them enter the village - and also refused to stop
the attack.
"It was extremely frustrating - seeing the village burn, hearing gunshots,
not being able to do anything," Mr. Steidle said. "The entire village is
now gone. It`s a big black spot on the earth."
When Sudan`s government is preparing to send bombers or helicopter gunships
to attack an African village, it shuts down the cellphone system so no one
can send out warnings. Thus the international monitors know when a massacre
is about to unfold. But there`s usually nothing they can do.
The West, led by the Bush administration, is providing food and medical
care that is keeping hundreds of thousands of people alive. But we`re
managing the genocide, not halting it.
"The world is failing Darfur," said Jan Egeland, the U.N. under secretary
general for humanitarian affairs. "We`re only playing the humanitarian
card, and we`re just witnessing the massacres."
President Bush is pushing for sanctions, but European countries like France
are disgracefully cool to the idea - and China is downright hostile,
playing the same supportive role for the Darfur genocide that it did for
the Khmer Rouge genocide.
Mr. Steidle has just quit his job with the African Union, but he plans to
continue working in Darfur to do his part to stand up to the killers. Most
of us don`t have to go to that extreme of risking our lives in Darfur - we
just need to get off the fence and push our government off, too.
At one level, I blame President Bush - and, even more, the leaders of
European, Arab and African nations - for their passivity. But if our
leaders are acquiescing in genocide, that`s because we citizens are
passive, too. If American voters cared about Darfur`s genocide as much as
about, say, the Michael Jackson trial, then our political system would
respond. One useful step would be the passage of the Darfur Accountability
Act, to be introduced today by Senators Jon Corzine and Sam Brownback. The
legislation calls for such desperately needed actions as expanding the
African Union force and establishing a military no-fly zone to stop Sudan
from bombing civilians.
As Martin Luther King Jr. put it: "Man`s inhumanity to man is not only
perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also
perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good."
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Khalid Kodi
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست