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How A Strong Completion In Iraq Will Help In Darfur
One reason I did not take up the banner for the tragic events in Darfur was due to jading of my concern. For a long time the world ignored this same regime in its atrocities against the Christians in the country of Sudan. But now everyone is ‘jumping on the bandwagon” – I say a little too late. You’re crying now that it is made the tragedy du jour, but this is not new policy for the Militant Islamic government of Sudan. It is merely a continuation of the tactics they honed in Southern Sudan. The important matter in all this is what has given rise to this systematic rape, removal, and killing? Intolerant Islam.
For years, slavery was dealt with one by one as Christian ministries put together money to try to buy back individuals freedom, all the while wringing their hearts over whether this encouraged the continuation of the oppression. I think in Darfur they might have their answer. It mattered much that individuals here or there might have a chance to escape, but the regime was determined to grind on throughout the country, obfuscating for their minions while allowing the opposition to be routed, and now it looks like, starved out.
The background is the agenda of Islamic militarism:
Biography of Hassan al Turabi (Human Rights Watch May 2002)
The National Islamic Front (NIF)
The NIF sought to create an Islamic state in Sudan. In 1989, from behind the scenes, this party participated in a military coup overthrowing the elected government. From that time until 2001, [ Hassan al] Turabi was the power behind the throne, whether as leader of the NIF or later as speaker of the assembly. He led the creation of the NIF police state and associated NIF militias to consolidate Islamist power and prevent a popular uprising. The NIF police state and militias committed many human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture, ill treatment, arbitrary detentions, denial of freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, and violations of the rules of war, particularly in the south, where a civil war was being waged from 1983 to the present. [2002]
” The ICC prosecutor’s decision to investigate mass slaughter and rape in Darfur will start the wheels of justice turning for the victims of these atrocities. As a U.N. member state, Sudan is obligated to cooperate with the ICC investigation. ”
Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program (Human Rights Watch 06-2005
Human Rights Causes of the Famine in Sudan- The Context
Human Rights Causes of the Famine in Sudan- The Context
Sudan, once promoted as the bridge between the Arab and African worlds, is distinguished by human rights abuses arising from the government’s determination to create an Arab Islamic state. It discriminates against and marginalizes non-Arabs and non-Muslims, who make up 60 percent and 40 percent respectively of the 27 million population. Gross abuses of international humanitarian law in the fifteenth year of the civil war continue to be committed by all parties, including the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).
This article from the same source, at the time of September 1, 1998 goes on to say:
” Sudan’s four million internally displaced persons are mostly the product of the prolonged war. Many lost homes, cattle, and family members; hundreds of thousands moved to Khartoum, where the government treated them as second class citizens and violated their right to freedom of movement, and without compensation or notice razed their churches, schools and community centers.
The government denied any religious discrimination but admittedly refused to grant any permits to build churches in Khartoum for the last twenty-five years, while routinely issuing permits for the construction of new mosques. Trials for apostasy (a Muslim converting to another religion), which carries the death penalty, are rare but continue to occur, mostly recently with a Nuba on trial for converting to Christianity.
Sudan contains nineteen major ethnic groups (with almost 600 subgroups), speaking more than 115 tribal languages. Arabic is the official language. The government’s strategy in the war zones (where African non-Arab populations predominate) was to turn African peoples against one another. It continues to follow a divide and rule strategy, even promoting fighting between pro-government Nuer sections in Western Upper Nile. ”
So, yes, this started as persecution of Christians… about which the WORLD SAID NOTHING. NOTHING. Which is why liars can now say that Sudan is not an example of Christian persecution and religious oppression. It is, it simply has grown and modified to stamp out some of its own who aren’t following the militant Islamic agenda.
And this is a pattern we see in more than one nation of the world.
It is time to understand what we are dealing with, and stop the lies. And shame those who -by all rights in heaven, in earth, and under the earth ought to be ashamed. And call the immoral for who they are: those who give the hand to the the rape, the starvation, the removal, of people who are in the way of their Sharia. Because they can’t win hearts, and they know it.
now… if you are still with me let’s move under the fold and discuss Iraq
The only way we will retain any credibility in this mission to uphold true morality, that is evidenced in humaneness, is to quit ourselves well in Iraq. We have begun the fight, and we cannot afford to fail these people. Not for our reputation. To hell with falsely manufactured reputations. No, instead, we must try our utmost to give the Iraqi people the tools they need for independence as a secular state. One that allows for tolerance of their varied ethnic and creedal groups.
I do not like that we are in Iraq, but we are there. If we cannot help them, who have had a historical secular state in the past, then we cannot hope to encourage other Muslims to try to moderate and live as good neighbors. We must do our best in Iraq, and finish the task: a stabilized government in a volatile region.
We do not have the will or manpower to start something new in Darfur, and couldn’t hope to accomplish anything anyway, as long as the Iraq area is in question.
You see, it is now a matter of credibility which was badly damaged when we pulled out of the area in the last Desert Storm and left so many to suffer for their trust in our help. You can make a first mistake, but people are generally unforgiving of a second one. Generally speaking.
It is a matter of coming through on our promised intent.
I am sorry that our country has so spent resources of all types that we are in no position to come to the aid of Darfur… like some caped Super Hero. But we can’t, and if we try I am of a level of pessimism that I hate to verbalize it.
I do want the International Community to come to the aid of Darfur, but we cannot bear the lion share of that until we have finished our task in Iraq. The trouble is that the structures of International Community finds itself infiltrated by the worst of villians(Despots Pretending to Spot and Shame Despots). Thus, the complete failure to do anything of value on behalf of suffering humanity.
But for us, one step at a time, make the plan, and follow the plan.
In the meantime pray for those poor souls in Darfur, because the world isn’t likely to do anything of import to help them anytime soon.
It’s odd you know, because I didn’t learn much about the religious factors in the conflict because most of the reporting I’d seen about it presented the matter in political, tribal and economical terms.
I’d love to be pushing for Canada to take up the call but our military is a joke (don’t even get me started…). However there are several European countries (France? Belgium? England, but perhaps Iraq has their hands tied) who, considering the self-images they love to present the world, you would think they’d be all over this.
Chirac is too concerned about one-upping England and saving face at home. Frankly all of the EU old-guard is too concerned in mainting their positions in the EU and keeping out the “riff-raff” of the Eastern Euro countries to worry about a little thing like genocide in Africa.
After all, it’s nothing new, is it? (And the number of charities valiantly trying to operate in Darfur grows smaller.)
Due to the media slant, I had second guessed myself, but in digging around I came up with what I had recalled from Christian persecution watch lists and news articles from years ago. Before I had a blog I had written a small post on the subject, but in more general terms of African based slave trade. Now, of course, human trafficking is even more widespread and Africa is not even the worst of it. It does have more extreme atrocities however.