Free Republic

Brian Steidle's only weapons against mass killing were his pen, paper, and camera. The former Marine captain catalogs what they caught in Darfur, Sudan, with quick-fire urgency: toddlers with their faces smashed in, men castrated and left to bleed to death, charred bodies of villagers locked in huts later burned down. Charged only with monitoring ceasefire violations in the war-wracked region, he soon grew weary of playing spectator to genocide. So after six months, the 28-year-old Mr. Steidle returned to the United States a month ago and launched his own offensive to stop the killing. In mid-March he criss-crossed Washington,...

GOP group to hear about Sudan By: The Californian TEMECULA ---- "Darfur, Sudan: The Hidden Holocaust" will be the topic when the Murrieta-Temecula Republican Assembly meets Aug 4. Speakers will be Patrick Matrisciana, a veteran film producer and founder of three motion picture production and distribution companies, Majur Malou, associate director of the St. Luke's Refugee Network, and Kim Alexander, from The Voice of the Martyrs. The situation in Darfur rose to a crisis level in 2003. Ethnic African rebel groups rose up against the Arab-led government, which responded by unleashing ethnic Arab militias known as janjaweed, who have been...

6/07/2006: The crisis in Darfur continues to take its toll on people's lives despite the intervention of the African Union's peacekeeping force. (AWID) The United Nations has been keen to send peacekeepers to this volatile region of Sudan, but the Sudanese government has been reluctant to let a UN force in, claiming that this would be akin to allowing a recolonization of the first African country south of the Sahara to gain independence. [1] Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir recently indicated that he would lead a resistance against any foreign force coming into Darfur. [2] His government has, however, not opposed...

WATERVILLE -- Mainers should push the Maine State Retirement System to divest $50 million of its investments in international companies operating in war-torn Sudan, a group of activists said Friday. A bill currently in the Statehouse to force the divestment, L.D. 1758, hangs in the balance, said Wells Staley-Mays, an adviser to the Fur Cultural Revival. He was speaking at a Colby College event alongside three Sudanese refugees. "Fur" refers to a major non-Arab tribe in the Sudanese region of Darfur -- an area the size of Texas, whose name literally means "home of the Furs" -- now threatened with...

U.N. Security Council plans transition from AMIS to U.N. peacekeeping in region The transition from the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur is a complicated and logistically difficult mission, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told reporters February 3. The United States remains committed to the transition, as is the United Nations, where the Security Council unanimously issued a presidential statement to initiate contingency planning for the transition, Bolton said. He emphasized both the United Nations' and the United States' commitment to continuing support for AMIS "until the possible transition is...

Every village has been wrecked, burned or abandoned and every inch of the vast African plain is devoid of life. For mile after mile, there are no people. The huts they once inhabited are blackened shells. The fields they once worked are empty. There will be no harvest this year, just as there has been no harvest since the outbreak of war. Then, amid desolation and solitude, it becomes brutally obvious where the people are. Kalma refugee camp, with 96,000 inhabitants, teems with life. These are the survivors of the carnage, now reduced to living in shacks made of plastic...

Entire Darfur village of 55,000 flees after raids by Janjaweed gunmen By David Blair in Menawashi (Filed: 04/02/2006) Exhausted refugees were building ramshackle shelters in a dry river bed yesterday after 55,000 people fled a raid mounted by the Janjaweed militia in the Sudanese province of Darfur. It was the biggest movement of refugees there so far this year. The victims, many of whom have fled attacks twice or even three times before, are camped around the town of Menawashi in southern Darfur. They abandoned the nearby town of Mershing after two attacks from the pro-regime militia in the space...

For over two years now the Arab-supported Janjaweed of Sudan have been ethnically cleansing the Darfur Region of black Christians and Muslims. The death toll in the region is now approaching 400,000 and climbing, while the spineless functionaries at the UN are toying with diplomatic niceties and ceaseless discussions. Former Liberal and now independent Member of Parliament David Kilgour has been appalled by the slaughter and while still a member of the Liberal caucus urged his party to take some kind of action to stop the genocide. Of course, in those days the Liberals really didn’t need David Kilgour and...

CWNews.org – The U.S. Congress has passed a resolution calling the Sudanese government's war on black Africans in Darfur, Sudan, genocide. By doing so, the Congress hopes to pressure the United Nations to take action in Darfur. But lost in the tragedy are the recent atrocities committed against Christians and animists in South Sudan. Kenneth Roth is with Human Rights Watch. He said the group has documents proving Khartoum's military support of the Janjaweed in Darfur. Roth said the documents, "…show the provision of military support to the Janjaweed, including the provision of arms." Another important document was released. But...

Janjaweed onslaught forces UN to quit Darfur By David Blair, Africa Correspondent (Filed: 18/03/2005) Threats of violence forced the United Nations to evacuate large areas of war-torn Darfur yesterday, underlining Sudan's failure to curb the notorious janjaweed militia. UN aid workers helping desperate refugees were withdrawn from outlying areas of Western Darfur province and brought to the safety of the local capital, El Geneina. Gunmen from the janjaweed, which translates as "demons on horseback", have issued new threats to aid workers and food convoys. The janjaweed, who have mounted a brutal campaign against Darfur's black African tribes, were the subject...

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 1 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday called for deploying 10,130 peacekeepers to Sudan in the wake of a peace accord reached between the government and rebels operating in the south of the country. In a report to the Security Council, Annan said the force will help Khartoum implement the agreement signed with rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in Nairobi, Kenya, on January 9. The contingent will include 750 military observers, 160 officers, small peacekeeping units totaling 5,070 personnel, a protection force of 4,150 soldiers. An additional force of 755...

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Sudan's foreign minister said Monday a U.N. report concluded that no genocide was committed in his country's Darfur region, where tens of thousands of civilians have died in a nearly two-year crisis. At U.N. headquarters in New York, diplomats confirmed that the report did not find that Sudan had committed genocide, but they said it was very critical of Sudanese government actions. The report was expected to be circulated in New York on Tuesday. The United States has accused Sudan's government of directing militia who attack civilians in what Washington has called a genocidal campaign in...

Sudanese Troops Attack and Destroy Camp in Darfur Gripping a pair of pliers, a doctor pried a bullet from Amina Kharim's swollen and bleeding left arm. Eight hours earlier, at dawn Tuesday, she had been asleep in a shelter of grass and sticks when government soldiers and police stormed into this camp of 5,000 in South Darfur. Residents and relief workers said the troops burned shelters, smashed water pipes, fired tear gas and beat people as they fled half-asleep from their huts. Within five hours, they said, the camp was reduced to ashes and about 100 residents were crammed into...

A top official from Sudan's ruling party says the Government will not disarm "Arab tribes" in the troubled Darfur region, saying they were not all members of the Janjaweed militia. "The Government and international community are not in agreement over the definition of the Janajweed," National Congress party secretary general Ibrahim Omar told a press conference in Cairo. "We do not consider Arab tribes and their leaders Janjaweed," he said, adding that the international community appeared to consider all Arab tribes in Darfur Janjaweed. However, he said the Goverment in Khartoum was disarming outlawed gangs - made up of criminal...

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, has called the Sudanese rampage against Black Africans a “genocide:” We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed [Arab militia] bear responsibility and genocide may still be occurring. The Sudanese government has been sponsoring a campaign of mass rape, mass murder, forced relocations, and forced starvation against Black Africans in Darfur. The BBC today tried to spin the usual “the U.S. is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t” argument today: Critics point out...

Janjaweed not being reined in, says UN By David Blair in Khartoum (Filed: 17/08/2004) The prospect of international sanctions being imposed on Sudan drew closer yesterday when the United Nations envoy in Khartoum said no progress had been made on disarming the Janjaweed militia in Darfur. Hundreds more refugees arrived in neighbouring Chad saying that government forces, in league with the Janjaweed, had launched more attacks on their villages with helicopter gunships. Last month a Security Council resolution gave Sudan until Aug 29 to curb the Janjaweed. The UN said that in the latest talks between its envoy Jan Pronk...

NYALA, Sudan - The boy doesn't wear shorts. He doesn't play with his friends. His heart wants to, but his legs won't let him. Only 12, Hussein Muhamed sits in the shade of his small hut, dressed in a pair of long khakis, a lost soul sidelined in a refugee camp full of them. His scrawny legs are burned so deeply, from ankle to hip, that he hobbles like an old man - a grisly testament to the day government-backed militiamen called the janjaweed raided his village. "They grabbed me and yelled: `You are the son of slaves'," recalled...

Key points • Killing continues as government forces attack villagers • Air attacks mounted in Darfur region • African Union peacekeeping forces also said to be targeted Key quote "Four people were killed. There were Janjaweed and government soldiers and they were shooting at people from all sides. People lay on the ground but they were still shot." - Save the Children representative Paul Hetherington

Sudanese President Orders Disarmament of Militia in Embattled Darfur Region The Associated Press Jun 20, 2004 KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - Sudan's president, under international pressure to end killings of civilians in the western Darfur region, said the armed forces will disarm the Arab militias blamed for what the United Nations has called a humanitarian crisis. President Omar said in a statement Saturday said he was ordering a "complete mobilization" of all Sudanese army and security forces to disarm all Darfur's warring parties, including the janjaweed - nomadic Arab militia that the government has been accused of supporting. Fighting between Arab...

A refugee from the village of Kailek tends a camp fire in Kas, Sudan. (Sudarsan Raghavan/Knight Ridder) Muslim killing Muslim in Sudan By Sudarsan Raghavan Knight Ridder News Service     KAILEK, Sudan -- The white-robed men on horseback shot two of Hamid Rahman's boys that scorching afternoon. They were 3 and 6. But they weren't the youngest or the weakest to die. The Arab marauders targeted the blind, the disabled, the women carrying children -- anyone who couldn't run fast enough.     "They killed even babies," recalled Rahman, 40, a survivor with sad, glassy eyes.     Here, in the...