Stop the genocide in Darfur.

Check out http://www.askthecandidates.org for specific questions to ask the candidates about Darfur, information on what they've been asked and said on Darfur, and to find an event near you!

The next administration needs to pursue three related goals to demonstrate its commitment to both the strategic and moral imperatives of combating genocide: 1. reinvigorate a real peace process between marginalized Sudanese and the government in Khartoum, one that will exact concessions from the country's ruling cabal and bolster the peace agreement signed with the South in 2005; 2. ensure that a robust, well-equipped peacekeeping force is deployed under UN authorization and command; and 3. fully support the ICC's efforts to indict the perpetrators of the genocidal campaign. The first can build on the Bush Administration's earlier commitment to the North-South peace accord, but will potentially be the most difficult, due to the fractured nature of the Darfur rebel groups and the intransigence of the Sudanese government. The second requires substantial pressure on Russia and China, Sudan's veto-wielding protectors, and a refusal to be cowed to inaction by Khartoum's brazen rhetoric. The third mandates a change in traditional US hostility to the ICC, but at the very least, the US and CIA can supply valuable intelligence to help bring the perpetrators to justice.

The real solution to the problem in Darfur is to stop the CIA and Israel from financing the rebels. The US and Israel are committed to breaking up the Sudan and this civil war is the method. Just look who is organizing the Save Darfur campaign. Bush could end the tragedy in Darfur just be calling off the CIA and Israel.

The CIA and Israel are to blame for Darfur? What are you smoking? If anyone is too blame it is the Sudanese Muslims killing Sudanese Christians, and the major player in Sudan is China who buys most of Sudan's oil and keeps that tyrant in power.
If anything, the first thing the next President ought to do is call China out on this one.

Actually John425,

The conflict is much more based on than ethnic lines than religious lines. Assuming that there are only Christians and Muslims involved is an oversimplification and ultimately incorrect. It's really more like Arabs killing non-Arabs.

I don't think that the CIA and Israel are behind it, that sounds like a wacky conspiracy theory to me. I think you're right that China is one of the main problems to address.

I just don't like to see the conflict characterized in the wrong terms, because then it gets lumped in with the "war on terror" mentality.

The Darfur genocide continues for the following reasons:
1. The plans of the Sudanese Government to wipe out the African population of the Sudan have been long standing, probably for more than 10 years.

2. Inability to completely wipe out the African Sudanese revolutionary forces who sought to overcome the oppression led to the mass slaughter, destruction of property, rape of women, seizure of livestock, and burning of villages, in their attempt to create "The final solution of the African problem".

3. These policies, like those of Adolph Hitler, excited zero interest in the rest of the world in what was going on, and so there was no intervention, except by NGO’s and Jewish organizations who understood what genocide was like.
4. While I have been suggesting for more than a year, the threat to carry out bombing of sensitive military targets of the Sudanese Government, starting with the Sudanese Air Force, which has been bombing innocent civilians, no-one replied
to my emails or showed any interest in this idea. This policy was highly effective in the genocide in Kosovo and led to the eventual arrest of Milosevich and his trial in the International Court, as well as ending the genocide.

5. G.W.B. has at NO time shown any concern about this situation, and only acknowledged that genocide was going on after about 5 years in office, and no
doubt under some pressure. Since that acknowledgement, he has essentially done sweet nothing about it, other than to tell the UN to do something about it, while cutting funding for the UN, and not even paying the US dues, which have been long overdue. In no way has he lifted a finger to provide desperately needed high powered equipment for the UN- African force, such as helicopters.
His interests have been solely in providing donations to ultra-wealthy oil companies and industrial supporters, and making threats and plans to attack Iran.

6. The protection of the Sudanese Government by China, to maintain its oil supply from the Sudan, has encouraged that government to continue its genocidal plans.
The Sudanese Government has played a cat and mouse game of seeming to acquiesce in the international force to stop the genocide, while repeatedly revoking entry of any effective force into the Sudan. This was simply a delaying tactic which has been repeatedly successful.

7. Suggested threats to companies in the USA to divest funds from business in the Sudan have excited very little interest and certainly, if carried out, would have been a very minor pressure on the Sudanese Government.

In short, the World has abandoned the people of Darfur to their fate, just as the Jews of Europe were abandoned to the concentration camps and the gas chambers.

What could have been done?

1. An immediate threat to bomb sensitive targets in the Sudan.

2. An embargo on all imports to the Sudan.

3. All Sudanese accounts in foreign banks should have been frozen.

4. Blocking of all tankers carrying oil to other countries including China, until the genocide stopped and the Janjaweed were brought under control.

5. IF there was no backing off after these measures were adopted (which is highly doubtful), the International Force should have moved in to protect
the civilians from the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed. This could have been fully justified in the interest of preventing the crimes of murder and human rights violations in the Sudan.

Sincerely,

Ian Campbell Cree, MB(Hons.), MS, FRCS(Eng. & C.), FACS, LRCP.