Editorials

July 17, 2008

Hello Fellow Darfur activists.
I apologize for not sending out an update for some time. I have a properly written update almost finished but in the meantime, after the news released today I had to get a quick message out to all. If you didn't hear the news, the International Criminal Court (ICC)is seeking an arrest warrant for the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for genocide and crimes against humanity. It is a very important step which may cause further kaos for awhile but hopefully it will be the catalyst for some proper action to help the people of Darfur. If nothing else, I think it will give them renewed hope that we haven't forgotten them. The news has been on all stations and Canada AM is doing a small feature about it as well.

If you have not done so for awhile or never before, a phone call to 1-800-genocid(e) or an email to the Prime Minister or your local politician saying you hope that this will be the first step in Canada and other countries to get involved and support the ICC decision through actions to take custody of the President and finally put a stop to the tragic killing and rape that has gone on for far too long. Read more here

Thank you for caring about our friends in Darfur! Debbie.

April 18, 2008

Aren Cumming, The Hamilton Spectator I'm too young to have been one of those iconic demonstrators of the 1960s. You know the ones I mean. The hippies who wore tie-dyed bandanas, smoked marijuana and famously flashed the peace sign at those anti-Vietnam war rallies. I was just a toddler back then.

Protest? I was too busy with my Pablum. Sadly, I didn't march on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr., I didn't burn any bras at a women's liberation rally and, no, I didn't hang out with John and Yoko at that infamous bed-in in Montreal.

The thing is, though, I would love to have been old enough to do all those things. What a roller-coaster ride it would have been -- watching history unfold from a ringside seat, raising my voice and raising a picket sign all at the same time. Doing something to make the politicians listen and the people care. Changing the world one rally at a time.

The trouble is, I'm a "tail-end-of-the-boom" Baby Boomer. My generation was born too late to protest anything but the fashion offences of the 1980s: big hair, shoulder pads and those dreadful bow-tie blouses. In fact, there's nothing that's ever really moved me to show up at a protest rally until now. Until Darfur. It all started last summer when I read a book called Not on Our Watch. Written by Hollywood actor Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) and celebrated activist John Prendergast, it details the pair's journey to Darfur and their desperate bid to convince Western politicians to stop the genocide happening there. They weren't alone. Hollywood heavyweights George Clooney and Matt Damon have also been driving forces behind the fight to raise awareness and help save lives.

The problem? The Arab Sudanese government is systematically exterminating the non-Arab people of the region of Darfur in western Sudan. Murdering, pillaging and raping without conscience or care. It is a massacre of epic proportion.

Feeling a twinge of deja vu? Think Rwanda. Think Armenia. Think Auschwitz. How does the old saying go? "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." Well, guess what?

We're repeating it. Again.

So Not on Our Watch, the book that I bought as a summer read last year, has weighed on my mind for months now. It's kept me awake at night, and I've asked myself what I could do. So I did what any of us could do. I bought a GO train ticket and trekked to Nathan Phillips Square on Sunday, for the The Fifth Global Day for Darfur rally.

A few thousand of us were in the crowd. We bought buttons, signed postcard petitions, shivered in the cold, listened and learned ... learned from some truly compelling speakers who took the podium. People such as Sergeant Debbie Bodkin of Waterloo regional police. Bodkin has been interviewed on national television a number of times now, telling profoundly moving tales of her work in Darfur with the United Nations and the U.S. State Department. She saw heart-wrenching things there, and now shares heart-wrenching stories. London North Centre MP Glen Pearson was one of a number of politicians in the crowd, introducing the three children he and his wife have adopted from Sudan.

To the dismay of many, this rally has become an annual event. A genocide that should have been stamped out by the international community as soon as the smoke started to rise continues to burn out of control. Make no mistake, it is a wildfire, and hundreds of thousands of utterly innocent people are being devoured by the flames.

Meanwhile, another piece of the puzzle is China. With the Olympics only months away, accusations are flying, and China is at the centre of the controversy yet again. Critics charge China is supplying Sudan with the weapons being used to carry out the slaughter. The Sudanese government is hell-bent on seeking out and destroying its victims with Chinese guns.

We have to stop it.

This disgraceful killing spree has carried on for five years now. Five years.

Sitting in our safe-and-sound Canadian homes wearing "Save Darfur" ribbons and coloured plastic bracelets isn't going to do the trick.

The only thing that will stop this is your outrage, your voice, your call to action.

And, to help you out, rally officials have set up a toll-free number you can dial to get your opinions straight to the prime minister. 1-800-GENOCIDE.

Really: 1-800-GENOCIDE.

Hey, I may never have been to an anti-Vietnam war rally. I may never have heard Martin Luther King Jr. give his I Have a Dream speech. I may never before have waved a picket sign.

But I'm doing it now.

With all due respect, folks, it's time to raise a little hell.

There's no time to waste.

Karen Cumming works in the communications industry and is a former CHML and CHCH reporter. She lives in Dundas.

April 22,2008

5th Annual Day for Darfur a Success: Thousands Rally at Events Held Across Canada

Dear Darfur Advocates,
I wanted to share the below words written by the Executive Director of Students Taking Action Now for Darfur,STAND Canada along with the links to the media coverage. Thank you to those of you who were able to make it to the rally. It was definitely a success! Debbie

"On Sunday April the 13th, we made our voices heard. 1000 people rallied at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, joining 100 groups in 30 countries around the world for the 5th Global Day for Darfur. Our hope is that it will be the last – that the people of Darfur will no longer have to live in fear simply because of who they are. With your continued support, we will be better able to bring about the day where Canada becomes the world leader in responding to genocide. We are making progress, but we are not there yet.

This rally was our most successful yet – it was widely covered both throughout the local and national media. Anne Wagner, our advocacy director, was interviewed in studio for CTV News –where we were chosen to be the lead story of the night! Please take a look at some of the links below to read more about our rally news coverage on Global National and MTV, in the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun and Hamilton Spectator.

While the Government of Canada has been generous to Darfur/Sudan in financial terms, money and supplies are only part of the bigger picture. Bags of rice will not bring peace to Darfur. Our government must become actively involved in fostering meaningful peace negotiations."

Sincerely,
Yoni Levitan, Executive Director, STAND Canada

Media coverage:

Toronto Star : Page 4 : http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/414252
Toronto SUN: http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/04/14/5278406-sun.html

Global National 11pm: http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/video/index.html (Story starts 10:50 minutes in; lasts 3 min)
CTV: Toronto - 6 pm LEAD STORY Featuring 1800GENOCIDE
Video & Article: http://www.ctvtoronto.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080413/darfur_rally_080413/20080413/?hub=TorontoNewHome
The Hamilton Spectator: http://www.thespec.com/article/356141
MTV Live

April 3, 2008

Olympic Campaign



I know that there is so much to read on the internet about Darfur that it is difficult to get through it all without burning out and doing nothing in the end. I also know how frustrated I get trying to find a few more hours in the day after working at my regular job and giving my speech to do more for Darfur and I know many of you who have signed up to my website may be in the same boat. So, I am pulling initiatives from other activists websites and compiling them in as short a layout as I can so you can get through it and decide where to go from there.
So, for this update I am giving you more information about the campaign targeting the Olympics in Bejing China in order to force them to stop protecting the Government of Sudan and allowing them to continue with their genocidal plans. I found this short video clip very motivating:
click here

Now, if you don’t mind reading a little, I think Eric Reeves words and advice is very much in order and gives us all some ideas as to what we can do next. I especially like his idea about people with translation skills spreading the word. If someone can translate his words and send an email off to people in another country, that is a huge accomplishment. When you have finished readying Eric’s ideas, if you have time to go to www.dreamfordarfur.org they have many positive articles about how the Olympics campaign is making waves and they have all the links to quickly email letters off to the sponsors advising them how you feel about the Darfur situation and China’s Olympics and suggest what you feel they should do… (once on their website you will see the tab: email corporate sponsors)
So, I won’t type further, but hope you have the time to read Eric’s words and then maybe set aside an hour to fire off a few letters, contact an Olympic athlete you might know to see what they feel they can do, or be the creator of another method of pressure in regards to the Olympics. As I say at the end of every one of my speeches; if we each just do our little bit, then collectively we will have done a lot.

Copied from the website: www.sudanreeves.org
It is important to remember that this should not, in my strongly held view, be a campaign to boycott the Olympics: a boycott would defeat the whole purpose of the campaign, and be deeply divisive. Moreover, if a boycott were successful (extremely unlikely) the political platform from which to challenge China would disappear. Further, a boycott in and of itself achieves nothing: the challenge is to shame China, to hold Beijing's leaders accountable, to make them understand that without exerting all necessary pressure on Khartoum, the current campaign will only grow in strength and visibility right up to the Opening Ceremonies.

Nor are athletes the targets. Certainly they can be encouraged to wear a green stripe, of whatever prominence and size they dare, on their athletic attire as a symbol of their support for the people of Darfur. Certainly they should be encouraged to speak out publicly on Darfur. But the Olympic athletes are not the target: the Beijing regime is. The regime alone has the power to change the current diplomatic dynamic in ways that will force Khartoum to allow in the forces that can provide security to the victims of ongoing genocide. China, not the Olympic Games or its participants, is the target.

What are the key initial tasks?

There is tremendous scope for creative advocacy here, and for the deployment of diverse skills and energies: linguistic, internet, communications, graphic design, advocacy writing, and organizational. What happens, for example, if 1,000 students and advocates demonstrate before the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, declaring with banner, placards, and T-shirts that China will be held accountable for its complicity in the Darfur genocide? What happens if such demonstrations are continuous, and grow, and take place outside China's embassies in other countries? in many other countries? What happens if everywhere---everywhere---Chinese diplomats and politicians travel they are confronted by those who insist on making this an occasion for highlighting China's role in the Darfur genocide?

Aspiring or experienced documentarians can make full use of extensive and widely available photography and videography to make short films that highlight the tradition of the Olympic Games, the Darfur genocide, and China's role. It would not be inappropriate to include footage of the 1936 Olympic Games, held in Nazi Germany, as an example of a precedent for current concerns about genocide in Darfur. The opportunities for graphic artists, using photography and other resources, are also innumerable. Everything from high-quality PDF files to screensavers, bumper-stickers, posters, T-shirts, and coffee mugs can send the key message.

Translation is a key task: this cannot be an American or even Western campaign. China must feel the shaming pressure from all quarters. Those with advanced language skills---French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swahili, German, Italian, Russian, Hungarian, Czech, or others---should start putting those skills to use in translating key texts and advocacy suggestions from English. Those with contacts in other countries should start networking, creating an advocacy presence on as many international fronts as possible. Human Rights in China (http://www.hrichina.org/public/index) may be an organization with the potential to introduce the issue into China itself. Other such means of taking the campaign directly to Beijing are available.

Letter-writing and petition campaigns that alert the International Olympic Committee (http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp) to the terrible disgrace of China's dual role---sustaining the Darfur genocide and hosting the Games---will certainly register. Similar campaigns to urge Olympic corporate sponsors to use their leverage with the Chinese might also be effective: this is the season for corporate sponsorship agreements to be finalized.

To succeed, this campaign must go "viral": it must be potent, creative, focused, and uncontrollable. It must take every advantage of the various means offered by the era of electronic communication (I'll offer links on my website, www.sudanreeves.org, to particularly useful or creative efforts). The Chinese must be forced to see that there is a stark choice before them: either they use their leverage effectively with Khartoum and secure the regime's assent for deployment of the UN peace support operation---authorized by Security Council Resolution 1706---or they will be the target of the most powerful international shaming campaign in history. The Chinese must understand that there is no third option, no "third way."

The general lack of effective advocacy actions and initiatives has not been lost on Khartoum's ruthless génocidaires. Despite the very high profile and potent nature of the American Darfur advocacy movement, and despite the enormous and consequential successes of the American-led divestment campaign, the pressure must be ratcheted up a good deal higher. Other European companies may well follow the lead of Germany's Siemens and Switzerland's ABB Ltd: both recently suspended operations in Sudan, as demanded by the divestment campaign that is currently a powerful success nationally. Such ongoing loss of European commercial and capital investment certainly has the full attention of the National Islamic Front leadership. But these losses must be combined with concerted diplomatic pressure from the Chinese, Khartoum's dominant economic partner and military enabler, and heretofore unwavering diplomatic protector.

The task is daunting but fully practicable, given the moral passion and creative energies of the Darfur advocacy community. Let the campaigns begin!




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