Charging president Bashir of Sudan with Genocide
Finally! After 5 years of inaction by the international community, Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir has been charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), issued the charges after years of gathering evidences that were plain for all to see.
A predictable reaction followed: Charging Sudan’s president with genocide may cause him to commit even greater violence against Darfuris. It may worsen the plight of the surviving refugees. Aid may not reach them. The few peacekeepers may be thrown out of Sudan. And on and on.
What people forget is the brutal statistics on the ground. Over 2 million people have been killed, Muslims at the hands of Muslims, and there is no sign that the carnage will stop anytime soon. Unless president Bashir is convinced that his reign of terror must come to an end, he will continue to act with impunity. The ICC charges have put him on the defensive. That is a good sign.
What I found shocking was the general indifference of Muslims to the carnage in Darfur. While a cartoon could drive Muslims to frenzy, ethnic Muslims being slaughtered by the Muslim janjaweed militia, and actively supported by the Khartoum regime, hardly ruffled our feathers. In the five years of the Darfur genocide, I rarely heard a Friday sermon on it in my local mosques, nor came across any conference on the issue in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live.
President Bashir belongs to the same murderous group as Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Liberia’s Charles Taylor. The Hague charges offer hope to millions of Sudanese who may yet survive to experience a life devoid of violence and the constant fear of death. Making president Bashir and his associates accountable for their crimes is the surest way of preventing more genocide in the world.
P.S. June 22 - After 13 years of eluding capture, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has been arrested by the Serbian police on June 21. He is expected to be transferred to The Hague soon to stand trial for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered after Bosnian Serb forces seized the United Nations “safe area.” The long arm of International Law is finally reaching tyrants who commit genocide, mass murders and "ethnic cleansing" under their watch. In a world that often appears to be teetering on the brink of a catastrophe of one sort or another, the arrest of Karadzic offers hope that the center can indeed hold and that the best are the ones who are full of passionate intensity. The question now is, how long do we have to wait before Omar Bashir joins Mr. Karadzic in the Hague?
Showing posts with label Sudan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sudan. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A Call for Olympians to Take a Stand Against the Genocide in Darfur
The Olympic charter contains these soaring lines: “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
However, the charter also prohibits demonstrations of "political, religious or racial propaganda" at the official venues.
Should athletes follow the letter or the spirit of the Olympics charter? The question is gaining urgency as the world prepares to celebrate the summer Olympics in China in August this year.
China’s human rights violations in Tibet and, in particular, its complicity in the genocide in Darfur, are known to all but the most insular. Sudan whets China's bottomless appetite for oil and spends a significant portion of its oil revenue to buy arms from China. Protected by its trading partner at the United Nations, the Khartoum government has consistently flouted international appeals to stop the genocide in Darfur that it has waged with its allied Janjaweed militia on the darker-skinned indigenous farmers of the region since 2003.
One athlete who feels passionately about the Darfur genocide is the American Joey Cheek. Cheek won the gold medal in 500-meter speed skating at the 2006 winter Olympics in Turin. At the awards ceremony, Cheek announced that he was donating all his winnings from the U.S. Olympic Committee, a total of $40,000, to Darfurian refugees in Chad.
I can still recall how stunned and electrified I was (feelings that I undoubtedly shared with millions of TV viewers around the world) at the magnitude of this humanitarian gesture.
In a recent article, Cheek explained his motivation: “I feel no different from a person born in any other area of the world, except perhaps a bit luckier. And if people were gunning down my family, I would certainly want the world to help. So that's what I tried to do.”
Cheek launched a Website that monitors the situation in Darfur. It has become the catalyst for an international coalition of athletes determined to bring an end to the violence that has so far claimed over 400,000 lives in Western Sudan and created a staggering 2.5 million refugees.
Cheek wants to use the Beijing Olympics as a platform for peacefully publicizing the genocide in Darfur. Although not a contestant, his message to participating athletes is moving and forceful: “I sincerely hope that the newest Olympic champions not only show graciousness toward their Chinese hosts, but also issue a stern call for action in Darfur. With its significant ties to Sudan, China is one of the countries in the world best positioned to do more to stop the killing in Darfur, and it is the responsibility of athletes competing there this summer to say that -- respectfully yet forcefully -- even as they focus on their own athletic accomplishments.”
Mia Farrow, George Clooney, Don Cheadle and several other public figures have been working to draw the world's attention on the horrors of Darfur. In an ideal world sports and politics would not mix but we do not live in an ideal world. Who can ever forget the Black Power salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City, and how it shook up the status quo? Joey Cheek is right to mobilize athletes to stop the unending violence in Darfur by putting pressure on the Chinese government. After all, what can be “faster, higher, stronger” than the force of will to defend those who are unable to defend themselves?
The Olympic charter contains these soaring lines: “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
However, the charter also prohibits demonstrations of "political, religious or racial propaganda" at the official venues.
Should athletes follow the letter or the spirit of the Olympics charter? The question is gaining urgency as the world prepares to celebrate the summer Olympics in China in August this year.
China’s human rights violations in Tibet and, in particular, its complicity in the genocide in Darfur, are known to all but the most insular. Sudan whets China's bottomless appetite for oil and spends a significant portion of its oil revenue to buy arms from China. Protected by its trading partner at the United Nations, the Khartoum government has consistently flouted international appeals to stop the genocide in Darfur that it has waged with its allied Janjaweed militia on the darker-skinned indigenous farmers of the region since 2003.
One athlete who feels passionately about the Darfur genocide is the American Joey Cheek. Cheek won the gold medal in 500-meter speed skating at the 2006 winter Olympics in Turin. At the awards ceremony, Cheek announced that he was donating all his winnings from the U.S. Olympic Committee, a total of $40,000, to Darfurian refugees in Chad.
I can still recall how stunned and electrified I was (feelings that I undoubtedly shared with millions of TV viewers around the world) at the magnitude of this humanitarian gesture.
In a recent article, Cheek explained his motivation: “I feel no different from a person born in any other area of the world, except perhaps a bit luckier. And if people were gunning down my family, I would certainly want the world to help. So that's what I tried to do.”
Cheek launched a Website that monitors the situation in Darfur. It has become the catalyst for an international coalition of athletes determined to bring an end to the violence that has so far claimed over 400,000 lives in Western Sudan and created a staggering 2.5 million refugees.
Cheek wants to use the Beijing Olympics as a platform for peacefully publicizing the genocide in Darfur. Although not a contestant, his message to participating athletes is moving and forceful: “I sincerely hope that the newest Olympic champions not only show graciousness toward their Chinese hosts, but also issue a stern call for action in Darfur. With its significant ties to Sudan, China is one of the countries in the world best positioned to do more to stop the killing in Darfur, and it is the responsibility of athletes competing there this summer to say that -- respectfully yet forcefully -- even as they focus on their own athletic accomplishments.”
Mia Farrow, George Clooney, Don Cheadle and several other public figures have been working to draw the world's attention on the horrors of Darfur. In an ideal world sports and politics would not mix but we do not live in an ideal world. Who can ever forget the Black Power salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City, and how it shook up the status quo? Joey Cheek is right to mobilize athletes to stop the unending violence in Darfur by putting pressure on the Chinese government. After all, what can be “faster, higher, stronger” than the force of will to defend those who are unable to defend themselves?
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Don’t Let a Teddy Bear Mask the Horrors of Darfur
So the Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir has “pardoned” Gillian Gibbons after meeting with two Muslim members of the British House of Lords. Hold the applause, please.
Gibbons was the British teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her 6- and 7-year-old students in Khartoum’s Unity High School to name a teddy bear “Muhammad”, a name chosen by the young learners themselves. While in custody for eight days, cruel clerics and assorted Sudanese “defenders of the faith” chanted for Gibbons’s execution.
That they were doing so under the patronage of a government desperate to deflect the world’s attention away from Darfur was plain for all to see.
But we must not allow Darfur to be eclipsed by the zany tale of a teddy bear.
The Janjaweed Arab militia, armed and recruited by the Sudanese government, has massacred over 200,000 tribal people in the Darfur region, and 2.5 million were forced to flee their homes, in four years of fighting.
Conspiracy theories cannot be admitted here: it is a case of Muslims killing mostly Muslims.
No private citizen has been more vocal, daring and persistent in opening our eyes to the genocide in Darfur than the actress Mia Farrow.
Farrow put the Gibbons episode in perspective: “One white woman in peril with a teddy bear has captured more media attention than the past three years of our brothers and sisters in the Darfur region. I look back at what we were doing during the Rwanda situation and in America we were watching the O. J. Simpson trial.”
A goodwill ambassador for UNICEF who visited Darfur seven times since 2004 and witnessed the effects of the carnage firsthand, Farrow launched a fund for the region and said: “This is the first genocide of the 21st century and the one genocide that is ongoing as we speak. We have a regime that launched a military campaign on an unarmed population for no other reason than that they are not Arab.”
Actors George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon have also worked tirelessly to raise our awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Their Not On Our Watch project seeks to "focus international attention on the continuing carnage in Darfur, encouraging governments and international organizations to take meaningful action to protect the vulnerable, marginalized, and displaced. Where governments have remained silent, we are committed to working to render otherwise invisible atrocities, visible."
Zealotry and illiteracy can be a potent mix. Spectacles like the Sudanese clerics making a mountain out of nothing, not even a molehill, can both enrage and demoralize Muslims.
Consider: In the six years since 9/11, public opinion in America has shifted significantly against Muslims. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 35 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Muslims, up from 29 percent in 2002. Whereas 27 percent of Americans in 2002 thought that Islam was more likely to encourage violence than any other religion, the figure in 2007 stands at a whopping 45 percent.
For Muslims fighting bigotry and distrust and striving to earn their rightful place in Western societies, incidents like the one in Khartoum can sap the energy and make us wonder if we will ever make any progress.
Yet, as grim as the situation looks, we must not forget Darfur. If we are to remain true to our faith, we must join hands with people of conscience around the world in forcing the Sudanese government to stop the genocide.
A group of retired statesmen, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president Jimmy Carter, have issued a report this week for the Sudanese government to honor past peace treaties, for rebel groups to participate in peace talks and for the international community to support a peacekeeping force with money and manpower.
Muslims can be a catalyst for such efforts, at least at the grassroots level. We can be the largest donors to Farrow’s Darfur fund. And we can demand that our imams and leaders address the Darfur situation forthrightly and unsparingly in their sermons and lectures.
In the four years since the Darfur genocide began, I did not hear a single sermon on it in the mosques that I attended in the San Francisco Bay Area, nor come across a single conference organized around the atrocities of the Sudanese regime.
It may be that as a minority, we feel overwhelmed by a few hate-mongers in the media. It may be that we are frustrated by our inability to reach out to many of our fellow-Americans despite the open houses and the interfaith dialogues. It may be that some of us experience discrimination at work because of our faith. And it is a fact that more than any other group, we are singled out for scrutiny at airports.
But none of these indignities can ever justify our silence when Muslims kill and commit injustice. We must speak out unequivocally against the world’s current “heart of darkness” in Darfur.
So the Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir has “pardoned” Gillian Gibbons after meeting with two Muslim members of the British House of Lords. Hold the applause, please.
Gibbons was the British teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her 6- and 7-year-old students in Khartoum’s Unity High School to name a teddy bear “Muhammad”, a name chosen by the young learners themselves. While in custody for eight days, cruel clerics and assorted Sudanese “defenders of the faith” chanted for Gibbons’s execution.
That they were doing so under the patronage of a government desperate to deflect the world’s attention away from Darfur was plain for all to see.
But we must not allow Darfur to be eclipsed by the zany tale of a teddy bear.
The Janjaweed Arab militia, armed and recruited by the Sudanese government, has massacred over 200,000 tribal people in the Darfur region, and 2.5 million were forced to flee their homes, in four years of fighting.
Conspiracy theories cannot be admitted here: it is a case of Muslims killing mostly Muslims.
No private citizen has been more vocal, daring and persistent in opening our eyes to the genocide in Darfur than the actress Mia Farrow.
Farrow put the Gibbons episode in perspective: “One white woman in peril with a teddy bear has captured more media attention than the past three years of our brothers and sisters in the Darfur region. I look back at what we were doing during the Rwanda situation and in America we were watching the O. J. Simpson trial.”
A goodwill ambassador for UNICEF who visited Darfur seven times since 2004 and witnessed the effects of the carnage firsthand, Farrow launched a fund for the region and said: “This is the first genocide of the 21st century and the one genocide that is ongoing as we speak. We have a regime that launched a military campaign on an unarmed population for no other reason than that they are not Arab.”
Actors George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon have also worked tirelessly to raise our awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Their Not On Our Watch project seeks to "focus international attention on the continuing carnage in Darfur, encouraging governments and international organizations to take meaningful action to protect the vulnerable, marginalized, and displaced. Where governments have remained silent, we are committed to working to render otherwise invisible atrocities, visible."
Zealotry and illiteracy can be a potent mix. Spectacles like the Sudanese clerics making a mountain out of nothing, not even a molehill, can both enrage and demoralize Muslims.
Consider: In the six years since 9/11, public opinion in America has shifted significantly against Muslims. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 35 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Muslims, up from 29 percent in 2002. Whereas 27 percent of Americans in 2002 thought that Islam was more likely to encourage violence than any other religion, the figure in 2007 stands at a whopping 45 percent.
For Muslims fighting bigotry and distrust and striving to earn their rightful place in Western societies, incidents like the one in Khartoum can sap the energy and make us wonder if we will ever make any progress.
Yet, as grim as the situation looks, we must not forget Darfur. If we are to remain true to our faith, we must join hands with people of conscience around the world in forcing the Sudanese government to stop the genocide.
A group of retired statesmen, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president Jimmy Carter, have issued a report this week for the Sudanese government to honor past peace treaties, for rebel groups to participate in peace talks and for the international community to support a peacekeeping force with money and manpower.
Muslims can be a catalyst for such efforts, at least at the grassroots level. We can be the largest donors to Farrow’s Darfur fund. And we can demand that our imams and leaders address the Darfur situation forthrightly and unsparingly in their sermons and lectures.
In the four years since the Darfur genocide began, I did not hear a single sermon on it in the mosques that I attended in the San Francisco Bay Area, nor come across a single conference organized around the atrocities of the Sudanese regime.
It may be that as a minority, we feel overwhelmed by a few hate-mongers in the media. It may be that we are frustrated by our inability to reach out to many of our fellow-Americans despite the open houses and the interfaith dialogues. It may be that some of us experience discrimination at work because of our faith. And it is a fact that more than any other group, we are singled out for scrutiny at airports.
But none of these indignities can ever justify our silence when Muslims kill and commit injustice. We must speak out unequivocally against the world’s current “heart of darkness” in Darfur.
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