[lil'babykitten]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/3621832.stm

An album of music from stars including David Gray, Ash and REM is to raise money for refugees in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan.

Fighting between government troops and rebels for the last 18 months has led to around 50,000 deaths and 1.4 million people fleeing their homes.

The UN has called the situation the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, said: "Men, women, and children are still dying every day in Sudan.

"People like us might not have the power to stop the violence but at least we can try and help the people affected by it.

"Oxfam is already saving lives, the least we can do is help them to save more."

The conflict erupted in early 2003.....

So, a crisis that began in 2003 and has resulted in over 50,000 deaths, is still going on and all the UN can do is shake their heads muttering tsk tsk, this is terrible. Even music artists manage to organise themselves to help, yet the international community - which has both the responsibility and the power to resolve the conflict and end the suffering - does absolutely nothing.

Every day I read the world news I'm drawn closer and closer to the opinion that the worlds politicians are the most despicable, evil, worthless human beings - if you can even call them human beings - ever to exist on this Earth.

/rant

[angaq0k]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/3621832.stm



So, a crisis that began in 2003 and has resulted in over 50,000 deaths, is still going on and all the UN can do is shake their heads muttering tsk tsk, this is terrible. Even music artists manage to organise themselves to help, yet the international community - which has both the responsibility and the power to resolve the conflict and end the suffering - does absolutely nothing.

Every day I read the world news I'm drawn closer and closer to the opinion that the worlds politicians are the most despicable, evil, worthless human beings - if you can even call them human beings - ever to exist on this Earth.

/rant

Right, the U.N. has been very slow on this job, but so have the rest of the world... The U.N. deserve the bashing, but everyone else just as well but especially the Sudanese government.

Q&A

What are the origins of conflict in Darfur?
Low-level conflict has simmered in Darfur for years, characterised primarily by disputes between nomadic and sedentary groups, because of increased competition for resources.
(...)
Clashes between farming groups and nomads were regular, as was the use of traditional reconciliation mechanisms. If someone was killed, for example, it was customary for the group or family which had caused the killing to pay diya (blood money) to the group or family of the person killed.

When two armed groups, from ethnic groups of the farming population, started fighting the government security forces in February 2003, complaining about the marginalisation of Darfur and lack of protection for the sedentary population, the government of Sudan exploited the existing tensions in the region. It supported militias from Arabic-speaking nomadic groups that carried out attacks on the villages of the sedentary, largely African, farming groups. This repressive response resulted in a breakdown of traditional reconciliation mechanisms and a strengthening of tensions along ethnic lines.

And

Is there humanitarian access now in Darfur?
Until the end of May, the Sudan government blocked or delayed access to humanitarian organizations. As a result of heavy pressure from the UN and the international community, it now gives visas immediately in response to requests from humanitarian organizations.

Also:

Is there a policy of genocide in Darfur?
Acts of genocide include killing members of a group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group; deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction; imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group; and forcibly transferring children of a group to another group, where such acts are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

Although some of the human rights abuses committed could be interpreted as acts aimed at destroying ethnical groups the evidence remains inconclusive. The widespread destruction of houses and villages in combination with the looting and forced displacement appear to have as an objective to destroy livelihoods. On at least two locations, Mukjar (April 2003) and Deleij (5-7 March 2004), mass summary executions took place. Rape has been widespread and in a few locations systematic (see for instance during Janjawid attacks in Tawila area on 27-29 February 2004) with possibly an intention to destroy the social structures and community of specific ethnical groups.
(...)
Amnesty International supports the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights call for an International Commission of Inquiry, which should determine the question of intent and rule on the question of whether what has happened falls under the definition of genocide under international law.