Unsettling Sudan Advert in Washington Times
Published August 20, 2009 @ 07:25PM PT
Apparently the Washington Times isn't above dancing with the devil to make a little money.
Last week, the paper featured a rather large section on Sudan, carefully crafted to resemble a regular news report. The main "article" features an interview with Dr. Ghazi Salah Eddin Al Atabani, an adviser to the president of Sudan, in which he proclaims Sudan's commitment to peace talks "anytime and anywhere," restates bogus arguments against humanitarian aid workers expelled from Darfur in March, and completely glosses over the government's role in country's conflicts and in the extraordinary violence perpetrated against civilians. He also claims that the Janjaweed militias are merely a "symptom and by-product of the war in Darfur" that will "fade away once peace has been established."
Interesting, considering the overwhelming evidence that the government of Sudan equips and directs militias in Darfur. (Not all of them, and not all of the time, but enough to commit a fair amount of crimes against humanity.)
And then, in a small box in the bottom corner of the page, is this:
Well that certainly explains a lot.
Regardless of where you fall on the what-to-do-about-Sudan debate, there's no denying that the government in Khartoum is a nasty bunch. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has preceded over 20 years of non-stop war, and collected extraordinary civilian death tolls in the process.
For the Washington Times to sell ad space to a foreign government seeking to promote an undeserved and misleading good name for themselves is not only a serious moral lapse --- it's complicity in the sorted aims of a group of thugs.
The full spread is embedded below. See for yourself.
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Comments (9)
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Author
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Michelle became involved in the anti-genocide cause at a young age, and has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns, ever since.
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With regard to the "All Sudan Solution" post, I have a few comments related to this subject as well as a few on other related matters related to Sudan and Darfur. Let me begin with the following. Had it not been the actions of European Colonialists dividing Africa for their own economic gain, the entire geography of Africa would have been different. In my opinion N. Uganda and S. Uganda should have been two seperate states. I'm more qualified with regard to Sudan which never, ever should have been made into one country. Northern Dudan and the region we know as Darfur absolutely should have been seperately governed right from the start. The differences between these two ethnic groups is so great it it almost not viable to sustaine acceptance and peace between the Northen Sudanese and the people of Darfur. On Jan. 12, 2006, The United Nations Security Council met. (SC/8607). A year previously the Compresensive Peace Agreement(CPA) was signed between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement(SPLM). At that time the United Nations had instructed the forces on both sides to provide notification of all movements seven days in advance and at the time there had been only minor violations of those instructions. Then it was stated that the Ceasefire Joint Military Committee (CJMC), the only United Nations-led institution, had been the most successful one. At that point resolution 1590 (2005) mandated the United Nations in Sudan (UNMIS) to monitor the Comprehensive Peace Agreement(CPA). Grevious violations have occured since that date. Military strikes have occured by the Sudanese troops against the people of Fur. Militias, including the Janjaweed, have struch horror against men, women, and children of Darfur. Men routinely are killed. Women are sytisamaticaly raped. (This is a means or terror). Here are two documented and verified quotes, the first from a girl who was 13 years of age at the time.
" One of the Janjaweed pushed me to the ground. He forced my clothes off and THEY raped me one by one vagially. No objects were inserted. When they SHOT my father. they saw I was a little girl. I did not have any energy or force against them. They used me. I started bleeding. It was so paainful. I could not stand up...I was sick for seven days. No one helped me."
"There were threee Janjaweed in my house. They hit my mother. We [she and her sister] tried to fight then, but we fell down. They took off my chothes. Then they raped me-two of them-one at a time. Then they raped my sister, one at a time.
I could go on and on with pages of documentation of Darfur but I'm goibg to switch to another subject, International Justice for the peole of Darfur. Allow me to mention one last item of significance. Official Sudanese troops and Sudanese aircfaft have been reliably identified as taking part in the hostilities against the people of Darfur.
Upon request by the Office of the Prosecutor, On March 14, 2009 an Arrest Warrant was issued by Pre-Trial Chamber 1
for Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir (sitting president of the Republic of Sudan since 1993). The warrant lists seven counts on the basis of his individual criminal responsibility under Article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Stature as an indirect (co) perpetrator including:
* five counts of CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY:murder-Article 7(1)(a); extermination-Article 7(1)(b); forcible transfer-Article 7(1)(d); Torture- Article 7(1)(f) and rape - Article 7(1)(g);
* two counts of WAR CRIMES: intentially directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities - Artricle 8(2)(e)(i); and pillaging - Article 8(2)(e)(v)
In addition, Minister Ahmad Harun has over 40 counts of Crimes Against Humanity and WAR CRIMES. High ranking Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb is wanted for over 40 counts of Crimes Against Humanity and WAR CRIMES.
There are other warrants for additional War Criminals.
If we choose to turn our heads and look the other way these people in Darfur face the realistic possibility of the systematic attempts to cause their extinction by means of Genocide. We then will be taking an active part in this genocide by means of knowing about but doing nothing.
I strongly suggest everyone contact the government leaders of their individual countries and demand support for the International Criminal Court's efforts to bring International Justice to the victims of Darfur.
Another way I choose to help is to support the World Food Programme,
http://www.wfp.org/countries/sudan
Physicians for Human Rights has been most helpful for many years in Darfur.
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/
The Harvard Humanitarian Inititive:
http://hhi.harvard.edu
And let us not forget, Amnesty International.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/darfur/page.do?id=1351050
Please take one or two minutes of concentrated thought to think about what you have just read and ask yourself if you were that little 13 year old girl, who was gang raped, how you would feel if 'No Body' helped you...
I know how I feel, I just need to clear my watery eyes...
Posted by Blake Parker on 08/21/2009 @ 05:18AM PT
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The stories of civilian suffering from Darfur are heartbreaking, and all to familiar to us all at this point. Regarding your comment on border demarcation, though: It is certainly the case that the greedy carving out of the continent by colonial powers caused no shortage of problems (Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" is a great book on the subject), but it's also interesting to note that the founding charter of the Organization of African States (precursor to the AU) explicitly states that borders will remain as they were at independence, as seeking to redraw them would be tantamount to opening Pandora's Box.
Since then, land and border issues have been exploited by conniving dictators, with the blame for the resulting conflicts falling more on their shoulders than anyone else.
Posted by Michelle . on 08/21/2009 @ 08:41AM PT
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Wow.... not that I read the Times before, but I certainly won't now. That's ridiculus!
Posted by Amanda Kloer on 08/21/2009 @ 07:02AM PT
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Agreed! I'm not a frequent reader, either -- someone brought it to my attention.
Posted by Michelle . on 08/21/2009 @ 08:42AM PT
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I heard about this when the "article" came out . . . anything for a quick buck in Washington (not trying to equate the Times with the rest of the District, mind you.)
As to the ICC's role--I am a very firm supporter, but we must keep in mind that the issue is more complex than "girls were raped in Darfur, let's arrest Bashir and his cronies." Now I do believe that they should be tried in the Hague, and that they should spend a lifetime in prison trying to wash away their damn'd spots, but trying to oversimplify things can be problematic. Not that a reply to a blog is the best place to post a dissertation on justice in Darfur.
Unrelatedly, your post on Nazi hunters made me wonder, should we expect a critique of Inglorious Basterds in the coming week?
Posted by Dustyn Coontz on 08/21/2009 @ 08:17AM PT
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Ha, would you like to watch it and review it for me? Not a Tarantino fan, at all. Far too violent. My movie choices tend fall along the lines of Zoolander and Hitchcock.
(I also tend to avoid genocide movies -- used to watch them all the time, in my younger days, but not anymore. I just saw "Life is Beautiful" for the first time, on a plane home from London in May.)
Posted by Michelle . on 08/21/2009 @ 08:45AM PT
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I definitely understand your reservations on violent and genocide-related films.
I further definitely understand your enjoyment of Zoolander. In my opinion it is perhaps the funniest movie ever made.
Posted by Dustyn Coontz on 08/21/2009 @ 09:04AM PT
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Yeah, I made a few mistakes. First I pasted the 'not proofread' copy into the box. And also I neglected to bring attention to the fact that rape of women is only a small part of what's been going on besides the undeclared and unacknowledged wars in the 1980's and 1990's. Only since 2004 has Darfur sprung from oblivion to notoriety. The United Nation's Secretary-General's first report in August 2004, following more than a year of reports and notes from the U.N. Security Council, was the first official condemming of the Sudanese government's relation to events in Southern Darfur (Dar fur) that I am aware of. I will attempt to properly gather and present my facts in the future. One last note, a reference was made to something else that I may have commented on. I was not involved in any way with the particular mentioned.
I do look forward to any comments or critique with regard to any posts I may make. I am an amature, not a professional or a journalist.
Posted by Blake Parker on 08/21/2009 @ 10:00AM PT
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Strange bedfellows: Rev. Moon's far-right Washington Times and the genocidal government of Sudan. Bonding through common sickness.
Posted by Rev Bookburn on 08/21/2009 @ 06:41PM PT
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