Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Attack on Darfur

I just watched this tragic docudrama starring Billy Zane, Edward Furlong, Kristanna Loken and David O'Hara. Darfur in the Sudan of East Africa is considered the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time with 400,000 dead and millions displaced.  The movie is the story of some journalists who come to observe but get caught in the midst of the genocide and ethnic cleansing comitted by the Janjaweed, Arab militia.  "Black African Monkeys" the Arab leader calls these villagers, women and children his men rape and kill.  The journalists are mostly out of their depth, emotional, amateurish and completely baffled by the pure evil psychopaths that shoot a child in front of them to make a point. There is famine in this land and there is a call for relief in the area south of Egypt, the Sudan. This is the land where Gordon died a martyr and Churchill rode in calvary action.  Ethiopia and Somalia are nearby. The human situation is horrid.
A 2010 Lancet article from the Centre for Research on the  Epidemiology of Disaster estimated  about 300,000 dead as a result of the conflict, but 80% of these due to disease.
Former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotier accused Sudan of practicing 'apartheid' against the non arab Sudanese.
Russia and China have been accused of fueling the killing by supplying the Janjaweed with weapons and supplies.  Amnesty International has condemned Russia as has Human Rights First condemned China for their distribution of weapons to the Janjaweed.
The movie depicts the limits on the United Africa league involvement and Khartoum has been firmly against UN involvement.
The International Criminal Court has charged the humanitarian affairs minister of Sudan and a Janjaweed militia leader with crimes against humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur
The civil war began in 2003.  The official military and police are apparently supporting the Arab Jangaweed militia.  Villages of non arabs as close as 500 meters to another arab village have been totally wiped out by accounts.
Most of the northerners are Moslem and it's been the arab Sudanese moslems killing the non arab Sudanese
Christians in the south have been killed for years.  It was only last year I watched a hand held movie made by a minister in a community where Arabs Moslems had ridden through their village with machetes killing the Christian men then raping the women.  In the movie, Attack on Darfur,  a Sudanese african woman tells the journalists of her rape by the Arab saying, "He told me he would give me Aids".
This is the scene of  the drought and famine which we are called in the west to help with.  It reminded me of Canadian Christian singer, Bruce Cockburn's  song, "If I had a rocket launcher".  It's a Mel Gibson Road Warrior world where those given aid are then killed for the aid by the government and it's Janjaweed militia.  Moslems killing Moslems and Moslems killing Christians.  If ever a region needed prayer it's the Sudan.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

THEY NEED PRAY BUT ALSO PRAY THAT THE UN WILL ACCEPT THEIR RESPONSIBILTY