Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur - Libyan Peace Talks Repositioned as Consultative Talks

Sitting around, talking about peace, announcing ceasefires, talking economic development - the question is, how can the situation in Darfur be resolved if the main rebel groups are not participating in the peace talks that are currently underway in Libya?

While the international mediators appear to have come to the conclusion that the talks are doomed to failure, the Sudanese government have grasped the absence of the seven main rebel groups as an opportunity to insinuate that if the peace talks collapse, the reason will be that these rebel groups are not interested in peace. The truth is that the Sudanese government wants peace but on their terms and their terms don't correlate with their actions in Darfur over the last four years.

The rebel groups that are participating in the talks do not represent the majority of the Darfuri people and are basically without the support of the people whom they claim to represent.

The sponsor of the talks, Colonel Gaddafi, has also started out on the wrong foot by claiming that the situation in Darfur is basically about tribal divisions and tribal jealousies. What is wrong about this analysis is the fact that Darfur is plainly about oil and the desire of the Sudanese government to clear Darfur of the ethnic black African tribes of the region. If we look at the history of the Darfur, the various tribes have always gotten along. They have always traded goods with each other and they have always sorted out their differences by having negotiations between the various tribal chiefs.

The nations that have created the issues in Darfur have been silent in the lead up to the peace talks and they have remained silent during the first days of talks. These nations, primarily China and Russia have not voiced their support for the talks and have not been part of the search for a solution. These nations and others continue to support the Sudanese regime and they support similar regimes, not only in Africa but in Asia and South America that have seen the continuation of mass human rights abuses.

As we have witnessed over the last few months, there has been a surge in the growth of groups calling for world peace through the implementation of non-confrontational means that primarily include open dialogue, but how long can we go on talking about what needs to be done? Are to wait for thousands more to die? Are to witness the rape and mutilation of thousands more women and children? Are to wait for all young boys to be kidnapped and used as child soldiers?
Without the involvement of the outside influencers in these conflict areas, primarily in Darfur, the situation is not going to change. Without applied pressure being placed on these nations, the situation is also not going to change. With your help, the International Alliance For Human Rights (IAFHR) will not be silenced. With your help, the IAFHR will be the voice of the innocent victims of Darfur. With your help, the IAFHR will tell the world of the crimes that have been committed because of the greed associated with certain nations' desires for natural resources.

As the UN committee working in reference to the Kimberly Process announced in 2000, "When resources are found in Africa, people are going to die." Why does this have to be? The IAFHR, together with Hope for Humanity will help set out a plan that will ensure that this is no longer the norm for the people of Africa. We must arrest the world's bigoted and racist views of Africa and of the African people as a whole. The future of mankind is uncertain, but we must ensure that we do not further enhance our decline or that of people whom some notable people, primarily a recent Nobel Laureate, have determined are not worth the effort because they lack the intelligence capable of surviving this world.

A shocking event took place over the weekend pertaining to a French NGO, Zoe's Arc. Nine volunteers of this NGO supposedly kidnapped 103 Darfuri and Chadian children from a Chadian refugee camp. These volunteers claimed that the children were orphans and that they were in dire need of medical aid in Europe. When the volunteers and the children were stopped before they boarded a chartered plan for Paris, they were all given medical exams by UNICEF who declared that all the children were in sound medical form with respect to the conditions that they had been living in, and that they were not orphans.

The Chadian government has announced that they will prosecute all those associated with this event and that they will be charged with kidnapping, the attempting selling of children's' organs and committing an international crime in relation to transporting children across international borders for use in possible pedophilia acts.

This event has brought all the NGOs working in Chad and Sudan under an unwanted spot light. What were these people thinking of as they abducted these children? In a special BBC Worldwide news report on Sunday, October 28 the children reported that they were promised an education, candy and cars - four and five year olds being promised cars?

It is time for global action to save the millions of lives that are at risk in Darfur. The International Alliance For Human Rights, together with Hope for Humanity is staging the largest concert ever held for the innocent victims of Darfur, the largest humanitarian crisis facing the world today. For more information, please call David Nolan at 212.695.7022, ext. 315 or email him at dnolan@iafhr.org.