Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur - Death Marches On

Today thousands of men, women and children will die. Today hundreds of women, girls and young children will be raped and mutilated. Today our world leaders continue their inadequate silence to the ongoing carnage in Darfur.

The crimes being committed in Darfur are an affront to civilization. Apart from those that will die, many hundreds of thousands will suffer from the concomitant effects of this conflict. These affects include contracting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, drug resistant TB and the ever present and dangerous malaria, which are highly prevalent in Darfur. Another factor which is increasing the prevalence of these diseases is the fact that aid convoys delivering food and emergency medications are hijacked on a daily basis and the number of convoy drivers being murdered continues to grow.

Most of all, the children that survive the conflict, including some adults, will suffer long term neurological side effects from their experiences and it is these effects that may form the basis of bitter and prolonged resentments which may lead to future conflicts in the region.

Darfur has now become unsafe for the continued deployment of aid agencies and other related humanitarian volunteers, hence the indigenous black African people are, is some places, being left to fend for themselves. Because there is a total lack of the most basic and appropriate care, due to the fact that Darfur continues to be devoured by mass human rights abuses, children will die in the arms of strangers tonight.

Though the history of warfare may have thought us many lessons, the rules developed from these lessons are continuously broken. Prior to World War II, two ground breaking conventions, The Hague and The Geneva Conventions were instituted to protect the rights of innocent civilians, wounded soldiers, and POWs during times of war or internal conflict. Their aim was also to protect peace loving nations from aggressive wars. It was based on the total disregard of both these conventions that the triumphant Allied powers initiated the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremburg in 1945, to prosecute all parties that the Allies deemed to have played a major role directly or in support of the European Axis Powers, primarily as that support related to the Nazis’ destruction of Europe and its citizenry. The institution of aggressive war policies, but more importantly, crimes against humanity, specifically as it related to the attempted annihilation of any or all ethnic groups deemed to be enemies of the Nazi ideology system, identified as those committed against the Jews, gypsies, Poles, Russian POWs and Catholics, formed the basis of the need to set up the IMT.

Bringing the Nazi leadership to trial was not an issue, as most of the leadership were either dead or had been captured by the Allies. Later trials were held for those that were either directly responsible or part of the general apparatus to cleanse Europe of those ethnic groups outlined for destruction. Though many members of the SS and Gestapo escaped Europe after the war and were aided in their evasion for long periods of time, those that committed the most heinous of crimes have eventually been brought to justice. Still, though they may be quite old, some are still living with the support of sympathetic nations.

One item, in reference to the Nazi war machine, that caused major discord amongst the key prosecutors at Nuremberg as they prepared the criminal indictments, was the culpability of the major industrialists who supported the Nazi regime. The argument put forward in support of prosecution was that many corporations empowered the Nazis to gain control of Germany, purely for self gain. They knew that Hitler would once again galvanize the industrial strength of Germany to deliver on his promise of global dominance to the German people. Every German industrial sector was suspected of playing a major role in the growth of Nazism. Upon review of countless documents in support of indicting Germany’s industrialists, a decision was made by the prosecution team, under the tutelage of Robert Jackson, the Chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg, that any corporation and its owner/s, irrespective of industry, who made a profit in support of the Nazi war machine and who utilized the services of slave labor, would face trial at Nuremberg for war crimes.

What caused most revulsion during the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal were the descriptions of how the young Jewish children were treated and how most went to their deaths. Over 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered during the Holocaust. Most were gassed at the death camps upon their arrival, some were kept for experiments at the hands of sadist physicians, and some were worked to death under the Nazi’s slave labor regime. The total figure represents many future generations who were wiped off the face of the earth because some lunatics decided that, because they were Jewish, they were not worthy of living.

The story of Anne Frank has captivated the world over, due primarily to how she suffered greatly throughout her short life. Anne’s story, as we know, was her very own, captured through her thoughts and experiences in the diary she kept. Today, her diary is as famous as the Bible and when one reads the story of Anne Frank, and cries for the millions of children and adults alike, who died both mercilessly and needlessly at the hands of the Nazi regime, one can not help but proclaim that no child should have to live life the way that this little girl lived.

What is most poignant about the Diary of Anne Frank is not only the fact that it was written by a young girl who would die during the Holocaust, but the fact that it speaks of a young girl’s views of hope, of love, of anger and of the most important relationships that we, as humans, develop during our lifetime.

Nothing affects our moral thinking more than learning of the intentional harm to children. Nothing can prepare us for the images of children that have been brutally treated by vicious, soulless individuals. Yet, as we in the West enjoy the comforts that so many of us have been blessed with, our leaders seem to continuously sidestep the horrors being experienced by young children and many others in Darfur.

Armed with the knowledge of what are daily occurrences in Darfur, we must strip away the shells of uselessness that we feel and stand together as the voices of hope for the people, and in particular the children of Darfur. Children should not be used as soldiers, they should not be sexually mutilated and they should not witness the mass destruction of life.

Today in Darfur there are many stories similar to that of Anne Frank, only it is not an attic where the children are confined, but refugee camps. To venture outside these camps means rape, mutilation or even death.

On Sunday, May 4th, Sudanese government jets bombed a school killing close to a dozen children. The UN has a no-fly zone over Darfur, but as is evident from the events of May 4th, the UN and the international community in general refuses to endorse it.

So as the death toll in Darfur continues to rise, and the Sudanese government continues to act with impunity towards its native black African population, the question arises “who, along with the Sudanese government ministers and members of the Janjaweed militia that have already been indicted by the International Criminal Court at the Hague, will pay for the crimes that have been committed since the conflict in Darfur began in 2003?” A significant number of EU and US-based corporations have played significant roles in the economic and industrial support and growth of the Sudanese regime. These corporations may be held financially responsible for their support of the Sudanese regime. It may take many years, but as we have witnessed with the recent US court rulings pertaining to civil proceedings being brought against multinational corporations that supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, corporations that support, or have supported genocidal regimes are no longer safe from criminal or civil action. Financial retribution to the innocents of Darfur may not replace all that they have lost, but it may help them to restore some form of normalcy to their lives.

The International Alliance For Human Rights will be staging the biggest concert ever held to raise awareness of the crisis in Darfur. The “Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur” will be calling for fundamental action to be taken to help enhance protection for the native black African population, with an ultimate call for a cessation of hostilities to be enforced by the joint UN/AU hybrid force that is currently being deployed in Darfur.

For more information, please contact David Nolan at dnolan@iafhr.org or 212.695.7022, ext. 315. Make your thoughts known – visit our blog at http://iafhr-darfur.blogspot.com.