Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur - We can not remain silent

As we approach this holiday season, a lot of families from the fours corners of the world are wondering how they are going to make ends meet as a result of the global economic downturn. For most families in the developed world, this holiday season will be worse than last year. Their children will go to bed a little hungrier, they probably won’t have any new toys, with excuses that Santa had the flu or that he lost the map to their house being a prevalent excuse amongst the poorer sections of our communities.

Regardless of our individual financial situation this holiday season, the best gift to give our children will be a combination of a hug and a kiss followed with the meaningful words of “I love you.” It is hoped that our children will garner more from the knowledge of our love for them than the message that they might receive from our purchase of expensive gifts for them. They might still be disappointed that they did not receive the latest Wii game or Barbie and Ken activity set but the many disappointments will hopefully be short lived.

As we are consistently told at this time of year, the holidays are a time for thinking about those that are less fortunate than we are. Our religious leaders speak of the need to reflect on the poorer sections of our communities, of the need to reach out to our neighbors in a show of compassion and love, and to share what little we may have with those less fortunate.

In certain parts of the world though, this holiday season will be no different than last year. There will be no presents, no Santa Claus, but more depressing, there might be no food. For most of the children and their parents in these parts of the world, life will continue to be lived in utter nightmarish circumstances. Most are living on a day by day basis and they are suffering the effects of mass hunger and poverty and the concomitant effects of poverty. Instead of waking up to presents, some children will wake up to participate in combat as soldiers – child soldiers. There are roughly 200,000 child soldiers in Africa alone, young children that have been kidnapped from their families and forced to commit horrendous crimes against their own people. Young girls are also kidnapped and forced to become sex slaves.

In Darfur, children are used by the Janjaweed militia to commit murder and rape. Other children are on the receiving end of this brutality.

There is no greater crime than the sexual exploitation, manipulation, mutilation, or rape of a child. In Western nations, when similar crimes are committed against children, there is utter public revulsion and promises by the civil authorities to bring the culprits to justice. Such justice is usually swift and warranted. But when sexually-based crimes are committed against children in the developing world, the cries for help usually fall on deaf ears, with little action been taken against the perpetrators of these horrific crimes. The rapists usually go free.
Darfur is a rapist’s playground and a victim’s hell. There are substantiated reports that children, some as young as four years of age are being raped on a daily basis. Women, young and old, are gang raped and left to fend off the stigma that comes with being the victim of this kind of brutality. Many victims of these crimes become pregnant, which leads to further stigmatization and in most cases, abandonment. The children born as a result of these attacks are commonly known as “enemy” children. They become stigmatized, and in most cases suffer horrendous abuse, abandonment, discrimination and infanticide.

The perpetrators of these crimes are not “men in long coats,” hiding in dark alleys or stalking the streets looking for victims. No, the perpetrators of these crimes are mostly soldiers, paid public servants in the service of the Sudanese government. Uniformed soldiers or civilian clad militias, they act with impunity, but mostly they act like animals, and that is probably a slight against animals.

The utilization of rape in Darfur is part of the overall tactical strategy incorporated by the Sudanese government to annihilate Darfur’s native Black African population. With the murder of close 700,000 innocent Darfuri men, women and children, Darfur represents the first genocide of the 21st Century. Not only has genocide been committed, but mass war crimes and human rights abuses have also been committed. Not only have the native Darfuri population been targeted, but those working with the various NGOs as well as UN peacekeepers, serving with UNAMID, have been attacked and murdered by the Janjaweed. These attacks and the continuing hijacking of aid convoys fall under the realm of war crimes. Still, the international community debates the appropriate action to be taken against the Sudanese President, al-Bashir, and his government.

In January, 2009 it is envisioned that the judges of the International Criminal Court will defer the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of President al-Bashir. The postponement of this warrant will be a major coup for the African Union, along with other organizations and individual nations, such as certain nations who serve as permanent members of the UN’s Security Council. The reason given by these organizations and nations for the requested postponement is their considered opinion that the issuance of the warrant will destroy the “on-going” peace initiatives. As far as most concerned groups are aware, there is no constructive peace process currently under way in regards to solving the conflict Darfur. Irrespective of whether the warrant is issued today or next year, Al-Bashir will be arrested and he will face an international criminal court where he will be prosecuted for the actions of his government and for the genocidal actions of his forces in Darfur.

Last week the international community “celebrated” the 60th Anniversary of the famous Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As noted during the celebrations, most of the 30 articles, as outlined in the UDHR, had been ignored by most countries were either non-internal and internal conflicts occurred over the past 60 years. While most of those dignitaries representing the nations that led the celebrations spoke ever so eloquently about the initial reasons behind the UNDR and its formation, their very nations have been major supporters of regimes that have totally ignored the principles set forth in the UDHR, examples of which we have witnessed during conflicts in Darfur, Chad, Rwanda, Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, to name but a few.

Nowhere in the world has there been a total disregard for the UDHR principals, or any other international charter protecting the rights of civilians, than in Darfur. It is time for the international community to live up to its words and promises to implement the actions that are required to save the lives of over 4 million innocent civilians, whose lives are currently under immediate treat of death.

Over the weekend, the UN held its annual “Climate Change” conference in Poznan, Poland where billions of dollars were promised to curb the growing trends in the earth’s destruction. What is remarkable about this is the fact that nobody is stepping up to the plate to donate the few million dollars it will take to curb the destruction of the native Black African population in Darfur. The future generations that we are trying to save through our proposed responsible approach to climate change will hopefully look back with shame at the fact that we did nothing to save the current generation in Darfur and in other areas of conflict, because we were prepared to put money into economic gains rather than in to the preservation of human life.

The International Alliance For Human Rights will be staging the “Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur” to enhance global awareness of the need to take appropriate action in Darfur and to call on the international community to implement its promises to safe guard human life now! For more information, please contact David Nolan at 212.695.7022, ext. 315 or shoot him an email at dnolan@spinmillgroup.com.