Now Sudan Is Attacking Refugee Camps

By Mia Farrow and Eric Reeves

At 6 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 25, Kalma camp, home to 90,000 displaced Darfuris, was surrounded by Sudanese government forces. By 7 a.m., 60 heavily armed military vehicles had entered the camp, shooting and setting straw huts ablaze. Terrified civilians -- who had previously fled their burning villages when they were attacked by this same government and its proxy killers the Janjaweed -- hastily armed themselves with sticks, spears and knives. Of course, these were no match for machine guns and automatic weapons. By 9 a.m., the worst of the brutal assault was over. The vehicles rolled out leaving scores dead and over 100 wounded. Most were women and children.

The early morning attack ensured that no aid workers were present as witnesses. Doctors Without Borders did manage to negotiate the transportation of 49 of the most severely wounded to a hospital in the nearby town of Nyala. But beyond this, aid workegenodarfrs have been blocked from entering the camp. Military vehicles have now increased in number and massed around Kalma. They have permitted no humanitarian assistance to reach the wounded. People already hard hit by recent floods and deteriorating sanitary conditions have received no food, water or medicine since Monday. The dead cannot even be buried with the white shrouds requested by the families of the victims.

How can such brazen cruelty be inflicted upon our fellow human beings? How is it that a military assault on displaced civilians in a refugee camp creates barely a ripple in the news cycle? How does such outrageous human destruction prompt so little outrage? How is it that those who have been tasked with protecting the world's most vulnerable population have failed -- and failed, and then failed yet again -- in their central responsibility? What does this say about the United Nations and the powerful member states? How have we come to such a moment?

Such questions can be answered by looking at our response to Darfur's agony over the past six years. Any honest assessment would be as shocking and dispiriting as the assault on Kalma itself. The international response to massive crimes by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his cabal has been simply this: We accommodate and acquiesce, with the contrived hope that these tyrants might grow weary of their task, or that paper agreements can somehow have meaning without a sustained and powerful international commitment backing them.

The Kalma massacre is a part of Khartoum's larger genocidal campaign. Since 2003, 80%-90% of Darfur's African villages have been destroyed, and more than 2.5 million survivors have fled to squalid camps across Darfur, eastern Chad and the Central African Republic. Hundreds of thousands have died. Khartoum's next goal is to shut down camps in Darfur, and force people out into the desert where they cannot survive. The homes and fields that once sustained so many of Darfur's people are ashes now, or they have new occupants -- Arab tribes from Darfur and as far away as Chad, Niger and Mali.

The message of the Kalma massacre is chillingly clear for Darfuris. But this assault on civilians in full view of the international community raises the question of what the massacre says about the rest of us. The only message we have sent to the Sudanese government is that they can now attack the camps and the world will watch and do nothing.

Ms. Farrow has just returned from her 10th trip to the Darfur region. Mr. Reeves is author of A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide (The Key Publishing House, 2007).

This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal

Comments

[Boobaloo]

Ms.Farrow,

Although, I value your passionate compassion for the suffering of these people, I implore you to become informed on the topic so that you can better serve the people of Sudan.

This humanitarian disaster was created by Exxon/Chevron/Bush/Condi/Pentagon and Chad to interrupt the oil flow to China.

You see, China has forged a deal with Sudan for it's massive oil reserves in .... drum roll please ... DARFUR region and the United States has been training the SLA terrorist group in terrorist training camps in Chad, right next door o Sudan, matter of fact they share a border.

The hypocritical, lying, criminal American gov't has created this entire devestating conflict to interrupt the oil flow from Darfur to China to sabotage it's behomouth economy.

Africa is one of the new fronts of the old Cold War.

This is a fantastic article for you start your research and for anyone else who is interested in getting informed and involved in encouraging the American gov't to stop funding, training and supporting terrorists world wide.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IE25Cb04.html

[kainen]

THE REALITY IS, THE PLIGHT IN DARFUR IS NOT AMERICA'S INTEREST,...TRULY A TRAVESTY...

[iambusto]

It barely makes ripples because instead of us killing all those people they are killing themselves. awesome !!

[in4success]

i hope i'm on the next rock from you in hell.

[ailbhe]

Keep up the good work highlighting the plight of these unfortunate people, it is a horrific situation.
Anything people can do to help contribute to organisations that are trying to alleviate some of the suffering is a good thing until these people are protected from this tyranny.

The media needs to keep a spotlight on this and educate the public, it is sad that they will only mention it with a few words if they can get George Clooney or other celebrities in a picture?

Maybe rich people who genuinely care (including those in Hollywood) could buy their own media to voice the REAL news? They can use only REAL journalists and activists (like you) who actually know what is going on? I would love to hear directly from people living in this situation. Their voices are important.

I am so sick of 'journalists' promoting fluff, or playing party politics. It is theatre and people are dying while those who are supposed to be reporting the news are distracting from it with manufactured faux news soap opera's from both sides of a pretend political divide.

Hopefully Obama if he gets elected, will be able to unite powerful nations/people to protect these people from this nightmare.

[brief candle]

You are so right. The media have let us all down. Thousands of people have sent them e-mails in protest, but it just doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it's time for a media blackout, that's the only thing they will understand.

[heronimous]

aaaaaah.. and yet your country was committed to regime change of brutal tyrants was it not? or is that only in countries were the speculators and no-bid contractors can get rich(er)?

this is terrible.. i guess its still the dark continent (only now it's kept in the dark.. the better that we don't see the happenings)..

so where is mccain with his bold pronouncements on this atrocity? or does he have no darfur refugee lobbyists on his staff?

[AbrahamSadegh]

Dear Mia,

Thank you for being such a great lady and an inspiration.

As a nation we have achieved the kind of world domination that throughout human history has been the dream of those who wanted to conquer the world but failed. We are truly the only superpower with more clout than any other entity in the world. Our problem in regard to humanity is, however, our very self-centered materialistic concept of "national interest."

Sudan has nothing we could possibly be interested in. If it had oil for example that we needed as in case of Iraq, we would be there in no time at all and we would create a no-fly-zone over Darfur as we did for the Kurds and would have threatened the Sudanese government with "the Shock and Awe" treatment or even tactical nuclear weapons if they did not do as we wished.

We are not even worried about Russia. Under the absurd pretence of defense against Iran which we can "obliterate," we plan to set up our missiles system in Poland knowing very well what Russia"s reaction would be.

We can even send humanitarian aids to Georgia using our military ships. One underlying reason could be that by provoking Russia we ensure the ever expansion of our military-industrial complex at the expense of every thing else we need in our country.

What does Sudan have that would be of interest to us? Nothing material!

[melakfilms]

Nobody cares, Mia. You're shouting at the wind. Sorry, but welcome to America. Unless the corporate owned media can 'sell it' to the good folk of America, you're out of luck. Thank God Bush wanted to give the pharma community billions, otherwise all those Africans now recieving anti-retrovirals for HIV would be dead. Think profit.

I'm embarrassed by my country's lack of involvement in the Sudan. Unfortunately, I know all too well the dispicable reasons why they refuse to involve themselves.

[jeanrenoir]

When you hang around with wealthy, sensitive liberals, you lose sight of how truly horrible the human race IS, across the world and throughout history. Darfur is, sadly, par for the human course, not some kind of aberration, horrible as it is. Amazement in the face of such evil is sheer naivete. It's obvious, isn't it that NOTHING will ever be done to stop these crimes, anymore than those in other parts of Africa. And let's not forget that it's always now Africans on Africans, just like black on black in America's cities. It's not surprising that there's so little Western political will to send the military forces that would be necessary to quell the violence, since he whole area seems like a bit of a madhouse. Look at The Wire: we can't make the slightest dent in black on black violence in America, so how are we supposed to stop the slaughters in Africa?

[AbrahamSadegh]

Don't be so pessimistic about humanity. Who would have thought that the British and Americans would one day be the best of allies?

Who would have thought that Holland, for example, and Germany would be part of the same community " EU?

Who would have thought that representatives from nearly all the nations of the world would be sitting under one roof in New York City?

Who would have thought that the United States and the former Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic would one day be working together at the International Space Station
200 miles above our planet?

Who would have thought that in China, people would be eating chicken at KFC and shopping at Wal*Mart?

Have hope. Humanity is still in its childhood phase but we are growing up and there is hope for Darfur and the like?

[andyg]

Are muslims commiting mass murder. but they are for peace, the media says the love peace.

[decolonizeme]

Ms. Farrow,

Thank you for keeping this issue alive in the western media. I only wish those in power in Washington and New York would do something besides making moral relevance arguments.