War in Congo has caused by now 5 million death and there is no end to it,  war in Sudan has cost by now 2.5 million lives. Further many millions of people were driven from their homes - both these very large countries, rich in natural resources, have been driven to abject poverty with a very thin crust on top - rich people that made their fortune from the misery of the many,

China has now invested $9 billion in Sudan in oil deals, and $5 billion in Congo in minerals - someone from the locals gets some of this money. Americans and Europeans spend money on aid campaigns and would really want to see an end to the Killings. They clearly feel this is a bottomless pit. Three prominent leaders in the NGO effort to do something about this upheaval in Africa are:

George Clooney - famous actor and director,  David Presman - human-rights lawyer, and John Prendergast - co-chair of “the Enough Project” wrote the following article as an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal.

Not on Our Watch, and the Enough Project cry out to President-Elect Barack Obama in hope that, despite the other enormous tasks that he will have starting January 20, 2009, he should also take on the problems of Africa - specifically Congo and Sudan. We are with them but we do not see how he could spread out in his first days in office beyond the clear focus on the US economy as we reported today based on Obama’s media presentation of today - November 22, 2008.

By coincidence, today I also met Safiyya Sarkin, President and Founder, Women Beyond Survival. She told me about East Chad, which has become an extension of the war in Darfur, a war caused by Sudan. Chad is not alone, The Central African Republic is in similar condition as extension of wars in South Sudan and Congo. The whole region is in flames and why cannot Africa get its act together and show that they are ready to speak up for their people?

The point is that a government should be responsible for the protection of its own citizens, and if they do not act according to the UN principle “The Responsibility To Protect” their neighbors should be helped to move in and establish order. And if the neighbors do not want to do it - or cannot - the UN should be able to take over. But did you ever look at what goes on at the UN Security Council? If there is no oil to protect, seemingly nobody acts, and if it is just one large power that works on that oil - what then? Will President Obama be ready to stand up and be counted as a defender of the people of Darfur even without a US interest in the oil of Sudan? We hope he will, but we are not convinced that this will be right at start. Further, we actually think that incoming Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who visited Darfur, and knows the atrocities, and being a woman, would be ready, after confirmation by the US Senate, to look at least on the women’s side of the East and Central African problems in line of www.womenbeyondsurvival.org

EYE ON THE UN: For Immediate Release - May 26, 2008 - The US Memorial Day.

Contact: Anne Bayefsky
(917) 488-1558
 anne at hudsonny.org

UN Racism Conference to be held in Geneva April 20-24, 2009 - Ironically over Holocaust Remembrance Day.

May 26, 2008

The next UN racism conference - known as Durban II or the Durban Review Conference - will be held on UN premises in Geneva from April 20-24, 2009, a UN preparatory committee decided today.

Anne Bayefsky, editor of EYEontheUN.org, said “holding the meeting at a UN venue on European soil will essentially guarantee funding from the UN regular budget for the conference, and that the European Union will fully participate and not follow boycott plans of Canada, the United States and Israel.”

The European Union had been insisting on a shorter session in New York, but the African Group refused to agree on the New York venue and wanted a 5-day conference. The idea floated by some states of again holding the conference in Durban, South Africa fell through when South Africa withdrew its offer to host the event. Throughout negotiations the African group was tightly controlled by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, with Egypt acting as their spokesperson.

Bayefsky noted “Ironically, the Durban Review Conference will take place over Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah on April 21, 2009.

Jews all over the world will be remembering the 6 million murdered in the worst instance of racism and xenophobia in human history.

At the same time, the United Nations will be discussing whether the Jewish state, created in the wake of the Holocaust and standing as a bulwark to ensure it is never repeated, should be demonized as the worst practitioner of racism and xenophobia among nations today.”

Durban II is intended to promote the implementation of the 2001 Durban Declaration, which singled out only Israel and labeled Palestinians as victims of Israeli racism.

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For once South Africa showed the courage to stand up and be counted among the Nations - the rest of Africa - we must note - is nothing but a rug at the feet of the Islamic world - Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibuti, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Marocco … all countries were black Africans suffer from the Egyptian led OIC intrusions on their continent. The UN is just a conduit for making the world pay the bill.

CHAD, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, DARFUR MUST BE TACKLED TOGETHER – BAN KI-MOON SAYS.

The Observation Seems Right - but it just does not cover the UN nakedness.

The flare-up of civil strife, cross-border tension and displacement involving Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Sudan should be addressed in a unified manner that is outside the mandate of the mission currently being deployed by the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a report released today.

In his report on the Mission in CAR and Chad, known as MINURCAT, Mr. Ban writes: “The internal crisis in Chad, the situation facing refugees and internally displaced persons [IDPs] in eastern Chad and the Central African Republic, the tensions between Chad and the Sudan and the situation in Darfur should be addressed simultaneously.”

This should be done, he adds, in a coordinated effort that takes into account the root causes of the internal conflicts and the regional dimensions of those problems.

“To date, however, neither MINURCAT nor EUFOR is ideally mandated to address these issues,” he says, with the latter acronym referring to the European support force.

The innovative, multi-dimensional MINURCAT was set up by the Security Council last September to help protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid to thousands of people uprooted due to insecurity in the northeast of the CAR and eastern Chad and in the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan.

It was mandated to comprise 300 police and 50 military liaison officers, as well as civilian staff, focusing on the areas of civil affairs, human rights and the rule of law. The strength as of 1 April stood at 163 national and 64 national staff.

Deployment was delayed when Chadian rebels advanced from the area of the border with Sudan in a bid to take Chad’s capital, N’Djamena in early February. Though the rebels were eventually driven out of the city, street fighting left many dead and UN staff were evacuated.

Also in early February, about 10,000 people from West Darfur sought refuge in eastern Chad following a series of deadly air and land attacks by the Sudanese Government and its allied militia.

In addition, the Prime Minister of the CAR resigned in January and in the subsequent period many thousands fled their villages due to raids by armed groups, with many making their way to Chad.

These problems are complex and all require comprehensive solutions worked out between the many parties involved, Mr. Ban notes in the report.

Modern Purim thoughts include the UN.

Purim is the day when Jews remember the plans made by Haman to eradicate all the Jews of the old Persian empire. He did not succeed and paid with his life - as we say - the rest is history.

Jews were ordered to remember what happened then - so they read that story - the Megillah (the parchment of Esther) - year after year - on the evening before Purim. This year it happened on Thursday, March, 20th - so last night we participated at the “Megillah Madness” - at The New York Synagogue in Manhattan - led by Rabbi Marc Schneier.
The celebration was at very high tone and at serious decibels - this to the sound and projections of the Beatles Music and the noise of the traditional “grogger” rattles. Each time the name Haman is read - and this happens 54 times during the readings - mayhem brakes lose and the costumed servers came forth to bring us delicious Haman’s Ears (”Oznei Haman” in Hebrew - staffed with marmalade or poppy seeds), or glasses of sweet whisky spiked drinks. Purim is in effect an annual of catharsis, healthy for the mind and the soul. Quite nice when all you are supposed is to remember evil, so you are better prepared when it strikes again. You see, Purim does in effect obligate today the State of Israel to the UN mandate of: “The Principle to Protect.”

On Purim, the Jewish Jockers are used to run a competition for the coveted “Haman of the Year Award” and this year’s two top candidates were two heads of UN Member States who appear daily on the UN menu: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir of the Sudan. The former attacks Jews verbally every day, and has also sponsored militants that fight Jews and Israel daily, while the latter was reportedly actually engaged in genocide against less Arabized Africans of Darfur. www.SustainabiliTank.info has posted many times articles on above deeds. We even tried to understand the background of the genocide in Darfur by considering climate change aspects as an influence on what started the warfare. But whatever the reasons, it is the government of Khartoom that backed its favorites. We see here fights between intruding, more Arabized, pastoralists against lesser Arabized, and blacker, agriculturalists. Our claim was that this is genocide that was started by increased desertification in the region. The UN as an institution did not want to hear such arguments, and eventually it took Sir Nicholas Stern, and the intervention of the UK government at the UN Security Council, to vindicate last year what we were saying three years ago. Whatever the issue, it was al-Bashir’s responsibility “TO PROTECT” his citizens. Instead he puts hurdles before those from the outside that came to help.
The UN Security Council has had Darfur on its agenda for five years, and the genocide continues. But the Council spends disproportionately more time considering Israel’s actions with various UN diplomats berating Israel for defending itself vigorously.
Our “Haman of the Year Award” goes to President al-Bashir. If his enemies don’t get him, the UN has established an International Criminal Court and we wonder why was it not invoked yet in the matter of Sudan’s actions in Darfur. Our website described last week how Dr. al-Bashir let UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wait for him in Dakar, and never showed up for the meeting claiming a headache.

Happy Purim - and I would like to note further that this year Purim falls on the same day as Good Friday - or Easter Friday. This has happened only the second time since 1910.

Easter occurs on the Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, and that full moon usually coincides with the first day of Passover. That is how both religions - Judaism and Christianity have the renewal holidays aligned. This year this is not the case, and the reason is that it is leap year in the Jewish calendar, and an added month (a 13-th month) has been introduced. That brings instead the strange alignment between Easter and Purim. We would like to see in this an opportunity for healing - in the sense that we could say changes could be introduced so that Haman-type of hatred is removed from our lives - our society gets renewed like at Passover time, though this is Purim time. Would it be so terrible to ask the UN to consider this proposition of making sure that evil is remembered and actually acted against?

UN: Attacks on Darfur villages a ‘deliberate’ strategy.

from Geneva, Switzerland, by AF, and picked up on Mail&Guardian of South Africa.
 http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?art…

20 March 2008 12:11

Attacks on four villages in West Darfur in January and February by the Sudanese armed forces amounted to a “deliberate” military strategy, the United Nations said in a report on Thursday.

The attacks resulted in at least 115 deaths, according to a report issued jointly by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN African Union Mission in Darfur.

“The scale of destruction of civilian property, including objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, suggests that the damage was a deliberate and integral part of a military strategy,” said the report.

Sudan has been locked in a serious humanitarian crisis since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur took up arms against Khartoum in 2003.

Arab militias aligned to the Sudanese government have been accused of horrendous violence against civilians in quelling the rebellion.

The United States has described the violence in Darfur as genocide.

In its latest report, the UN detailed attacks in four villages which it described as part of “a major military campaign” launched by the Sudanese government.

It also asked all parties in the Darfur conflict to respect their obligations, and to refrain from the use of civilians as “human shields”.

The international community should also strongly condemn the attacks and urge all parties to end hostilities and abide by existing ceasefire agreements, the UN said.

The UN says at least 200 000 people have died in Darfur in the past five years and more than two million people have fled their homes. - AFP

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Today we watched African Delegates celebrate another step in the 17 year long battle in Somalia - there the UN also hides behind the AU, and the AU does not have even a force there. The South African Ambassador said that today was a great day for Somalia because the UN even spent time in looking at the problem - asked about an intervention - he said that is still a long way off. So, what was he happy about? Shame on all of this so called UN Security Council, and on the UNSG as well - even though it was today his report to the UNSC that caused the Ambassadors to spend their time on this failed UN Member State. Simply said - the UN does not have the guts to stand up when Islamic States are involved in misdeeds. Is this the power of the oil exporters? What else?

 http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/c…

From www.policyinnovations.org of the Carnegie Council, New York - Oil and Turmoil.
By Saleem H. Ali. On the web - March 12, 2008

As rebel troops rolled into the Chadian capital N’Djamena last month, commentators were once again ready to blame it all on the country’s oil. Many saw the resource curse in action: An oil-rich country driven to civil strife by avarice and a sudden influx of wealth.

The headline on CNN immediately read: “Oil fuels ethnic violence in Chad.” Environmental groups and human rights activists felt vindicated that their campaigns against the Chad-Cameroon pipeline would now be taken more seriously. Given that many view Iraq as an “oil war,” there was a general presumption that the loathsome liquid was also the ultimate cause of this African conflict.

Nevertheless, we need to consider the complexity of conflicts in regions like Chad far more carefully before assuming linear causality. Civil war in Chad predates the discovery of oil by at least two decades, thus the underlying ethnic rifts may be a more profound determinant of conflict.

As the recent violence in Kenya shows, such visceral tensions can even escalate into violence in nascent democracies with not a drop of oil to fuel the rage. Yet, we must recognize that a sudden influx of cash without appropriate planning and with national asymmetries can be a recipe for disaster.

Extractive industries are a kind of windfall development similar to the establishment of a casino in an impoverished neighborhood. In order for an oil windfall to be successful in the long run, it must be coupled with development strategies that utilize the revenues and minimize its environmental impact. With the growing influence of globalization on national policies, some of the fears of resource dependency in Africa and its connection to corruption may be assuaged.

None of this would have happened if Equatorial Guinea had not been brought to the world’s attention by oil. Yet the onus for exerting such influence still lies with the international community. At the same time, the regulatory capacity of some African governments over oil activities has grown.

Some governments have gained expertise in the technical matters of the oil business, improving their capacity to negotiate concession contracts and regulate social and environmental issues. For example, Angolan authorities fined ChevronTexaco $2 million because of an oil spill in 2002. Despite a history of oil spills and pollution in the region, this was the first time an oil company was fined due to environmental degradation in Africa. ChevronTexaco also compensated local fishermen for losses in their incomes.

As peace returns to the streets of Chad, the eye of the international community should remain on how the oil revenues are managed and how the country ultimately plans for a post-oil economy. The elaborate system for revenue transparency that the World Bank set up for Chad’s oil must be enforced.

Despite oil’s tortured history and eventual demise as a fuel, it must not be summarily dismissed as a cause of turmoil in Africa. Rather it should be considered as a resource that needs to be managed with effective development planning.

Saleem H. Ali

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Natural Resources

Saleem H. Ali is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Natural Resources, and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. For the 2007–2008 academic year, he is also serving as the Associate Dean for Graduate Education in Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of environmental conflicts and how ecological factors can promote peace.

Prof. Ali is also on the visiting faculty for the United Nations–mandated University for Peace (Costa Rica), where he teaches a course on Indigenous Environment and Development Conflicts. Much of his empirical research has focused on environmental conflicts in the mineral sector and he is the author of Mining, the Environment and Indigenous Development Conflicts (University of Arizona Press, 2003). His most recent edited volume is Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press, September, 2007), with cover endorsements from E. O. Wilson, George Schaller, and Achim Steiner and a foreword by Julia Marton-Lefevre.

Dr. Ali is also a member of the expert advisory group on environmental conflicts for the United Nations Environment Programme with a specific interest in transboundary conservation zones. As part of this effort, he is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas and the IUCN Taskforce on Transboundary Conservation.

Previously, Dr. Ali was an environmental health and safety professional at General Electric and a consultant for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Health Canada as an Associate at the Boston-based consulting firm Industrial Economics Inc. Dr. Ali’s research appointments include a Public Policy Fellowship at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, a Baker Foundation Research Fellowship at Harvard Business School, and a parliamentary internship at the U.K. House of Commons.

Articles by this Author:

Oil and Turmoil (Commentary)
Salvaging Peace with Syria (Commentary)

Link: http://www.uvm.edu/~shali/

Based on the UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE, 29 February, 2008 =========================================================================

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on his first visit to the state of Texas today, told President George Bush. the father, that the UN and the UNITED STATES were CRITICAL PARTNERS ON A RANGE OF GLOBAL ISSUES.

In finding solutions for the Darfur conflict, global warming, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and a host of other issues, the United Nations and the United States were essential partners, he said.

“The United Nations has no better friend than America,” Mr. Ban said in remarks to the William Waldo Cameron Forum on Public Affairs at the Bush Presidential Library.

He also told the father of President George W. Bush that “According to opinion polls, three quarters of Americans believe the United Nations should play a larger role in the world - Why? Because working together is in the best interest of the United States - It’s in the best interest of the UN and the best interest of the world.”

Turning to Darfur, Mr. Ban said the US and UN were working together because Americans, including current US President George W. Bush, want action to end a conflict that has claimed more than 200,000 lives and forced 2.2 million from their homes.

Darfur, he said, was also about climate change, since drought and other climate effects had boosted tensions there and in many parts of the world.

He said the UN must work on climate change because it is a global problem, and the engagement of the US is crucial because markets, technology and entrepreneurship are a big part of the solution.

“Visiting Silicon Valley last summer, I saw how venture capital is pouring into new technologies for renewable energy and fuel efficiency,” he said, noting that a recent report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that investments in clean energy technology could reach $1.9 trillion by 2020.

Beside his theme of partnership on global issues, Mr. Ban’s remarks today were peppered with personal reminiscences concerning the idea of the US, and the statesmanship of former president Bush.

“As a boy growing up in South Korea, I was inspired by America and its noble ideals,” he said. “American soldiers saved my country from communist aggression. They were so friendly to me and so generous. I’m still grateful for the sacrifice the American people made for my nation,” he affirmed.

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But while Ban Ki-moon was lecturing in Texas - Darfur was boiling over from Sudan to Chad and the UN was studying the problem. Can the UN get out of its Darfur/Sudan hole without a solid US push?
UN SAYS REFUGEES FLEEING NEW ATTACKS IN DARFUR, MANY TO DANGEROUS AREA OF CHAD

As West Darfur continues to be scourged by a new wave of air and ground attacks, the United Nations refugee agency estimated today that more than 13,000 Sudanese have fled to a remote area of Chad that is beset by its own inter-ethnic strife.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), just this week an additional 3,000 refugees arrived in eastern Chad’s volatile Birak area, where an assistance mission was cancelled yesterday after armed men on horseback were spotted, along with black smoke rising from a burning village.

“The insecurity and close proximity to the Sudanese border mean UNHCR cannot establish a camp in the Birak area, but we are trying to provide emergency assistance when our teams can get there,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva.

The agency is still awaiting approval from the Government of Chad to move the refugees to existing camps that already house 240,000 people uprooted by the five-year conflict in Darfur, in which the Sudanese Government and militias are fighting rebel factions and in which over 200,000 people, mainly non-combatants, have died.

A UNHCR team which reached the Birak area earlier in the week reported that the new arrivals had come there because of repeated militia assaults on the Jebel Moun region of West Darfur.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Special Representative for Sudan, Ameerah Haq, visited Sileah in West Darfur yesterday as part of an inter-agency assessment mission and found the town – which normally has a population of 20,000 – almost empty.

Only around 300 people remained, mostly elderly citizens who could not flee. The town was attacked on 8 February, in the beginning of the current onslaught.

Subject: Women In Great Numbers Descend On The UN for CSW 52 - that is the yearly take-over of the UN by the Commission on the Status of Women. EXXONMOBIL Takes A Ride.

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The Commission on the Status of Women is Having its meeting at the UN - and the UN wants to have us believe that it is all about “Violence Against Women.” The reality is that for the week, a yearly event, women’s organizations take over the UN; the UN will be used for many other purposes, besides the one expressed by the UNSG, as well.

This article picked up first the official statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the very good reporting by Edith Lederer from the Associated Press - based on that UN official position. But then we wish to single out one “Parallel Event” held on February 25, 2008, at the Church Center across the UN. We went to that event because we were sent a flyer that mentioned as a panelist: “EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION - Speaker to be announced.” This was enough to trigger our curiosity and the appetite to devour that unnamed speaker for a named company - this while all other members of the panel were right there named in the open.

The title of that event was - “CORPORATE FEMINISM: ENHANCING CORPORATE INFLUENCE THROUGH WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT.” The Conveners of the event were The International Council of Jewish Women and cosponsored by: Soroptimist International. The first body is represented in the US by the National Council of Women, the second body came to CSW 52 with the theme - “Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women.” We will have much more about all of this, but as said, we will first introduce the two postings we m