RAINE MAIDA - Singer vists Darfur and is overcome by guilt

[saman]

I guess I must be the only one around here who reads the National Post.

Confronting Darfur's horrors

Raine Maida in Al Geneina, Sudan

For those few who want to go, getting to Darfur is hard. During my recent trip to the war-ravaged Sudanese region, the only way in was a small 20-seat United Nations plane. Most of the passengers were aid workers and UN employees.

I was travelling with Eric Hoskins, president of War Child Canada. We were on a mission to document the ongoing crisis in Darfur and learn how we could help the civilian population. Our three-hour flight from Khartoum dropped us on a gravel runway in the western Darfur town of Al Geneina. There were no roads, only sand. The town was comprised mostly of small, broken down brick buildings, many of them built by the British decades ago, intermingled with mud huts and straw tents. In some neighbourhoods, people's lives were no different from those of their forebears centuries ago.

The area around Al Geneina is host to more than 100,000 displaced persons. The region is volatile, and our driver warned us of the security risks. Three days prior to our arrival, two aid workers were killed by a landmine. The horse-mounted, government-supported militia known as the Janjweed were responsible for much of the violence. And it was widely known that the Janjaweed were operating in Al Geneina itself.

We arrived at the UN compound and settled into our gated barrack-style building complete with guard and barbed wire. Two women from the UN's Office of Humn Rights were also on site. Originally there were three on their team, but their male counterpart had fled. Al Geneina was not for the meek. Intense heat, rampant malaria, a lack of electricity, and four months of torrential rains made for some of the toughest living conditions in the world. Compared to this, pre-invasion Iraq - which I'd visited three years ago - felt like a country club.

That tiny UN plane had dropped us not only in the middle of Africa, but also in the middle of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. It was horrifying to think that against the backdrop of this magnificent desert landscape, villages were burning and men of combatant age were being systematically hunted and killed by the Janjaweed. Close to 100,000 people were dead so far.

We spent the next few days travelling to displaced-persons camps. I was amazed at how mobilized the humanitarian community was. These people were saving lives, providing the basics of food, water and shelter. The media at home hadn't reported this. The more time we spent at the camps, the more we became convinced that even in this desperate place, Western aid and intervention could make a difference.

Inspired by the efforts of the humanitarian community, I began to believe the crisis was stabilizing. I was wrong. Our interviews with elders and sheiks revealed that women were being raped as they left the camps to collect wood for fuel. This was so frequent that they'd now resorted to sending the elder women to collect wood so that they would not be raped, only beaten.

Nightly raids by the Janjaweed were also common in the camps. There were peacekeepers in the region but not nearly enough. During our stay, we learned that the Sudanese government had agreed to admit more than 3,000 African Union peacekeepers. But they are poorly equipped. And how can 3,000 peacekeepers be expected to protect more than a million vulnerable people stretched out across Africa's largest country?

Peace talks are underway. Even if the government is negotiating in good faith, however, it is questionable whether anything can come of them: Many people we spoke with believe the government has lost control of the Janjaweed. If NGO's are attacked, there is a fear they will be forced to evacuate, as in Iraq. Our UN roommates were subject to three daily roll calls in case of an evacuation.

Carving our way through the desert, returning from the camps, you couldn't help but wonder why the international community wasn't doing more. Those famous words "never again" still resonate from both Hitler's reign nd the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. It is a disgrce to the world community that these words apparently have such little resonance in Darfur.

On Sept. 9, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell declared the situation in the region to be a genocide. But little has been done since. How do you admit to the existance of widespread atrocities in a country and then do nothing?

At one time, Canada was a leader in international peacekeeping. Paul Martin has recently traveled to Sudan. It would be a great example to the rest of the world if he were motivated by what he saw there to refuel the proud Canadian peacekeeping tradition that Lester B. Pearson started in 1956.

As we boarded that small UN plane to return to Khartoum, our sense of guilt was overwhelming. These people had already lived through unspeakable sadness. The world should not stand by and let their suffering continue.

National Post, Friday, December 3, 2004 p A14

[BOAT]

Miro and I talked to Raine briefly about his trip to Sudan. I don't know too much about the place, but Miro does.

I know that it's very similar to the situtation in Columbia, where the guerrillas and the government are the 2 major powers conflicting with eachother. There's corruption and violence far beyond what most people think.

We have a friend from Columbia who had to flee the country because the guerrillas were after him and were going to kill him if he stayed. You would think that a country like Canada would help a person in such desperate need. Well the country did; he was granted refugee status. But how does someone from Columbia make a living?

He works his ass off washing dishes in a kitchen for $8 an hour. The guy works harder than most people I've ever trained or known in the places I've worked, but gets paid shit because the corporations know he'll accept it as "at least some money," and if he quits, or gets fired, they'll hire another poor guy to milk dry. The harder you work in this world, the less money you'll make. At least when you're working for a corporation.

It's interesting how when you abandon all your material possessions and start over, your greed disappears too. It's the greed of others that will feed on the innocent people just trying to get by.

and that is exactly why nobody gives a shit about the horrors going on in Sudan. Too many people are too greedy and selfish to even think about it. Not many are going to read into it, or travel there... nevermind donate money or food and medicine.

It seems evident, even on this site. Why isn't anyone posting here?

20% of the world occupies 80% of the world's economy. An easy way for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.... and the needy to die. But that is the world we live in.

How pathetic us humans can be.

[nikki4982]

It seems evident, even on this site. Why isn't anyone posting here?

If you mean this thread, it's because it's in the news forum... nobody could reply to posts in here until recently cos I changed the allowances so people could reply to Jeremy.

[BOAT]

oh


well that makes sense.



I'm just stupid lol