Rape: A Toll of War

Rape is the most dehumanizing thing thing that can happen to a women. Our world is run by men for the most part and how can they understand what happens to women mentally when she is taken against her will? When our soldiers come home from war they receive treatment for PTS or Post Traumatic Stress. What happens to the women in Darfur when they too suffer the same thing? Nothing unless she is found by one of the relief agencies that are trying to essentially put their fingers in a dike. Now that NGO's have been forced out even the small number of women that were getting help now get none.

Social isolation is one of the effects of rape. These women are shunned for something they had no control over, for as we know rape is not a sexual crime. It is an act of dominance and anger. A way to hurt the enemy and cause dissent among civilians for what once the center of the family she is now driven away. If she does claim to have been raped and cannot produce four male witnesses she faces prosecution for adultery, is whipped and then imprisoned.

Most women are beaten as well as raped and suffer from internal injuries and broken bones. A women who becomes pregnant from rape must now face the hardest dilemma of all. Abandon her baby or risk community rejection or even legal prosecution for caring for it. This is why rape is used by the Janjajaweed as a way to "pollute" blood lines and undermine family bonds.
Because rape victims are very often afraid to tell what is done to them, this remains a silent crime.

Darfur Slide Show

Stoves For Darfur

Spencer Brodsky is your typical teenager with girlfriends and parties and school. Except Spencer is doing something most teens do not think about; he is raising awareness about the dangers women in Darfur face every day while looking for firewood to cook for their families. Women are sometimes gone 7 hours foraging for firewood in a country where wood is scarce. They are attacked more often than not.
Spencer compares Darfur to the Holocaust and believes his peers should not stand for this in their lifetime. He learned about the violence and decided to act by raising money for fuel efficient stoves so the women of Darfur would not have to gather firewood as often, keeping them with their families instead.
The stoves cost $30 a piece and Spencer has raised enough money to buy 420 stoves. The project is a joint effort between Brodsky and CHF International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the economic conditions of people in some of the most troubled regions of the world.

This is a story I heard about one night while watching the news and I was so impressed by the action of one teenaged boy who took it upon himself to find an easy alternative for these women. Sometimes something so simple can make such a huge difference. You can donate here. I know I have

Coalition Planning Demonstration

Three hundred activists will be on hand today to demonstrate outside Metro stations at the following locations:
Metro Center, Gallery Place/Chinatown, Federal Triangle, Judiciary Square, L'Enfant Plaza, Federal Center SW, Union Station and Capitol South. They will be wearing  green caps and yellow T shirts that read, "End the Genocide  www.addyourvoice.org .” Signs and petitions will be on hand calling President elect Obama to take action against genocide in Darfur.  

Petition and Pictures

I have started a petition to the U.N and the President of the United States, whomever that will be. I would like to get as many signatures as possible, so help me spread the word. I also am going to post some pictures I found. I hope you find them inspiring.

This is Kalma Camp - population 90,000. Not a blade of grass nor a single tree and, worst of all, there is no safety. The camps themselves are continually attacked. The reported incidents of rape at Kalma Camp are 10 per day. This, in an Islamic culture, where the victims of rape are held culpable.
The World Food Program donates sorghum, which requires at least two hours of cooking on an open fire. Deforestation around an average IDP camp in 2006 was 10 miles, meaning a woman must go 20 miles for firewood. Thus firewood has become the crucial currency within the camps. On these excursions, she risks being raped, mutilated, or murdered. If the men go for firewood, they will surely be slaughtered.

This is Gerieda - population 137,000, the largest camp in Darfur.
In the last few months, 71 aid workers were evacuated from Gerieda because of attacks and rape. Only 10 aid workers remain to assist the 137,000.

These women have assembled to make a plea for a well.

A woman risking all to gather firewood. In the distant sky you can see an Antonov Bomber.

Despite the best efforts of aid agencies, there aren't enough wells, there isn't enough clean water. Cholera is spreading through the camps

Residents of Zam Zam camp.

Girl with traumatized baby sister. The baby has not made a sound since the day their parents were slaughtered and the village burned.

Agencies That You Can Help, As They Help Others

I have looked at various agencies that are working full time to help those refugees in need  around the world. There are many good charities that are intent on helping where ever they are needed. What is needed from us are donations. These can be in the ways of money, goods and services. Some ask that you just let your government know that you want  it’s help. A call for action. We cannot save everyone, but the agencies that are listed here are trying to ease some of the suffering of the innocent people who were caught in the cross fires of civil war, or floods and famine in their country. Please go to Interaction.org. and see all the agencies that are doing what they can and what you can do to help in any possible way. Help save a life. I have listed a few here. You can see more here.

Medical Teams International
Sudan Disaster Relief Fund, P.O. Box 10 Portland, OR 97207, 503-624-1000
(June 11) Medical Teams International (MTI) is a member of the Global Relief Alliance (GRA), formerly known as the Darfur Relief Collaboration. The GRA addresses the impact that displacement, loss of assets, and the disruption of livelihoods have upon the nutritional state of people. There are four principal program sectors: Complementary Nutritional Intervention, Food Security Intervention, Medical Sector, and Well-Construction and Water Development. MTI is focusing on the health sector, proving health services and training to the people living in West Darfur. 

Oxfam America
Sudan Crisis Relief and Rehabilitation Fund, 226 Causeway Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02114, 800-77-OXFAM
(June 4) Oxfam is providing vital assistance to more than 500,000 people affected by the crisis, both in Darfur and eastern Chad through access to clean, safe water and sanitation as well as basic necessities such as blankets, soap and jerry cans for carrying water. Oxfam carries out public health education programs to try and prevent the spread of disease; and, as the crisis continues, is implementing projects to provide livelihood opportunities to help people find some alternative to the reliance on external aid. 

International Medical Corps
1919 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 400, Santa Monica, CA 90404, 800-481-4462
(June 12) International Medical Corps provides health care services for displaced and conflict affected populations in Chad, Darfur and the Central African Republic. IMC's programs offer a comprehensive package of health services to include primary and secondary level curative and preventative care; nutritional support; mental health programming; capacity building and education; access to safe and adequate water sources; rehabilitation and construction of community infrastructure; and emergency obstetric care services.

American Refugee Committee
Darfur Relief Fund, NW 5618, P.O. Box 1450, Minneapolis, MN 55485-5618, 1-800-875-7060
(June 11) The American Refugee Committee (ARC) provides lifesaving services to 400,000 war-affected people in camps as well as towns within the Nyala-Gereida and Nyala-Tulus corridors in South Darfur. Services include comprehensive primary health care, immunization campaigns, water and sanitation projects, livelihoods initiatives, and emergency response. ARC provides primary school children with books, classrooms, school supplies, and water systems. In addition, ARC works with farmers to provide seeds, tools and trainings. ARC also offers comprehensive health services to women and children who are at risk.

When You Wake

You wake in the morning to the sound of the alarm clock. You groan and want just five more minutes, snuggling into the depths of your warm bed. You finally get up and pop into the shower letting the hot steamy water roll over you as you pour you new body wash by Elizabeth Arden and lather the scent over you. You rinse and jump out to wrap in a big fluffy forty dollar towel. Run downstairs and pour a cup of espresso and hurry and drink your juice and gobble your pastry. Run and put on your designer dress and put on your makeup and put the hot rollers in your hair. You enjoy the sound of Vivaldi  that softly comes from the speakers. You brush out your hair and spray it and out the door to jump in your Lexus and head to work, where you enjoy your office with it’s 125,00 dollar view.

You wake in the morning to the sound of your child, whimpering in her sleep. You know the bad dreams she has from running from the soldiers and watching her Daddy being taken and beaten in front of her. You know she is also hungry and has only had a small handful of leaves, and some Mukheit berries that had soaked for three days in a little bit of water to remove the toxicity. Today, you must wake your child and prepare to search for  more leaves and hopefully some wild grass to at least make a little flour. You will try to get water without being shot or raped. Without life giving water you cannot eat the Mukheit berry or make flour into bread. You look out at the barren desert in front of you. You adjust the cloth about your face tighter to shield yourself from the scorching sun. Hopefully you can make a few more miles toward your goal of a refugee camp. If only you make it with yours and your child’s life.


The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people that are evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

                                            Albert Einstein

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
                                             Albert Einstein

Why Is Sudan Starving It's Own?

Here in the bone dry desert, where donkey skeletons line the road, there arises almost as a mirage, huge green fields. Beans. Wheat. Sorghum. Melons. Pumpkins. Eggplant. It is all grown here, an ambitious undertaking from the Sudanese government, a plan for self sufficiency that is creating giant mechanized farms rising out of the sand. Yet we are hearing the horror stories of the starving refugees of Darfur. How much of this bonanza is getting back to the hungry Sudanese, like the 2.5 million driven into camps in Darfur? Why is a country that exports so many of its own crops receiving more free food than anyplace else in the world, especially when the Sudanese government is being blamed for creating the crisis in the first place?

African countries that cannot normally produce enough on their own rely on donated food. Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger and Zimbabwe are examples of how natural disasters, gross mismanagement or war can cut right into the heart of food production, pushing millions to the brink of starvation.

But right here in Sudan there seems to be plenty to go around. The country is growing wheat for Saudi Arabia, sorghum for camels in the United Arab Emirates and vine ripened tomatoes for the Jordanian army.
The government is putting $5 billion into new agribusiness projects, many of them to produce food for export.

Sorghum is a staple of the Sudanese diet, typically eaten in a flat spongy bread. Last year, the US government in its response to the emergency in Darfur, shipped in 283,000 tons of sorghum, at high cost, from as far away as Houston. Strangely enough, that is about the same amount that Sudan exported, according to United Nations officials. This year, Sudanese companies, including many that are linked to the government in Khartoum, are on track to ship out twice that amount, even as the UN is being forced to cut rations to Darfur.

A professor at Smith College, in the United States, Eric Reeves is an outspoken activist and has written frequently on the Darfur crisis. He called this anomaly “one of the least reported and most scandalous features of the Khartoum regime’s domestic policies” It was problematic, he said, of the Sudanese government’s strategy to manipulate “ national wealth and power to further enrich itself and it’s cronies, while the marginalized regions of the country suffer from terrible poverty.”

Long ago aid groups gave up on the Sudanese government’s helping the people of Darfur. After all, the nation’s president, Omar Hassan al- Bashir, has been accused of masterminding genocide in Darfur. UN officials said if they do not bring in food to the region, the Sudanese government surely will not.

This leaves the United Nations and the Western aid groups trying to feed more than 3 million residents of Darfur. But the lifeline grows thin. Security is deteriorating. Trucks with aid are getting hijacked almost daily, and deliveries are being made less and less frequently.

This is resulting in less food and a soaring malnutrition rate, especially among the children. Combined with the broader problem of trying to find affordable grains on the world market when prices are higher than they have been in decades.

UN officials say the fact that they have to import some of the same commodities that Sudan not only produces but exports, results in constant frustration. “Sudan could be self sufficient,” said Kenro Oshidari, the director of the World Food Program in Sudan.”It does have the potential to be the breadbasket of Africa.”

Sudanes officials deny that Sudanese agribusiness is being built at the expense of their own people. They reject accusations that they are neglecting far -flung areas like Darfur, much less waging a war of hunger and deprivation against them. Sudanese officials say they are simply trying to build up their economy.

It could get worse, with Bashir facing genocide charges at the International Criminal Court in connection with the massacres in Darfur

What Is The Conflict In Darfur?

Photo credit Jerry Fowler ushmm
Iridimi refugee camp, Chad. Hawa Salihdin and her children. Her father, her brother, her cousin and 30 other people were killed when the militias attacked her village. Her mother, Hadiya Ahmed, disappeared and is still missing.


Do you know what the Darfur conflict is? The Sudanese military and the Janjaweed ( a nomadic
militia group recruited by the government) are pitted against various rebel groups, most notably the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement.

With the Sudanese government’s arming and mobilization of the Janjaweed a stream of vicious attacks on the nation’s civilians in the towns and villages from which the rebels draw their support, is taking place. This viciousness has rapidly increased to the point where it is now considered genocidal in nature.

“The World’s Greatest Humanitarian Disaster”

The conflict in the Darfur region in Western Sudan has been portrayed as “the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster.”
The UN estimates that as many as 450,000 have died from the result of violence and disease, and as many as 2.5 million have been displaced. The most appalling detail is that many of these casualties have resulted from outright attacks on non military civilians.
“A Mockery Of Our Claim, To Shield Our People From The Worst Abuse”

In December of 2006, secretary general Kohi Annan left office. When he left he had these words to say: “The tragedy in Darfur made a mockery of our claim, as an international community, to shield people from the worst abuse.”

Another Community

Now another type of community exists and all of it’s members have the power to voice their outrage against these atrocities. Of course this other international community is the community of the Internet. A community you are all part of.


Thank you!

Take Action Now

I have wondered what in the world I could do to help stop the violence and death in places like China, Darfur and Sudan just to name a few. Who am I ? I can’t go on a peace keeping mission. I can give a little money. But is that really enough? I went to Amnesty USA and looked through the site. I found out I can at least send my voice to Congress. Not by signing petitions, but by sending letters. You can help also. Send your message to our leaders. That is what makes America so wonderful. We can at least speak out. We can make our voices heard. Go to Amnesty USA and see what you can do. Please make your voice count.