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• U.N. Security Council Meets in Africa on Sudan Crisis
  Extraordinary Gathering Focuses on Darfur Refugees
  By CHRIS TOMLINSON, AP
  
  NAIROBI, Kenya (Nov. 18) - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the Security Council on Thursday to issue "the strongest warning" to the forces fighting in Sudan to bring an end to the civil wars there.
  
  Annan's comments were made to Security Council members in Kenya's capital, where they have begun extraordinary meetings on the violence and humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
  
  "I regret to report that the security situation in (the western region of) Darfur continued to deteriorate despite the cease-fire agreement signed earlier," Annan said. "Both the government and its militias as well as the rebel groups have breached these agreements."
  
  The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth, called the meeting to give members a chance to meet with experts working to end the fighting and suffering in Sudan's western Darfur region, as well as those hoping to wrap up a peace deal to end a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.  The southern war pitted Sudan's Muslim government against rebels seeking better treatment, a greater share of the country's wealth and the right of the largely Christian and animist region to secede. The conflict killed more than 2 million people, largely through war-induced hunger and disease.
  
  A separate conflict in western Sudan started in February 2003, when two non-Arab African rebel groups took up arms to for a greater share of power and resources. The government responded by backing Arab militias, who are accused to targeting civilians.  The conflict has driven 1.8 million people from their homes, and at least 70,000 people have died since March in the region because of disease, hunger and hardships.
  
  "The strongest warning to all the parties that are causing this suffering is essential," Annan said.
  
  "When crimes on such a scale are being committed, and a sovereign state appears unable or unwilling to protect its own citizens, a grave responsibility falls on the international community, and specifically on this Council," he said.
  
  Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha told the Security Council Sudan is committed to, "establishing peace and stability," across Sudan.
  
  "The war in Darfur is of a political nature, it has been instigated by local parties who receive support from foreign parties," he said.
  
  Taha called on the international community to help Sudan to disarm and demobilize the fighters in his country and to help in reconstruction.  John Garang, the leader of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army, told members that only four issues remain to be resolved before a comprehensive agreement ending the southern war can be signed, which should happen by the end of the year.
  
  "Ending the southern war will help keep chaos from engulfing Sudan, where a number of small insurgencies are growing," he said.
  
  "The situation in Darfur is rapidly degenerating into chaos and anarchy as the government's counterinsurgency policy ... has seriously boomeranged," he said, adding that "the government has recently rebuffed a coup attempt."
  
  Both the rebels and the government have agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding that they would reach a final agreement by Dec. 31.
  
  Danforth welcomed the announcement as a major step forward to ending the crisis in Sudan.  The council also expected to hear from representatives of the African Union and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development. After a brief meeting with Nairobi-based aid agencies and civil groups Friday morning, it was to adopt a resolution on Sudan.
  
  A draft of the resolution promises financial and political support for any peace agreements in Sudan, but members had yet to agree on whether the council should threaten to impose sanctions or take other actions against parties that violate cease-fires or stop aid agencies from reaching needy civilians.
  
  Secretary of State Colin Powell has called the violence in Darfur a genocide and in September accused four Security Council members - China, Russia, Algeria and Pakistan - of valuing business with Sudan over humanitarian concerns. All four abstained from an 11-0 vote to set up a commission to investigate the genocide charges against Sudan.
  
  The Security Council meeting is only the fourth outside the United States since the United Nations was founded in 1945. It is being held at the Nairobi headquarters of the organization's environment program and program on human settlements.
   
• KHARTOUM, Sudan, Oct. 1 - Sudan has agreed to allow 3,500 African Union troops into war-ravaged western Darfur as a means of building confidence among civilians who, United Nations officials have repeatedly said, no longer trust their own government. Among other things, the African Union monitors will be allowed to police the Sudanese police.  (Read More) - An article from the NY Times
  
   
• The tragedy in Darfur is one of the greatest challenges the international community faces today. The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has called “the unspeakable violence” being waged against the people of Darfur “a global issue, and not simply an African problem," that demands the whole world’s attention and action. The United States has said the Darfur violence constitutes genocide. (Read More) - SWA Academic Advisor Write-up on this Pressing Global Issue.
  
  
• The first sound Zahara Abdulkarim heard when she woke that last morning in her village was the drone of warplanes circling overhead. Then came gunshots and screams and the sickening crash of bombs ripping through her neighbors' mud-and-thatch huts, gouging craters into the dry earth. When Abdulkarim, 25, ran outside, she was confronted by two men in military uniform, one wielding a knife, the other a whip. (Read More)
  -- Article from Time Magazine, Simon Robinson
  
  
• "We recognized them by their shapes," Ashura Abakar Adam Arasharo says of the men who burned her home and made her run for her life. She ran for two days, with her five children in tow. She left without any of her favorite head scarves or dishes - or her husband, whom she lost in the chaos. And now she sits in a camp for the internally displaced, in western Sudan, twisting her charms around in her fingers.
  (Read More)  - Article from Christian Science Monitor.
   
• Under pressure from Washington and some other Western capitals, Council members voted a month ago to consider punishing Sudan if it did not disarm and prosecute the janjaweed militia, which is allegedly responsible for a campaign in western Sudan that has left at least 30,000 dead and forced 1.4 million from their homes. (Read More) - Article from Christian Science Monitor.
   
• The independent al-Hayat daily reported on Saturday that about 30 rebels carrying light arms and traveling in two vehicles attacked five villages in the district of Um Kaddadah "in violation of the ceasefire agreement".  (Read More) - Article from Aljazeera.net
   
• The UN Security Council on 9/25 passed a resolution stating that it would consider sanctions against Khartoum if it did not act quickly to stop the violence and bring the perpetrators to justice. It also authorized Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a commission to investigate reports of human rights violations in Darfur and determine "whether or not acts of genocide have occurred," as the United States and others have charged.
  (Read More)  - Related article from Christian Science Monitor
   
• Darfur in western Sudan has been ravaged for over a year by conflict that has left thousands dead and caused an exodus of refugees to Chad. The humanitarian disaster is overshadowed by the fragile peace talks between the culturally and ethnically different north and south. The national equation remains unsolved.  (Read More)
   
• How can we name the Darfur crisis? The US Congress, and now Secretary of State Colin Powell, claim that genocide has occurred in Darfur.  The European Union says it is not genocide. And so does the African Union.  Is Darfur genocide that has happened and must be punished? Or, is it genocide that could happen and must be prevented? I will argue the latter.  (Read More)

One World: Distress in Darfur

PBS Frontline News Coverage of Sudan

UN News Focus on Darfur