Waging Peace

By Rebecca Tinsley on the Huffington Post January 4, 2012

The Arab League is whitewashing mass murder in Syria. But for the man leading its team of observers, what is happening on the streets of Syria is merely business as usual.

Mohammed Ahmed Dabi, a Sudanese general, has declared that the Syrian government is making significant progress toward the Arab League goal of restoring peace to Syria. Yet, the killing continues in plain sight: snipers target unarmed civilians, and dissidents are reportedly packed into shipping containers and tipped into the sea to drown. Even the ever-cautious United Nations estimates that 5,000 have died in the uprising.

Since 2003 when reports started leaking about the genocide in Darfur, the subject of Sudan became more central for the major players on the world stage. These revelations shook the world’s conscience into addressing the horror of what is being perpetrated there. Mindful of the events in 1994 in Rwanda, the international community should refuse to accept another such massacre and further violations of international law. The values of civilised people, promoted and embraced by the many concerned organisations lobbying on these issues, and the humanity of the Darfuri people is capturing the attention of the world. At a time when obstacles to the Peace Agreement are highlighting its weaknesses and lack of momentum, this focus is vital to prevent disaster for Darfur.

Rebecca Tinsley - The Huffington Post 07/01/11

This week marks a milestone of misery for millions of Sudanese citizens. It is the anniversary of the military coup that brought Field Marshall Omar Bashir to power in Sudan in 1989. Since then Bashir has earned international notoriety for his sustained campaign to cleanse his nation of people who do not agree with him. This includes seven years of genocide against the citizens in Darfur, for which he was been indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Sudan is a joyless place for many of its citizens, marginalized by the mainly Arab elite along the Nile who control the oil revenues. Bashir's vision is of an exclusively Arab Sudan adhering to the twisted version of extreme Islam favored by his close friends in Hamas, Hezbollah and in Iran. Bashir ideological brother was Osama Bin Laden, to whom he gave sanctuary for five years, and he was inspired by Colonel Gaddafi's racist rantings.