The Times, London, UK, 20/7/04
GIRLS as young as 8 and women as old as 80 are being raped in public
by government-backed militias in Sudan, Amnesty International said
yesterday.
Arab Janjawid forces are conducting mass rapes to intimidate,
humiliate and punish the mainly Christian black Africans whom they are
attempting to drive out of Darfur, the vast western province.
The militiamen tortured women and broke their limbs to prevent them
from escaping, the human rights organisation said in its report Sudan,
Rape as a Weapon of War in Darfur.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than a million
of Darfur's population of 6.7 million have fled their homes in the
face of attacks by the Janjawid. The United Nations has called the
conflict the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
The Sudanese Government has denied involvement in the fighting and on
Saturday ordered that women judges, police officers and legal
consultants investigate accusations of rape and help victims through
criminal cases.
But UN officials, rebels and refugees have accused Khartoum of
supporting the Janjawid with aircraft, helicopter gunships and ground
vehicles.
Amnesty states in its report: "The Janjawid have acted with the full
knowledge or acquiescence of the government army." Erwin Van der
Borght, the group's deputy Africa programme director, said that the
Janjawid used government military bases and accused the Government of
delivering weapons to them.
Amnesty interviewed more than 250 refugees who had escaped to eastern
Chad. Pollyanna Truscott, Amnesty International's Darfur crisis
co-ordinator, said: "The testimonies we have collected point to rape
and other forms of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war. It
is co-ordinated and part of a systematic dehumanising of women."
One woman, five months pregnant, who was abducted with eight others,
said that five or six men raped them every night for six days. One of
the group was aged 8.
She said: "My husband could not forgive me after this. He disowned
me."
Other testimony described how a 14-year-old was raped in the
marketplace in front of her mother before her brother was tied up and
thrown into a fire.
A 23-year-old mother of three described how she was raped by five men
one night, and three the next, before she managed to escape, but said
other women who tried to flee had their legs or arms broken. "The
effect is to tear at the social fabric of the communities, leaving the
women as spoilt goods who are disowned by their husbands," Ms Truscott
said. "The horrific nature and scale of the violence appears to be a
collective punishment of a population whose members have taken up arms
against the central Government."
Nomadic Arab tribes and black African farmers in Darfur have long
competed for water and land. Tensions erupted in February last year
when the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) revolted against the Government, accusing it
of neglecting the region and arming Arab militia.
Peace talks between the rebels and the Government broke down on
Saturday when the JEM walked out.
On Sunday a tribunal in south Darfur handed down its first convictions
of Janjawid fighters for crimes against the region's black population,
the Sudanese Media Centre reported. Ten militiamen were jailed for six
years and fined one million Sudanese pounds (£214). The tribunal also
ordered the amputation of the right hand and left leg of the
defendants in accordance with Islamic law.
And this from the Guardian...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1264901,00.html
Arab women singers complicit in rape, says Amnesty report
Jeevan Vasagar in Nairobi and Ewen MacAskill
Tuesday July 20, 2004
The Guardian
While African women in Darfur were being raped by the Janjaweed militiamen,
Arab women stood nearby and sang for joy, according to an Amnesty
International report published yesterday. The songs of the Hakama, or the
"Janjaweed women" as the refugees call them, encouraged the atrocities
committed by the militiamen.
The women singers stirred up racial hatred against black civilians during
attacks on villages in Darfur and celebrated the humiliation of their
enemies, the human rights group said.
"[They] appear to be the communicators during the attacks. They are
reportedly not actively involved in attacks on people, but participate in
acts of looting."
Amnesty International collected several testimonies mentioning the presence
of Hakama while women were raped by the Janjaweed. The report said:"Hakama
appear to have directly harassed the women [who were] assaulted, and
verbally attacked them."
During an attack on the village of Disa in June last year, Arab women
accompanied the attackers and sang songs praising the government and
scorning the black villagers.
According to an African chief quoted in the report, the singers said: "The
blood of the blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them
from our area and our cattle will be in their land. The power of [Sudanese
president Omer Hassan] al-Bashir belongs to the Arabs and we will kill you
until the end, you blacks, we have killed your God."
The chief said that the Arab women also racially insulted women from the
village: "You are gorillas, you are black, and you are badly dressed."
The Janjaweed have abducted women for use as sex slaves, in some cases
breaking their limbs to prevent them escaping, as well as carrying out rapes
in their home villages, the report said.
The militiamen "are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they
tell that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish", a
37-year-old victim, identified as A, is quoted as saying in the report,
which was based onmore than 100 testimonies from women in the refugee camps
in neighbouring Chad.
Pollyanna Truscott, Amnesty International's Darfur crisis coordinator, said
the rape was part of a systematic dehumanisation of women. "It is done to
inflict fear, to force them to leave their communities. It also humiliates
the men in their communities."
The UN estimates that up to 30,000 people have been killed in Darfur, and
more than a million have been forced to flee their homes. Peace talks
between the Sudanese government and two rebel movements broke down on
Saturday when the rebel groups walked out, saying the government must first
disarm the Janjaweed.
Another human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch, today publishes
alleged Sudanese government documents showing that it was much more closely
involved with the Janjaweed than it has so far admitted.
The documents, which Human Rights Watch said it had obtained from the
civilian administration in Darfur and are dated February and March this
year, call for "provisions and ammunition" to be delivered to known
Janjaweed militia leaders, camps and "loyalist tribes".
One document orders all security units in the area to tolerate the
activities of Musa Hilal, the alleged Janjaweed leader in north Darfur
interviewed by the Guardian last week.
Peter Takirambudde, the executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa
division, said: "These documents show that militia activity has not just
been condoned, it's been specifically supported by Sudan government
officials."
The official government line is that it did not arm or support the
Janjaweed, though its presence was useful in helping to combat rebels in
Darfur.
F. Gump
"jackkincaid" <theov...@another.com> wrote in message
news:eb35fbed.04072...@posting.google.com...
"Count 1" <omnipi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2m4la0F...@uni-berlin.de...
Now you know what Muslins are like.
Where is the UN on this?
Where is Kofi? Hiding under his desk!
> Arab Janjawid forces are conducting mass rapes to intimidate,
> humiliate and punish the mainly Christian black Africans whom they are
> attempting to drive out of Darfur, the vast western province.
Now you know what Muslins are like.
Where is the UN on this?
Where is Kofi? Hiding under his desk!
> The militiamen tortured women and broke their limbs to prevent them
> from escaping, the human rights organisation said in its report Sudan,
> Rape as a Weapon of War in Darfur.
Now you know what Muslins are like.
Where is the UN on this?
Where is Kofi? Hiding under his desk!
> Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than a million
> of Darfur's population of 6.7 million have fled their homes in the
> face of attacks by the Janjawid. The United Nations has called the
> conflict the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
Now you know what Muslins are like.
Where is the UN on this?
Where is Kofi? Hiding under his desk!
> One woman, five months pregnant, who was abducted with eight others,
> said that five or six men raped them every night for six days. One of
> the group was aged 8.
Now you know what Muslins are like.
Where is the UN on this?
Where is Kofi? Hiding under his desk!
> Other testimony described how a 14-year-old was raped in the
> marketplace in front of her mother before her brother was tied up and
> thrown into a fire.
Now you know what Muslins are like.
Where is the UN on this?
Where is Kofi? Hiding under his desk!
On the Today programme this morning the Sudan Ambassador, Dr. Hassan Abdin, was
in typical lying and denial mode, saying that his lousy government was trying to
help the refugees, "condemned" the Janjawid, but admitted that there "may have
been incidents of rape". The interviewer, Carolyn Quinn, sounded like she was
ready to punch him on the nose.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today2_darfur_20040720.ram
(audio)
Now we know why Bush didn't wait for the U.N. before he acted.
>
Where does your "well known number" come from. There are also
reports of a million refugees.
You are right, the tribes being attacked are Muslim. But their brand
of Islam is mixed with tribal customs and superstitions. So of course
the Arab Muslims have their excuse for calling them kuffir.
Fair enough.
OK, honest answers only (instead of the usual delicate replies).
How would you feel if one night the US launched 10 cruise missiles at
some of Sudan's government and military installations, and then next
day sent them this message:
"Stop the genocide or you get 50 more tonight."
It has a certain appeal, I have to admit.
Without waiting for UN approval!?!?!?!?!?!??!
Oh my, oh my, oh my....
The Socialist Demmies would have have an uptake and need a surgeon to get
their panties out of their buttholes!!!!!!!!!
Why not just send all 50 tonight.
Then tomorrow drop some food, clothes, and Bush '04 ballcaps???
There is no oil in sudan, so its a waste of good
cruise missiles.
Killing Muslims is never a waste.
<VoiceOfReason> wrote in message
news:ok8uf0hfn7f1ca7q9...@4ax.com...
>
> Actually, this is OLD news. Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times wrote a
> series of pieces about the horrors of Darfur back in the spring,
> having actually travelled there. Then, as now, most black leaders
> have been strangely silent about this. Had they been more outspoken
> about these atrocities, I'm sure the mainstream media would have moved
> on this much sooner.
>
>
> On 20 Jul 2004 06:32:22 -0700, theov...@another.com (jackkincaid)