Sudan: Darfur Genocide: Prez Bush frees up $6 million Dept of Defense funds for African Union troops' logistics in Darfur

Because the US Senate's Democrats are blocking funding for US Border Patrols (see yesterday's blog entries), let alone not cooperating to grant specially-earmarked new DoD funding to stop the genocide in Darfur, the US President has had to free up monies from the general Department of Defense budget, to the tune $6 mill in order to find a way to take action - if only finanicially - for the protection of the black African Muslim population that the Arab Muslim irregular Janjaweed army (sponsored by the Sudan government) has been raping, pillaging, burning down villages, taking wells and in some cases polluting them, and herding the black populace into desolate camps in the desert of Darfu, and across the border in the equally-sparse area of Chad (another dictatorship). The picture is grim.

Until now, the only force at hand to stop the destruction of the livelihood and lives of black Darfur tribespeople have been a small force from various countries of the African Union. Ostensibly that could include both Arabs and Blacks, including among both of course many Muslims. However, the black African states don't have either the logistical means nor the spare cash to fulfill on their desire to intervene between Darfurians and those practicing genocide against them. Now, more than ever, such an intervention is necessary because the Blacks of Darfur have steadily strengthened their own liberation militias, who neither see eye to eye with one another, nor are easily held back from making their own revenge strikes against the Arab Sudanese - whether government, regular army, or Janjaweed irregulars. Meantime, the central government of the Sudan has changed, with a black former rebel leader from the South of the country, General John Garang, joining a few days ago in the government out of Khartoum in preparation for a referendum in five years on possible Southern withdrawal into an autonomous country. The refugee black population of Khartoum turned out in hi spirits to welcome Garang when he arrived to take his new office. But, as yet, this has made no appreciable difference for the surviving victims of the genocide in the West, the Darfur region.

It's vital that the African Union be given the means now to make an effective intervention, and a chance to work for the pacification of all of sides, while aid organizations and other outside help sets about making life as livable as possible for the sick and dying, and the survivors who will emerge hopefully someday at the end of this tunnel of death in the desert of Darfur. - Owlb

Human Rights Watch documentation page for Darfur
Kids' pictures drawn in the deathzone