Darfur and Sudan: A Review and Analysis

Genocide Pussyfooting and Shadow Boxing in Darfur - Is South Sudan Next?
With a "GPN Darfur Timeline" and a GPN Interview of a Darfur Survivor

Alex Barnea Burnley, Yael Stein, Elihu D Richter

In 2008 the International Criminal Court indicted President Al Bashir for genocide and other crimes against humanity. By 2010, the death toll from the genocide in Darfur is estimated between 300,000 to 450,000, with tens of thousands of victims of organized mass rape, and hundreds of thousand victims of expulsions, pillaging, and destruction, and reportedly with over a million internally displaced people. Reportedly, as well, 250,000 refugees or more have fled to Chad. Today, however, as a nervous calm prevails in Darfur, refugees are beginning to return.

The origins of the outbreak of organized mass killing date back to regional Malthusian pressures and zero-sum rivalries over water and land, between nomadic herders -- mostly Arab, and farmers -- mostly black Africans, which broke out in the late 1990’s. The leaders of the Sudanese Government orchestrated and provided backing for the Janjaeweed, [a militia reported to be enlisted by the Sudan government - Ed.] and some of them stand accused as perpetrators. The victims were members of the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit tribes.

The use of racial epithets reported by rape victims coinciding with the direct increase in backing of the central government forces for the Janjaweed, is one of the lines of evidence arguing for the emergence of a genocidal pattern of direction and intent. Janjaweed marauders raped tens of thousands of women. Malthusian pressures over water and land may have triggered original conflicts, but by themselves were do not explain the scale and ferocity of the atrocities.

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Responders and Complicit Bystanders
China, seeking oil rights in Darfur has been the Sudanese government’s major protector, together with Iran, the Arab League, and African leaders. Talisman, a Calgary based Canadian oil company, was forced to pay heavy fines for reportedly hiring its own advisers to co-ordinate military strategy with the government, to force Darfurians off of lands destined for drilling. (See http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=621).

Tipping Points
In retrospect, the last big tipping point was in the Autumn of 2004, when US Secretary of State Colin Powell reported to the United Nations that the results of the an investigation indicated that acts of genocide had occurred. A flawed UN investigation questioning this conclusion undermined the case for action.

The Darfur coalition of activist organizations, shied away from recommending the use of force (such as the use of helicopter gunships) to stop the Janjaweed from carrying out their genocidal massacres, or naval or air blockades against the Sudanese government

Current Tipping Point Situation
Currently there is a new “tipping point,” as the perpetrators of the genocide in Darfur weigh the prospect of intervention in south Sudan, should its inhabitants vote for independence. There is a case for the world community to take proactive precautionary protective measures to prevent a new genocide.

By 2008, when Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced his plans to indict President Al-Bashir, the toll from organized mass atrocities in Darfur, the western Sudan and eastern Chad had been estimated between 300,000 and 450,000 dead - almost 10% of Darfur’s entire population, tens of thousands of victims of organized mass rape, and over a million victims of expulsions, pillaging, and destruction.

There have been reportedly hundreds of thousand refugees or more who fled from Darfur to Chad and elsewhere. By Jan 2010, the New York Times reported that a fragile calm was holding in Darfur, a region larger than France. It notes that few on the ground are talking. The official line in world capitals is that the war between Darfur rebels and the government is over, but the humanitarian crisis continues, and insecurity poses serious problems for aid workers and peacekeepers.

Ocampo characterized the recent election in Sudan as equivalent to a poll under Hitler. Prior to the election, Bashir threatened to expel poll observers.
Recently, the Obama Administration has decided to normalize relations with Sudan based on its assessment that the genocide was over.

Background
Darfur in western Sudan has an estimated total population of 6 million in a land area about the size of Spain; pop. density approximately 25-50 persons/km in most populated areas.

The origins of the outbreak of organized mass killing date back to regional Malthusian pressures and zero-sum rivalries over water and land between nomadic herders, mostly Arab, and farmers, mostly black Africans, which broke out in the late 1990’s. Prior to desertification and drought, the lands of the farmers were fertilized by flocks of sheep brought by nomadic tribes.

Context: Upstream pressures and Islamist expansionism?
Drought, population growth, overgrazing, and desertification were so-called upstream catalysts of political unrest, attacks on government outposts, and later, armed conflict, but there is good reason to believe these ecologic pressures were not determinant. There are accusations that the Sudanese government in Khartoum is taking action to “Arabize” Sudan.

Before Darfur, there was a twenty year civil war in the South resulting in two million deaths.

In 2002-3, attacks by rebel armed groups in Darfur on Sudanese Government Police Stations increased and low-intensity warfare broke out. By the end of 2004, the Janjaweed had killed some 70,000, raped untold numbers of women, plundered and expelled hundreds of thousands.

In the early years, journalists and human rights NGOs provided early warning reports on genocidal massacres. The US State Department collected and published epidemiologic evidence on timeline and scale of the atrocities. This evidence suggested support and direction by the Sudanese. Based on this evidence, the US declared that acts of genocide had occurred. After Colin Powell delivered this report to the UN, a methodologically flawed UN report cast doubt on his conclusions. There was an abrupt mass upsurge, forced migration, destruction of villages, rape, pillaging and killing, and by 2005, the toll is reported to have reached some 250,000.

To this day the Sudanese government has claimed that there were no more than 10,000 victims from what it calls a civil rebellion. There have been claims that the violence and mass killings were not genocidal but a consequence of a civil war between the Central Government and groups of Darfurian rebels, seeking strategic victim-hood to provoke international pressure for an intervention. The horrendous scale, cruelty, and viciousness of the massacres perpetrated by the Sudanese government renders such a hypothesis somewhat hollow.

Perpetrators and Victims
The leaders of the Sudanese Government orchestrated and provided backing for the Janjaeweed, and some of them stand accused as perpetrators. The victims were members of the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit tribes. Hagan’s report on the use of racial epithets reported by rape victims coinciding with the direct increase in backing of the central government forces for the Janjaweed, is one of the lines of evidence arguing for the emergence of a genocidal pattern of direction and intent. So far, little evidence has emerged on the use of state-sanctioned incitement in government statements, media, and state supervised mosques. This suggests a strategy of concealing intent rather than drawing attention to it.

Victims: Rape as an instrument of genocide in Darfur
The UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide and its Punishment specifies that that killing or causing bodily harm to members of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group are genocidal acts. Throughout Darfur, survivors of attacks by the Janjaweed reported mass rapes. In 2010, girls and women continue to be raped, not just by Janjaweed and Government of Sudan forces but also by members of various rebel groups.

During 2004-5 almost 500 women were given medical care following rape. This number represents a tiny percentage of the women actually raped. The majority (82%) of women and girls were raped while they were pursuing their ordinary daily activities. Only 4% of women reported that the rape occurred during the active conflict, while they were fleeing their home village. Almost a third (28%) of the victims reported that they were raped more than one time, either by single or multiple assailants. A number of women described that the rapists abducted them and held them captive for several days and during that period they were raped regularly by several men. One woman reported that her abduction lasted 6 days and she was raped by 10 men. In addition, almost half of the survivors reported that there was more than one victim in the attack.

In more than half of the cases, physical violence was inflicted beyond sexual violence; women were beaten with sticks, whips or axes. Some of the raped women were visibly pregnant at the time of the assault, sometimes up to eight months. The age range of victims of, attempted rape and physical assault was 5 to 60, a large percentage being very young girls and teenagers.
These attacks on women are characterized by extreme physical abuse. Women who attempt to escape or resist attack are beaten, tortured or killed. Some women have reported having their fingernails pulled out as a form of torture or their legs broken so that they are not capable of escaping.

During the attacks, the Janjaweed often berated the women, calling them slaves, telling them that they would now bear a ‘free child,’ and asserting that they (the perpetrators) are wiping out the non-Arabs.

Responders and Complicit Bystanders
China, seeking oil rights in Darfur, has been the Sudanese government’s major protector, together with Iran, the Arab League, and African leaders. The latter have been nervous about threats to sovereignty from outside intervention by former colonial rulers. In Darfur, as in Rwanda and Bosnia, non-interference by international agencies signaled reluctance to take effective actions against decisions by national leaders to commit genocide.

In Darfur, as in Rwanda, the dispatch of a well- armed UN or African force with a robust mandate to protect civilians could have stopped the spread of organized killing, pillaging and expulsions. African Union Peacekeeping forces now provide a token presence, which may be helping to preserve the uneasy calm. These forces provide some degree of protection for humanitarian aid workers. But up to 2007-8, it appears their impact was limited. There is concern that the current calm presages the possibility of relocation of the Sudan military and a push into South Sudan by the central government, to prevent the latter from breaking away and declaring its independence.

Complicit Bystanders: China and Oil Companies
Major Western powers have failed to do even what they did belatedly in Bosnia and Kosovo. The presence of major untapped oil reserves in Darfur as well as southern Sudan undermined international support for outside pressure on the Sudanese government, to stop its support for the armed Janjaweed.

This role of China as a protector of Sudan’s genocidal leaders suggests certain rough parallels to its role as a protector of repressive regimes in North Korea, Iran, and Zimbabwe; and resonates with its own dismal record in mass killings and cultural genocide in Tibet, and its persecution of religious minorities inside its own borders.

The role of multinational oil companies
Talisman, a Calgary based Canadian oil company, has been accused of collaborating on a plan with the Sudanese government for the security of oilfields and forced to pay heavy fines. Talisman reportedly hired its own advisers to co-ordinate military strategy with the government. The company mapped out areas intended for exploration and discussed how to exclude civilians from those areas. Faced with mounting criticism, Talisman sold its interests in Sudan to Petronas, the Malaysian oil giant. A court ruling against Talisman held that corporations may be held liable, under international law, for crimes against humanity.

Malthusian pressures, genocide, and ecocide
In July 2007, The International Association of Genocide Scholars ratified a resolution calling for prosecution of oil companies.This resolution specified that “Investments in PetroChina and Petronas and in other petroleum companies that are profiting from Sudanese oil extraction should be outlawed by state and national governments. Companies implicated in the use of forced expulsions of Sudanese people inhabiting lands designated for oil prospecting, should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.”

Malthusian Pressures and Genocide
The story of Darfur requires us to ask how important are Malthusian conflicts over limiting resources for increasing risks for genocide? When is it sufficient to address upstream “environmental” pressures of depletion and destruction of carrying capacity, to prevent political conflict and genocide? And if intervention is successful in stopping genocide, how sustainable will its results be, without attention to these upstream pressures?

In Darfur, however important ecological pressures may be as trigger events for genocide, we suggest there comes a point at which genocidal agendas –with or without such pressures, take on a momentum of their own. In Darfur, a second generation of pressures generated by global competition over oil, overtook the first generation of such pressures having to do with water and desertification.

These statements about ecological pressures do not refute the core principles governing the causes and prevention of genocide. Genocide results from human choice and bystander indifference.

Tipping Points
In retrospect, the last big tipping point for those who sought to stop the Genocide in Darfur was in the Autumn of 2004, when there was an enormous surge of reporting and interest in the atrocities. In Sept 2004, US Secretary of State Colin Powell reported to the United Nations that the results of the ADP investigation indicated that acts of genocide had occurred. The State Department investigation discerned a pattern of central organization, direction and backing for the killings, rapes and plundering, carried out by Janjaweed marauders. As noted above, at that time, gangs of Janjaweed marauders, reorganized, equipped and protected by the Sudanese government, had already killed an estimated 70,000 Darfurians from the 3 tribes.

Genocide Pussyfooting
But the UN’s follow up investigation reported that it was unable to confirm the State Department conclusion that genocide had occurred. This investigation had gross flaws in organization, design and implementation. It undermined the impact of the State Department report - by manufacturing doubt and undermining momentum for international intervention. Thereafter, following a weak UN resolution, there was a tremendous upsurge in the number of persons killed. In 2004, one of us wrote the following: Based on the evidence from previous genocides, it is unlikely that these violent events will stop without forceful international intervention.

Genocide Shadowboxing
The Darfur coalition of activist organizations shied away from recommending the use of force (such as the use of helicopter gunships) to stop the Janjaweed from carrying out their genocidal massacres, or use of naval or air blockades against the Sudanese government. Human rights organizations used terms such as “killings,” “humanitarian crisis,” and “ethnic cleansing” in their reports, to replace use of the term genocide or genocidal massacres.

This terminology diffused pressures for effective intervention based on armed force. In August 2006, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1706, authorizing over 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, but the Sudanese government blocked their deployment and the U.N. failed to implement the resolution. Since then, the killings and rape continued.

Questions for word decision makers
Currently there is a new “tipping point,” as the perpetrators of the genocide in Darfur weigh the prospect of invading south Sudan. Whether they will do there what they did in Darfur will depend significantly on bystander response.

What Next?
GPN poses the following questions for decision makers concerned with prevention of genocide, genocidal massacres, and other crimes against humanity:

1. Will the world community block President Bashir, now indicted for carrying out one genocide, should he attempt to carry out a second war against Southern Sudan? As this piece went to press, there were reports that the US government was exploring the possibility of a deal in which Bashir would be left off the hook, as part of a Truth and Reconciliation process, in return for which he would grant South Sudan a divorce and independence. We suggest that there should be a Truth and Reconciliation Process, but not for President Bashir and the major architects of the Darfur genocide, given their record of violating so many past accords.

2. Will Ocampo’s indictment, though years too late for stopping the genocide, deter the Sudanese government from further mass atrocities—not only in Darfur, but also in Southern Sudan?

3. Should the world Community give Sudan the benefit of the doubt concerning its sovereign rights to hold the country together so long as it is led by a leader indicted for genocide?

4. Should the world community post peacekeeping missions in South Sudan now to avert hostilities, rather than to respond after hostilities begin? Should the African Union and NATO preposition helicopter gunships to attack Janjaweed-type forces should they attack again?

5. Should the UN and the African Union set up an early warning system to monitor for episodes of mass rape, expulsions, and violence using satellite monitoring and imaging systems?

6. Should there be warnings of severe political and economic sanctions on the Sudanese leadership?

If genocide results from human choice and bystander indifference, then what happens in Darfur and Southern Sudan will depend on what the outside world chooses to do or not to do.

Conclusion
In 2009, President Barack Obama declared: “The genocide in Darfur has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and left millions more displaced. Conflict in the region has wrought more suffering, posing dangers beyond Sudan’s borders and blocking the potential of this important part of Africa. Sudan is now poised to fall further into chaos if swift action is not taken." The question is: What action and by whom and why. Is President Obama’s use of the passive voice itself a tip-off of future non-action should Bashir’s government carry out genocidal massacres in South Sudan?

Alex Barnea Burnley, MSc in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict is Research Assistant and Project Manager of the World Genocide Situation Room section of GPN, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He acted as project manager for UK relief work in Tsunami-affected Thailand and later as consultant to a Cambodian NGO - orphanage.

Yael Stein MD is a researcher-team member of the World Genocide Situation Room, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem of GPN. She has experience in Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Hospital Administration and is currently studying towards a PhD degree in Public Health at the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Yael describes herself as a ”goal-oriented, idealistic entrepreneur, seeking spiritual and ethical fulfillment” in her work; “I focus on making a difference.”

Professor Elihu D Richter MD MPH is Editor and Director of GPN World Genocide Situation Room and Associate Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He is Head of the Genocide Prevention Program at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine and former head of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He has published and lectured on the use of public health models for the prediction and prevention of genocide.

Andrew Tobin is a freelance journalist, and a student of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and School of International Public Affairs. He is interested in conflict resolution and Middle Eastern affairs.

Click here for Darfur timeline

Click here for Darfur interview

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Pontic Greeks and the Greek Genocide

Editors Introduction: I have just returned from an inspiring conference in Athens, "Three Genocides - One Strategy" which focused on the interlocking genocides of the Armenian, Assyrians and Greeks by the Ottoman Turks. See in this issue a news release summarizing the conference in HGR Information Resources, World Genocide Bulletin Board. My paper at the conference was on the psychology of denial of other victims alongside one's own people - and referred to the subject of the above three victim peoples, as well as to denials of other victims alongside the Jews in the Holocaust. Actually, it turns out that there were still additional victims of the Ottoman Turks, such as approximately 300,000 Yezedis -- about whom GPN will also be presenting more information in a future issue. And, as we shall read in the intriguing article by Nikolaos Hlamides, it turns out that there are strains within the Greek community and among genocide scholars as well, to recognize the genocide of Pontic Greeks but not of other Greeks. In the following article the author argues factually and eloquently for recognition of all Greek victims. (The author himself has conveyed to us that he is personally a Pontic Greek). This paper was not presented at the Athens conference.

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In the early twentieth century Greek and other minority communities across the Ottoman Empire were targeted in a campaign of physical extermination. In recent years some descendants of these communities have adopted an exclusive and segregated narrative of this genocide. In particular, a hierarchy of victims has been constructed by relaying an account of the historical events addressing solely the fate of one community and wholly ignoring the persecutory history of their co-victims. Here the case of the Pontic Greek community is discussed. This paper has two goals. The first is to explain the illegitimacy of this approach and the second is to communicate how such myopia, apart from conflicting with the historical record, can considerably undermine the case for genocide history altogether.

In March of this year the Swedish Parliament passed a motion affirming the genocide perpetrated against certain minority groups in the late Ottoman Empire; in particular, “the killing of Armenians, Assyrians/Syriacs/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks” is now recognized as an act of genocide. While many hailed the motion’s passing a great victory, to those more familiar with the historical record it came as a surprise that this outwardly inclusive motion excluded all Ottoman Greeks bar the Greeks of the Pontus region.

The vast majority of Pontic Greeks appreciate the genocidal experience of other Ottoman Greeks but many still prefer to consider the fate of their own people separately. Over the years I have encountered several arguments explaining why a distinction should be made between the experiences of Pontic Greeks and the other Greeks of the Empire during the Genocide.

The arguments which seem most common are:

1. The Pontic Greeks have a unique history, culture, way of life and dialect, which distinguishes them from other Ottoman Greek communities;

2. Many Pontic Greeks, unlike Greeks elsewhere in the Empire, raised arms against their persecutors and, as such, the history of persecution in the region is deserving of special consideration;

3. Unlike Pontus, western Asia Minor was a zone of war where Greek and Turkish military forces were engaged in warfare. Atrocities committed in the context of the Greco-Turkish war cannot be considered as part of the genocide;

4. For two decades the Pontic Greek Diaspora has worked relentlessly to achieve recognition of the genocide and, as such, it is not an unnatural expectation for Pontic Greeks to approach the issue exclusively.

A response to the aforementioned will be offered but first let it be stated that the author fully acknowledges that Pontic Greeks did experience genocide and in everything that follows he in no way seeks to undermine the factuality and severity of the persecutory campaign in the Pontus region.

1. This uniqueness claim is somewhat simplistic because it overlooks the very rich cultural diversity of the region’s Greek communities. The Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens has identified as many as 1,500 distinct Greek Orthodox settlements in the Pontus region, each with their own unique culture, traditions, and way of life. The claim of a unique Pontian dialect also deserves some clarification. The truth is that there is no single Pontic Greek dialect—we should speak of dialects, plural. The work of Richard M. Dawkins highlights the very many differences between the very many dialects, not only in Pontus but across Asia Minor. Pronunciation differed from place to place while some words were peculiar to one locality and completely unknown elsewhere. Of course, regardless of the influence of local phraseology and pronunciation, the community language of the Pontic Greeks was Greek. And although the physical isolation of Pontus from Greece resulted in the development of a character in the region that was distinct from mainland Greece, the Greek communities in Pontus shared a common identity in terms of ethnicity and religion with Greek communities elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, Greeks in Pontus did not identify themselves differently from Greeks elsewhere in the Empire; referring to themselves not as Pontians but as Έλληνες (Greeks) or Ρωμιοί (Romioi), stemming from their view of being descendants of the Eastern Roman Empire. Like Greeks across Asia Minor, they considered their ancestors to be ancient Greeks who had colonised the shores of Asia Minor many centuries earlier. Neither did the Ottoman Turks differentiate between the various Greek communities, who were all considered as members of the Ottoman Rum Millet.

2. The premise of this claim is simply false. While it is true that there were several pockets of armed resistance in the Pontus region in response to the genocide, it is untrue to claim that communities subject to massacres and deportations elsewhere did not offer any resistance. Although there are many instances to choose from, one counterexample suffices: Greek resistance in the area of Nicomedia/İzmit, several hundred kilometres from Pontus. This puts the claim to rest but, for a moment, let us assume the premise were true. The act of genocide is not a variable dependent on armed resistance but on target group, which in the case of the Greek Genocide was the entire Ottoman Greek population. If the historiography of the Jewish Holocaust focused solely on the resistance in the ghettos or the Armenian Genocide on, say, the resistance at Van then those two genocides would be grossly misrepresented. In any case, because the Ottoman Greeks were an unarmed civilian minority population scattered across the entirety of the Ottoman Empire, in the overwhelming number of cases—including those in Pontus—Greek communities were in no position to offer any organised armed resistance whatsoever.

3. Ιn the case of the Greco-Turkish War, sporadic atrocities committed by one military force engaged in warfare against another military force in a zone of war, cannot be considered as a chapter in the history of the Greek Genocide. Indeed, the Greek Genocide is unconnected to any form of war activity. After all, the Greek Genocide saw the physical destruction of unarmed civilian populations, consisting of men, women and children, at times of peace and outside zones of war.
Between May 1919 and September 1922, Greece maintained a military presence in certain areas of western Anatolia. It is important to remember that their presence was partly determined by the treatment of Greeks in the five years prior to the Allied-mandate over Smyrna: “With a view to avoiding disorders and massacres of Christians in Smyrna and its environs, the occupation of the town and forts by Allied Forces has been decided upon by President [Wilson], Prime Minister [Lloyd George] and M. Clemenceau,” disclosed the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a few days prior to the arrival of Hellenic troops in Smyrna. So ignoring this region altogether erases a five year history (1914-1919) of systematic deportations and massacres against hundreds of Greek communities at a time of no foreign military presence. Similarly, it overlooks the period following the evacuation of Greek and other Allied military forces from Asia Minor which was succeeded by the Smyrna Holocaust and the final phase in the destruction and eradication of Ottoman Christian communities. More concerning is that this argument seems to reflect a misguided belief that the only communities targeted were those in Pontus and the Smyrna district of western Anatolia and that the choice is simply between including Smyrna or not. What is left unexplained is why the many hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Greeks who lived along Turkey’s complete coastline, those who lived in remote villages in the interior, those who lived on the islands as well as the vast numbers who inhabited Thrace have also been excluded? These communities were no less a victim than the Greeks of Pontus and the Greeks of Smyrna.

One historian explained in an interview that the reason he excludes the persecution of other Ottoman Greeks from the genocide equation is because “there is an alibi for their slaughter and in the Pontus region there is no alibi.” In fact, things are not so simple for Pontus, which experienced a Russian military occupation, a British military presence, a Hellenic naval bombardment and a sporadic armed resistance movement, as already noted, among other things. It simply remains to point out that it is the duty of historians to be exact, truthful and dispassionate. To manipulate the historical record in order to further one position over another, regardless of one’s motivations, constitutes an act of serious professional misconduct.

4. Genocide recognition should not be viewed as a title bestowed on those who make the most noise. Recognition must serve to affirm history in a way which accurately reflects the historical record and should in no way be susceptible to individual demands. The historical record—including documentation from international archives; newspaper reports; survivor and eyewitness testimonies—affirms that Greek communities across the entire span of the Ottoman Empire were targeted in the Genocide. Unfortunately, to date, most Genocide resolutions have been the product of intense lobbying on the part of Pontic Greek organisations and, as such, seem to be focused on the “Pontian Genocide” and the fate of Pontic Greeks alone. But a quick review of resolutions does reveal some positives to draw on. For instance, a resolution passed in Ohio in May 2005 speaks of a “tragic genocide of the Greeks of Pontus and Asia Minor”. And last year the Parliament of South Australia passed a motion which, although focused on the Pontic Greeks, did hint at the genocidal experiences of other Greeks in Asia Minor. These attempts at inclusiveness are a step in the right direction but, without meaning to be cynical, there are still two remarks that need to be made: First, Pontus is part of Asia Minor and so expressions such as “Pontus and Asia Minor”, while not logically incorrect, are no less redundant and misleading than one saying “I’ll be spending the weekend in Bavaria followed by a week in Germany”. Second, Ottoman Greek communities throughout the length and breadth of the country were targeted in the Genocide and simply referring to this region as Asia Minor is inadequate. Asia Minor is an historical term which denotes the Anatolian plateau but excludes the whole of Thrace including European Constantinople, the islands as well as land east of the Euphrates.

Incidentally, it might be added that recognition by third parties would be far less necessary if it were not for brazen denial by Turkish officialdom. On the other hand, the goals of the Diaspora should not be focused on securing recognition and recognition alone. Efforts might be better spent contributing to our collective understanding of the period through research and serious scholarship. Recognition could then adopt the far more fitting role of being predicated on a vast and established body of scholarly literature.

So why shouldn’t scholars and other interested parties focus on one region in particular? In the historiography of the Armenian Genocide, for instance, scholars have contributed papers which focus on the Genocide against the Armenians in a particular district, so why can’t others do the same for the Greek Genocide? Regional case studies are incredibly important contributions to our collective understanding of the genocide and we should not discourage such works. On the other hand, I am not convinced that a regional case study isolated to “Pontus” is at all viable. Pontus is a historical word for an ancient region whose boundaries have fluctuated considerably over the ages and defining Pontus or the homeland of Pontic Greeks in the early 20th century is problematic if one needs to be precise. More crucially, the issue here is not one of regional case studies but pertains to defining genocidal campaigns in their own right and, as such, the argument pivots on whether or not this accurately reflects the historical record. The so-called “Pontian Genocide” thesis fails to incorporate the broader history and the magnitude of the campaign against the Ottoman Greek population as a whole. It is a thesis which has sought to define a unique genocide in that region without even passing reference to the existence of other Ottoman Greeks, let alone their shared fate. To this end, I hope readers will agree that there is a world of difference between that term and, say, the expression “Pontus: a regional case study of the Greek Genocide”.

To those who still disagree, I should like to make one final point: failing to incorporate the broader history can even threaten individual Pontic Greek interests. Consider for a moment the following characteristics peculiar to the Pontus region: (1) The noted resistance movement; (2) The Russian occupation between 1916 and 1918; (3) The British military presence; (4) The Hellenic naval bombardment of Black Sea ports; (5) The territorial claims made to the Pontus region and the attempts to establish a Pontic state. Revisionists, who seek to discredit the factuality of the genocide, have seized on all these circumstances unique to the region to discredit the history of persecutions in Pontus. For example, publications such as The Pontus Issue and the Policy of Greece published by the Atatürk Research Center and the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ memorandum Setting the Record Straight on Pontus Propaganda against Turkey have exploited—I hasten to add, quite effectively—these very circumstances. Without taking into account the fate of Greeks elsewhere in the Empire, it becomes almost impossible to effectively lay down the arguments for genocide but as soon as one is prepared to broaden the context of the genocide campaign, the denialist thesis immediately disintegrates. To give but one example, being able to point to the deportation of Greek men, women and children from, say, Konya in central Turkey completely undermines revisionist narratives which suggest that deportations were conducted on the grounds of military necessity. In light of the above, attempts to define a detached and localized genocide in the Pontus region are morally and historically untenable and all parties should be encouraged to attach precedence, first and foremost, to the historical record.

Nikolaos Hlamides is based in London, England, and is a descendent of genocide survivors. His research interests pertain to the destruction of Greek communities in the Ottoman Empire. His last contribution was a paper titled "The Greek Relief Committee: America’s Response to the Greek Genocide" published in the journal Genocide Studies and Prevention. Correspondence should be addressed to hlamides@gmail.com

See in this issue of GPN the news release by the conference organizers in HGR Information Resources World Genocide Bulletin Board

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52 Rabbis Call for Action to End Killing in Congo -- 54 million Dead Since 1988

Following the commemoration of Yom HaShoah, the Jewish annual commemoration of the Holocaust, 52 Rabbis in the UK issued a public statement urging Prime Minister Brown and the then two leaders of the opposition, Nick Clegg and David Cameron, to pledge to make saving the Congo an absolute priority for the next Parliament.

The statement, drafted by Rabbi David Mitchell of Radlett & Bushley Reform Synagogue and Vava Tampa, director of Save the Congo, was delivered to Prime Minister Brown and the two leaders of opposition: Mr. Clegg and Mr. Cameron, on Tuesday, April 20th by Paul Rusesabagina - the real life hero of the acclaimed film, Hotel Rwanda.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, a country the size of Western Europe with a population of approximately 60 million, is one of the most fragile states in the world. Despite its abundance in natural resources. Its torrid history is marred by human tragedy, spanning back to its horrific colonisation by King Leopold II of Belgium, through to a brutal dictatorship under Mobuto Sese Seko, and since 1998 by a succession of invasions by Rwandan and Ugandan troops fighting to gain control of Congo’s easily appropriable and highly valuable natural resources destined for sale in London, New York and Paris.

In April 2007, the International Rescue Committee’s pivotal study placed the death toll in the DR Congo since 1998 at 5.4 million. This horrific figure continues to rise at a rate of 45,000 mortalities a month. It is now three years since the study in 2007 and the additional consequences of disease and malnutrition have resulted in a staggering rise in the death toll to at least seven million fatalities, not to mention the millions of refugees.

The text of the statement by the rabbis is the following:

Dear Prime Minister Brown, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg,

The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) have, for over eleven years, endured the evils of violence, war crimes, corruption, humanitarian crisis, looting, and rape on a scale that defies comprehension.

In April 2007, the International Rescue Committee’s pivotal study placed the death toll in the DR Congo since 1998 at 5.4 million. This horrific figure continues to rise at a rate of 45,000 mortalities a month. It is now three years since the study in 2007 and the additional consequences of disease and malnutrition have resulted in a staggering rise in the death toll to at least seven million fatalities, not to mention the millions of refugees.

What these shocking figures cannot convey is the scale of ongoing rape, torture and mutilation occurring throughout the DR Congo. As recently as February, fifteen women were abducted and raped by armed assailants—five were brutally tortured and then beheaded, three survived and were taken to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu for emergency medical care. The remaining seven are still missing, presumed dead. The Human Rights organisation Genocide Watch lists DR Congo at the top of its 2010 list of countries facing ongoing massacres.

There is still no end in sight to the atrocities or to this humanitarian crisis. Moreover, political stability and peace within the DR Congo are critically important not just for the citizens of the DR Congo, but for all those who live within the African Great Lakes region. Yet, to the majority of the world, the plight of the people of the DR Congo remains invisible (italics by GPN).

We have just marked Yom HaShoah, the Jewish annual commemoration of the Holocaust. When we recently discovered the suffering and scale of the atrocities in the DR Congo, we cannot but recall our own six million innocent victims of Nazi Genocide. The “hear nothing, see nothing and do nothing” approach the world community has thus far adopted, regarding this crisis in the DR Congo, fails to fulfill the promise to “NEVER AGAIN!” stand idly by while innocent human beings are slaughtered. It denies justice to the victims and questions our very commitment to humanity. As Rabbis we cannot ignore the call of our tradition: “whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a).

Accordingly, we the undersigned, Rabbis, united in this statement, appeal to you on behalf of all peoples of the DR Congo. We have a responsibility to speak for those who cannot, so we urge you to do likewise. As a significant contributor to the UN and a permanent member of the UN Security Council as well as a core member of the European Union, British Commonwealth and the G20, the UK could and should play a more central role in mobilising world opinion to address the root causes of this conflict. We are therefore asking you and your party to pledge an unwavering resolve to make Saving the Congo an absolute priority for the next Parliament.

We recognize that there are, sadly, numerous humanitarian crises and atrocities around the world, all of which require urgent attention. Yet the war and humanitarian crisis overwhelming the DR Congo are on a scale that can no longer remain ignored. Now is the time for action, now is the time for leadership. We hope that you will heed the call.

Yours in the name of peace

(Signatures of Rabbis)

Note to Readers: The organization, www.savethecongo.co.uk is concerned with the genocide taking place in the Congo. Save the Congo receives no money from any governments or corporations. It is staffed by a global team based in London and Sydney, and it is registered in England and Wales: Company No. 06961720. The founding director Vava Tampa, a student in London, and a native of the Congo, is currently reading History and Politics at Queen Mary, University of London. His interests include Africa, human rights, HIV epidemic and sustainable development.

Please click here for fully referenced article.

Source:
Tampa, Vava (May 6, 2010). Save the Congo, April 29, 2010, Excerpt from Press Release. 52 Rabbis Call for Actions to End the Killing in the Congo.
http://savethecongo.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=134:save-the-congo&catid=112:speech-a-statement&Itemid=78

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), May 7, 2010.
http://www.appggreatlakes.org/index.php/appg-reports-mainmenu-35/articles-mainmenu-36/148-52-rabbis-call-for-actions-to-end-the-killing-in-the-congo

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Bulletin: Genocidal Massacres in Kyrgyztan - Two Muslim Nationalities

News Report and GPN Editorial Blog

Kyrgyz are slaughtering Uzbeks -- Two Muslim Turkic-speaking peoples in Central Asia -- in Kyrgyztan, a Central European Country bordering on China, Tajikstan, and Uzbekistan; Tens of thousands of Uzbeks are fleeing to Uzbekistan.

As Issue 3 of GPN moves toward publication word reaches the western world of a new eruption of mass killing of civilians, driven along ethnic-national lines.

Reporters describe an eruption of “sudden, brutal violence” in which the KRYGZ MAJORITY are killing and wounding people from the UZBEK MINORITY. An International Red Cross spokeman said more than 700 people were killed in the one city of Osh and more than 3000 were in need of medical attention for wounds. In one report, over 70,000 people were reported to be fleeing the country as of June 14, 2010. Another report said 150,000 people. Uzbekistan announced it was closing its border to further refugees.

Western media began advancing possible interpretations of the facts of the genocidal killing including a mix of inter-ethnic persecution -- despite the fact that the two people are tied by no less than culture, language and religion; a classic divide between herders and farmers; a classic dynamic of commerce –including trading in opium - being predominantly in the hands of the one people (the victim Uzbeks); and including a political struggle of an ousted former president who is battling to return to power and is said to be hiring killers to execute the genocidal pogroms against the Uzbek who have supported the new president.

Excerpts from Press Reports

Krgyz mobs burned Uzbek villages and slaughtered their residents in the worst ethnic rioting this Central Asian nation has seen in 20 years, sending Uzbeks fleeing across the border into Uzbekistan. Most of the Uzbek refugees were elderly people, women and children, and many had gunshot wounds.

Fires set by rioters have destroyed most of Osh, the second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan. Triumphant crowds of Kyrgz men took control of Osh as the few Uzbeks still left in the city of 250,000 barricaded themselves in their neighborhoods. Fires continued to rage across Osh and shots were heard but police were nowhere to be seen.

The rioting has significant political overtones. Former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country. Uzbeks have backed Kyrgyzstan's interim government, while many in Kyrgyz in the south support the toppled president.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he was "alarmed by the scale of the clashes" and the mounting death toll and was discussing what aid the U.N. could send to help the fleeing refugees.

Who
Perpetrators:
Gangs of ethnic Kyrgyz young men from southern Kyrgyzstan, armed at first with metal rods and stones, and later with automatic rifles and shotguns.

Victims:
Men, women and children of Uzbek ethnic group, in the living in southern Kyrgyzstan - killed, wounded. Homes, businesses and property were plundered or burnt. There were many reports of violent groups reportedly committing gang rape. Thousands of refugees tried to escape to Uzbekistan - some were attacked on the way, and some died in stampede at border crossing.

Political figures:

• "Interim President Roza Otunbayeva - a political rival of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Leads government after uprising in April 2010.
• "Former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev - was ousted in an uprising in April 2010, and has fled the country. Negotiated potential closure of US airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan with Russian and US governments. Was accused of corruption, but was reelected in July 2009. Now residing in Belarus.
• "Former President Askar Akayev (1991-2005). Was elected (sole candidate) after independence of Kyrgyzstan in 1991, reelected (arguably) in 2000, and removed in 2005 by revolution. Was replaced by President Bakiyev. Currently lives in Moscow.

What, Where
The violence broke out just before midnight on Thursday 10 June, across Kyrgyzstan's southern market city of Osh. Gangs of Kyrgyz young men, armed with metal rods and stones attacked Uzbek homes and businesses, looting, burning and killing. Later, the rioters stole weapons from police stations and continued with the attacks with automatic rifles and shotguns. Throughout Saturday and Sunday, the violence spread from Osh to JalalAbad (70 kilometers from Osh) and the villages surrounding it.

As a response to the rioting, ethnic Uzbeks ambushed about 100 Kyrgz men on a road near Jlal-Abad and took them hostage. In the nearby village of Bazar-Kurgan, a mob of 400 Uzbeks overturned cars and killed a police captain. Armed Kyrgyz men assembled in the village to retaliate.

In the Osh and Jalal-Abad areas, people were trapped inside houses and basements, afraid to go out to get supplies, and afraid to collect bodies of people who had been killed, to identify and bury them. Some people were buried without being identified. Thousands of people fled from their homes. Most of these people are now in need of humanitarian aid, mostly water, food, clothes for their children, and shelter.

Several days after the violence began, Interim President Roza Otunbayeva sent an urgent request to Russia, asking that troops be deployed to stop the riots, but Russia refused. A Kyrgyz volunteer troop was organized and sent to the south, with an order to "shoot to kill" to stop the violence.

Context
Ethnic Uzbeks are the largest minority group (13-14.2 percent) in Kyrgyzstan, a multiethnic state of 5.1 million people, of whom ethnic Kyrgyz comprise 67.4 percent. Ethnic Uzbeks are concentrated in the southern regions of Osh and Jalal-Abad, in the fertile Fergana Valley region. Both groups are Muslim Sunnis, although there is slight difference between them, the Kyrgyz still relating to some traditional beliefs.

The current rioting has significant political context. A political uprising this April, a few weeks ago - in which demonstrators were shot with over 80 killed - removed former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev from power. He fled the country to Belarus. An interim government was set up, led by former prominent opposition figure and Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva.

Uzbeks have backed Kyrgyzstan's interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south support the removed president. The new government, though unelected and made up of an uneasy alliance of political forces, quickly established control over the capital and the north of the country, but not in the south.

A wider, international, context revolves around the US airbase in Manas, near the capital Bishkek, a base used to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan hosts a Russian military base too. Formerly, the Russian government has pressured Bakiyev's government to shut the US base. In 2009, it offered a $2.1 Billion aid loan to Kyrgyzstan as incentive to shut the airbase. This was even accepted in a government vote. But in last-minute negotiations, former president Bakiyev reversed this decision and allowed the base to stay, more than tripling the rent collected from the US government from $17 Million to $ 60 Million a year. This move lost him Russian support. Russia was the first country to recognize Otunbayeva's government in April.

When the ethnic riots broke out, interim leader Roza Otunbayeva turned to the Russian President, requesting that Russia send troops to stop the fighting in Kyrgyzstan. The Russian government refused to send troops immediately, but a spokeswoman for President Dmitri Medvedev said that no decision would be made until Russia consulted with other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security alliance of former Soviet republics. Russia did send 300 troops, to protect its own military base, in the north, away from the riots.

Pakistan and Germany sent aid to the troubled regions, and China was expected to send food and medical supplies.

Sources:
Kramer, Andrew E. Ellen (June 15, 2010). Improbable enemies in a spasm of violence: Uzbeks and Kyrgyz share close ties but fighting has flared in the past. International Herald Tribune.

Schwirtz Michael, and Barry, Ellen (June 15, 2010). Political undertones infect violence in Kyrgyzstan. International Herald Tribune.

EurasiaNet.org (June 15, 2010). Uzbekistan closing border; estimated 150,000 refugees in Uzbekistan; violence continues. http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61302

Associated Press (June 13, 2010). Mobs slaughter Uzbeks and burn towns in Kyrgyzstan.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/13/world/asia/AP-AS-Kyrgyzstan-Unrest.html?emc=eta1

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GPN Editorial Blog:

Who knows?

Who cares?

We westerners can barely read or pronounce the names. Most of us have no idea where these countries lie except as we finally get the notion that these countries are on the western side of a country that does concern us more and more, China, but we still have little to no sense of who these peoples and nations are. And given that they are also Muslims, our more natural ‘white man Judeo-Christian’ sensitivities are not immediately mobilized.

Actually the West does care somewhat because the US has a base supporting NATO operations and the Russians have military facilities in the country.

But in principle no one of US gives a --- real enough concern that, even following the Holocaust, and Cambodia, and Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and more, there is no international machinery in place to respond IMMEDIATELY and AUTOMATICALLY to reports of mass killings—genocide—of civilians.

The idea of a standing international machinery that would respond the way we want neighborhood police forces to respond to reports of murder and attempted murder is so removed from the realm of human civilization’s political possibility that it feels juvenile and sophomoric to raise such a conception.

So genocide in our world is an event of mass killing of civilians about which, in the best scenario, months will pass of gathering alleged information, and months more for arriving at a consensual definition by major governments and for other parts of the weak international system that genocide is taking place, and months more before powerful enough players may decide, if they will, and if there are still more victims waiting to be killed, to intervene.

Why wasn’t Auschwitz bombed by the US or the British?

How many years did the UN Human Rights Commission (then in its better days of not yet being coopted to represent Muslim countries’ agenda for bashing Israel and the US) take to study the genocide in Cambodia and reluctantly come to the conclusion that an “autogenocide” was taking place?

How unknowing, impotent and sabotaging was our world, and some of our otherwise great leaders (like US President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan) when it came to expanding U.N. resources for stopping the genocidal rampage in Rwanda?

This is also an appropriate context in which to remember that Cambodia and Rwanda, among others, prove that genocidal killing does not need obvious existing dividing lines between religions or nations, but that our primitive human thinking can easily come up with definition of US-THEM; dehumanize THEM and attribute to them bestial destructive potential and intentions towards US and our way of life; and then power-mad leaders light the matches, and another genocide is under way. And it can move to killing millions of people rapidly!

Is it really naïve and juvenile to raise the question of developing an “International Peace Army” or a “World Rapid Response Force”?

After all, that is obviously what will happen after the next great disaster of Genocide by a Weapon of Mass Destruction – especially if the victim people(s) belong to the then ‘white folk’ elites of our human civilization.

What should be done?
Right now, Kyrgyzstan is at a critical tipping point.

Genocide results from human choice and bystander inaction. We are now at a tipping point. The conflict could erupt into a genocidal civil war with spillover into neighboring countries, as happened in Darfur and Rwanda. Right now, we recommend implementation of Security Council Resolution 1674, the Responsibility to Protect, which specifies that there is an international responsibility to protect vulnerable populations from genocidal threats, when sovereign states are no longer able or willing to do so. To implement this recommendation, we recommend that the Russian Federation and the US, both of which have sizeable military bases in Kyrgyzstan, join immediately form a Rapid Deployment Force to restore quiet, order and safety and protect vulnerable populations from massacre, rape, expulsion, and plundering. Whatever their political differences, both, as Great Powers, have not only an opportunity, but a responsibility.

The ultimate responsibility for the genocidal massacres rests with the perpetrators. But should the violence continue, Russia and the US will stand accountable as passive bystanders who stood by and did nothing-as happened with the UN Forces in Rwanda, who were ordered to not interfere when the mass killing started there. The choice rests with the leaders of both Great Powers to move, and to do so rapidly.

Israel W. Charny with research on timelines and policy recommendations for preventive intervention based on Responsibility to Protect by Yael Stein and Elihu D. Richter of the GPN Genocide Situation Room.

Please click here to view the Timeline for Krygyztan

Please click here for a fully referenced pdf version of this article

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52 Rabbis Call for Action to End Killing in Congo

Following the commemoration of Yom HaShoah, the Jewish annual commemoration of the Holocaust, 52 Rabbis in the UK have issued a public statement urging Prime Minister Brown and the tow leaders of opposition Nick Clegg and David Cameron to pledge to make saving the Congo an absolute priority for the next Parliament.

The statement, drafted by Rabbi David Mitchell of Radlett & Bushley Reform Synagogue and Vava Tampa, director of Save the Congo, was delivered to Prime Minister Brown and the two Leaders of opposition: Mr. Clegg and Mr. Cameron, on Tuesday, April 20th by Paul Rusesabagina - the real life hero of the acclaimed film, Hotel Rwanda, Rabbi David Mitchell and Vava Tampa, Director of Save the Congo.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, a country the size of Western Europe with a population of approximately 60 million, is one of the most fragile states in the world, despite its abundance in natural resources. Its torrid history is marred by human tragedy, spanning back to its horrific colonisation by King Leopold II of Belgium, through to a brutal dictatorship under Mobuto Sese Seko, and, since 1998, by a succession of invasions by Rwandan and Ugandan troops fighting to gain control of Congo’s easily appropriable and highly valuable natural resources destined for sale in London, New York and Paris.

In April 2007, the International Rescue Committee’s pivotal study placed the death toll in the DR Congo since 1998 at 5.4 million. This horrific figure continues to rise at a rate of 45,000 mortalities a month. It is now three years since the study in 2007 and the additional consequences of disease and malnutrition have resulted in a staggering rise in the death toll to at least seven million fatalities, not to mention the millions of refugees.

Dear Prime Minister Brown, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg,

The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) have, for over eleven years, endured the evils of violence, war crimes, corruption, humanitarian crisis, looting, and rape on a scale that defies comprehension.

In April 2007, the International Rescue Committee’s pivotal study placed the death toll in the DR Congo since 1998 at 5.4 million. This horrific figure continues to rise at a rate of 45,000 mortalities a month. It is now three years since the study in 2007 and the additional consequences of disease and malnutrition have resulted in a staggering rise in the death toll to at least seven million fatalities, not to mention the millions of refugees.

What these shocking figures cannot convey is the scale of ongoing rape, torture and mutilation occurring throughout the DR Congo. As recently as February, fifteen women were abducted and raped by armed assailants—five were brutally tortured and then beheaded, three survived and were taken to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu for emergency medical care. The remaining seven are still missing, presumed dead. The Human Rights organisation Genocide Watch lists DR Congo at the top of its 2010 list of countries facing ongoing massacres.

There is still no end in sight to the atrocities or to this humanitarian crisis. Moreover, political stability and peace within the DR Congo are critically important not just for the citizens of the DR Congo, but for all those who live within the African Great Lakes region. Yet, to the majority of the world, the plight of the people of the DR Congo remains invisible.

We have just marked Yom HaShoah, the Jewish annual commemoration of the Holocaust. When we recently discovered the suffering and scale of the atrocities in the DR Congo, we cannot but recall our own six million innocent victims of Nazi Genocide. The “hear nothing, see nothing and do nothing” approach the world community has thus far adopted, regarding this crisis in the DR Congo, fails to fulfil the promise to “NEVER AGAIN!” stand idly by while innocent human beings are slaughtered. It denies justice to the victims and questions our very commitment to humanity. As Rabbis we cannot ignore the call of our tradition: “whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a).

Accordingly, we the undersigned, Rabbis, united in this statement, appeal to you on behalf of all peoples of the DR Congo. We have a responsibility to speak for those who cannot, so we urge you to do likewise. As a significant contributor to the UN and a permanent member of the UN Security Council as well as a core member of the European Union, British Commonwealth and the G20, the UK could and should play a more central role in mobilising world opinion to address the root causes of this conflict. We are therefore asking you and your party to pledge an unwavering resolve to make Saving the Congo an absolute priority for the next Parliament.

We recognize that there are, sadly, numerous humanitarian crises and atrocities around the world, all of which require urgent attention. Yet the war and humanitarian crisis overwhelming the DR Congo are on a scale that can no longer remain ignored. Now is the time for action, now is the time for leadership. We hope that you will heed the call.

Yours in the name of peace

(Signatures of Rabbis)

Note to Readers: One organization, based in the UK, that is concerned with the genocide taking place in the Congo is www.savethecongo.co.uk. Vava Tampa is a student in London, a native of the Congo and the founding director of Save the Congo - a not-for-profit and non-political global campaigning organisation dedicated to identifying the root causes of the problems overwhelming the Congo and promoting innovative solutions to help alleviate them. Save the Congo receives no money from any governments or corporations. It is staffed by a global team based in London and Sydney, and it is registered in England and Wales: Company No. 06961720. Vava is currently reading History and Politics at Queen Mary, University of London. His interests include Africa, human rights, HIV epidemic and sustainable development.

Sources:
Save the Congo, April 29, 2010, Press Release. 52 Rabbis Call for Actions to End the Killing in the Congo.
http://savethecongo.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=134:save-the-congo&catid=112:speech-a-statement&Itemid=78

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), May 7, 2010
http://www.appggreatlakes.org/index.php/appg-reports-mainmenu-35/articles-mainmenu-36/148-52-rabbis-call-for-actions-to-end-the-killing-in-the-congo
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