Daily Darfur: Urgent Action Needed to Halt Bombing of Muhajiriya

Sudanese forces dropped bombs near the rebel-held town of Muhajiriya, South Darfur on Monday, sending thousands of civilians running for cover. The attack comes just days after Khartoum asked UNAMID peacekeepers to leave the area --- ostensibly, for their own safety --- a request which the UN promptly rejected. But as Sudan expert Eric Reeves asks:

"But will they stand their ground once the fighting starts? And even if they stay, will they prove willing to use force to protect civilians--something U.N. peacekeepers have historically been extremely reluctant to do?"

He continues,

"And yet this peacekeeping operation is the only protection that the world has provided the people of Darfur. Now, the residents of Muhajeria are about to find out whether it can offer any real protection at all."

The UN Security Council imposed a ban on offensive military flights over Darfur with Resolution 1591 in 2005, but the government of Sudan has never felt compelled to comply --- and no one has taken any measures to make them.

More than a few people are asking, in the face of Khartoum's blatant violence (they aren't even trying to cover their tracks this time), where the is the Obama Administration and their "unstinting resolve" on Darfur? In an op-ed yesterday, Save Darfur president Jerry Fowler writes:

"Could the president be assembling a dream team of advisers who will begin rebuilding the peace process for Darfur and Sudan? They certainly appear to have an opportunity and an inclination to do so. On the other hand, we've been disappointed before."

But time is clearly wasting : The team at the ENOUGH Project is calling for the invocation of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine to prevent Muhajiriya from becoming the next Srebrenica, and the UN Dispatch reiterates the call for American leadership on the crisis.

Do your part: Call the White House and demand action to protect civilians in Muhajiriya. (Thanks to KTJ at Stop Genocide Now for passing this along.)

More on bombing...

The Sudan Tribune reports that the Justice and Equality Movement hailed the pilots imprisoned for, in unspecified incidents, refusing to take part in bombing campaigns in Darfur. According to the Tribune:

"Some reports have mentioned that many pilots particularly those from Darfur were imprisoned because they refused to carry out air strikes in Darfur during the peak of conflict in 2003-2004."

(As with everything coming from a rebel group: Definitely could be true, but take it with a grain of salt.)

Other items of note...

Critics charge that a shortwave radio program funded by the US State Department is too soft on Khartoum:

"‘The idea was to accurately report what was going on,' former Special Envoy for Darfur Andrew Natsios, who left his post before the program was launched, told ProPublica. ‘Both the government and the rebels were manipulating the people by lying to them and withholding information.'

But critics charge that the program -- meant to provide displaced people in Sudan with "accurate and objective information about their country" -- is instead broadcasting in a language most of its target audience doesn't understand and has watered-down criticisms of Sudanese officials (whom the U.S. government holds responsible for genocide in Darfur). An outspoken Darfuri-American news reader who repeatedly challenged the program's non-Darfuri editors has also been fired."