Darfur women describe gang-rape horror - Political Forum

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 05-27-2007, 05:56 PM

I think this is really an important case that touches on a major debate between foreign policy hawks and doves. I consider myself hawkish when it comes to humanitarian missions. So I say to doves: what next? The Security Council mandated increasing the troops by almost 10 fold. Sudan refuses and the Africans continue to suffer. What next?

Darfur women describe gang-rape horror - Yahoo! News

Quote:

Darfur women describe gang-rape horror
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer

KALMA, Sudan - The seven women pooled money to rent a donkey and cart, then ventured out of the refugee camp to gather firewood, hoping to sell it for cash to feed their families. Instead, they say, in a wooded area just a few hours walk away, they were gang-raped, beaten and robbed.

Naked and devastated, they fled back to Kalma. "All the time it lasted, I kept thinking: They're killing my baby, they're killing my baby," wailed Aisha, who was seven months pregnant at the time. The women have no doubt who attacked them. They say the men's camels and their uniforms marked them as janjaweed — the Arab militiamen accused of terrorizing the mostly black African villagers of Sudan's Darfur region.

Their story, told to an Associated Press reporter and confirmed by other women and aid workers in the camp, provides a glimpse into the hell that Darfur has become as the Arab-dominated government battles a rebellion stoked by a history of discrimination and neglect. Now in its fourth year, the conflict has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and rape is its regular byproduct, U.N. and other human rights activists say.

Sudan's government denies arming and unleashing the janjaweed, and bristles at the charges of rape, saying its conservative Islamic society would never tolerate it. It has agreed to let in 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, but not the 22,000 mandated by the United Nations Security Council.
It claims the force would be a spearhead for anti-Arab powers bent on plundering Sudan's oil.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 civilians have died and 2.5 million are homeless out of Darfur's population of 6 million, the U.N. says, and a February report by the International Criminal Court alleges "mass rape of civilians who were known not to be participants in any armed conflict." Kalma is a microcosm of the misery — a sprawling camp of mud huts and scrap-plastic tents where 100,000 people have taken refuge. It is so full of guns that overwhelmed African Union peacekeepers long ago fled, unable to protect it. It is so crowded that the government has tried to limit newcomers — forbidding the building of new latrines, so a stench pervades the air.

Anyone venturing outside must reckon with the janjaweed, as Aisha and her friends found out. In Sudan, as in many Islamic countries, society views a sexual assault as a dishonor upon the woman's entire family. "Victims can face terrible ostracism," says Maha Muna, the U.N. coordinator on this issue in Sudan.

Some aid workers believe the janjaweed use rape to intimidate the rebels, and their supporters and families. "It's a strategy of war," Muna said in an interview earlier this year in Khartoum, the capital. Sudan's government is especially sensitive about such accusations and denies rape is widespread.
Sudanese public opinion would view mass rape much more severely than other crimes alleged in Darfur, said a senior Sudanese government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from his superiors.

He acknowledged the janjaweed had initially received weapons from the government — something the government officially denies — and said authorities now are struggling to rein in the militias. Nasser Kambal, a prominent human rights activist and co-founder of the Amel center, a Sudanese group helping victims of rape and other abuse, offers a similar view.

"I don't think raping was planned by the government. Killing and looting and torture, yes, but not rape," he said.
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Abraxas · 06-05-2007, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

I think this is really an important case that touches on a major debate between foreign policy hawks and doves. I consider myself hawkish when it comes to humanitarian missions. So I say to doves: what next? The Security Council mandated increasing the troops by almost 10 fold. Sudan refuses and the Africans continue to suffer. What next?

Darfur women describe gang-rape horror - Yahoo! News

Hi, W.E.B. DuBois!

Please enlighten me better about the subtle link between the horrors of gang rape and the world view of a typical US policy hawk, discussing the sufferings of Africans under Arabs in Darfur, Sudan, in the heart of Africa?

Your post reminds me of the connection between a fish and a power bike!

{ ...Don't go away! ..... I'll be back, again, soon!}

Obrigado.

Don Juan-Carlos ABRAXAS (III)

bluebret · 06-10-2007, 06:28 AM

The connection is that even with the UN around ,there is no real freedom.a false sense of freedom.