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Jewish groups collectively have sent more than $1 million in aid to humanitarian causes in Sudan since the violence in Darfur took a turn for the worse in early 2003, according to the American Jewish World Service, which supports humanitarian and economic projects in the developing world. Among them is Israel which recently sent aid to this Arab country with which it has no diplomatic ties.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1103080759402 -Rudey |
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/op...ristof.html?hp
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/....184.583.2.jpg February 23, 2005 OP-ED COLUMNIST The Secret Genocide Archive By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF hotos don't normally appear on this page. But it's time for all of us to look squarely at the victims of our indifference. These are just four photos in a secret archive of thousands of photos and reports that document the genocide under way in Darfur. The materials were gathered by African Union monitors, who are just about the only people able to travel widely in that part of Sudan. This African Union archive is classified, but it was shared with me by someone who believes that Americans will be stirred if they can see the consequences of their complacency. The photo at the upper left was taken in the village of Hamada on Jan. 15, right after a Sudanese government-backed militia, the janjaweed, attacked it and killed 107 people. One of them was this little boy. I'm not showing the photo of his older brother, about 5 years old, who lay beside him because the brother had been beaten so badly that nothing was left of his face. And alongside the two boys was the corpse of their mother. The photo to the right shows the corpse of a man with an injured leg who was apparently unable to run away when the janjaweed militia attacked. At the lower left is a man who fled barefoot and almost made it to this bush before he was shot dead. Last is the skeleton of a man or woman whose wrists are still bound. The attackers pulled the person's clothes down to the knees, presumably so the victim could be sexually abused before being killed. If the victim was a man, he was probably castrated; if a woman, she was probably raped. There are thousands more of these photos. Many of them show attacks on children and are too horrific for a newspaper. One wrenching photo in the archive shows the manacled hands of a teenager from the girls' school in Suleia who was burned alive. It's been common for the Sudanese militias to gang-rape teenage girls and then mutilate or kill them. Another photo shows the body of a young girl, perhaps 10 years old, staring up from the ground where she was killed. Still another shows a man who was castrated and shot in the head. This archive, including scores of reports by the monitors on the scene, underscores that this slaughter is waged by and with the support of the Sudanese government as it tries to clear the area of non-Arabs. Many of the photos show men in Sudanese Army uniforms pillaging and burning African villages. I hope the African Union will open its archive to demonstrate publicly just what is going on in Darfur. The archive also includes an extraordinary document seized from a janjaweed official that apparently outlines genocidal policies. Dated last August, the document calls for the "execution of all directives from the president of the republic" and is directed to regional commanders and security officials. "Change the demography of Darfur and make it void of African tribes," the document urges. It encourages "killing, burning villages and farms, terrorizing people, confiscating property from members of African tribes and forcing them from Darfur." It's worth being skeptical of any document because forgeries are possible. But the African Union believes this document to be authentic. I also consulted a variety of experts on Sudan and shared it with some of them, and the consensus was that it appears to be real. Certainly there's no doubt about the slaughter, although the numbers are fuzzy. A figure of 70,000 is sometimes stated as an estimated death toll, but that is simply a U.N. estimate for the deaths in one seven-month period from nonviolent causes. It's hard to know the total mortality over two years of genocide, partly because the Sudanese government is blocking a U.N. team from going to Darfur and making such an estimate. But independent estimates exceed 220,000 - and the number is rising by about 10,000 per month. So what can stop this genocide? At one level the answer is technical: sanctions against Sudan, a no-fly zone, a freeze of Sudanese officials' assets, prosecution of the killers by the International Criminal Court, a team effort by African and Arab countries to pressure Sudan, and an international force of African troops with financing and logistical support from the West. But that's the narrow answer. What will really stop this genocide is indignation. Senator Paul Simon, who died in 2003, said after the Rwandan genocide, "If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different." The same is true this time. Web sites like www.darfurgenocide.org and www.savedarfur.org are trying to galvanize Americans, but the response has been pathetic. I'm sorry for inflicting these horrific photos on you. But the real obscenity isn't in printing pictures of dead babies - it's in our passivity, which allows these people to be slaughtered. During past genocides against Armenians, Jews and Cambodians, it was possible to claim that we didn't fully know what was going on. This time, President Bush, Congress and the European Parliament have already declared genocide to be under way. And we have photos. This time, we have no excuse. The link at the top of this post has more including Kristof's reports on the Sudan (A Promise Unkept) and more analysis of the pictures. -Rudey |
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/op...ristof.html?hp
The New York Times The American Witness By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: March 2, 2005 American soldiers are trained to shoot at the enemy. They're prepared to be shot at. But what young men like Brian Steidle are not equipped for is witnessing a genocide but being unable to protect the civilians pleading for help. If President Bush wants to figure out whether the U.S. should stand more firmly against the genocide in Darfur, I suggest that he invite Mr. Steidle to the White House to give a briefing. Mr. Steidle, a 28-year-old former Marine captain, was one of just three American military advisers for the African Union monitoring team in Darfur - and he is bursting with frustration. "Every single day you go out to see another burned village, and more dead bodies," he said. "And the children - you see 6-month-old babies that have been shot, and 3-year-old kids with their faces smashed in with rifle butts. And you just have to stand there and write your reports." While journalists and aid workers are sharply limited in their movements in Darfur, Mr. Steidle and the monitors traveled around by truck and helicopter to investigate massacres by the Sudanese government and the janjaweed militia it sponsors. They have sometimes been shot at, and once his group was held hostage, but they have persisted and become witnesses to systematic crimes against humanity. So is it really genocide? "I have no doubt about that," Mr. Steidle said. "It's a systematic cleansing of peoples by the Arab chiefs there. And when you talk to them, that's what they tell you. They're very blunt about it. One day we met a janjaweed leader and he said, 'Unless you get back four camels that were stolen in 2003, then we're going to go to these four villages and burn the villages, rape the women, kill everyone.' And they did." The African Union doesn't have the troops, firepower or mandate to actually stop the slaughter, just to monitor it. Mr. Steidle said his single most frustrating moment came in December when the Sudanese government and the janjaweed attacked the village of Labado, which had 25,000 inhabitants. Mr. Steidle and his unit flew to the area in helicopters, but a Sudanese general refused to let them enter the village - and also refused to stop the attack. "It was extremely frustrating - seeing the village burn, hearing gunshots, not being able to do anything," Mr. Steidle said. "The entire village is now gone. It's a big black spot on the earth." When Sudan's government is preparing to send bombers or helicopter gunships to attack an African village, it shuts down the cellphone system so no one can send out warnings. Thus the international monitors know when a massacre is about to unfold. But there's usually nothing they can do. The West, led by the Bush administration, is providing food and medical care that is keeping hundreds of thousands of people alive. But we're managing the genocide, not halting it. "The world is failing Darfur," said Jan Egeland, the U.N. under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. "We're only playing the humanitarian card, and we're just witnessing the massacres." President Bush is pushing for sanctions, but European countries like France are disgracefully cool to the idea - and China is downright hostile, playing the same supportive role for the Darfur genocide that it did for the Khmer Rouge genocide. Mr. Steidle has just quit his job with the African Union, but he plans to continue working in Darfur to do his part to stand up to the killers. Most of us don't have to go to that extreme of risking our lives in Darfur - we just need to get off the fence and push our government off, too. At one level, I blame President Bush - and, even more, the leaders of European, Arab and African nations - for their passivity. But if our leaders are acquiescing in genocide, that's because we citizens are passive, too. If American voters cared about Darfur's genocide as much as about, say, the Michael Jackson trial, then our political system would respond. One useful step would be the passage of the Darfur Accountability Act, to be introduced today by Senators Jon Corzine and Sam Brownback. The legislation calls for such desperately needed actions as expanding the African Union force and establishing a military no-fly zone to stop Sudan from bombing civilians. As Martin Luther King Jr. put it: "Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good." -Rudey |
Well I just got word that both my 2nd cousin (and good friend), and my old Military Intelligence unit will be deploying to Darfur as part of the Canadian contigent... (ironically they are annoyed because they petitioned to go to Afghanistan).
Canada boosts aid to Darfur, pledging 100 soldiers and 170 million dollars http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20...d_050512202720 Quote:
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Day 141 of Bush's Silence
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...rfurletter.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/op...ristof.html?hp May 31, 2005 Day 141 of Bush's Silence By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Nyala, Sudan A reader from Eugene, Ore., wrote in with a complaint about my harping on the third world: "Why should the U.S. care for the rest of the world?" he asked. "The U.S. should take care of its own. ... It's way past time for liberal twits to stop pushing the U.S. into nonsense or try to make every wrong in the world our responsibility." And while that reader wasn't George W. Bush, it could have been. Today marks Day 141 of Mr. Bush's silence on the genocide, for he hasn't let the word Darfur slip past his lips publicly since Jan. 10 (even that was a passing reference with no condemnation). There are several points I could make to argue that it's in our own interest to help Darfur. Turmoil in Darfur is already destabilizing all of Sudan and neighboring Chad as well, both oil-exporting countries. And failed states nurture terrorists like Osama and diseases like polio, while exporting refugees and hijackers. But there's an even better argument: Magboula, a woman I met at the Kalma Camp here. She lived with her husband and five children in the countryside, but then as the Arab janjaweed began to slaughter black African tribes like her own, she and her family fled to the safety of a larger town. In December, the Sudanese Army attacked that town, and they ran off to the bush. Two months ago, the janjaweed militia caught up with them. First the raiders shot her husband dead, she said, her voice choking, and then they whipped her, taunted her with racial insults against black people and mocked her by asking why her husband was not there to help her. Then eight of them gang-raped her. They may also have mutilated her. At one point she spoke of being slashed with a knife in the shoulder and chest, but when I asked her about it, she kept changing the subject. "I was very, very ashamed, and very frightened," she said, leaving it at that. After the attack, Magboula was determined to save her children. So they traipsed together on a journey across the desert to the Kalma Camp, where a small number of foreign aid workers are struggling heroically to assist 110,000 victims of the upheaval. Magboula carried her 6-month-old baby, Abdul Hani, in her arms, and the others, ranging from 2 to 9, stumbled beside her. Magboula finally arrived at Kalma a few weeks ago. But the Sudanese government is blocking new arrivals like her from getting registered, which means they can't get food and tents. So Magboula is getting no rations and is living with her children under a straw mat on a few sticks. Then a few days ago, Abdul Hani, Magboula's baby, died. She and her children are surviving on handouts from other homeless people who arrived earlier and are getting U.N. food. They have almost nothing themselves, but they at least have the compassion to help those who are even needier. The world might also respond if people could see what is going on, but Sudan has barred most reporters from the area. I'm here because I accompanied Kofi Annan on a visit - bless him for coming! - and then jumped ship while here. Magboula and the 2.2 million other homeless people from Darfur need food and shelter, and President Bush has been good about providing that. But above all they need the international community to shame Sudan for killing and raping people on the basis of their tribe. Each time Sudan has been subjected to strong moral pressure, it has backed off somewhat - but lately the attention has subsided, and Mr. Bush even killed the Senate-passed Darfur Accountability Act, which would have condemned the genocide. What killed Magboula's husband and child was, indirectly, the world's moral indifference. Others can still be saved if there is unrelenting pressure on Sudan to disarm the janjaweed, on intransigent Sudanese rebels to negotiate seriously for peace (instead of lounging about their hotel suites) and on governments like Egypt's and China's to stop being complicit in the Darfur genocide. When Americans see suffering abroad on their television screens, as they did after the tsunami, they respond. I wish we had the Magboula Channel, showing her daily struggle to forge ahead through humiliation and hunger, struggling above all to keep her remaining children alive. If you multiply Magboula by 2.2 million, you get the reasons why we should care. E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com -Rudey |
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/op...icle_popular_4
September 18, 2005 A Wimp on Genocide By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF President Bush doesn't often find common cause with Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria and Venezuela. But this month the Bush administration joined with those countries and others to eviscerate a forthright U.N. statement that nations have an obligation to respond to genocide. It was our own Axis of Medieval, and it reflected the feckless response of President Bush to genocide in Darfur. It's not that he favors children being tossed onto bonfires or teenage girls being gang-raped and mutilated, but he can't bother himself to try very hard to stop these horrors, either. It's been a year since Mr. Bush - ahead of other world leaders, and to his credit - acknowledged that genocide was unfolding in Darfur. But since then he has used that finding of genocide not to spur action but to substitute for it. Mr. Bush's position in the U.N. negotiations got little attention. But in effect the United States successfully blocked language in the declaration saying that countries have an "obligation" to respond to genocide. In the end the declaration was diluted to say that "We are prepared to take collective action ... on a case by case basis" to prevent genocide. That was still an immensely important statement. But it's embarrassing that in the 21st century, we can't even accept a vague obligation to fight genocide as we did in the Genocide Convention of 1948. If the Genocide Convention were proposed today, President Bush apparently would fight to kill it. I can't understand why Mr. Bush is soft on genocide, particularly because his political base - the religious right - has been one of the groups leading the campaign against genocide in Darfur. As the National Association of Evangelicals noted in a reproachful statement about Darfur a few days ago, the Bush administration "has made minimal progress protecting millions of victims of the world's worst humanitarian crisis." Incredibly, the Bush administration has even emerged as Sudan's little helper, threatening an antigenocide campaigner in an effort to keep him quiet. Brian Steidle, a former Marine captain, served in Darfur as a military adviser - and grew heartsick at seeing corpses of children who'd been bludgeoned to death. In March, I wrote a column about Mr. Steidle and separately published photos that he had taken of men, women and children hacked to death. Other photos were too wrenching to publish: one showed a pupil at the Suleia Girls School; she appeared to have been burned alive, probably after being raped, and her charred arms were still in handcuffs. Mr. Steidle is an American hero for blowing the whistle on the genocide. But, according to Mr. Steidle, the State Department has ordered him on three occasions to stop showing the photos, for fear of complicating our relations with Sudan. Mr. Steidle has also been told that he has been blacklisted from all U.S. government jobs. The State Department should be publicizing photos of atrocities to galvanize the international community against the genocide - not conspiring with Sudan to cover them up. I'm a broken record on Darfur because I can't get out of my head the people I've met there. On my very first visit, 18 months ago, I met families who were hiding in the desert from the militias and soldiers. But the only place to get water was at the occasional well - where soldiers would wait to shoot the men who showed up, and rape the women. So anguished families sent their youngest children, 6 or 7 years old, to the wells with donkeys to fetch water - because they were least likely to be killed or raped. The parents hated themselves for doing this, but they had no choice - they had been abandoned by the world. That's the cost of our passivity. Perhaps it's unfair to focus so much on Mr. Bush, for there are no neat solutions and he has done more than most leaders. He at least dispatched Condi Rice to Darfur this summer - which is more interest in genocide than the TV anchors have shown. One group, www.beawitness.org, prepared a television commercial scolding the networks for neglecting the genocide - and affiliates of NBC, CBS and ABC all refused to run it. Still, the failures of others do not excuse Mr. Bush's own unwillingness to speak out, to impose a no-fly zone, to appoint a presidential envoy or to build an international coalition to pressure Sudan. So, Mr. Bush, let me ask you just one question: Since you portray yourself as a bold leader, since you pride yourself on your willingness to use blunt terms like "evil" - then why is it that you're so wimpish on genocide? -Rudey |
Unfortunately, any resolution condemning Sudan about it will be squashed by the Chinese. Sudan is Chinese largest overseas oil project. And China is Sudan's largest suppliers of arms. Oil interest will dictate Chinese's relation toward Sudan. Of course, the common people will be the one to suffer.
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It was kinda disheartening that such a straight forward, and dare I say noble, goal be marginalized and ultimately derailed for some petty political policy :( It is of course in keeping with a sad policy begun under Clinton that saw the withdrawal of troops from Rwanda instead of strengthening forces to halt/stall the genocide there - kinda sad that France had to intervene more or less on its own.... Now this all being said I think that Canada should have fought more tenaciously to get the "obligation" clause in no matter what the opposition may have been - and I'm disappointed that it was allowed to pass/fade with only a scathing address by the PM (although I think it was the first time that Canada officially rebuked the UN) |
Time to pay attention to Darfur
Posted on Wed, Oct. 05, 2005 Many of us donated time, talents and money to help Hurricane Katrina victims. That tragedy definitely hit close to home, although it was hundreds of miles away. But should distance ever matter? Should we base how much we care, how willing we are to help, on miles? With Katrina, we showed how our caring can stretch many miles. Why, then, haven't we reacted in the same way to a far more horrific tragedy an ocean away in North Africa? An interfaith service on behalf of the people of Darfur will offer an opportunity to confront that question. Priests, pastors and rabbis across the country will fast and pray for the Darfur region of Sudan. Ahavath Achim Hebrew Congregation and InterFaith Ministries are sponsoring the service here. Read the rest here |
This is from a Muslim commentator that is very interesting. He runs a Muslim-American group (http://www.aifdemocracy.org/)
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/pl...asser-ON.html# M. Zuhdi Jasser Phoenix Physician, Chairman American Islamic Forum for Democracy Sept. 16, 2004 09:35 AM When will the Sudan genocide end? When will the killing, the genocide in Sudan stop? Yes, this week finally we have declared the crisis in Darfur to be a - genocide. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Secretary of State Colin Powell. What's in a word - "genocide"? A great deal when it comes to quickly martialing the world's resources and energies in order to put a stop to a preventable catastrophy being committed by barbarians in the Sudan including the Arab Janjaweed marauders and what finally appears to more clearly be the Sudanese military themselves. In recent analyses and surveys of refugees who were displaced from Darfur, verifiable reports have identified that over three-fourths of the violence is being perpetrated in the hands of the Sudanese military themselves. Powell confirmed this in Senate testimony last week. Knowing this now, it is not surprising in retrospect that the Arab League has been dragging its collective feet at declaring a "genocide" and owning up to their humanitarian responsibility for the tragedy occurring at the hands of one of their colleague nations. We acted too late in Rwanda ten years ago and with more than one million displaced from their homes and upwards of 100,000 dead we are certainly far from early in Sudan. The EU has begun to come around regarding the insistance upon corrective action by the Sudanese government, but we can no longer stand idly by. Organizations like the Save Darfur coalition ( http://www.savedarfur.org ) signed on by more than 100 international organizations including our own American Islamic Forum for Democracy ( http://www.aifdemocracy.org ) have been working to wake up the world to the genocide occurring on the watch of all world leaders under the blinders and complicity of the Sudanese government. We finally have reliable testimony. In Senate testimony and soon in U.N. action we will formally hear the world decry the genocide. When will the world finally listen? Listen to all those giving testimony and organizations trying to promote human rights without access in Darfur. Listen to the suffering of the displaced million of Darfur and the suffering of the families of those killed in the genocide. Unfortunately, we can no longer hear the voices of the viciously murdered in the genocide of Darfur or the ones from prior crises in Sudan. We must act now and the world must finally begin to effectively listen to the world's humanitarian organizations like SaveDarfur.org, Human Rights Watch and so many others who have been decrying the continued suffering of the Sudanese in Darfur. Perhaps sometime soon the world will act http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3641820.stm -Rudey |
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w051226&s=reeves122905
SUDAN AND ITS GUESTS. Host of Problems by Eric Reeves Only at TNR Online Post date: 12.29.05 Why does genocide in Darfur continue? One reason is that there is no real international pressure on the architects of the genocide--the National Islamic Front security cabal in Khartoum--to bring the killing to a halt. On the contrary, as the genocide enters its fourth year, the international community continues to defer to Khartoum, or even to suggest disingenuously that the regime has somehow reformed itself. Either way, the clear implication is that the lives of Darfur's civilians are not worth the diplomatic price of confronting Sudan's brutal leaders. There is no more appalling illustration of this phenomenon than recent announcements by the African Union and the Arab League that both groups will hold their upcoming summits in Khartoum. These summits will represent symbolic triumphs for Sudan's genocidaires. And they will reinforce in very public fashion what Khartoum already knows: that none of its neighbors really cares what it does in Darfur. Of the two, the African Union summit is certainly the more disturbing, if only because it is the organization's own troops that are, in theory, supposed to be establishing security in Darfur. To be sure, this mission has been woefully ineffective from the start. The A.U. force has been deliberately undercut by Khartoum since it was first deployed in summer 2004, with Sudan denying fuel to the African Union for its essential helicopters, blocking A.U. deployments within Darfur, and refusing to allow critical equipment and personnel into the region. For its part, the African Union hasn't committed enough resources or manpower; and key African countries have either reneged on military commitments (South Africa) or deliberately obscured Darfur's terrible realities and Khartoum's responsibility (Nigeria). But the African Union's decision to hold its January 2006 summit in Sudan provides the strongest evidence yet that the organization has no intention of actually standing up to Khartoum and halting the genocide. Because tradition dictates that the next chair of the African Union be the head of the most recent summit's host country, Sudanese president Omar el-Bashir is now poised to lead the very organization that claims to be seeking an end to the genocide he is orchestrating. (This calls to mind the decision once made by the African Union's much-derided predecessor, the Organization of African Unity, to give its leadership position to the monstrous Idi Amin of Uganda.) It is difficult to imagine a more appalling demonstration of moral corruption on the part of the African Union--or a clearer indication that the group's claims to be working to end the Darfur genocide (in the popular phrase, to be providing "African solutions to African problems") are deeply disingenuous. To date, only one African leader, President Deby of Chad, has objected to holding the A.U. summit in Khartoum. (And his objection was self-interested, not principled: He recently declared that a "state of belligerency" exists between Sudan and his country because of Khartoum's support for Chadian military mutineers trying to topple his weak government.) And so, in less than a month, Khartoum can expect to enjoy a diplomatic triumph amidst only scattered criticism. The Arab League summit, slated to be held in Khartoum in March, may seem a minor victory for Sudan by comparison. But the summit's location is meaningful nonetheless: It reassures the National Islamic Front that, whatever its actions in Darfur, it will continue to receive friendship and diplomatic support from its traditional Arab allies. It is no accident, after all, that Arab League member Algeria, which currently holds a seat on the U.N. Security Council, has been instrumental in sabotaging efforts to impose sanctions on Khartoum's genocidaires. Although the Security Council voted to create a sanctions committee to inflict penalties on Khartoum in March 2005, no sanctions have been imposed since, in large part because Algeria, along with Russia and China, has blocked all efforts to craft effective sanctions. Then there is Egypt, the powerhouse of the Arab League, which continues to urge the United Nations to stop meddling in Sudanese affairs. The Mubarak government (which at one point nearly scuttled north-south peace negotiations in Sudan) has relentlessly opposed any internationalization of either the diplomatic or military response to the Darfur genocide. There are only two ways the vast human catastrophe in Darfur will end: international humanitarian intervention or intense diplomatic pressure on Sudan's regime. The former is nowhere on the horizon, and the latter will be profoundly undercut by the upcoming African Union and Arab League summits. We are often told that a new generation of leaders has arisen in African and Arab countries, a generation with reformist instincts. But by choosing to hold these summits in Khartoum, African and Arab leaders are showing that, like their predecessors, they are still more inclined to protect one another than act on principle. Idi Amin would be pleased. -Rudey |
Re: Re: Re: Re: The conflict of Sudan: Uprooting the black Africans
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Find another descriptive. |
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The conflict of Sudan: Uprooting the black Africans
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What's with the "AmeriKKKa" your using now? I could understand once or twice to make a particular point... but now it's become a little disconcerting... <end hijack> |
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Yep - Chad declared war on the Sudan on Dec. 23rd: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4556576.stm |
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