Human Rights Watch

The Human Rights Watch is another organization that is dedicated to poverty-stricken countries worldwide.

“Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.
We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice.
We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable.
We challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law.
We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all.”

There is a section that goes into more detail to describe who what where when why and how they help.

They have many programs in Africa including dedicated efforts to Darfur. The Africa home page has a list of briefing papers and publications that discuss stories about Africa. Many are on Darfur.

The actual “Darfur in Crisis” page is very informative. It’s made up of current stories specifically about Darfur. There are also a list of links along the side of the page including a background section with a map and a Q & A page, how you can help and recent reports from the area.

The Q & A section is very informative and covers a lot of the basic questions people may have about Darfur.

There is also a part about what you can do in Darfur. Well worth checking out. Most of the things do not involve donating money but helping to take action. There are detailed descriptions for all of the easy steps listed below:

“Inform yourself about Darfur
Write to your local newspaper
Hold a video screening
Write to the Members of the UN Security Council (addresses below)”

There are many issues that they encourage you to discus in your letter to the UN.
There is also the ability to see if you were living in the United Kingdom what you could do to help.

Genocide Intervention Network article

For today I want to talk about a specific area on the genocide intervention network website. First off I would like to say that immediately after I posted Ann Curry’s recommended links, they immediately posted a comment letting me know that they’d be willing to answer any questions I had.

There is so much information offered through the website. I am going to try to come back to it and discuss more of the attributes that make this such an informative and helpful source on Darfur.

Today I wanted to discuss an article I immediately linked to after viewing the home page. The article is about Americans demanding action in Darfur. I thought this would be a good focus for the day’s blog because I have been so negative throughout my blog about America in general not being involved.

The first paragraph is as follows:
“According to a December Genocide Intervention Network poll, a majority of Americans now see ending genocide as a high foreign policy priority. Despite the predominance of Iraq and terrorism in US media and foreign policy discussions, we now have proof that strong majorities feel that the United States should take action to bring about peace in Darfur, and favor doing so in cooperation with the international community.”

I thought that summed it up the point of the article.

There is then a link to another page that discusses the poll results. The most impressive statistic I thought was that 62% of Americans believe that Darfur should be a priority. If you think about it in numbers, that’s almost two times our president’s approval rating.

Also, 80% of Americans, or 4 out of 5, feel that educating students on genocide is mandatory.

These results are very impressive and I urge anyone who takes the time to read this to get all the statistical data off the poll results link mentioned above. Hopefully the numbers can soon mean more than just percentages and have more and more voices to speak them to the nation and the world.

Doctors Without Borders

Doctors without borders is another one of Ann Curry’s suggested links. Again, like many of the other organizations she has linked to, this is a very large organization that works elsewhere, but also in Sudan. Doctors without borders is “an independent international medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters, or exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.”

Founded in 1971, the organization has only grown. They get a lot of attention from the press and participate in many public events as to bring attention and funds to their cause. Thousands of workers are assisting in countries of need.

The “About Us” page goes into more depth about how they run their program financially and in the field.

Throughout the website there are many links and many news updates as to what’s happening around the world and also what their organization is doing to help.



There is a list (picture to the left) in which anyone can go to a specific country doctors without borders is assisting in and see the kind of work being done there. Unlike the other websites however, there was also an option to “select an issue,” i.e. AIDS/HIV.

The page for Sudan had recent news and also discussed what was happening in the different areas of Darfur. They called their work there “of the most significant operations in the world for (doctors without borders)”



They discuss the decrease in international aide to the area. In Northern Darfur there has been a tremendous decrease in security and the availability to treat health issues, including the large amount of Malaria cases, is becoming more and more impossible.

The case is similar in Western Darfur. As we have discussed, the bordering area of Chad is a treacherous place to be. This page discusses the lack of medical attention and aid from other organizations but also discusses what their organization is trying to do to help.

They also discuss the work they are doing in Southern Darfur, especially in Kalma, the largest city of displaced persons, around 90,000.

This article really brought my attention to the medial care we are so easily offered and I think take for granted. While I don’t agree with the current policy of health care in the United States, I personally can’t complain. My father, a doctor, has always been able to provide us with the best of the best health care plans. I know this is not the case for all in the US, but from my point of view, we are pretty damn lucky. How many times have you heard of someone in the US having Malaria? And if someone does it’s on the national news as such a rarity. The vaccinations we have today are amazing, but when was the last time you woke up and said to yourself, “I am so glad I was vaccinated as a child!” I personally have never done it. With everything else the people of Darfur have to worry about, it saddens me even more so to find yet another thing they have to worry about that we take advantage of every day.

Ann Curry interviews with al-Bashir

As I said yesterday, I wanted to look more into the linked articles Ann Curry did. They are actually links to two very impressive interviews she did with president al-Bashir. This web page has two videos and a written transcript of the first video. I found them to be very VERY insightful.

The first video gives a good introduction with the statistics of the murdered and displaced victims of Darfur and also lets us know that this is the first television interview done in three years with a western journalist. Way to go Curry!

After watching this video, I also feel a little guilty about being so hard on the US and their action in Darfur. Who I really should have been criticizing is the president. I found his statements horrifying and hope to God we never have a president that ignorant to what is occurring in his country. In the first video he completely denied that the atrocities that have been reporter on were in fact true. During a good portion of the interview, he related the Darfur crisis to what happened in Iraq and blamed the US for wanting to interfere for the sake of oil. (Probably not a bad accusation seeing as, in my opinion, we’ve done that before) However, I think that in this situation that comment is completely irrelevant. I believe that the US and the UN are interfering for the sake of stopping crimes against humanity.

Rather than me explaining it, here is a clip of exact words that were spoken:
“Ann Curry: Mr. President, I have this map from the U.S. Department of State that shows more than a thousand villages in the Darfur region — more than a thousand burned.
And the question is, how can this be done by Arab militias without the support of the Sudanese government? This is shocking.
Omar al-Bashir: What do you think about the picture that Colin Powell presented before the national security that confirmed and illustrated the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? What do you think about it?
Curry: You're saying this is not true?
Al-Bashir: This picture is the same fabrication and the same picture as the ones Colin Powell presented about Iraq.”

While I am not a fan of al-Bashir, I think that he makes a valid point in arguing that what Colin Powell demonstrated as locations of WMD was false so this map of burned Darfur villages is false too. While I don’t believe that is the case at all, I think that the situation in Iraq and the way our government has/is handling it has affected our credibility to other nations tremendously. This is a clear-cut example of how the war in Iraq has caused us and possibly will cause us problems down the road.

In the first video as well as the second video, the president claimed that 99% of rapes were fabrications. It is hard for me to find an ounce of respect for a man like that when there is blatant proof in the horrific stories his countries women and girls are telling.

After watching these two videos I found an even greater fondness for Ann Curry and the work she is doing. She is very lady-like, but at the same time, ballsy, for lack of a better word. She is not afraid to put big questions and her opinions on the table and she’s fighting to bring justice to the people of Darfur through the media. I admire her work and personality tremendously.

(the images to the right are pictures from the article and the interview videos)

Ann Curry, Terrorism, Sudan, and the US government

I found this MSNBC story to be very interesting. Clearly I like Ann Curry and the involved work she has done and is doing with the Darfur crisis. This is a behind-the scenes type interview in which she talks with Sudan president Omar al-Bashir and Andrew Nastios, U.S. special envoy to Sudan. Throughout the video she is in Khartoum, which is 500 miles from Darfur.

There is also a video on this page, which is basically the same as the article only a much more entertaining, presentation with some great photos. It’s also easier to understand. There is a short introduction in which we also learn that this is the fist interview the president of Sudan has done in years.



The article is a little foggy. However, what I get from it is that the US government is working with the Sudan government to get information about al-Queda members who are traveling to the Middle East from Sudan. I really liked how Curry approached the topic with the relation to what the US is doing with terrorism vs. what the US is doing in Sudan. Though it’s not put out there as strongly as I would have wanted.

The following is the short Q and A with Nastois.

“Curry: So they are providing information on al-Qaida to us?

Nastios: Yes.

Curry: And are we working with them?

Nastios: Yes.

Curry: Is that driving American policy in Sudan?

Nastios: Absolutely not.”


I think she’s making a good point with this, or attempting to anyway. I think she should give more detail to what exactly she means. Maybe it’s just because I don’t understand the article in depth enough, I don’t know.
Tensioons between the US and the Sudaneese government are still there. Which has been something the two governments haven’t been able to, quite literally, do anything about.

“But despite our intelligence relationship, U.S. officials tell NBC News that diplomatic efforts with President al-Bashir to end the Darfur crisis are not working. The United States is now planning stepped-up economic sanctions against Sudan.”

This paragraph seemed so vague to me and made me a little upset. What action are we exactly taking? And by planning do they mean they are getting around to it to take action some time next year? I think more answers from the US government are in order.

I will be discussing the two other story links in this blog throughout the week.

STAND podcast

As part of one of our journalism assignments, we had to record a podcast. I did my podcast as though it were a normal blog post, only me reading it. This was the first time I have recorded anything since my sister and I recorded a radio show on cassette of our favorite songs in the mid-nineties, so bare with my voice.

Anyway, I briefly discussed the STAND organization.

To here my podcast click HERE! : )

Christian Children's Fund

The Christian Children’s Fund is another one of Ann Curry’s suggested links. I found this site to be the least involved with Darfur. Infact, they do not specifically work in the Darfur region. But they do wok in Chad, the neighboring country that I have discussed.



The following is a description of what is CCF is doing in Chad:
“A CCF emergency response team, consisting of specialists in emergency response and child protection, traveled to Chad on August 1, 2004, to assess refugee needs in regards to quality of basic services, psychological well-being, protection concerns and desired support. The team addressed education, shelter and psychosocial issues in the four Chadian refugee camps (Iridimi, Toullum, Mille and Kounoungo) located along the Chad-Sudan border.
In response, 16 out of a total of 30 planned Child Centered Spaces have already been opened. These spaces provide a safe and stimulating environment with structured recreational and learning activities to approximately 1,600 children each day. CCF staff members have also mobilized 40 youth clubs for boys and girls in the four camps. Each club has up to 60 youth members who are encouraged to hold sports and cultural activities.”


There is also a brief history of what’s going on Chad. This information page also discusses that they are involved with UNICEF.



They are a fund that works with the children by stopping the poverty and the harsh conditions the face. The biggest opportunity to help in alignment with the CCF is the ability to sponsor a child from one of the regions they work in. Pictured below is the first step in the three-step process. You are also able to make general donations to the fund.

I also found an interesting link within the page for journalists. This sections, as stated, does the following:

“The team offers assistance to journalists researching current story ideas or breaking news affecting developing countries worldwide. We provide background information, photos and set up interviews with experts and specialists from the U.S. and developing countries. The team also provides resources needed for inquiries related to ongoing emergencies, natural disasters or current CCF national and international program development issues.”