As I felt to write about today’s arrest of George Clooney and the irony of George protesting against humanitarian abuses in Southern Sudan and the sight of him with plastic bind (handcuffs) as if he is the criminal. I am asking is protesting for humanity a crime. Apparently he broke police lines. My response to that would be not to have police lines but public forums to assist justice to be done. I started to research the topic of Southern Sudan, mindful of separation of Sudan through recent elections. The arab muslims are in the north and the Christian animists are in the south. The latter are ethnic to the region and have experienced untold brutality by the northern military. I recall thinking at the time of elections that the underlying conflict was not resolved. The issues have been related to oil, the south have the oil and the north processes it. Apparently there are grievances over the profits made in the north. So it is an economic issue which can use ethnic divisions to create ‘the other’ and justify brutality.

I feel positive that George Clooney is making a stance and his presence places a spotlight on injustice and that we are not just nationals but members of a world community. I think it is commendable that he has risked his life for real for a cause that does need supporting. Notwithstanding his fame, still that situation is allowed to go without any real solutions from the international community.

My mind turns to Kony which I haven’t looked into but have heard from various sources. I don’t tend to watch the news much. What comes to me I pay attention to. I have posted Kony campaign initiative the initiative to make Kony famous so that he is visible. I found that a good strategy and it forces people to face atrocities that may not be in their backyard, but are affecting others, particularly children. To see more and more people standing up for humanity is a good sign of the times. I think this trend will increase.

There have to be ways to further gauge public opinion to ensure that war crimes are allowed to be continued and eventually not committed by anyone. International Law and an invigorated United Nations with an Earth Charter seems to me, where we are heading. The era of killing innocent people with impunity is over. When others engaged in voilence to retain power begin to realise the world will not accept this conduct, then we will see serious de-escalation.

It was mentioned in the Kony article about Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration this relates to governments who attack innocent civilians. I recall studying DDR on a Rotary peace and conflict studies program. I would like to see this across the board, across the world. Then the very hard work of conflict resolution takes centre stage and people learn how to resolve conflict and balance power in the interests of the majority of people and reinforcing the desire for behaviour that promotes humanity rather than undermines destroys it. There is a statement divided we fall, united we stand. Stand up for the world you want and be the change you wish the world to see, as Gandhi envisaged.

I think it is important that the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ be enshrined in international law as Gareth Evans (former Australian Prime Minister) advocated. There has to be immediate action taken through DDR, seizing bank accounts and assets, arresting arms dealers for arming parties that are engaged in a crime and making it illegal under international law for murder or genocide to be undertaken against unarmed civilians. It can’t be just US resolutions and accusations of war crimes with no action.

Moreover, States that support illegal crimes, in this case China. There has to be a universal law of non interference and withdrawal from Nation States, if their investments are causing internal problems or fuelling them. I learned today that the Chinese value families as part of their culture, it would be wise for them to place themselves in the shoes of civilians and the loss of family members through economic and ethnic wars.

Clearly in the case of Clooney he is trying to take action as he sees the desperation. Why is he alone in this?

Below is a rundown from the Kony website followed by the article about the George Clooney arrest and some information on Southern Sudan from Human Rights Watch.

http://www.kony2012.com/

Who is Joseph Kony?

Joseph Kony is the world’s worst war criminal. In 1987 he took over leadership of an existing rebel group and renamed it the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

The LRA has earned a reputation for its cruel and brutal tactics. When Joseph Kony found himself running out of fighters, he started abducting children to be soldiers in his army or “wives” for his officers.

The LRA is encouraged to rape, mutilate, and kill civilians–often with blunt weapons. The LRA is no longer active in northern Uganda (where it originated) but it continues its campaign of violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan. In its 26-year history, the LRA has abducted more than 30,000 children and displaced at least 2.1 million people.

What is the goal of KONY 2012?

Invisible Children has been working for 9 years to end Africa’s longest-running armed conflict. U.S. military advisers are currently deployed in Central Africa on a “time-limited” mission to stop Kony and disarm the LRA. If Kony isn’t captured this year, the window will be gone. We are taking action to ensure these two things:

1) That Joseph Kony is known as the World’s Worst War Criminal.

2) That U.S. and international efforts to stop Kony are bolstered with a more comprehensive strategy for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR). Why are we making Joseph Kony “famous”?

Invisible Children’s KONY 2012 campaign aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. In this case, notoriety translates to public support. If people know about the crimes that Kony has been committing for 26 years, they will unite to stop him.

Secondly, we want Kony to be famous so that when he is stopped, he will be a visible, concrete example of international justice. Then other war criminals will know that their mass atrocities will not go unnoticed or unpunished. Contact, General questions: info@invisiblechildren.com // 619.562.2799 Media inquiries: cattarini@sunshinesachs.com

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-03-14-george-clooney-accuses-sudan-of-war-crimes

Clooney calls attention to Sudanese conflict

Hollywood heartthrob and activist George Clooney said on Tuesday that Sudanese government forces were committing war crimes with attacks on civilians — including a rocket strike that he narrowly escaped.

“There’s a difference between two armies fighting and what the Geneva Convention calls war crimes,” Clooney told a foreign policy think tank in New York, hours after arriving back in the US from a visit to the Nuba mountains region.

“We saw that very specifically happening on two occasions: rape, starvation, lack of humanitarian aid. They’re scaring the hell out of these people and they’re killing, hoping and trying to get them just to leave,” he said.

Call for action

Clooney has long called for attention to the war between Sudan and newly-independent South Sudan. On a trip in January he contracted malaria. On this trip the risks were even greater, he said.

While visiting villagers hiding in caves since the start of a government aerial bombing campaign, Clooney and his activist colleague John Prendergast, were told quickly to take cover, he recounted.

Thinking that the warning referred to a slow-moving government Antonov plane, Clooney said they failed to hurry. “But it wasn’t an Antonov. It was a rocket and it went boom. We were looking for that area and we got there but we weren’t expecting rockets,” he told the audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, which was packed for the event.

Clooney and Prendergast, who together co-founded the Satellite Sentinel Project, showed the rapt audience of foreign policy experts a video they’d made in the Nuba mountains.

Shown wearing a baseball cap and unshaven, Clooney looked little like most of the characters he plays on the big screen. In one segment he stands over a corpse, along with the text written: “How many more bodies?”

Other footage shows locals in front of huge rock piles. “For the first time since the stone age, people are living in caves,” the text says.

Report to Congress

Clooney and Prendergast left late on Tuesday for Washington where they will report on their trip to Congress and to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clooney said the key to pressuring Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC), is China, a big client for South Sudanese oil.

“China has investments in there, but right now China is pretty ticked off,” Clooney said. “There’s some movement here. There’s an opportunity,” he said.

“What I’d like is for the president to send a high level envoy to China,” he said. “We believe there’s a moment in time when we can have a non-adversarial relationship with them.”

Sudan was split into two countries in July last year but the two countries have been in constant dispute since. Before the divorce, the north and south fought a two decade civil war in which more than two million people died.

Sudan’s forces overran the disputed territory of Abyei in May last year and have been accused of staging air attacks on the South. The Khartoum government in turn accuses the South’s government of backing rebels in its South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. — AFP

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/22/sudan-rights-record-deteriorates-new-conflicts

Human Rights Watch 

Human Rights WatchSudan: Rights Record Deteriorates With New Conflicts

Attacks on Civilians, Repression Mar Post-Secession Period

(New York) – Sudan’s human rights record deteriorated in 2011 with the eruption of new armed conflicts and crackdowns on students, rights advocates, and the media, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2012.

Despite the peaceful secession of South Sudan on July 9, 2011, new conflicts broke out in the disputed territory of Abyei in May, in Southern Kordofan state in June, and Blue Nile state in September. The two states lie north of the South Sudan border and have ethnic populations with historic links to the South.  Fighting continued in the two states and the government renewed bombing in eastern Darfur as the year ended, even as world attention shifted to a surge in violence in neighboring South Sudan. Throughout the year, the government restricted basic freedoms of expression and assembly by breaking up public protests, arresting perceived opponents of the government, and censoring newspapers. 

“The news from Sudan only gets worse, no matter how hard the government tries to keep out prying eyes,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to stop its unlawful attack on civilians, let aid groups in, and stop censoring the media and detaining people for their political opinions.”

In the 676-page report, Human Rights Watch assessed progress on human rights during the past year in more than 90 countries, including popular uprisings in the Arab world that few would have imagined. Given the violent forces resisting the “Arab Spring,” the international community has an important role to play in assisting the birth of rights-respecting democracies in the region, Human Rights Watch said in the report.

In Sudan, the fighting in Southern Kordofan in June broke out between government forces and an armed opposition group linked to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North), an offshoot of the political party that now rules South Sudan. In the capital town of Kadugli, soldiers and militias shot civilians and arrested suspected opposition supporters during house-to-house searches and at checkpoints, and looted and burned churches and homes, Human Rights Watch research found.

The government persistently bombed civilian areas across the Nuba Mountains, forcing people to seek shelter in caves and on mountains, where they lacked food, shelter, and access to basic needs such as water and sanitation. Khartoum has refused to allow aid groups access to these areas. The government was still bombing the area at year’s end.

The fighting between the government and armed forces linked to SPLM-North spread to Blue Nile state in September. Heavy bombing by government forces caused tens of thousands of people to flee to neighboring Ethiopia and South Sudan. The government has blocked humanitarian groups from reaching needy people in both states and effectively cut off international monitoring when it declined to extend the UN’s peacekeeping mandate beyond July.

The government’s conflict with armed rebels in Darfur continued for an eighth year despite a peace agreement signed by the government and one rebel group. Government forces attacked displaced populations and villages, particularly those inhabited by ethnic Zaghawa, Human Rights Watch found. In November and December, renewed bombing in eastern Darfur destroyed several villages and killed civilians. On December 23, Dr. Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement, was killed.

“Darfur’s long-running war and the proliferation of conflicts in Sudan this year shows what happens when there is no accountability,” Bekele said. “Sudan’s conflicts will continue unless the government brings abusers to justice and shows respect for human rights.”

Sudan has refused to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has issued arrest warrants for three people, including President Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Sudan has made no move to carry out recommendations to improve the country’s justice system by the African Union’s High-Level Panel on Darfur in 2009.

Particularly at the beginning and again at the end of the year, security forces used excessive force to crack down on mass student protests. Political repression increased after the outbreak of conflict in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and in the face of economic challenges and political uncertainty brought on by the South’s secession.

In September, Sudan banned the SPLM-North, confiscated its property, and arrested its members. Security officials prevented reporting on the human rights situation in Darfur, Southern Kordofan, and Blue Nile, denying journalists access to the areas and shutting down opposition newspapers there.

Two prominent human rights activists were detained for months by the government without being charged. Bushra Gammar, an ethnic Nuba human rights activist who was arrested in Kadugli on June 25, is in Kober prison under national security custody. Abdelmonim Rahama, a poet and former adviser in the Blue Nile state government, was arrested by national security officials in Damazin on September 2, and is detained incommunicado in an unknown location.

Human Rights Watch and other groups have repeatedly raised concerns about the risk of ill-treatment and torture of detainees in national security custody. Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) routinely uses its broad powers of arrest and detention to target government opponents and is known for ill-treatment and torture of detainees. In 2011, Human Rights Watch documented a pattern of torture of student protestersby the NISS, following a crackdown on mass pro-democracy demonstrations.

“Sudan’s armed conflict is no excuse to deny detainees their basic rights,” Bekele said. “The government should end incommunicado detention and release those not lawfully charged with a crime.”