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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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 Fri Jun 04, 2004 12:27 pm GENOCIDE IN SUDAN |
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World Ignores Atrocities in Sudan
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, April 5, 2001
WASHINGTON (UPI) � The liberal National Council of Churches of Christ seems to relish causes that are not theological by any stretch of the imagination. Lately, it concentrated its energies on campaign financing, a topic not covered anywhere in Scripture.
While promoting forcefully the McCain-Feingold bill in public pronouncements, NCCC has been curiously mum about the most burning issue Christianity is facing in the entire world: the genocide perpetrated chiefly against Christians in southern Sudan.
One should ask the question why an organization of 36 Protestant and Orthodox denominations � known for urging the return of Elian Gonzalez to communist Cuba � does not cry out in protest when Muslim militiamen((please note that they only CLAIM to be Muslim's, and that they are only radical fanatics)) pierce and padlock the lips of black Christians so that they may not talk about the horrors they have seen and endured?
What horrors? How about crucifixion, enslavement, beheadings, systematic genocide with the aid of helicopter gunships and bombers of Soviet, Chinese and Libyan provenance? How about the mass rape of boys and girls?
How about the constant bombing of hospitals, schools, relief centers and market places? How about the forcible conversion from Christianity to Islam, including the compulsory circumcision of men and women? How about a man-made famine threatening the lives of 2.6 million people?
How about the fact that in the longest "uninterrupted civil war in the world � twice as many Sudanese have perished in the last 18 years than all the war-related deaths suffered by Americans in the past 200 years"?
These quotes are taken from testimony that Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, has submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives' subcommittee on Africa.
According to Winter, "More than 2 million Sudanese are estimated to have died of causes directly or indirectly linked to war and repressive Sudanese government policies."
Two million � that's as many as Pol Pot murdered in Cambodia 25 years ago.
"Sudan's death toll is larger than the combined fatalities suffered in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Algeria," Winter said.
If help finally gets on the way for "the world's hellhole," as the Washington Post labeled Sudan recently, it will be largely due to a grassroots campaign started by Church Alliance for a New Sudan.
On Monday, Diane Knippers, president of Institute on Religion and Democracy, announced plans for a global Christian operation similar to the one that helped fell apartheid in South Africa. IRD is a major player in the new alliance.
In addition to this group, an extraordinary coalition of conservative and liberal forces has kicked into action: Congressional Black Caucus, Christian Coalition, American Civil Liberties Union, Catholic bishops and Gary Bauer's American Values.
The extremist National Islamic Front governing in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, has an Achilles' heel, Roger Winter suggested. "A strategy that threatens Sudan's oil development can quickly have a strong impact on Khartoum, and can bring the NIF to the negotiating table for serious discussions."
The irony is that rich oil deposits, which should be considered a divine gift to southern Sudan, have become "a source of hell," to quote Roman Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis of the El Obeid Diocese.
In a document distributed by the Church Alliance, Winter explained that NIF forces and Arab militias were "displacing, slaughtering and enslaving" the inhabitants of the oil-rich areas in central and southern Sudan to "clear" them for exploration.
"The proceeds from the oil are being used � to purchase more advanced and deadly weapons � to implement the 'final solution' in the south."
It so happens that the Sudan's government-owned Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company has international partners, according to Bishop Gassis. They include Talisman Energy of Canada, TotalFina of France, Lundin of Sweden, Petronas of Malaysia, Chinese National Petroleum Co. and Russian corporations.
And here's the Achilles' heel Winter was talking about. "Foreign oil companies have no commitment to the NIF; they seek the oil and the profits. In doing so they choose to ignore or obscure the political and humanitarian costs.
"If U.S. policy toward Sudan threatens the oil and the profits that the oil firms covet, I believe the foreign oil companies themselves will begin to press the NIF to negotiate seriously for a just peace in the South. Khartoum's oil allies, through this approach, can be transformed into advocates for a just peace."
As Secretary of State Colin Powell said about the war, which has already displaced 4.5 million of southern Sudan's 5 million people, "There is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the earth today."
Nothing can describe this tragedy better than the narrative of people directly affected by it. The Rev. Herb McMullan, a priest at Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Va., brought these tales home from a recent fact-finding trip to East Africa, where he met with southern Sudanese church leaders.
Excerpts from McMullen's notes read: "We will tell you what it is like. It is mutilations, our ears, lips, hands, feet gone. It is another generation without education. It is mass rapes � our daughters, many men. It is slavery, the real thing.
"It is running barefoot � before the utterly incessant tracking of the spraying, hissing, whining bullets spitting at our heels from a helicopter gunship. It is our pregnant women in jails so hot that babies in their wombs are essentially poached and are born, of course, dead.
"They have held us down and pierced our lips so hot and through the bloody perforations forced the locking arm of padlocks, which when shut prevent the tortured ones from speaking or eating.
"Oil has brought 50,000 Chinese and Canadians to our doorstep, in collusion with our killers, to get fuel for their cars and guns for Khartoum. If we say Jesus is God we do not eat. We starve within sight of the U.N. planes filled with food you sent us, denied to us by our government.
"One day, government forces came to my brother's home. � They tied his hands behind his back and tied the other end of the rope to their vehicle. They dragged him three miles. His skin was worn off his bones. They poured gas on my brother and set his body on fire."
McMullen, one of the martyred Sudanese Christians' most outspoken advocates in the United States, marveled about the vibrancy of their faith. "All of them expect to die," he told fellow members of the Church Alliance. As so often in the church's history, it flourishes in martyrdom.
"The Sudanese church has interpreted the cross as the sign of victory," McMullen explained.
Is there a more powerful message the church could preach as it commemorates Christ's passion? Those who burn to death, get raped, mutilated, tortured, enslaved and murdered in southern Sudan are for the most part Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and Catholics, and they deserve the concern of their brethren in the developed world.
Their fate is more important than campaign financing or, for that matter, the father of Elian Gonzalez, whom the near-bankrupt NCCC jetted from Havana to Washington last summer, doing Fidel Castro a favor.
Half a century ago, the German church had to do penance for having kept quiet in the face of another genocide. History only ever repeats itself in parts, but in this case those parts are becoming clearly visible � in East Africa and over here.
By Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI religion
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Last edited by Puck on Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:58 pm; edited 3 times in total
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Fri Jun 04, 2004 12:34 pm |
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THE FACTS:
Muslim militiamen((please again note that they CLAIM to be Muslim's, yet are fanatics. Note that the general Muslim population are reasonable, peaceful people.)) pierce and padlock the lips of black Christians so that they may not talk about the horrors they have seen and endured
What Horrors??
crucifixion, enslavement, beheadings, systematic genocide, mass rape of boys and girls,constant bombing of hospitals, schools, relief centers and market places, forcible conversion from Christianity to Islam, including the compulsory circumcision of men and women, a man-made famine threatening the lives of 2.6 million people,
the longest "uninterrupted civil war in the world - twice as many Sudanese have perished in the last 18 years than all the war-related deaths suffered by Americans in the past 200 years
More than 2 million Sudanese are estimated to have died of causes directly or indirectly linked to war and repressive Sudanese government policies
Arab militias were "displacing, slaughtering and enslaving" the inhabitants of the oil-rich areas in central and southern Sudan to "clear" them for exploration.
The proceeds from the oil are being used � to purchase more advanced and deadly weapons � to implement the 'final solution' in the south
the war has already displaced 4.5 million of southern Sudan's 5 million people
"We starve within sight of the U.N. planes filled with food you sent us, denied to us by our government."-Sudanese citizen
"One day, government forces came to my brother's home. � They tied his hands behind his back and tied the other end of the rope to their vehicle. They dragged him three miles. His skin was worn off his bones. They poured gas on my brother and set his body on fire."
Countries that finance this:
China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, UK, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, France, Sweden
What does the UN do.....hmm, send aid that never gets to the people...and um, yeah, nothing.
What does the US do....not much that I have seen.
What does the world do?
Ignores it.
What does the media do?
Ignores it.
Last edited by Puck on Fri Jun 04, 2004 11:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Fri Jun 04, 2004 6:45 pm |
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17 people have veiwed this. Now, you may have been apalled by this, and may not ignore it. However, until people post in here, I am gonna continue to bump this to the top, until I KNOW people have seen it and truly read it. I am not going to let this be ignored anymore.
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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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| Fri Jun 04, 2004 10:22 pm |
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That is... disturbing. (had to change my word, as the other one was highly inappropriate.) And we know why the media ignores it, apparently it doesn't make for good ratings, 
-------signature-------
Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with our scars
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Fri Jun 04, 2004 11:14 pm |
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You know what I find disturbing, that out of AT LEAST 15 people who have veiwed this, only one has found it bad enough to post. When gay rights comes up....oh dear, that certainly gets people going...when Iraq comes up, well watch out, your starting a war in that topic itself....when anything about Bush comes up, liberals and conservatives go at each other without relent.
But when a topic talking about this comes up...attempting genocide, only one person posts. No one else obviously thinks that this post is worth their time...not even to just breifly condemn it.
Oh well, what did I expect....the rest of the world doesn't care, why should anyone else?
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IntrepidIsMe
Pimp Handed
Joined: 14 Jun 2002
Posts: 13057
Location: New York
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 1:32 am |
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You're drifting from the topic that you created. PM people to post here, if it would make you happy, 
That is really disgusting and pathetic. I don't see how people could have such a large disregard for another human life.
-------signature-------
"Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
-Wuthering Heights
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Thomas
Pool Princess
Joined: 08 Jul 2001
Posts: 19730
Location: Manchester
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:48 am |
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I assure you I read both of your posts in full, but I was catching up with over a week's worth of posts, and I don't usually post in WN anyway, so I didn't.
I don't see what else I can do, other than repeating what has already been said. Disgusting.
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Gloss rhymes with hair!
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Seven of Nine
Sammie's Mammy
Joined: 16 Jun 2001
Posts: 7871
Location: North East England
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:37 am |
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It's revolting... I'm not allowed to post what I really think.
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Captain Dappet
Forum Revolutionist
Joined: 06 Feb 2002
Posts: 16756
Location: On my supersonic rocket ship.
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:26 am |
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My full and complete opinion on this should be kept to myself. But I find it as IntrepidIsMe said, disgusting and pathetic, to say the least.
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"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"
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WeAz
Commodore
Joined: 03 Apr 2004
Posts: 1519
Location: Where you aren't
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:03 am |
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how can anyone commit a mass  Genocide and not feel guilty? 
-------signature-------
At Least In Vietnam, Bush Had An Exit Strategy
It was Bush, not Clinton, who ignored the warning signs for 9/11.
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:09 am |
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*ok people posted....feel much better now  *
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superwoman
Vice Admiral
Joined: 25 May 2004
Posts: 5742
Location: Sweden
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:53 pm |
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| Janeway_74656 wrote: | | how can anyone commit a mass Genocide and not feel guilty? |
Someone has said something like: "if u kill one man, then it's murder. If u kill 3 persons, it's massmurder. If u kill 3000 then it's statistics" I think u don't se the person you killing if u'll kill that many, u'll just see the bodys.
It's discusting to us, that someone can do something like that, but for many it's the everyday life.
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Captain Dappet
Forum Revolutionist
Joined: 06 Feb 2002
Posts: 16756
Location: On my supersonic rocket ship.
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| Sat Jun 05, 2004 6:01 pm |
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"One death is a tragedy. 1 million deaths is just a statistic"- Joseph Vissarionvich Stalin
I have to agree with superwoman. We simply can't comprehend it.
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"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"
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Jeremy
J's Guy
Joined: 03 Oct 2002
Posts: 7823
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
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| Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:10 pm |
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I've been busy the last few days and haven't read in WN.
I knew about this before I read it here. It's been happening for a few years now, and stuff like this is starting up in some of the Indonesian islands, Nigera and other countries. I know someone from Nigeria who's friends have all been killed in these sort of ways. I've only read about this in one paper here, The Guardian. They have reported it front page at least twice within the last week. Well done on them! The world needs to know about these horrors, sick as they are, and DO something about them.
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:58 pm |
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time for a bump citing Powells visiting and a certain spokesman remark citing that we have "good relations with Sudan"
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