In October, 2004 three activists snuck across the Sudanese border into rebel-held territory to document the atrocities in Darfur. They returned with some of the first footage exposing the massive war crimes being perpetrated by the Sudanese government.

“I left the book and the film feeling a great deal more hope for us all.” – Alice Walker

Watch this powerful, hour long documentary.

You can find out more about this film at http://darfurdiaries.org/

Dave Eggers and John Prendergast have written a NYT Op-Ed with words of warning. After reading the article below, call 1-800-GENOCIDE to add your voice to those beseeching our government to engage proactively in the prevention of war and genocide in Sudan.

Be an UpStander,

In Sudan, War Is Around the Corner
By DAVE EGGERS and JOHN PRENDERGAST
Published: July 12, 2010

FOR many good reasons, Americans are doubting our ability as a nation to positively influence events abroad. We’re involved in two conflicts with dubious outcomes and we’ve begun to question whether any step we take, anywhere, will be the right one. But it was not long ago that the United States intervened abroad in a bold way that led to undeniably positive results.

From 1983 to 2005, more than two million people died and four million were forced from their homes in southern Sudan during a war between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Shortly after George W. Bush entered the White House, he decided he would put the full diplomatic leverage of the United States to work in ending this war, one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century.

read full article here…

Has Obama Forgotten Darfur?
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

Darfur seems to have been forgotten, but the killings continue. After a lull, the pace of killings has increased lately, with some 600 people killed violently last month alone. As Newsweek notes , that’s more than in any month since U.N. peacekeepers arrived.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, addressed the Security Council today, giving a blunt report about Darfur:

The entire Darfur region is still a crime scene. The attacks against civilians not participating in the conflict continue. Read the rest here…

U.S. must help stop Sudan’s slow-motion war
By George Clooney and John Prendergast

The largest conventional war on the face of the earth in 2011 will occur in Sudan unless bold diplomacy led by the U.S. prevents it. The most dangerous tripwire will be in seven months, when southern Sudanese will vote to determine whether the South splits off and forms a new country. Some ruling party officials don’t want to give up the oil-rich South without a fight. Southerners spilled a great deal of blood to win the right to opt out of Sudan, and they will keep fighting until they have their own state.
rest of the article…

Sponsored by the Armenian Church of Nashville

Date: Saturday, April 24, 2010
Place: Scarritt-Bennett Center, Laskey Great Hall
Time: 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Contact: Sevada Badalian, Chairman of the Armenian Church of Nashville (615.975.6813, vg@vaganoff.com) or Sara Cohan (850.316.0358, saracohan@gmail.com)

April 24, 2010 marks the 95th anniversary the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian Church of Nashville will hold an event in honor of this occasion at the Laskey Great Hall in the Scarritt-Bennett Center at 5:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The keynote speaker, Dr. Kim Theriault, is an Associate Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at Dominican University in River Forest, IL. Her recently published book, Rethinking Arshile Gorky, offers new interpretive insights into Arshile Gorky’s work, elaborating upon the themes of displacement, trauma, and memory as well as identified issues of identity, originality, and mourning.

Arshile Gorky, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, was born was born Vostanig Adoian in Van, Turkey (historic Armenia). After escaping the Genocide in 1915, he went to Yerevan with his mother and siblings. His mother died shortly later of starvation and Gorky moved to the United States. Like many immigrants of this time period, he tried to reinvent himself to mask his past. He changed his name and masked and claimed Russian heritage. Regardless of his attempt to hide the trauma he had experienced in his youth, his agony was ever present in his art. The series of paintings entitled “The Artist and His Mother” best reflects his struggle with his past and is one of the most important contributions to the Modern Art movement.

Sara Cohan, Education Director of The Genocide Education Project, will provide a brief history of the Armenian Genocide prior to Dr. Theriault’s lecture. The program will conclude with a memorial service led by Father Tateos Abdalian to honor the 1.5 million Armenians killed in Ottoman Turkey from 1915 to 1923 as well as the survivors. Fr. Abdalian was ordained a Priest of the Armenian Orthodox Church in 1984 and currently oversees approximately eighteen Armenian Orthodox communities. He also serves as a member of the Oriental Orthodox/Roman Catholic Dialogue and a member of the Standing Committee of Oriental Orthodox Churches in America.

Jay Geller
TAG Chairman

That’s the gist of a new Reuters report that highlights the rearming of South’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) ahead of April’s national elections that the group has already pulled out of participating in.

Sudanese Oil Plant

The Article:

TEREKEKA, Sudan (Reuters) – With southern Sudan stumbling towards independence next year, the Chinese oil workers in Africa’s biggest country are bracing for trouble. For southern villagers like Maria Jande, trouble is already here.

Dinka tribesmen briefly abducted Jande, her family and more than a dozen other women and children in a raid last month that destroyed crops and food stores and killed five men from her Mundari tribe.

It’s a far cry from the hopes that sprung up in southern Sudan five years ago, when a peace deal with the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in Sudan’s north promised to end a generation of conflict.

Read more…

Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years are less than a month away.

Late Wednesday night, the largest opposition party in Sudan (the southern based Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement) announced it was withdrawing its candidate for president of Sudan from the national elections scheduled for April 11-13. The leaders of SPLM did so reportedly because they were convinced that elections were too flawed to move forward and they did not want to legitimize a process that led to the re-election of President Omar-al Bashir, the architect of the Darfur genocide.

Thursday morning, the remaining major opposition parties (with one exception) followed suit and withdrew their candidates from the presidential ballot. Save Darfur has long said that we do not believe free and fair elections are possible in Sudan given the oppressive political environment that has preceded them. And in the last two days, the decisions by the major opposition parties to withdraw underscore that fact.

These elections could legitimize a corrupt, genocidal regime unless the international community acts today.

Please join TAG and the Save Darfur Coalition in sending a letter to President Obama, urging him not to recognize an illegitimate election. You can also sign up for important updates on the Sudanese election and additional opportunities to take action.

http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/sudanelections

Be an UpStander,

Jay Geller
for Tennesseans Against Genocide

Dear Friends of TAG:

As you may have heard a preliminary agreement on peace negotiations and conditional ceasefire between the Sudanese government and the largest Darfuri rebel group JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) has recently been announced. If you would like to learn more about what this announcement holds for the prospects of political peace, an end to all violence, and an alleviation of the dire living conditions under which millions of Darfuri still suffer, please follow this link:

http://www.enoughproject.org/Darfur-Peace-Process to the analysis drawn up by the Enough Project, a coalition of longtime experts and activists in the efforts to end genocide and crimes against humanity.

Peace,
Tennesseans Against Genocide Board of Directors
and
Jay Geller, TAG President