What's going on???

Listening to the sermon on Sunday morning, i realized that i know shamefully little about the crisis in Darfur, and no idea of what i could personally do to help. Todd sent me this article with the suggestion that we could write to our MP's., the immigration minister and prime minister's offices, to support this call for action. Another thing you could do is write a short letter to the editor showing your support for Government action. It seems so small in light of such horror, but is a limited way that we in nice safe Saskatoon can help. Contacts for all of these people are available at parl.gc.ca. Newspaper links are



http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/letters.html
http://www.cbc.ca/contact/index.jsp

Yay Paul Martin.


PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
IDN: 050540207
DATE: 2005.02.23
PAGE: A1
BYLINE: PAUL KORING
SECTION: National News
EDITION: Metro
DATELINE: Brussels BELGIUM
WORDS: 541

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Martin vows to ease Darfur’s suffering

PAUL KORING (BRUSSELS) Canada will no longer sit by and allow the grim humanitarian disaster in Sudan’s Darfur region to continue, Prime Minister Paul Martin said yesterday, pledging “whatever is required” to a robust peacekeeping force being considered at the United Nations.

In an unexpected and passionate statement after a NATO summit that largely ignored African security issues, Mr. Martin declared that the African Union has failed to deploy effective peacekeeping units in Darfur.

“The humanitarian crisis remains,” Mr. Martin told reporters in Brussels after the summit, which was intended to patch up rifts over U.S. President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

A senior official said it was too early to say what role Canada might play in Sudan, but added the most serious needs are for logistics support and training.

The government had previously offered to help train African troops.

But the AU had trouble finding battalions to send to Darfur, where an estimated two million people have been displaced and 300,000 killed.

“It’s just taking too long and people are suffering,” Mr. Martin said.

Besides training and logistics, a Darfur force would desperately need helicopter detachments to be capable of providing reconnaissance and surveillance for ground forces.

Canada has filled that role on peace missions in Haiti and Bosnia.

Helicopter squadrons are among the few units in the Canadian Forces not overstretched by current overseas operations.

Mr. Martin said Darfur was a key element in bilateral discussions with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Brussels, and he intends to pursue the issue with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week.

“We will do whatever is required, but we cannot simply sit by and watch what is happening in Darfur continue,” he said.

The UN Security Council is considering a U.S.-backed resolution that would send a force of up to 10,000 to underpin a shaky ceasefire in the long-running civil war in Sudan. The force would be able to aid AU peacekeepers in Darfur, with Mr. Annan’s authorization.

The north-south civil conflict is separate from the brutal waves of ethnic cleansing and terror that have occurred in Darfur. There have been repeated clashes between rebels and government troops, and roving armed bands of Arab militias known as janjaweed continue to loot, burn, rape and pillage in Darfur.

Mr. Annan called on the UN last week to “act to save humanity from hell” in Darfur.

Mr. Martin has apparently heard the call, but it remains uncertain whether the resolution to establish a peacekeeping force will win the support of Security Council members who say Sudan should be given more time to curb the violence.

The government in Khartoum has adamantly opposed any significant presence of foreign forces in Darfur. Although the AU has sent about 1,400 troops to Darfur, the mission is now widely acknowledged to be beyond the limited ability and experience of the force.

“The African Union has made an important contribution but it is clear that the enormous needs on the ground outstrip the AU’s current capacity,” Mr. Martin said.

The new force may still be mostly composed of troops from African nations, but needs UN command-and-control experience built up over decades, Mr. Martin said.