Racialized Refugee Status in the UK?

by Michelle

categories: Darfur & Sudan, Refugees and IDPs

Published November 05, 2009 @ 04:27AM PT

Did the UK just endorse racial profiling of refugees?

According to a decision announced on Tuesday by Britain's Interior Ministry, all "non-Arab" Darfuri asylum-seekers will be allowed to remain in the country, contingent upon periodic reviews of the situation in Sudan:

"All non-Arab Darfuris, regardless of their political or other affiliations, are at real risk of persecution in Darfur and internal relocation elsewhere in Sudan is not currently to be relied upon," the Interior Ministry's UK Border Agency concluded in its operational guidance note.

Yes, non-Arab Darfuris were the targets of Sudan's genocidal violence, and return from abroad is a very dangerous prospect. But while the situation in Darfur is perilous for those groups singled out by the government, the human rights situation is pretty crummy (in my professional opinion) across the entire country -- for Arabs and non-Arabs and mixed races and foreigners and really anyone who happens to be there.

I'm certainly no lawyer, but I thought that an individual's asylum claim should be evaluated on the specific merits of his/her case. While its laudable for the British government to recognize the need to ensure of asylum to Darfuris, that protection should be extended to all Sudanese fleeing abuse in their home country.

Read More »

New Darfur Film Knows No Shame

by Michelle

category: Darfur & Sudan

Published November 04, 2009 @ 04:42AM PT

The man "widely considered to be the worst working director today" + Darfur = Disaster.

You don't even need to see the full film to tell -- here's all you need to know: White journalists in a gun battle with the Janjaweed.

Seriously.

If the trailer is any indication, Uwe Boll's new film Darfur is the worst kind of white-man's-burden, heart-of-darkness trash known to cinema -- Eurocentric Africa filmmaking at its most condescending. Starring Billy Zane.

The film repeats a theme commonly seen in movies about African wars: White people in search of adventure stumble into a land of lawlessness and are touched and distraught by the devastation they find. But by bringing his rugged characters into direct confrontation with villainous Janjaweed militia, Boll is truly in a class of his own.

I've often found that most people are unwilling to criticize a movie about genocide, be it documentary or feature film. I was given a funny look when I walked out of Invisibles and said, "That's the most boring movie I've ever seen." The movies are always "moving" and "heartbreaking" because of the gravity of the subject matter, as if basic standards for storytelling (not to mention respect, in Boll's case) are thrown out the window every time someone decides to make a film about human suffering.

Boll takes this unfounded freedom too far. The trailer is embedded past the jump -- judge for yourself.

Read More »

Bold Words, from Sudan to Zim to the DRC

by Michelle

categories: Darfur & Sudan, War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity

Published November 03, 2009 @ 08:00AM PT

Dictator Delusion Disorder

Congolese President Joseph Kabila boasted that his army is winning its battle to uproot extremist Hutu militias in the east, just as the UN withdrew its support for the Congolese army and human rights groups issued warnings about egregious violence committed by the troops against civilians.

A typical day at the office?

Says my favorite old curmudgeon Bobby Mugabe of his Prime Minister: "Even if some person is not mentally stable he is still your partner . . . . We bound ourselves to work together even though we had disparate position." So is he on or off the Christmas card list?

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Such is the gist of statements by Sudanese presidential adviser Ghazi Salahuddin on Obama's recently-released Sudan policy: "We believe that the U.S strategy toward Sudan is tactics more than anything else, and therefore we need the U.S. to come out with a true strategy dealing with the overall relations."

Who else would have the moxie to tell the Leader of the Free World, "You did it wrong. Go back and try again?"

Read More »

Khartoum's Spin Zone

by Michelle

categories: Darfur & Sudan, Obama Administration

Published November 02, 2009 @ 05:31AM PT

Misinformation is the cornerstone of dictatorship -- control of dominate political narratives allows for the manipulation of public sentiment. Those of you familiar with certain cable news programs may know this as "spin."

An intriguing interview from the latest edition from the Sudan Radio Project (an excellent program, if you're not familiar) makes me wonder exactly how the Sudanese government is spinning the Obama Administration's recently-released policy review. In a segment on Sudanese perspectives of the plan, a 27-year-old woman from Khartoum incorrectly states that Obama supports unified Sudan, with "no division between South and North," presumably following the 2011 referendum on Southern independence.

The policy statement, in fact, wisely does not take a stance on the outcome of the referendum, but states the administration's intentions to ensure peace both before, during, and after Southerners head to the polls. It is, after all, not our right to weigh in on what the outcome of the referendum should be -- the vote for self-determination was a key component of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of war, and the right to chose unity or independence belongs to Southerners alone.

Read More »

This Week in Who's Going to Jail

by Michelle

Published November 01, 2009 @ 07:22AM PT

The wheels of justice keep on turnin':

A Rwandan actor "known for his humour [and] ability to act diverse roles and linguistic prowess" will spend 19 years in prison for his role in instigating the massacre of Tutsis during the 1994 genocide, thanks to a verdict from a gacaca court last week.

A fellow Rwandan genocidaire became the first person convicted under a Canadian law allowing for the prosecution of war crimes committed abroad; Desire Munyaneza received a life sentence from a Montreal court for his role in the killings.

Rwanda also plans to request the extradition from Italy of a Hutu priest accused of involvement in the massacre of 80 students at the school where he was the headmaster in 1994.

Read More »

The Websites of War Criminals

by Michelle

categories: Darfur & Sudan, Rwandan Genocide, War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity

Published October 30, 2009 @ 08:00AM PT

What's a misunderstood war criminal to do when he feels the world is unjustly against him? Create a website, of course.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, recently launched a website complete with  a dove, olive branch, and upbeat headlines about the supposedly-peace-loving dictator's latest activities. Interestingly, as Bec Hamilton notes, the website is in English as well as Arabic: "It's not the regular Sudanese voter he's pitching to."

Bashir is not the first to use a glossy and misleading website for an international PR campaign, of course. According to Laura at the Enough Project and Jason at Congo Siasa, the diaspora leaders of the FDLR, the Congo-based militia led by former Rwandan genocidaires, have thus-far resisted attempts to shut down their website by simply changing hosts. According to Jason, the site is currently hosted in the US -- which means that we need to figure out who it is, and harass the bejeezus out of them. (Instead of E-cards for Dictators, maybe E-cards for the Morally Depraved?)

Not to be left out of all the fun, Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has its own multi-language propaganda site, which conveniently leaves out headlines about its use of child soldiers, among other less-than-upstanding activities.

So when will this unsavory cast of characters discover the magic of Twitter?

Secret Conversations in Zimbabwe

by Michelle

category: War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity

Published October 29, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT

I once had an extended conversation with a hotel bartender in Zimbabwe about the T.I. song "Live Your Life." It was last fall -- talks between long-time dictator and master-election-stealer Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai were stalled, human rights activists and opposition party members were disappearing left and right, a massive cholera epidemic was just beginning to make international headlines, and Harare looked like a ghost town.

And three Nobel Peace Laureates had just been denied entry to the country. The repressive police state was in overdrive.

So at the end of a long day, I was chatting with the bartender about movies, music, family, etc, and we discovered our mutual appreciation of T.I. and Rihanna. The song is a condemnation of greed and corruption, and he quickly started drawing comparisons between the lyrics and his own brutal government. I was petrified, at first -- state security officers were everywhere, frequently visiting the hotel and talking to the staff, and even following me throughout the day. I'd been careful to keep all public conversation benign and trust no one, and the bartender's forthrightness caught me off-guard.

I sat quietly and listened, occasionally asking broad questions but trying not to appear too interested. I was, of course, enthralled. He talked in hushed tones about how the delirious crash of the country's economy was straining his marriage, how his mother's house was burned down by youth militia in the post-election violence earlier that year, and how everyday is a struggle for survival. He said that no one dares to openly criticize the government because you never know who is listening, and he listed the names of friends and family who'd disappeared, or been murdered.

Read More »