Daily Darfur: A word from our special envoy

Published June 18, 2009 @ 06:06AM PT

Yesterday morning US Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration briefed the media on the "Current Status of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Recent Travels". Gration said:

I’ve learned through these trips that we need to have constructive dialogue with the international community, with all parties in Sudan. We need to have engagement with all parties to save lives in Sudan, to bring about a lasting peace. More suffering in Sudan is simply unacceptable. We need engagement to make a positive difference in Darfur. We need engagement to fully implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

This isn’t about discussions only. It’s about making a difference in the lives of the Sudanese people. It’s about getting results.

The rest of his briefing was, perhaps, a bit more controversial.

The Enough Project offers a useful play by play of the briefing and analysis of some of the places where Enough's John Norris believes the special envoy "strayed off the mark in several comments". On the PhD Studies in Human Rights blog William Schabas has a brief entry on why he agrees with Gration. And over at UN Dispatch Mark Leon Goldberg asks: Where is the White House on Darfur?

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Stop Genocide Now is now on day four of their trip to refugee camps in Chad. Check out their photos on Flickr for a glimpse into the lives of refugees.

The BBC has a new photo slideshow on Darfur's water woes. The photos and captions describe the lack of clean water, and the difficult situation for refugees since the expulsion of humanitarian aid organizations in early March.

Quickies:

Bec Hamilton draws our attention to Julie Flint's new report for the Small Arms Survey, "Beyond Janjaweed: Understanding the militias of Darfur".

Students from the Haddonfield Memorial High School chapter of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) presented New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine with the HMHS Humanitarian Award - given annually to an individual who has shown strong leadership and support toward ending the genocide in Darfur.

Nicholas Kristof discuss mainstream media coverage in new blog entry, "Topless Celebrity Shoplifting vs. Darfur".

Photo from Stop Genocide Now.

Share this Post

Add a Comment

For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

Comment

Check Spelling

Email me when there are new posts to this thread
Comment Policy

Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in the posts. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; that contain ad hominem attacks; or that are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion.

Author

Martha is the campaign manager at the Save Darfur Coalition. She has worked with a number of organizations and institutions advocating against genocide, including Team Darfur, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition and Voices for Sudan. The views expressed here are her own.