Today, September 17, has been declared a Global Day of Action for Darfur. dayfordarfur.org tells us that the day “was originally conceived by a group of NGOs working on Darfur and concerned about the slow response of the international community to the crisis”.

It’s also the first anniversary of the signing of the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document. Of particular relevance here are paragraphs 138 and 139:

Responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity

138. Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This
responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.

139. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.

So what are we doing about it? Damn little. An obscenely small amount. Mary Liddell in today’s Observer summarises the situation:

The African Union’s 7,000 peacekeepers, feeble, underfunded and unwelcome, are leaving in a fortnight. Sudan’s leader, Omar al-Bashir, refuses to accept the 20,000 replacement force mandated by the United Nations. The resulting security vacuum would force out aid workers, condemning to death many of the 2.5 million who depend on them. It would also let Bashir unleash a military solution to a three-year conflict that has killed 300,000 people and left 2 million homeless; 10,000 Sudanese troops are massing to take on the rebels.

A good centralised resource page for information and action about the situation in Darfur can be found at the excellent International Crisis Group website.

As for John Winston Howard, he still registers a nil return for mentions of “Darfur” either in Hansard or in transcripts available on the Prime Ministerial website. But then, he never was big on humanitarian issues, was he?

I’ll post about the Australian political activity in relation to Darfur in a separate item. I’ll finish this post with a prayer, published by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, on Friday:

Heavenly Father,

We pray for those whose lives are lived on the margins of nations and suffer from the wars that others fight around them. We pray for the warring factions, that they may see themselves under the gaze of God and those who suffer for their cause. We pray for the peoples of Darfur who are haunted by fear of violence, hunger and hopelessness, that they may continue to be fed, visited and defended. We pray for the work of peacekeepers, negotiators and the humanitarian organisations that security may prevail. We pray for the Government of Sudan and for her unity. We pray for peace in the name of him who is the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

September 11, 1906: Indian-born lawyer and South African resident Mohandas Gandhi spoke in Johannesburg calling for non-violent resistance to racial discrimination, in particular Transvaal’s Asiatic Laws. This week is the centenary of Gandhi’s first satyagraha.

It’s a pity that the date of September 11 has become associated with an audacious act of mass murder. With both events in mind, the Mahatma’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, has submitted that September 11 be observed as a Day of Prayer for Peace and Harmony. There’s more information at the Gandhi Institute, including a PDF document of Arun’s paper “The Duality of September 11“.

Rather more fitting, I think, than the Bushite proclamation of September 11 as Patriot Day.

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=23764

Once billed as “the most dangerous man in Mississippi,” former Ku Klux Klan member and terrorist Tom Tarrants became a Christian while in prison for attempted murder and now serves as president of the C.S. Lewis Institute in Washington, D.C.

More of this story at the Baptist Press.

World to end on August 22 (Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 9.8.06)

If it’s reported by the Wall Street Journal it must be true!

PS: The comments on this blog entry are actually entertaining. I must try out the recipe for blackcurrant jam before the Apocalypse cuts off the electricity.

A protracted colonial war:

Tariq Ali’s excellent op-ed in today’s Guardian on the Israel v The Rest conflict.

Human Rights Watch has today released a Q&A paper which attempts to outline the rules of international law that apply in the current conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah. They make no attempt to assess the legitimacy of either side’s move to resort to war. The stated purpose of the document is to “provide analytic guidance for those who are examining the fighting as well as for the parties to the conflict and those with the capacity to influence them.”

It is well worth reading to gain an understanding of what is and is not considered legitimate conduct in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law.

It is worth noting that HRW considers Hezbollah, and not Lebanon itself, as the combatant party against Israel.

On my reading of things, there appears to be a prima facie case that the Hezbollah are guilty of war crimes for (a) capturing opposing soldiers for use as hostages, and (b) for the firing of Katyusha missiles indiscriminately at civilian areas. (The specific issues with Katyushas is addressed in the HRW’s article.)
Israel’s culpability for war crimes is not so clear cut - according to HRW, civilian areas can be considered legitimate targets if they serve a “dual-purpose” as military installations, however all reasonable effort must be taken to avoid harm to civilians. Israel might be on shakier ground with the bombing of key infrastructure and blockading of roads and ports, especially if these are done to cause hardship to civilians in order them to pressure their government into taking action.

HRW has earlier expressed its concern over Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip, while also asserting that the Palestinian capture of Gilad Shalit as a hostage is a war crime.

My fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
- George W Bush, on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln off San Diego, 1.5.03

How much accomplishment does a mission need before it is accomplished?

Dedicated to all the men and women who have fought in armed combat, and in particular:

My father, Frederick George Theodore Eyre, who died on 2 March 2004, aged 85. Served in Borneo, West Papua and Rabaul during the Second World War. He spoke very, very little about his war service during his lifetime.

His brother, Percy Walter Ellis Eyre, who died on 23 October 1942, aged 22, in the Battle of El Alamein.

An extraordinary situation in Chittagong on Sunday when police used excessive force to stop a press photographer from entering a cricket arena, followed with a sit-down protest by his colleagues on the pitch, delaying the start of the match between Bangladesh and Australia. This, followed by further clashes between the police and the journalists, putting one reporter in hospital in a coma.

I’m covering this story extensively in my cricket blog. If you’re interested in this rather unlikely attack on the working media, I’ll see you there.

A big, big story is unfolding this week at a Royal Commission being conducted in Sydney by Justice Terence Cole into “Certain Australian Companies in Relation to the UN Oil-For-Food Programme”. Australia’s biggest agribusiness company appears to be up to its neck in it, and so too the Howard Government.

In short, AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board), Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter, was named in the UN report as one of the companies alleged to have been giving kickbacks to the Iraqi government whilst sanctions were in place. Testimony before the Cole Royal Commission is supporting those allegations, with some extraordinarily bad attempts at arse-covering by AWB executives this week.

The most interesting revelations surround the evidence that AWB’s kickback activity began before July 1999. That was the date when the AWB was privatised - before that it was a Government-owned business enterprise.

I’m not going to attempt to analyse the nitty-gritty of this latest scandal to stain the Howard Government’s CV, rather give some links by which you can follow the development of this extraordinary story:

• The website of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Oil-for-Food Programme, which handed down its findings on 27 October 2005 (press release in PDF)
• The UN news website’s coverage and official reaction to the Oil-for-Food Inquiry
• AWB’s reaction to being named in the report (press release in PDF)
• BBC Online’s coverage of the Oil-for-food Scandal
• The Australian Attorney-General’s Department’s website for the Cole Royal Commission.
• I have also set up a playlist of nine MP3 files from the ABC website covering news reports of the Royal Commission so far this week (about 36 minutes of listening all up). Here’s a link to today’s latest story on the ABC website.
• Here’s an op-ed by The Australian’s Mike Steketee in today’s edition, which also featured an extraordinary letter to the editor by Global Village Idiot Alexander Downer (he’s on holidays you see and therefore can’t issue an official press release).

In addition to AWB there were two other Australian companies named in the Volcker report commissioned by the UN: Alkaloids of Australia Pty Ltd and Rhine Ruhr Pty Ltd.

Significantly, the terms of reference for the Royal Commission only refer to investigating the role of “certain Australian companies” in the Oil-for-food program, not the role of the Australian government. The circumstantial evidence forthcoming from this hearing will, nonetheless, be dynamite. Federal Parliament resumes sitting on February 7.

Planning a distraction yet, JH?