The shit piled up so fast you needed wings to stay above it

Howdy folks. After spending many months attempting to find real, useful information about the Darfur conflict on the internet and coming up with precious little but ten thousand iterations of the typical prepackaged 'bad arab/good african' narrative all wrapped up in snuff porn and tied with a pretty little bow of 'calls to action', I've decided to add my own insignificant voice to the fray. First, a couple provisos: I am not an Arab supremacist, I am not a member of al-Qaeda, I do not hate Jews, I am not a Marxist, I am not a death fetishist, I am not a Khartoum apologist (unless by "Khartoum apologist" one means "person who disagrees with the Save Darfur party line", as many do). I am not, and do not claim to be, an expert on the conflict (although I do promise to make all possible effort to buttress my claims with evidence provided by people who are).

That being said, let's leap right into it. The first inductee into the Save Darfur Hall of Shame is www.darfurgenocide.org. Let's imagine a nice, liberal, suburban family trying to decide where to send their monthly charity budget. They sit down to a yummy plate of organic kale and free range chicken, and talk about what they can do for the poor kids in Africa. Suddenly, their fifteen year old, bandana-sporting activist daughter pipes up: "let's donate to darfurgenocide.org. After all, it is a genocide we can stop!" Great idea, right? Right? Not so fast. Where does your money actually go?

So far, we have used your generous support to carry out the following projects:

• Sent a team of experts to Darfur and the region to meet with representatives of the people of Darfur to listen to what we can do to help bring peace, and to help the international community better understand how to support these groups. Click here to see photos from our trip to Darfur.
• Organized two hunger strikes of several thousand people in all 50 states and worldwide. Click here to read initial press coverage.
• Sent a camera crew to Darfur to provide up to the minute video footage to international media of the situation on the ground.
• Supported rolling protests at Sudanese embassies in other countries, including in Washington DC, where with our partner the Sudan Campaign, we have encouraged several religious leaders and prominent personalities to get arrested.
• Hired a PR firm to train, book, and drive Sudan advocates like John Prendergast and Samantha Power into the mass media in the US and Europe. Together with our partner TrueMajority, we have achieved several major media hits with this approach.
• Provided advice and support to several other organizations working on Darfur, including the Genocide Intervention Fund, the Sudan Campaign, the Save Darfur Coalition, the National Council of Churches, TrueMajority, MTV and many others at international, national and local levels.
• Developed this website to inform several hundred thousand visitors, organize over 35,000 online and grass roots activists, and advocate on Darfur.

Notice anything missing? Well how about this - not one dime of any money donated to www.darfurgenocide.org goes to anyone WHO ACTUALLY LIVES IN DARFUR. Not one red cent!

But let's examine a bit more. They have 'hired a PR firm to train, book, and drive Sudan advocates like John Pendergrast...' Real lovely fellow, him. For a little sample of his brand of "activism", interested readers should take a look at his illiterate, ad hominem riddled screed against Darfur expert Alex de Waal.

darfurgenocide.org also has a section where you can LEARN! OOH BOY, I love to learn! Let's see what we have here http://www.darfurgenocide.org/learn.php

International Crisis Group, provides expert analysis of the crisis and recommendations to the international community for dealing with it. Read their latest reports calling for support for a strategy for a comprehensive peace in Sudan, "A Strategy for Comprehensive Peace in Sudan", 26 July, 2007 and "Darfur: Revitalizing the Peace Process", 30 April, 2007
• Washington Post, July 1, FAQs on the genocide.
• US Agency for International Development, full description of the humanitarian crisis, including maps and statistics on bombings.
• "Dying in Darfur: Can the Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan be Stopped", August 30th, Samantha Power in "The New Yorker"
• "A Dozen Reasons Why Khartoum Wants a War in Darfur", Ali Ali-Dinar, a Darfurian academic based in the US.
• "The Emergence of the Janjaweed", Alex de Waal and Julie Flint
• UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Special Report on Darfur and the prospects for peace in Sudan.
• "Racism at the Root of Sudan's Darfur Crisis", Christian Science Monitor, July 14, 2004
• "Darfur Mortality Update", August 13, 2004, Eric Reeves* analyses the data available and puts the total death toll in Darfur at 180,000 people. See also Reeves' analyses of July 6, 2004, July 15, 2004, and July 30, 2004
• Round up of the various aspects of the Situation, July 21, 2004, Eric Reeves*.
• "Khartoum's Gamble", June 25, 2004 Eric Reeves* argues that the Sudanese Government continues with the genocide in Darfur because it doesn't believe the international community will intervene.
• "Darfur Mortality Update", March 11, 2005 Eric Reeves*
• "The International Failure to Confront Khartoum", March 17, 2005 Eric Reeves*
• "Current Security Conditions in Darfur: An Overview", April 7, 2005 Eric Reeves*
• "Darfur: Women Raped Even After Seeking Refuge", Human Rights Watch

Let's note a few interesting features. First, while we are supposedly 'learning' about the 'background and history' of the conflict, we should keep in mind that none of these articles, with the possible exceptions of the UN summary and the Flint/De Waal piece are actually a comprehensive introduction to the region, the conflict, or the groups involved. Even more strangely, they seem to have left out easily accessible articles that ARE. If they can find De Waal's "the Emergence...", why would it be so hard to dredge up "Counter-Insurgency on the Cheap" ? Could it have anything to do with de Waal's disturbing tendency to go off the reservation with ideologically incorrect tidbits like:

The ‘African’ label may have played well to international audiences in the 1990s, but it had little purchase in Sudan. One reason for this was the prevalence of radical Islam and its appeal to many Darfurians – the result of the success of a political experiment by the regime in Khartoum, masterminded by Hassan al-Turabi.

And if they can find the ICJ's policy recommendations, why can't they give their public a look at their 387 page chronology of reportage on the conflict? Perhaps they are trying to avoid compounding the crimes against humanity committed by the Janjawiid by doing equal violence to the attention spans of their MTV demographic? Or maybe they'd like people not to know that until 2003 (the official 'beginning' of the conflict - never mind the low intensity warfare being waged in the region for at least a decade prior) Khartoum intervened decisively on the side of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa and AGAINST the nomadic tribes, even being targeted by human rights groups for their failure to observe due process while summarily executing 'arabs' accused of attacking 'african' dars? Because that is like, totally weird man. After all, The Christian Science Monitor, Eric Reeves - professor of English Literature at Smith, and the Simon Wisenthal center agree that the GoS' Darfur policy is virulently racist and intended to exterminate the Africans!

Anyway. Its good to start things off by finding a big target and kicking them in the balls. I'll be a bit less polemical sometimes.