OPINION
Archive of HELPING HANDS INTERNATIONAL: In My Opinion columns.
For more information: BELLA SALAKO: (202) 726-7467 (June 16, 2004)Let World Refugee Day 2004 Be a Time Of Remembrance, HELPING HANDS INTERNATIONAL's Chairman of the Interagency Coordinating Council urges
With nearly 75 percent of Africa's three million refugees having languished in crowded camps for five to 20 years or longer, Helping Hands International's Chairman of the Interagency Coordinating Council is urging that World Refugee Day 2004 on June 20 be observed as a time of remembrance for those so long “warehoused,” and for those whose lives have been lost in desperate pursuit of peace and security.
In his “Opinion” column in the June issue of the agency's Voices of Silence newsletter, he notes that the day is traditionally—and appropriately—observed as a celebration of the courage, stamina and spirit of refugees fleeing violent conflict, persecution and terror. The theme of this year's observance is “A Place to Call Your Home”.
“Long-staying refugees are the world's truly homeless people,” the Chairman writes. “They are denied any prospect of repatriation because of entrenched racial, tribal or ethnic hatreds. They are unable to gain integration into their country of first asylum because of social, cultural or economic barriers. They are generally shut off from any place to call home, other than the resettlement to a third country.”
The Bush administration's budget request for 2005 is $30 million lower than current-year funding. This year's admission ceiling for African refugees is $25,000.
Archive of HELPING HANDS INTERNATIONAL: In My Opinion columns.
For more information: BELLA SALAKO: (202) 726-7467 (July 19, 2004)HELPING HANDS INTERNATIONAL's Chairman of the Interagency Coordinating Council applauds the International Community
DEATH, DECEPTION, CATASTROPHE in DARFUR
Helping Hands International's Interagency Coordinating Council Chairman applauds the international community after the release of the detailed independent rapport on the “ethnic cleansing” of more than a million tribal villagers in Darfur.
The 75-page report, by Human Rights Watch, charges that the Sudanese military, working with Arab militias, has committed massacres and burned villages as part of a campaign to depopulate large swaths of Sudan 's largest province.
“The government of Sudan is responsible for ethic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Darfur ”; according to the report, based on a 25-day investigation in and around the province.
“The Sudanese government and the Arab Janjaweed militias it arms and supports…have killed thousands of [ethnic] fur, Masalit and Zaghawa-often in cold blood”.
Since the raids began, more than 1 million people have been driven from their villages, according to the United Nations. More than 130,000 have fled to neighboring Chad .
The Sudanese government has said it was not implicated in the attacks in Darfur . Still the government restricted access to the region since the campaign began last year.
Over a million of internally displaced refugee, are trapped by militia in disease-ridden camps without adequate food or water. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates 300,000 or more could die.
Sudan's membership on the U.N. Human Rights commission was renewed for another three-year term.
Most Security Council members have been reluctant to adopt a resolution condemning Sudan .
The Chairman is however concerns about the true tactics of the Sudanese government to immediately disarm the janjaweed and prosecute egregious abuses of human rights. The reality suggests that Karthoum's real objective was to deceive the international community into believing the crisis had been brought under control.
The Chairman believes that world leaders cannot afford to sit idly by while the Sudanese government continues to play games with the lives of the Darfur population.
Much more need to be done in an effort to stop the killing and head off a looming humanitarian disaster worse than the Rwandan genocide.
