In response to yesterday’s launch of President al-Bashir’s “People’s Initiative for Sudan” conference, Save Darfur released the following policy statement:

The Save Darfur Coalition views President Omar al-Bashir’s “People’s Initiative for Sudan” as yet another attempt to distract Sudanese and international attention from real solutions to the violence and suffering in Darfur.  These “fig leaf” efforts clearly are designed to build support in the international community to oppose the issuance of an arrest warrant for President Bashir by the International Criminal Court and have no connection to stopping the killing in Darfur.

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Yesterday hundreds of 2008 Olympians visited Washington, DC to meet with President Bush at the White House.  Two Team Darfur athletes - Cheri Blauwett and Mike Altman - stuck around to meet with some of the people making real change for the people of Darfur.

Cheri, a 3 time Paralympian and gold, silver and bronze medal holder in wheelchair racing, and Mike, a 2 time Olympic rower, first visited USAID’s Office of Sudan Programs and Africa Bureau for a briefing on American aid to Sudan.

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As Congress prepares to adjourn prior to the November elections, the Senate has passed an important resolution, S. Res. 684, which demonstrates the continued resolve of Congress to ensure that the U.S. Government remains dedicated to ending the conflict in Darfur. The resolution reaffirms Congress’ 2004 finding that genocide is occurring in Darfur, and highlights the need for a just and inclusive peace process, the full deployment of UNAMID, and the free flow of humanitarian aid.

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Just days after announcing at a press conference in Istanbul that Sudan was beginning to undertake new efforts to bring peace to Darfur - including holding talks with opposition groups - there are news reports that government forces killed at least 27 in an attack on Kalma camp in Nyala, South Darfur. The camp is home to 80,000 internally displaced persons - the largest in Darfur. The United Nations reported during their noon briefing today that they are “gravely concerned” about the reports of the attack, and UNAMID has sent police and military patrols to the camp to investigate the attack.

Passers-by didn’t know what was happening. A helicopter was parked in the middle of the street, one block away from the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

What seemed like a wrong turn was actually a direct message to world leaders. As the U.N. Security Council debated its hybrid peacekeeping mission to Darfur, activists brought this helicopter one block away to deliver a strong message to the world’s leading nations: “Fulfill your promise to Darfur.”

Jerry Fowler, Save Darfur Coalition president, holds a petition to the U.N. Security Council with more than 55,000 signatures urging world leaders to “fulfill their promise to Darfur.” Behind Fowler is a helicopter — a symbol of the world’s failure to supply critical helicopters and equipment so desperately needed by the UNAMID peacekeeping mission.

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A year ago today, people around the world gained hope that change was coming to Darfur. After four years of killings, rape, and destroyed villages, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to deploy a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, to protect the people of Darfur.

One year has passed, and the world community has failed to deliver the basic support the mission needs to succeed.

One key gap in the force’s capability is its lack of helicopters, which can enable the force to operate effectively and react quickly. The force is seeking a mere 18 transport helicopters, but so far, no country has stepped forward to provide even one.

A new report compiled by an aviation expert titled “Grounded: The International Community’s Betrayal of UNAMID,” presents data on which countries have suitable helicopters and the number available for deployment to Darfur.

Read the report and an AP article covering this issue to learn more.

Click here to urge the Permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to fulfill their promise to the people of Darfur.

Salim Salim, the former chief mediator for the African Union in Darfur, published an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune yesterday strongly criticizing the international community for failure to support UNAMID:

If the international community is serious about fulfilling its responsibility to protect civilians in Darfur, it can start by providing the basics that Unamid urgently needs. Such support could have saved some of those peacekeepers who died this month gallantly trying to protect civilians. The least we can do in their memory is to make sure that no more civilians or peacekeepers perish because of resource constraints.

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Yesterday, I wrote about a Darfur Consortium report that illustrates the effects of the international community’s inadequate efforts to deploy UNAMID, the A.U.-U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur.

The report received a high-level endorsement today. Rodolphe Adada, the Joint A.U.-U.N. Special Representative for Darfur, expressed his appreciation for the Consortium’s effort to produce the report.

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As the one-year anniversary of the authorization of UNAMID approaches, we are constantly reminded of the world’s failure to protect the people of Darfur.

The Darfur Consortium released a report today that provides a view of Darfur from the ground, the miserable conditions that Darfuri civilians are enduring, and the inability of a long-delayed and ill-equipped peacekeeping force to protect them.

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In the last two weeks, 8 peacekeepers have been killed in Darfur. Commenting on the loss of 5 Rwandan soldiers, Rwanda Defense Force spokesman Jill Rutaremara said:

I imagine if UNAMID had better equipment, for instance, if they had attack helicopters, if they had surveillance aircraft and other logistical support, and if their number was 26,000, as it was planned, I’m sure the situation would not be the same on the ground.

These comments underscore the relationship between the unacceptably slow deployment of UNAMID, and the dangerous situation on the ground in Darfur today. UNAMID was supposed to add 17,000 additional troops to the 9,000 AMIS troops already on the ground. To date, less than 1,000 troops—or less than 6% of the total—have actually been added

But what is the story behind this unacceptably slow deployment? A review of published UN reports shows an embarrassingly inadequate effort so far: (more…)