STAPLES RALLY, and Letter to the Editor of NYTimes

TAKE A STAND TO STOP GENOCIDE

Come rally STAPLES to be a

RESPONSIBLE

corporate sponsor of the 2008 BEIJING Olympics!

April 27, 2008

1:00pm to 3:00pm

Boston Commons

featuring a performance

by ADAM EZRA

_____________________

"Memo to Bush on Darfur"

Columnist Nicolas Kristof wrote recently in the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/opinion/10kristof.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin titled "Memo to Bush on Darfur" in which he suggested a 8-point plan to act on Darfur, and invited his readers to comment. Mohamed Elgadi, WMDC member, sent the following response:

Your call to link the Darfur issue to the whole Sudan makes a lot of sense and speaks directly to the call of the Sudanese opposition since 1989 when the National Islamic Front seized power in Sudan. The regime of President Omer al-Bashir succeeded to sustain power because he always put a wedge among different ethnic and political groups in Sudan.

However, in your Column you made couple of controversial points that face a lot of opposition from different human rights and political groups in Sudan and in the United States.

1) You called for bringing President Omer Elbashir in Anti-Genocide conference in Kigali is considered by many of us, especially the Sudanese, as an insult to the victims in Rwanda, Sudan and everywhere. A genocide mastermind like al-Bashir would not make anything to stop the killing orchestrated by his own regime.

2) The militarization of the region as outlined in your memo (#6-8) with a major role of the US would be another disastrous step by the Bush Administration. The major Sudanese opposition forces strongly warned against such arrogant step when some voices called few years ago to use the US military base in Djibouti in a swift strike. Actually this would help the regime in Khartoum more than any thing. They are waiting for such thing to happen to mobilize and rally the Sudanese people against the US ‘invasion’ of another Muslim country.
Any military action, if needed, should be under the leadership of the UN and better if the US did not participate at all with manpower.

Before we start thinking about military action we should use other methods that, as a Sudanese- American I know would work well. We should work with our allies to stop granting travel visa to any of President’s Bashir ruling party or his allies in Sudan (including their direct family members). Keeping those perpetrators ‘imprisoned’ in Sudan and freezing their assets would bring them quickly on their feet. Ask us, the Sudanese refugees, about these thieves who love to spend our stolen money in London, Paris, New York, and Toronto.

We should also stop sending confusing messages to the world by receiving many of the regime’s crime lords as high dignitaries in the State Dept or the CIA. Terrorism should be fought with ethics.

mohamed i. elgadi
Amherst, MA
W. Mass. Darfur Coalition
www.DarfurWM.blogspot.com