As we approach this holiday season, a lot of families from the fours corners of the world are wondering how they are going to make ends meet as a result of the global economic downturn. For most families in the developed world, this holiday season will be worse than last year. Their children will go to bed a little hungrier, they probably won’t have any new toys, with excuses that Santa had the flu or that he lost the map to their house being a prevalent excuse amongst the poorer sections of our communities.

Regardless of our individual financial situation this holiday season, the best gift to give our children will be a combination of a hug and a kiss followed with the meaningful words of “I love you.” It is hoped that our children will garner more from the knowledge of our love for them than the message that they might receive from our purchase of expensive gifts for them. They might still be disappointed that they did not receive the latest Wii game or Barbie and Ken activity set but the many disappointments will hopefully be short lived.

As we are consistently told at this time of year, the holidays are a time for thinking about those that are less fortunate than we are. Our religious leaders speak of the need to reflect on the poorer sections of our communities, of the need to reach out to our neighbors in a show of compassion and love, and to share what little we may have with those less fortunate.

In certain parts of the world though, this holiday season will be no different than last year. There will be no presents, no Santa Claus, but more depressing, there might be no food. For most of the children and their parents in these parts of the world, life will continue to be lived in utter nightmarish circumstances.

Most are living on a day by day basis and they are suffering the effects of mass hunger and poverty and the concomitant effects of poverty. Instead of waking up to presents, some children will wake up to participate in combat as soldiers – child soldiers. There are roughly 200,000 child soldiers in Africa alone, young children that have been kidnapped from their families and forced to commit horrendous crimes against their own people. Young girls are also kidnapped and forced to become sex slaves.

In Darfur, children are used by the Janjaweed militia to commit murder and rape. Other children are on the receiving end of this brutality.

There is no greater crime than the sexual exploitation, manipulation, mutilation, or rape of a child. In Western nations, when similar crimes are committed against children, there is utter public revulsion and promises by the civil authorities to bring the culprits to justice. Such justice is usually swift and warranted. But when sexually-based crimes are committed against children in the developing world, the cries for help usually fall on deaf ears, with little action been taken against the perpetrators of these horrific crimes. The rapists usually go free.

Darfur is a rapist’s playground and a victim’s hell. There are substantiated reports that children, some as young as four years of age are being raped on a daily basis. Women, young and old, are gang raped and left to fend off the stigma that comes with being the victim of this kind of brutality. Many victims of these crimes become pregnant, which leads to further stigmatization and in most cases, abandonment. The children born as a result of these attacks are commonly known as “enemy” children. They become stigmatized, and in most cases suffer horrendous abuse, abandonment, discrimination and infanticide.

The perpetrators of these crimes are not “men in long coats,” hiding in dark alleys or stalking the streets looking for victims. No, the perpetrators of these crimes are mostly soldiers, paid public servants in the service of the Sudanese government. Uniformed soldiers or civilian clad militias, they act with impunity, but mostly they act like animals, and that is probably a slight against animals.

The utilization of rape in Darfur is part of the overall tactical strategy incorporated by the Sudanese government to annihilate Darfur’s native Black African population. With the murder of close 700,000 innocent Darfuri men, women and children, Darfur represents the first genocide of the 21st Century. Not only has genocide been committed, but mass war crimes and human rights abuses have also been committed.

Not only have the native Darfuri population been targeted, but those working with the various NGOs as well as UN peacekeepers, serving with UNAMID, have been attacked and murdered by the Janjaweed. These attacks and the continuing hijacking of aid convoys fall under the realm of war crimes. Still, the international community debates the appropriate action to be taken against the Sudanese President, al-Bashir, and his government.

In January, 2009 it is envisioned that the judges of the International Criminal Court will defer the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of President al-Bashir. The postponement of this warrant will be a major coup for the African Union, along with other organizations and individual nations, such as certain nations who serve as permanent members of the UN’s Security Council.

The reason given by these organizations and nations for the requested postponement is their considered opinion that the issuance of the warrant will destroy the “on-going” peace initiatives. As far as most concerned groups are aware, there is no constructive peace process currently under way in regards to solving the conflict Darfur.

Irrespective of whether the warrant is issued today or next year, Al-Bashir will be arrested and he will face an international criminal court where he will be prosecuted for the actions of his government and for the genocidal actions of his forces in Darfur.

Last week the international community “celebrated” the 60th Anniversary of the famous Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As noted during the celebrations, most of the 30 articles, as outlined in the UDHR, had been ignored by most countries were either non-internal and internal conflicts occurred over the past 60 years.

While most of those dignitaries representing the nations that led the celebrations spoke ever so eloquently about the initial reasons behind the UNDR and its formation, their very nations have been major supporters of regimes that have totally ignored the principles set forth in the UDHR, examples of which we have witnessed during conflicts in Darfur, Chad, Rwanda, Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, to name but a few.

Nowhere in the world has there been a total disregard for the UDHR principals, or any other international charter protecting the rights of civilians, than in Darfur. It is time for the international community to live up to its words and promises to implement the actions that are required to save the lives of over 4 million innocent civilians, whose lives are currently under immediate treat of death.

Over the weekend, the UN held its annual “Climate Change” conference in Poznan, Poland where billions of dollars were promised to curb the growing trends in the earth’s destruction. What is remarkable about this is the fact that nobody is stepping up to the plate to donate the few million dollars it will take to curb the destruction of the native Black African population in Darfur.

The future generations that we are trying to save through our proposed responsible approach to climate change will hopefully look back with shame at the fact that we did nothing to save the current generation in Darfur and in other areas of conflict, because we were prepared to put money into economic gains rather than in to the preservation of human life.

The International Alliance For Human Rights will be staging the “Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur” to enhance global awareness of the need to take appropriate action in Darfur and to call on the international community to implement its promises to safe guard human life now! For more information, please contact David Nolan at 212.695.7022, ext. 315 or shoot him an email at dnolan@spinmillgroup.com. You can also add your voice of support here.

Seventy years ago last weekend, the Holocaust began. On the night of November 9th-10th, 1938 Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were attacked by Nazi stormtroopers, hell bent on purifying Germany of its Jewish population. Nearly 90 Jews were murdered and close to 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. This event in German history is known as Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass.

This week, as the German government remembers this part of its sordid past, the rise and influence of far-right groups is causing alarm across the whole of Europe and amongst the member states of the EU in particular. Racial hatred, not only in Europe, is quickly rising its ugly head again against the backdrop of mass increases in global immigration, global unemployment and mass uncertainty pertaining to the global economy.

How then, can we expect the international community to fix the problems that are currently destroying Africa if their own people are increasingly hostile towards offering refugees from Africa’s many conflicts refugee status or political asylum in EU and other states? As we have witnessed, vast populations are being wiped off the face of the earth from conflict and nobody seems to give a dam. Both the UN and the EU have deployed large peacekeeping forces to various trouble spots in Africa but with stark differences between their forces.

The EU force (EUFOR Tchad/RCA) that is currently deployed in Chad is mandated to protect the innocent Darfur refugees that have attempted to escape the conflict in Darfur. EUFOR is equipped with the latest military technology and weaponry.

The main proponent behind this force was the French government. Why, of all places, was the French government calling for a special EU peacekeeping force to be deployed to Chad? The French army was already on the ground in Chad prior to EUFOR’s deployment in 2007.

If the French already had a strong military presence in Chad, was there a need for it to push for EUFOR’s formation and deployment? The answer is quite simple. There are major oil contracts in place between the Chadian and French governments. While French military deployment in Chad had nothing to do with protecting innocent refugees from Darfur, it had everything to do with protecting its oil interests there.

When Sudanese-sponsored rebels launched major attacks against Chad and threatened to overrun the country, France was fearful of losing one of its major sources of oil. It could not afford to let the President of Chad, Idriss Déby be overthrown by rebels because France had invested considerable amounts of money there to secure the flow of cheap oil. It couldn’t increase its own troop numbers in this, one of the poorest countries in the world without arousing suspicion as to why it was taking this action.

This resulted in the French government proposing to the EU that, because of the large numbers of Darfur refugees entering Chad and because of the attacks from the Sudanese rebels on these refugees, a special force was needed to protect them, hence the deployment of EUFOR.

This became a huge PR coup for the French because everybody thought that they were going in to protect the refugees. But they were not. They were going in to protect their own national interests and they didn’t care about the Darfur refugees – they haven’t done anything that’s measurable in reference to supporting UNAMID in Darfur itself.

The same happened with the DR Congo in 2006, but it was based largely on a conspiracy by a large number of EU states to protect the flow of mineral resources from DRC – minerals from DRC earn billions of dollars a year (Tantalum, used in the production of cell phones, pagers, PCs, automotive electronics, jet engine components, chemical process equipment, nuclear reactors, missile parts, orthopedic implants, and camera lenses, sells for close to $160,000 per metric ton) – and these EU states were not prepared to see a decline in the availability of these minerals because of rebel fighting nor is the EU prepared to allow this mineral rich country fall into the hands of the main rebel leader, General Laurent Nkunda, hence the call for an increase in the current strength of both its police (EUPOL) and military (EUSEC) missions to DRC.

The big picture is this – we can allow millions of people to die but we can not allow a disruption in the continuous flow of much needed minerals that are vital to industrial strength and development in the EU, the US and Asia. In 1994, Rwanda had no mineral resources and was of no strategic (military or otherwise) importance so the international community allowed close to 1,000,000 innocent men, women and children to be murdered.

Burundi was the same, Ethiopia was the same and Somalia, well, all we have to do is look at the hands on hands off approach that the international community has adopted towards that country.

The strange thing is, in Darfur, which has large oil reserves, the international community is neglecting its obligations to protect close to 4,000,000 innocent men, women and children. In nearly six years of conflict, it has stood by and allowed close to 700,000 innocents to perish at the hands of a genocidal regime and still, it does nothing.

Why? Why has this approach been taken? When the UN announced its intentions to deploy a peacekeeping mission to this hell on earth, the Sudanese government hesitated (and still does to this day) to allow non-African countries to deploy troops as part of the UN peacekeeping force, UNAMID. But the Sudanese government did allow the Chinese government to deploy a battalion of troops as part of this force – why? Why, to this day, does the Sudanese government refuse to permit EU nations contribute troops to UNAMID?

Again, the answer is oil and other mineral resources that come from Sudan. China is Sudan’s biggest oil customer. The Chinese, along with its allies, have basically told the international community, specifically the EU and the US, to back off from harassing Sudan’s government. Nobody wants to offend the Chinese and get their bad side. Economically, it could be disastrous.

Other nations have taken similar approaches to the interference in Sudan’s “internal” issues. The Russian government has considerable relationships with, not only the Sudanese government, but with other countries in the developing world that are rife with conflict.

These relationships are built along trade agreements that are primarily focused on the supply of Russian military equipment and technology. Russia supplies close to 60% of the major conventional weaponry that is used by the Sudanese government to kill innocent civilians in Darfur.

It supplies air force pilots to the Sudanese government in the bombing of all targets (strategic/non-strategic) in Darfur. While China and Russia are the main winners, from a financial view point, from the conflict in Darfur, a host of Western and other Asian nations are responsible for the supply of weapons and weapon technologies to Sudan in contravention of UN Security Council Resolutions 1591 and 1556.

It has been reported that a vast number of countries have directly sold weaponry and military technologies to Sudan while even a greater number of producers of weaponry and military technologies have indirectly supplied their products to Sudan.

The current embargo on Sudan requires that all nations do their utmost to prevent arms from entering Darfur and therefore all weapons and military technology producing countries must take all appropriate actions to ensure that their products do not reach Darfur either directly or indirectly through third-party nations. It has been recommended that these nations investigate how their weapons and weapon technologies have ended up in Sudan and to name the third party nations involved.

The following is a list of the nations who are direct suppliers of weapons and weapon technologies to Sudan:

Belarus, China, Cyprus, India, Iran, Kenya, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovakia, Spain, and Turkey.

The following is a list of weapons and weapon technologies producing nations whose products have directly or indirectly been supplied to Sudan:

Australia, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States of America
So a solution to the crisis in Darfur calls for a lot of nations to make internal sacrifices in terms to forgoing huge financial deals for the benefit of the innocent civilians caught up in the conflict in Darfur.

This may explain the lack of a concerted effort on the part of the international community to engage in a tactical and strategically pressurized approach to force Sudan to halt its ambitious drive to eradicate the native Black African people from Darfur.

While leading celebrities and others may have pointed the “big finger” at China as the nation most responsible for supporting Khartoum’s genocidal ambitions, no nation appears to be free from blame for the prolonged humanitarian catastrophic nightmare that is Darfur.

But the fact remains that China and her sister in crime, Russia, have given diplomatic cover to the Sudanese government at the UN due to their continued economic-based relationship in Sudan and this has clearly given the Sudanese government carte blanche to fulfill its desires in reference to Darfur without retribution from the international community.

In May, 2000 in Kimberley, South Africa, a process was instituted by the diamond producing countries of South Africa to stem the flow of conflict (blood) diamonds onto the international markets. This process, known as the Kimberley Process, was adopted to ensure that the trade in conflict diamonds could be halted and that those buying diamonds, whether wholesale or retail, could be assured that their diamonds had not contributed to violence. It was only in 1998 that the UN first identified that diamonds mined in certain African countries, that were either in a state of war or internal conflict, were being sold to finance that war/conflict or a warlord’s activity.

Diamonds are not the only valuable commodity that has help to fuel wars or conflicts. Today, a product called gum arabic is helping to finance wars and conflicts in a number of African countries, most notably Sudan. Sudan is the primary global exporter of this major product and the global production of all gum arabic is heavily controlled by the Sudanese government.

What makes gum Arabic such a key product is the fact that it is a key ingredient used in several industries, primarily the food and beverage industry, and to a lesser extent in the painting, photography, printmaking and pyrotechnics industries. Without gum arabic we would not have syrups for our coke cola and other soft drinks nor would we have gummy candies like gumdrops or marshmallows or M & M’s or most notably, chewing gum.

The industries that rely on gum arabic are numerous and if Sudan was to withdraw its trade agreements with the West pertaining to making this product available, the global economic impact would be catastrophic. So we can say that Sudan basically has the international community over a barrel.

So the question arises, “Can we also make a case for Blood Ingredients?” These are products, such as gum arabic, that are produced in war/conflict zones that help finance the continuation of hostilities. Maybe we could call it the Coke Cola process, whereby people, when they buy a coke in a store or order one with their meal in a restaurant, can be guaranteed that the coke that they are drinking does not contain a product that has helped to finance the murder of millions of people.

One last item, which is now a clear indication of what is happening in Darfur and why it should be to the center of the stage at the bastion of global diplomacy, the UN. The Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), Mr. Luis-Moreno Ocampo, under the clear direction of the UN Security Council and with the authorization given to him and his office under UN Security Resolution 1564, indicted the President of Sudan, President Al-Bashir on three counts of genocide and a host of other crimes.

The findings of the International Criminal Court make it official that genocide had and continues to be committed in Darfur, therefore the UN should publicly identify the conflict in Darfur as genocide. The issuing of an international arrest warrant for President Al-Bashir is currently pending.

Regardless of the ceasefire declared by Al-Bashir on Wednesday, November 12th, the ICC will soon issue an arrest warrant so that he can face justice for the injustices that he committed, by authorizing his forces to do so, against his own people.

The International Alliance For Human Rights will be staging The Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur, a global concert event to enhance global grassroots awareness of the conflict in Darfur and to demand that the international community take the appropriate action required to bring about a quick cessation of the conflict.