On our last day of i-ACT for now, we want to encourage you to stay CONNECTED through the Stop Genocide Now forum! Post and discuss the latest news, spread your ideas and Darfur Guerrilla Actions so others can join from where they are, and keep the voices of our friends in the camps alive. Darfur Olympics continues through the end of this week and we hope you will tune in!

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Mahamat

Future Athlete
Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese

Mahamat’s story is one of thousands of Darfuri children. Unless we act to return him to his home, and, as his mother says, keep a fire under Bashir, he will never know another place but the run down schools and fields of Oure Cassoni. Someday soon, his home might even be one of those whose has been swallowed by the harshness of the desert, forcing him to move once again.

The present and future athletes below the age of 18 make up 62.9% of those struggling to survive at Camp Oure Cassoni. These athletes are the future of Darfur.

Two-year old Mahamat, like many, was born in this camp, and has never seen his homeland. For him, his life has never been different from the blazing heat, idle waiting, lack of water, and a shoeless and hungry existence. He has never known a home not organized and run by an aid agency, or food not handed to his mother once a month. He has never seen his mother self-sufficient.

Last month we provided a glimmer of hope for Mahamat, and all the refugees living in Chad and Darfur. Moreno-Ocampo’s announcement brought joy and rejoice to the desert camps living at the end of the earth. But like the international peacekeeping force, the announcement and it’s response by our leaders also ushered disappointment. If you were Mahamat’s mother, how would you feel about providing such a life for your children?

These future athletes, and supportive parents, need us, the audience, to spread the word quicker than the sand takes their homes. They need us to ensure peace, protection, and justice. If we don’t, we are letting these athletes down, as we would our own children.

Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur

The exhaustion of Oure Cassoni has caught to me. Now in Abeche, I slept almost the entire day, and slept well through the night last night. I have the privilege of retreating to another town closer to an established culture, closer to a market that sells bread and cheese, and where a restaurant will serve me an omelet sandwich. With my exhaustion, I can rest.

Our friends living the camps do not have this privilege or even the rights to resettle in a different location. They are, in the minds of the international community, refugees who must sit and wait their turn. Their next move will be determined in the international game of life, where resolutions, Security Council meetings, and money-making, back-breaking deals. Their voice is a disposable token in this playing field where our leaders have already been appointed to play a game whose winners will be determined by their accumulation of wealth and military, not by the treatment of humanity.

We must change this.

If there is nothing else that we attempt to change in this world, before we leave, it is that all voices of Amira, Izeldeen. Mohamed, Maht, Abdulsalam, Husna, Ismail, and Shephaldine must be heard. We need to urge our leaders to put down their token promises and fight for real progress in this region, for Darfuris displaced at home, and refugees across the border.

We cannot allow our leaders to play the card which says that Peace before Justice. There is no peace and no peace process right now in this region. And no matter how many leaders claim that behind big oak doors on a silver platter lies the process ready to begin, I will not believe that peace should come before justice.

Instead, I will listen to our friends.

“Justice is above us all,” he told us. And we need to be their voice.
“Why give al-Bahsir 12 months, when for 5 years we have had no peace,” another voiced.

These are the voices that need to be at the table helping to determine what cards our leaders play.

And we need to be their messengers. Even though our daily reporting is over for now, the Olympics, and the international back-door game of trading lives for money continues. We are closer then ever to bringing peace to Darfur. And we can not give up on the future of Darfur.

Please continue to stay active in your own life. When you need a voice, re-watch some of our videos, and reread their stories. When you feel we can’t make progress, remember that all night the women of Camp Oure Cassoni stayed up hooting and hollering when Ocampo made his evidence public. They still have hope, and we need to give them more.

Humanity before Politics is not just a motto, it is a way of life.

Peace, ktj

Bahai and Oure Cassoni are surreal places. As we ride full speed on our Toyotas across the desert, seeing rebels racing next to us, it seems like I am in a movie. The harshness of the environment quickly dissolves any illusion. I was thirsty every minute I was out there, even though I always had access to water.

I am starting to move back to my own reality, the one I’m used to, one jump at a time—the same way we moved away from it. We are now in Abeche, in a room that has electricity most of the day and running water half of the time. Tomorrow morning we fly to N’Djamena and get to hang out at Le Meridien. It is definitely not a luxury hotel by western standards, but it feels like a five star after spending time in the east of the country.

That same night, we get in to an Air France flight. The seating is cramped , and the food is, well, airline food, but it will feel comfortable, and I will eat everything they give me. It is all relative.

I am going back home. I have the privilege of doing this. I get to see my children again. I miss them so much! I get to eat all that I like again, and the problem is deciding what to eat . What a problem! I go back to not worrying about unpredictable things like rebels, extreme weather, and availability of water. I am truly privileged.

As this trip comes to an end, I again want to challenge myself to find better and different ways to make a positive difference on the people we met. We have to be creative and more daring in our actions. We have very little to lose. They have nothing.

Paz,
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