Sudanese Government Intelligence

There is a great concern among those parties interested in bringing help and aid to the suffering people of Darfur that the response of the U.S. may be compromised by the fact that Khartoum is now an "ally" in the global war on terror. As incredible as this assertion may sound when one considers the Sudanese government's past role as a state sponsor of terrorism and Islamic radicalism (they harbored Osama bin Laden for some time), as well as the atrocities perpetrated time and again against its own people, the fact is that when President Bush declared that states must be "either for us, or against us" Khartoum shrewdly decided that it could not afford to count the U.S. as a public enemy in the war on terror.

Sadly, it seems that the War on Terror may, in this regard, bear resemblance to one of the most regrettable aspects of the Cold War: the support (or at least tolerance) of regimes with horrendous human rights records by the U.S. goverment, simply because they offer some strategic interest or potential. It makes me shake my head in despair when I learn of my governments' support for regime's such as Mobutu's in Zaire, a "friendly tyrant" who lived in the most oppulent luxury imaginable while his country was slowly strangled by his megalomaniacal rule. All the while, Mobutu recieved billions in U.S. aid for one sole reason - he could be counted on to oppose Soviet influence.

Today, I see history repeating itself. Sudan has been called the worst dictatorship currently in the world by independent study groups. General Bashir has stated openly since his takeover of power of his intentions to "cleanse" Sudan, and to assure the ascendency of radical Islam. For years, Khartoum waged war against the south, bombing hospitals and schools, raping women, and killing civilians en masse. Today, the litany of horrors continues in Darfur, and while the U.S. has, of course, not supported the genocide directly, it has, by its unwillingness to take action against Khartoum, allowed the killing to continue. This is not acceptable.

Such lack of initiative is unacceptable on moral grounds. Yet even beyond this, if one examines the political logic behind tacit support for Khartoum, the current position must be viewed as untenable. What reliable anti-terrorism intelligence can we possibly hope to gain from a government which calculates the death toll in Darfur to be 9,000, while the rest of the world calculates the loss of life to have topped 200,000? Is any intelligence which such a self-serving, immoral, and duplicitous regime could offer us worth the cost of such complicity, even if we somehow had reason to believe it was reliable?

Christians Targeted in Iraq

Pope Benedict XVI expressed concern last month over what may be considered a mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East, particularly Iraq. In that country, as the world is well aware, violence has been rampant and brutal; what is not so well known is the particularly harsh treatment that has fallen upon Christians in the region.

As in most Muslim countries, Christians in Iraq face constant pressure to convert to Islam. If they do not, they are often targeted for persecution, or, as in Iraq, given the choice of leaving the country or facing death. If they are overly open about their faith or seek to convert a Muslim, they may very likely be killed for “dishonoring the Prophet.” In Iraq, in June, a Catholic priest was kidnapped and later released, while another priest was killed in Mosul. Father Bernardo Cevelera, of AsiaNews, states, “There is a continuing pressure to close Christians in the Middle East in a kind of ghetto.” On July 16, Dutch parliamentarian Joel Voordewind made the claim that a number of Christians in Iraq have been crucified by militants.

Though all Christians are suffering the violence in Iraq, it is understandably most notable among the most numerous group of Christians, the Assyrians. The Assyrian Church is indeed in dire straits. According to the U.N., over half of the 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq before 2003 have fled the country, and many more have fled to quieter northern Iraq.

Cornering the Market

"It's our bodies, our choice." It seems inevitable that men who oppose abortion must hear this retort, or some equivalent argument. I have alway found it incredibly irksome, not to mention ill-founded.

Firstly, let us not forget that once a woman has conceived, she is not responsible for her body alone; whether she is amenable to the facts or not, they remain: there is now another body within her, dependent upon her.

Secondly, since when does a pregnancy concern the woman exclusively? It takes two to bring about that state, and one of the parties is a man. Is he to have no say in the future of a life that was brought into existence by his part as equally as the woman's? If one is still inclined to answer that the decision is the business of the woman exclusively, I must then insist, along the same lines of logic, that women desist in the protesting of war and armed conflict. Is this not the business of men, into which women have inappropriately inserted themselves this past half-century, upsetting the proper millinia-old spheres of gender?

"Ah, but it is the fathers, husbands, and sons of women who fight such wars," one may counter. "Women, being in fact so greatly involved in the business of war, bound by blood, concern, and love to those involved in its events directly, must be permitted to have due influence in these matters." I quite agree, and it is by this same logic that I claim the right of every father to have his voice heard when it comes to the health and future of his unborn son or daughter.

Murder in Turkey

Malatya Province, Turkey. On 18 April of this year, two Turkish Christians, Ugar and Necati, and Tilmann, a German Christian living with his family in Turkey, were brutally tortured and killed at a Bible study they were leading that morning. The killers were five Muslim youths, all under age twenty and members of a tarikat, or group of "faithful believers". To these young men, being faithful believers meant torturing their peaceful, albeit infidel, neighbors for nearly three hours, using knives, guns, ropes, and towels. They recorded their acts via their cell phone cameras, then finally slit the men's throats as police finally arrived on the scene, having been called in by another Christian who realized the men where missing.

Although these murders were particularly gruesome, the persecution and killing of Christians is not uncommon in Turkey. Since 2001, the National Security Council of Turkey has considered evangelical Christians to be a national security threat, thus encouraging popular violence against them. Tarikats are widespread and socially respected. As in the case of April 18, youths are increasingly becoming the perpetrators of these violent acts, often with the consent of proud parents; minors are subject to less harsh legal penalties if convicted, and they also recieve greater public sympathy. It is not surprising that Europeans are wary of allowing Turkey into the EU.

In sharp contrast to the violent "faithfulness" of her husband's murderers, Suzanne, the wife of Tilmann and mother of their three children, offered a different type of faithful devotion. Speaking to reporters, she said of the killers, "Oh, God, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Central African Republic: What's New?

Bangui, CAR. The global community by now is well aware of the situation in Darfur, Sudan; or, at least, they recognize the name, and could probably identify it as a troubled spot. But what if it was revealed that people were actually fleeing into Darfur as refugess from another troubled spot in Africa? Insane? Perhaps, but true.

Refugees are seeking asylum from the civil war that has been on-going in the neighboring state of Central African Republic since 2004. The war consists of the rebel group "Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy," which is seeking to regain power that was lost in a coup in 2003, though the leader of that coup, Francois Bozize, has since been declared president via peaceful elections held in 2005.

Althoug there have been some promising developments recently, such as the defection of a number of rebels (including a high-ranking officer) to the government army, the U.S. State Department continues to issue a travel warning to all U.S. citizens in the area; violence continues to compound the situation in CAR, already desperate due to a failing economy and languishing social services. As always, it is the common people who suffer most; so what's new in Africa?