Child Soldiers in Sudan: The WAR CHILD Emmmanuel Jal

A documentary exploring the Sudanese civil war which erupted in 1983-- through the eyes of a hip-hop star who was forced to fight as a child. This 2008 film begins with some history: The Arab-dominated government of the north fought against the Christian and Animist rebels of the south. Two Million died; four Million were displaced. During the two decades of the war, over 10,000 child soldiers were used. Here is a site about Jal's movement for peace: iamboigenius we-want-peace

[ How to force children to kill:

A  most horrifying depiction,

 which deepened my understanding of the psychological aspects

 of this unbearable crime --occurred 

when i watched the Movie,

Blood Diamonds. I am still traumatized whenever i think of it. ]

War Child  shows how "his powerful songs reveal his very complex feelings about one of the world's overlooked tragedies"   -- The former first lady of southern Sudan, Garang, said of Emmanuel, "There are people fighting who are using the guns; there are people fighting who are using the songs...

 

HERE is a 52 minute docu on youtube.

HERE is a Wiki page on Emmanuel Jal.

And HERE IS a history of the Sudanese lost boys:

• "Experts say they are the most badly war-traumatized children ever examined..."
 

We Want Peace: http://www.we-want-peace.com/

As i watch this documentary, it is a constant back and forth of hope/forgivness and overwhelming psychological pain/bitterness.

Jal describes how things began-the arab government came and destroyed everything;

Burnt the fields.

killed the cattle, kill the families.

Mass murders.

His village saw food aid falling from the sky--

he remembers "we would run for it and find big bags which said, 'USA' and in my heart i said one day i would go to America..."

 

 (Regarding America, he was so impressed with how we can criticize the President..."the way people make fun of george bush, he doesn't mind...if you do that in africa, you are asking to die...")

"My prayer is for the day when our leaders are more willing to serve their people, than to be served..."

He spoke of the great hunger they endured,

 that even other people started to smell like food so he prayed to Jesus to bring food.

He does not pull punches as he describes the various battles, exterior and interior, which he and his young friends encountered and endured.

 The power in a gun.

 The rapes of little girls. Not one-time events. The desperation to eat. 

 They remain grateful to God "for being lifted up" out of misery.

"I have so many scars... the internal injuries..."--the source of his music today.

"I've been a refugee all my life..."  haunted by a terrible memory re: father issues...

His prayer was: "God, if there is anything You can do,

do not let my grandmother die before i can become a Blessing to her..." His return to her in Sudan--hearing her speak, she seemed like every women, like my grandmother...

What do you remember from 1980-2000 regarding Sudan? What did you do, or your church, or your neighborhood, or your government? (What did the U.N. do?)

"...Reinhardt speaks about Sudan by James Nachtwey throughout the writing. He seems to end at a negative place from my reading, (though I think I misunderstood since the photo made the cut in the show). In the photograph, a famine-emaciated man accepts hydration salts from a disembodied hand with reaches into the frame from a place close to the photographer. This works to equate the act of viewing the photograph with the act of offering assistance. Reinhardt suggests that this creates a “confused humanitarianism, in which the ‘intention is to acknowledge the outcast as a human being,’ while the ‘effect is to treat the human being as an outcast ‘”[32].

from this fascinating site

More about Sudan:

In Fall 2009

 K-State brought Simon Deng to campus, who told his story: HERE

excerpt ..." A former child slave and human rights activist from Sudan spoke to hundreds of students at the K-State Student Union Tuesday night. Simon Deng, who has spoken before the United Nations, was the first guest in this year's Lou Douglas Lecture Series. Deng's speech focused on his experience as a slave, the countless injustices and murders committed by the Sudanese government against its people and the need for people to act as the voice for victims of genocide and human rights violations who have no voice of their own.

Deng became a slave at the age of nine when he was abducted by an Arab neighbor and taken to northern Sudan where he was given to an Arab family as "a gift." Deng's traumatic enslavement lasted three and a half years. Despite being a child, he was forced to work continually and was frequently required to do things no child should: He only could eat table scraps left after the family had eaten, was beaten regularly and was forced to sleep in a barn with the family's animals.

"I was constantly kept under terror, being tortured even though I'd done nothing wrong," Deng said. "That is what it means when I talk about I'm being robbed of my dignity as a human being. I'm turned into a piece of property."

 i think at the time, Sam Brownback and Al sharpton were the only 2 suits pushing for darfur in wsh dc.

i was looking for simon deng stuff and found this peice of a letter i'd written:

"... to use a Simon Deng analogy, where is the World's Lifeguard?

that is, the one who will spring to action

 in emergencies, without all the committees' delays and debating sanctions etc while people die?--that was to be the united nations - now corrupt and dysfunctional. thousands of voices need to be lifted for change and action. Kansans have a politician, sam brownback, who has worked hard in this area. he should be deluged with requests to hammer on this. especially since

he is leaving the senate anyway

--push Sam push!!...

i obviously

 never finished that draft... the

waxing and waning of energy, urgency, and sloth ...

that's why you need a really fine dayplanner.

 Darfur: Twenty Years of War and Genocide in Sudan 

Book Event

The photo of a little Sudanese girl crawling toward a food camp.

More:

http://www.pretorianews.co.za/horror-and-uncertainty-on-sudan-s-border-1.1088622

http://article.wn.com/view/2006/10/27/Headtohead_Darfur_situation/

 http://article.wn.com/view/2010/02/03/Over_4_million_people_in_need_of_food_assistance_in_southern/

More regarding AFRICA click HERE

Invisible Children Invisible No More? Joseph Kony 2012 Movement Video

 The Whole World may be what it takes to push apparent pure evil from power. [Watch the Kony 2012 video at bottom of this post.) The United Nations and the Grown-ups in charge sure don't seem to do it. K-State brought Invisible Children to speak some time ago. Very Powerful.
The INSANE treatment of women, of children, of peaceful men in Congo, in the Sudan, in Somalia, is beyond any reason.

Thank you to those making an effort to oust joseph kony.

Of course, the government also rose to power using evil vile tactics.
some differing views on the movement:
from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/08/kony-2012-what-s-the-story
excerpt "...Support for the campaign to end the conflict in the country this year is spreading.
We've reported on the video here:

Kony stands accused of overseeing the systematic kidnapping of countless African children; brainwashing the boys into fighting for him, turning the girls into sex slaves and killing those who don't comply. His forces are believed to have slaughtered tens of thousands of people and are known for hacking the lips off their victims. Kony has been wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2005 on charges that include crimes against humanity. He has been living in the bush outside of Uganda since that time.
The US designated the LRA a terrorist group after September 11, and in 2008 began actively supporting the Ugandan military. In October the president deployed 100 combat-equipped troops – mostly Special Operations Forces – to Uganda to advise regional military units in capturing or killing Kony.

But it has also attracted criticisms: there are questions about the the charity's funding, it's targeting of American leaders instead of African leaders to instigate change and accusations that it is failing to criticise the Ugandan government, with its poor human rights record.
This Tumblr page is collecting criticisms of the project and this blog sums up a lot of those questions... "

from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-deibert/joseph-kony-2012-children_b_1327417.html
excerpt:
"Kony is a grotesque war criminal, to be sure, but the Ugandan government currently in power also came to power through the use of kadogo (child soldiers) and fought alongside militias employing child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, something that Invisible Children seem wilfully ignorant of.

The conflict in Acholi -- the ancestral homeland of the ethnic group who stretch across northern Uganda and southern Sudan -- has its roots in Uganda's history of dictatorship and political turmoil. A large number of soldiers serving in the government of dictator Milton Obote (who ruled Uganda from 1966 to 1971 and then again from 1980 to 1985) came from across northern Uganda, with the Acholis being particularly well represented, even though Obote himself hailed from the Lango ethnic group. When Obote was overthrown by his own military commanders, an ethnic Acholi, General Tito Okello, became president for six chaotic months until Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army took over. Museveni became president, and has since remained so, via elections -- some legitimate, some deeply flawed.
Upon taking power, the Museveni government launched a brutal search and destroy mission against former government soldiers throughout the north, which swept up many ordinary Acholi in its wake. Some Acholi began mobilizing to defend themselves, first under the banner of the Uganda People's Democratic Army (largely made up of former soldiers) and then the Holy Spirit Movement."

http://invisiblechildrennewpaltz.wordpress.com/

and, you Gotta read the story on this blog post: This is worth the click:
http://www.pratanacoffeetalk.com/2011/08/sam-childers-hunt-for-joseph-kony-video.html

The author of this blog speaks with a man hunting Joseph Kuny. excerpt:
"The Lord’s Resistance Army—a murderous rebel group made up mostly of Ugandans, and led by a crazed warlord named Joseph Kony—today ranges across the jungles and scrubland of Uganda, Congo, Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Its ranks may be depleted, but the remnant deals death wherever it goes. U.S.-backed military forces are trying to hunt Kony down.

 So is a Pennsylvania-based evangelical preacher named Sam Childers—a biker and former drug dealer who has found his calling in this quest for a killer. Last year the author joined Childers as he continued his hunt for Kony..."

Charles Taylor, Monster: the trial.

This is a post simply to note the wheels of occasional justice grinding along, at least enough to chronicle a bit of the grotesque, insane, diabolical, putrance that was manifested by the once president of Liberia.
Read the Kansas City Star column by Mary Sanchez,--"A butcher and a tyrant finally called to account"
excerpt: "...

The level of cruelty aided and abetted by Taylor is difficult to fathom.
He once ran under the campaign slogan “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him anyway.”

Taylor is the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes since World War II. ...

So many of the world’s monsters have gone to their graves having escaped accountability — Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic, to name a few. Yet others accused or suspected of human rights abuses are very much alive; Baby Doc Duvalier of Haiti and Efrain Rios Montt of Guatemala readily come to mind. As does Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, who is wanted for genocide in Darfur. Perhaps someday he too will wind up at The Hague.

"...A rape victim told of being forced to carry a sack with the severed heads of relatives, including her two children.
Decapitations were common.
The heads would sometimes be placed on stakes, threats to induce compliance with slave labor in the diamond mines.
 Others told of witnessing soldiers ordering lineups of people who were to have their limbs cut off.
Children did much of the killing, often drugged-induced so they would willingly murder their own families or nearby villagers..."

now you tell me, how is a woman to live after that?
How does one live after that??!

Links with pictures, timelines, etc. here:

http://storify.com/Indepthafrica/charles-taylor-war-crimes-verdict-live

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/en/2012/05/30/Charles%20Taylor%20sentenced%20to%2050%20years.aspx

"Taylor is the former president of Liberia, who engineered his election into office after prevailing in the civil war he had instigated. He also masterminded the massacres of Sierra Leone’s civil war, which killed 50,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left much of the county’s population mutilated — hands, feet and legs hacked off by rebels."  mary Sanchez

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sierraleone/9226697/Charles-Taylor-Sierra-Leone-and-the-victims.html

video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vdbzt-GJrM

more on the general issue of corrupt power:
http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/child-soldiers-in-sudan-war-child.html

http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/invisible-children-coming-to-k-state.html

http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/little-boys-little-girls-women-men-and.html

Oh, Sudan.

   Oh,    Sudan... click HERE.

 But first,

     --- remember Congo?

sadness....

Never justice.

Still waiting. 

My 

     Still Waiting for Justice

List

 is hundreds of items long....

Just in my own country.

........This decade....

Somalia, Norway, the Sudan and Football. Weiner's Boners, Charlie's Rants and Lindsay's Drinks. What is Your News?

Do not view this post if you have a weak heart. You are warned.

I am spoiled.

It is hot, 105 today.

I saw a man wearing breezy shorts and a t-shirt

walking on the sweltering campus today;

his wife 

was wrapped up

in many layers of a dark blue canvas burka.

I fell into a vicarious heat swoon

but resisted violence.

Joseph KONY 2012 HERE                                   

There is a famine

of such intensity that women stagger many many miles

through africa's heat

with their children to find something, anything to eat or drink-

while men with weapons ride around shooting and assaulting people.

i thought congo was the last straw.  I thought Sudan Child Soldiers broke my heart all the way. 

Could YOU DO THIS?

african famine summary

and current video watch HERE

or is there a Non-Interference Clause?

Y'Know, survival of the fittest and all that?

well, is it true or not?

If there was a “theory of evolution” which was really pure math, pure numbers, pure physics, pure random, random bits of flotsam and jetsam floating, churning about, evolving into ever-more complex astounding collections of moving- parts-machines, like Data on Startrek

propagation of the genes -Dude,  hitler a total genius the lodestar of evolution?

that is, no spirit no soul no personality no consciousness of the self, no rightwrong No Thing is of value except the passing of material and the length of time it takes to change and the improbability of random chance that This long neck of the giraffe which reaches for plants also does not kill it when it drinks, head down, in the pond; then,

When does the self become the self? there would be no self.

I   I    I I  I'm

too sexy to wear socks

hold on here's my good side

american men's olympic skater

grammy winner

choose to fail

elected servant

vanity

getting away with it:

His   and   Hers

when animals attack

YAY football is gonna be OK!

celebrity

yeah burkas for advertising.

Think about it?

Oh Michael Vick

more on gypsy HERE

when

 is it time to help?

when time to step up?

when is it too late?

do not proceed.

what do we do with Beauty?

do not proceed.

those are knives
 stuck in the animal on purpose.

Oh Yeah.
FAMINE.

"A well nourished Sudanese man steals maize from a starving child during a food distribution at the Medecins Sans Frontieres feeding centre in Ajiep, southern Sudan. from Tom Stoddart's iWitness Gallery"

from http://zojojojo.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/dear-tv-watchers/

(and if famine is not enough, how about the

UTTER corruption of leaders;

beatings, murder, and destruction of the land

 all at the expense of the people.

for example, POV--Zimbabwe, mugabe, and the

brutal idi amin

Rule of Law: watch the Mike Campbell case

which premiered tonight http://www.pbs.org/pov/blog/2011/07/critics_mugabe_and_the_white_african.php

Famine.

HERE i found this pic:

how to jar myself from my complacency?

HOW TO JAR MYSELF FROM MY COMPLACENCY??

modern slavery

noninterference  clause?

this sudanese girl was crawling to a feeding station

what does it mean to have nothing?

what if it is my brother there?

this tiny child is featured in the film linked at top of post.

 death camps and nazi twin studies

There are many knds of famine

human compassion?

what if my mother had no help?

what if there were no clothes or food or water for ME?

Children desperate for water, for food...

time passes

What is it about Jesus?

The Associated Press Sunday, July 31, 2011

Somali women fleeing famine preyed on by rapists


"Refugee Barwago Mohamud huddles silently beneath a few blankets stretched over sticks at night, fearing for her life after a neighbor was raped, and a naked woman who had been kidnapped and gang-raped for three days in front of her terrified children was delivered to the medical tent next door.
Only a few hundred feet away stands a newly built camp with a police station, toilet blocks and schools. Neat thornbush fences in the camp separate residential areas for families to move into. But all the facilities are empty. The Kenyan government is refusing to open the new Ifo 2 facility as part of the world's biggest refugee camp, Dadaab, saying the desperate Somali refugees flowing into the country are a security risk.

But for the women and children who fled war and famine and are now forced to build their shelters farther and farther away from the center of the camps, the extension would be a refuge from the armed men who prowl the bush at night. Some may be deserters from Somali forces across the border; others are Kenyan bandits who rob and gang-rape the stream of refugees fleeing the famine in Somalia.
The contrast between the squalid, insecure outskirts of the sprawling camp and the empty, silent facilities shows how regional politics can interfere with aid efforts, causing millions of dollars to be wasted and leaving women and children vulnerable to attack.

"What can we do?" Mohamud asked. "Our neighbors have been raped at night. We are afraid. Some boys are helping watch at night in case of trouble but they also work during the day."

Mohamud and eight other women and girls share their rickety shelter on the outskirts of Dadaab, a camp designed for 90,000 people which now houses around 440,000 refugees. Almost all are from war-ravaged Somalia. Some have been here for more than 20 years, when the country first collapsed into anarchy. But now more than 1,000 are arriving daily, fleeing fighting or hunger.
The U.N. said this month that at least two regions in Somalia are suffering from famine and 11.3 million people in the Horn of Africa need aid.

To help ease the overcrowding, international donors including the U.S. and European Union spent $16 million building the Ifo 2 extension, which could house 40,000 people. But it is still unclear when or if the Kenyan government will open it.
Research shows that women are often attacked when they leave their families to go to the bathroom or gather firewood. When Mohamud's three young daughters need to relieve themselves, she insists on going with them, and takes the only torch the nine women share between them. She has no shoes, so she walks barefoot over the thorny ground.

"Women express a lot of fear about going to the bush. They say there are men with guns there," said Sinead Murray, an aid worker with the International Rescue Committee. Her organization has recorded a spike in rapes and attempted rape. Since the beginning of June, they have had double the number of attacks reported from January-May.
"More and more women are coming forward who have been raped," said Murray, who said consultations with communities show the vast majority of rapes go unreported. Women may not know where to seek help, or fear ostracism by their community.
They are women like Sahan, who was on a bus coming over from Somalia when four gunmen stopped the vehicle. The women were ordered off and raped in the bush for three hours. She has not reported the rape because she was living far away from any medical services on the outskirts of the camp and did not want to leave her family. She asked her last name not be used to protect her privacy.

A reporter for The Associated Press drove around the newly constructed area in Dadaab and found rows of new toilet blocks standing amid the rows of empty lots, where women could more safely go to the bathroom and easily walk to police or medical services if they were attacked.

The Ifo 2 camp also houses a freshly painted primary and secondary school, police station, and headquarters for aid organizations ranging from Handicap International to the Norwegian Refugee Council padlocked shut. A medical facility for Doctors Without Borders lay half-built after aid workers said they were told to stop building early this year. The group now treats people in nearby tents instead.

More than two weeks ago, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga visited Dadaab and said the Ifo 2 extension would open in 10 days. On Saturday, Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said that no decision had yet been reached.
Kenyan officials have said that they consider the influx of Somalis a security risk because part of the country is held by al-Qaida linked rebels. They also fear that if they provide the schools and medical care lacking in Somalia, families will simply move to Kenya to get better services. The Kenyans want aid agencies to deliver food in Somalia instead but charities face attack by bandits and harassment by Kenyan officials at the border.
But Somalis say they have no other choice than to flee their homes because they will be killed by gunmen or starve to death if they stay at home.
In the meantime, the refugees keep coming as the hunger crisis worsens but there is nowhere for them to go. The camps are full to bursting, and medical staff are setting up tents to treat new arrivals. Women and their children are being forced farther out, away from services and security. Aid agencies are appealing for more donations, unable to use the facilities they built. And Mohamud, whose door is only a blanket draped on a stick, keeps her daughters close and dreads each sunset.
"We are afraid," she said again, as her 13-year-old daughter played in the dirt in front of her. "Maybe they will come back. But we have nowhere else to go."

mommy, do i need some work done?