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As  Blair trolls around Africa on his farewell tour playing dress up with
Colonel Gaddafi, the situation in Darfur continues to worsen.
We shouldn't be beating about the bush - this is genocide. The Sudanese
regime is one of the most brutal and destabilising in the world today.
Some 400,000 Darfuris have perished due to the measures taken against
them by the Government of Sudan and allied militias.
Two and a half years ago, Tony Blair took a stand saying that
'international focus on Darfur will not go away while the situation
remains outstanding'. But that stand was only temporary - for last year,
Salah Gosh - the Sudanese security chief who orchestrates the violence
in Darfur - was twice "welcomed" to this country.
And this wasn't another case of the Government failing to keep track of
who is coming in or out - for he was granted a visa to come and get
medical treatment. What a sickening contrast between the treatment he
got from this country and the treatment he is responsible for dishing
out to hundreds of thousands in Darfur.
Our unwillingness to act on violence in Darfur has assured the
Government of Sudan that it can commit gross violations of human rights
with impunity. The regime in Sudan has played the international
community for fools. Despite promises the African Union troops have not
got to work - and there are still no UN peacekeepers in Darfur.
Taking action on Darfur
So what is to be done? First and foremost, we need to stop the killing.
The AU troops must be deployed. And if we need more leverage - then
we need to get China and Russia fully on board.
We need to stop the Sudan Government bombing Darfur with immediate and
urgent action to assess the feasibility of a verifiable no-fly zone.
We need an immediate and serious extension of the UN arms embargo.
We need to hit those orchestrating the violence where it hurts: impose travel
bans and asset freezes on all the individuals named in the UN's own
Commission of Inquiry and Panel of Experts reports and those named by the
International Criminal Court.
We also need to stop the flow of money that Khartoum needs to pay for all
this genocide - which means the UK and EU targeting those companies that
are providing Sudan with revenue, arms and diplomatic cover.
What we can do for Darfur
But we shouldn't just wait for others to act. There are actions all us
individuals can and should take too, from lobbying some of the key
decision makers for the above to publicising the need for action and
indeed putting pressure on other bodies - such as local councils - which
may have funds invested with firms that are supporting the Sudanese
regime.
So  whilst I am hoping to be called to speak in a debate in Parliament on
Sudan (which will have taken place by the time you read this), I also
want to set up a local "Darfur Group" to campaign for effective action
at local, national and international levels.
Just go back a moment and re-read the figure I gave near the start of
this article: 400,000 killed in Darfur. Exact population figures are
(unsurprisingly) hard to get, but Darfur's population is in the six to
seven million range. The UK's population is around 60 million. So the
equivalent would be something approaching 4,000,000 people being killed
in the UK - or around 13,000 to 14,000 just in Haringey.
Those numbers are almost unbelievably large and completely dwarf
anything like the 9/11 tragedy (where New York's official death toll was
just short of 3,000).
That's why thinking about just raising the issue (again) in Parliament
seems somehow quite inadequate. I am determined to campaign actively
with local like-minded people to put pressure on at all levels - on Haringey
Council (to ensure their investments aren't helping sustain the Government in
Khartoum), on our Government, the EU, the UN and any government that can
put pressure on the Sudanese Government to end this murder.
So - get in touch,
let's start a local group, and let's do more for Sudan and chip away at that
awful sense of the meagreness of the UK's response to such monstrous brutality.
If we don't act, who will?
(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007
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The equivalent would be something approaching 4,000,000 people being killed in the UK - or around 13,000 to 14,000 just in Haringey.
