Finally

So it looks like President Bush is finally doing something about the grave situation in the Sudan. This situation has been increasingly devastating. If you're not familiar, a quick summary: For over three years, a governent backed militia known as the Janjaweed (translates to "man with a gun on a horse") has been slaughtering, raping, starving and displacing people. A secret Arab/Muslim extremist group began forming in the 80s, attacking non-arab Africans with the intention to achieve Arab supremacy. The government did not become involved until non-arab Africans began to unite and fight against these attacks. Now, the Janjaweed continues to terrorize the people of this western part of Sudan known as Darfur. Over 400,000 have been killed. 3.5 million have been displaced and now are in refugee camps completely dependent on humanitarian aid. While this sutuation has been depicted at times as Muslims against non-Muslims, this is not exactly the case because there are Muslims on both sides of the confict which has spread into neighboring countries, Chad and the Central African Republic. Arguably, there has not been a humanitarian crisis this severe since the situation in Rwanda.

OK, so it's really bad - we're on the same page now.

The Bush administration has finally decided to act. Here is an article from www.savedarfur.org explaining the recent pledge.

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President Bush ordered new U.S. economic sanctions Tuesday to pressure Sudan's government to halt the bloodshed in Darfur that the administration has condemned as genocide. ''I promise this to the people of Darfur: the United States will not avert our eyes from a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world,'' the president said. The sanctions target government-run companies involved in Sudan's oil industry, and three individuals, including a rebel leader suspected of being involved in the violence in Darfur. ''For too long the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder and rape of innocent civilians,'' the president said. ''My administration has called these actions by their rightful name: genocide. ''The world has a responsibility to put an end to it,'' Bush said. Beyond the new U.S. sanctions, Bush directed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to draft a proposed U.N. resolution to strengthen international pressure on the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir. Save Darfur Coalition director David Rubenstein welcomed the sanctions, but said they might be too little, too late. ''President Bush must not give further months to determine whether these outlined measures work -- the Darfuri people don't have that much time,'' he said. ''The president must set a short and firm deadline for fundamental changes in Sudanese behavior, and prepare now to implement immediately further measures should Khartoum continue to stonewall.'' Bush said he delayed imposing sanctions last month to allow more time for diplomacy, but that al-Bashir has continued to make empty promises of cooperation while obstructing international efforts to end the crisis. Over the weekend, however, al-Bashir reiterated his opposition to the deployment of a 22,000-strong joint U.N.-AU force, saying he would only allow a larger African force with technical and logistical support from the United Nations. The new sanctions target 31 companies to be barred from the U.S. banking system. Thirty of the companies are controlled by the government of Sudan; the other one is suspected of shipping arms to Darfur, the officials said. Meanwhile, Liu Guijin, China's new troubleshooter on Africa, defended Chinese investment in Sudan Tuesday as a better way to stop the bloodshed rather than the sanctions advocated by the U.S. and other Western governments. ''I didn't see a desperate scenario of people dying of hunger,'' Liu said at a media briefing. Rather, he said, people in Darfur thanked him for the Chinese government's help in building dams and providing water supply equipment.
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www.savedarfur.org has been organizing people toward activism with various online/email campaigns. I have personally sent many emails at the web site's request to the President to urge him to act. Maybe we're actually getting some results. Sign up at www.savedarfur.org to get involved and get regular updates.