The Anti-Genocide Paparazzi Snap Crimes Against Humanity from 300 Miles Up
But the project faces a greater concern than turf-conscious agencies inside and outside government. Regardless of the quality and timeliness of the work and its mediagenic nature, no one with the capacity to make a decisive difference has been willing to do much to prevent or respond to the military aggression of the Khartoum regime and the now well-documented pattern of atrocities that lead from Darfur to South Kordofan. The U.S. State Department has sent an occasional sternly worded letter to Khartoum, but has otherwise taken no concerted public action to stop the atrocities. Similarly, the UN Security Council has been briefed by its own staff about the atrocities, and is well aware of the SSP imagery, but will not take action for a variety of reasons. One reason is that Security Council member China gets six pervent of its oil from the Sudans. Meanwhile, President Bashir and other top Sudanese leaders are accomplished war criminals, unable to leave the country without risking arrest and trial before the International Criminal Court for their activities in Darfur. They have little to lose.
Undeterred, SSP has continued its focus on Sudan. But SSP would also like to see their now-proven methods more widely used — in other countries and focusing on other concerns. “We envision that our model can also be applied to other emerging crises,” Jonathan Hutson of the Enough project told Unbound, “such as exposing terrorist networks in Africa who are poaching endangered species such as elephants and rhinos to fund their activities.”
Meanwhile, a war has erupted in Sudan, as Khartoum has launched what some long time observers describe as a “final solution” against the Nuba people. The Nuba are black Africans who have been targeted by the Arab Islamists who dominate the Khartoum regime. Anglican Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail told me in a 2011 interview that his name was on the death squad’s hit list, and if he had not been out of the country, he would probably be in a mass grave in Kadugli.
“We all belong to one human family, whatever our national, ethnic or political differences,” Andudu (who is living in exile in the U.S.) told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in 2012. “The state-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign is targeting Nuba people, including not only Christians such as the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Sudanese Church of Christ in Kadugli, but also Muslims, including those who worship at the mosque in Kauda, which a SAF [Sudan Armed Forces] fighter plane recently targeted with ten rockets.
“We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be,” Andudu said. “Loving our neighbor requires promoting peace and justice in a world marred by genocidal violence.”
History is full of such stories: the aggressors and the horrors that they bring, and those who stood in solidarity with the victims and survivors. And our time is no different. But in our time, for the first time, unprecedentedly powerful tools have fallen into the hands of people waging peace.
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