Last Thursday, Burma’s most famous comedian, a man named Zarganar was arrested on suspicion of distributing aid to victims of the cyclone following a police search of his house, according to family members.

Zarganar’s arrest coincides with a deliberate attempt by Burma’s ruling Junta to deny the distribution of foreign aid supplies in the wake of the May 2 cyclone which has left an estimated 2.4 million people hungry and homeless.  The government has impeded distribution through excessive bureaucratic red tape, legislative delays, and direct military intervention. Reports have emerged charging military personnel with confiscating supplies from needy villagers and redirecting aid workers to Rangoon.

Other reports have charged the junta with hostility towards international donors. One convoy of US Navy ships loaded with relief supplies left the Burmese coast Thursday after waiting for governmental permission to unload the supplies for more than three weeks. In an e-mail to the AP, Lt. Denver Applehans claims "The [Junta] has done nothing to convince us they intend to reverse their deliberate decision to deny much needed aid to the people of Burma."

While the recent cyclone and ensuing humanitarian crisis have brought Junta hostility to the forefront, this behavior is representative of the multi-decade repressiveness that has characterized Junta rule. With that in mind, some experts believe that the junta has impeded humanitarian efforts in order to prevent foreign media from exposing human rights abuses by the ruling military regime. To learn more about the crisis in Burma visit http://www.genocideintervention.net/educate/crisis/burma.

– Teddy Schlanger, Genocide Intervention Network, Membership Assistant

In a report delivered Tuesday to the UN Security Council, the ICC has expanded its list of suspects charged with crimes against humanity for the atrocities in Darfur. According to lead prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, much of the government of Sudan is responsible for the crimes—he plans to release the names of individual suspects in the the coming weeks.

“There are evidence of a criminal plan based on the mobilization of the whole state apparatus, including the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies, and the justice system,” the report noted.

This announcement comes more than a year after the ICC first indicted its first two suspects for crimes in Darfur. Since then, suspects Ali Kushayb and Humanitarian Affairs Minister of State Ahmad Harun continue to evade arrest and extradition from Sudan with the government making clear it intends to give up neither suspect. The ICC report also outlined many of the obstacles the Sudanese government has utilized to prevent prosecuting Kushayb and Harun.

The Sudanese ambassador to the United Nations responded to the report by calling it “fictitious and vicious” and alleges that the indictments will undermine the peace process in Sudan.

To learn more about the ICC’s involvement in prosecuting crimes against humanity in Darfur, please visit our Darfur education page.

American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is asking you to join them in signing an open letter to President Bush calling on him to not attend he opening cermony of the 2008 Olympics unless China immediately stops sending small arms to Sudan, stops supporting the government of Sudan in the UN Security Council and publicly condemns the killings in Darfur. AJWS believes that the attendance of the President of the United States would implicitly endorse the actions of China, particularly since this would be the first time an American president attended the opening ceremony of the Olympics outside of the United States.

After signing the letter yourself, please forward this link: http://ajws.org/darfurchinaletter to everyone you know and ask them to sign it as well. AJWS’s goal is to gather 25,000 signatures by July 8th and we hope you will help them reach it! Please email mburak@ajws.org for more information.

Anchorage, Alaska is a hotbed of antigenocide activism, led by the self-named “five musketeers”: Amy Kearns, Tamar Shai-Bolkvadze, Shawn Powers, Debbie Bock and Kelley Nixon. These five activists have been leading the Alaska divestment movement, arranging meetings with their legislators, state call in days, rallies, die-ins and more. Most recently, these five and their families have taken Darfur refugees under their wing, helping them adjust to a new city, country and way of life. Pictured here is Debbie’s son, Sam Erickson with his new friend Assim Mohammed Toto of Darfur. We applaud the “five musketeers” for their continued dedication to the anti-genocide movement and for opening their homes and lives to the Darfurian members of their community.

A response by the Government of Sudan (GoS) to the recent joint statement by the presidential candidates on Darfur is typical of the GoS’ attempts to deflect attention from its culpability in Darfur. Reacting to the statement "We Stand United on Sudan" from presidential candidates Clinton, McCain, and Obama regarding Darfur and the CPA, the response makes unsubstantiated, narrow-minded attacks on Save Darfur, the presidential candidates, and rebel groups in Darfur.

In its press release, the GoS attempts to rebut the candidates’ statement that, "There can be no doubt that the Sudanese government is chiefly responsible for the violence and is able to end it." Their response alleges that impartial observers have identified rebel groups as the main source of violence responsible for the genocide in Darfur, coined less strongly by the GoS as "the Humanitarian crisis." Despite repeatedly mentioning these unbiased observers, whose observations contradict most accounts of the situation in Darfur, the GoS fails to cite even one of these sources.

Additionally, the rebuttal cites the implementation of the census and progress towards a nationwide election in 2009 as evidence of the GoS’ good faith efforts to secure a fair and lasting peace in Sudan. While vastly overstating progress towards elections, the response also ignores the inability of the census to account for the approximately 2.5 million displaced Darfurians who will almost certainly be disfranchised if elections do occur in 2009. With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that the GoS’ "over 30 attempts to negotiate with the rebels" have been unsuccessful.

If the government of Sudan wants to find someone guilty of misrepresenting information, it should look no further than the city limits of Khartoum.

-Teddy Schlanger, Genocide Intervention Network, Membership Assistant

STAND is excited to announce that two of its student leaders, former Student Director Scott Warren and former High School National Outreach Coordinator Colin O’Brien, are taking their anti-genocide activism on the ground to Africa, and bringing STAND along with them…

We will be keeping track of Scott and Colin through Weekly News Briefs, weekly calls, and action alerts – and you can keep track of their journey at their blog, aficatrip08.com !

Abyei is an oil-rich region in Sudan which has long been fought over by the Government of Sudan and the Government of South Sudan. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the decades long civil war between the North and the South, established the Abyei Border Commission to decide the fate of the region, and it decided it belonged to the South.
However, the Government of Sudan didn’t recognize the decision, and there has been tension about Abyei ever since. And this past week, there were heavy clashes this past week in Abyei, which caused thousands to flee and aid to be stopped in the region until the UN geared up to bring emergency relief.
Not only did it create a humanitarian crisis, but it created a crisis about long-term peace in Sudan. South Sudanese officials said Sudan was “on the brink of war” and the Sudanese Army was accused of sending more troops to the town and the army of South Sudan begun to build up its troops in response.
Thankfully, officials managed to agree to a truce and an end of build-up of troops, but the peace of Sudan as a whole remains threatened by the event.
This is something all of STAND should be watching if we’re serious about an All-Sudan Solution

STAND has long dedicated its time and energy to ending the genocide in Darfur, and will continue to do so until we bring this crisis to a close. STAND has also in recent months brought its attention to the crisis in Burma. Despite the countries’ many differences, their two conflicts share a similar set of traits, including their violation of the principles of the Responsibility to Protect and the way they manipulate the international community. Here is an excerpt from a great article from the Houston Chronicle that shows the underlying similarities between the crises in Darfur and Burma:

"Friday, Burman’s dictatorship officially put the death toll at 78,000, with another 56,000 missing. Western governments and media argued 100,000 dead might be a better figure, once the statisticians account for casualties caused by disease and displacement.

Add "delay" to the disease and displacement — in the case of Burma, delay caused by a dictatorship resisting aid efforts (most from Western nations) and emergency supplies.

Burma’s regime is pursuing a modified "Darfur strategy," at least the Darfur political strategy as pursued by Sudan’s dictatorship in Khartoum. For the last three years, the Sudanese government has been resisting, thwarting, dodging and blocking international relief and peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, carefully relenting — by an inch or two — when the public and economic pressure reaches a momentary crescendo.

The Burmese junta knows the script."

UNAMID, the joint United Nations – African Union peacekeeping force on the ground in Darfur currently has only 9,000 of the 26,000 mandated troops. It’s up to President Bush to Enforce UNAMID, and it’s up to us to make sure he does!

Join our partner, the Save Darfur Coalition, in taking action to tell President Bush to Enforce UNAMID now! Be sure to check out what President Bush can do to stop genocide on our website!