Not On Our Watch: Save Darfur

This next quarter's gift will be given to Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond / Save Darfur.

I received the book Not On Our Watch by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast for Christmas (yes, I'm strange as it was on my list but everyone should read this book) and started reading it almost immediately. It made me so mad, angry, sad and yet thankful that there are people out there telling the story from the front lines. But the one passage that goes through my head over and over is that the Janjaweed rebels take the babies, the little helpless babies, from their mothers and throw them on a huge bonfire and let the mother watch as her baby burns and cries to her. It makes me tear up just to think about that scene ..happening today, right now, not years and years ago. We've got to make a difference. We have got to make a positive change and help these people. So this quarter's profits are going to Save Darfur (www.savedarfur.org).

For a little back ground:
Responding to a rebellion in 2003, the regime of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and its allied militia, known as the Janjaweed, launched a campaign of destruction against the civilian population of ethnic groups identified with the rebels. They wiped out entire villages, destroyed food and water supplies, stole livestock and systematically murdered, tortured and raped civilians. The Sudanese government's genocidal, scorched earth campaign has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives through direct violence, disease and starvation, and continues to destabilize the region. Millions have fled their homes and live in dangerous camps in Darfur, and hundreds of thousands are refugees in neighboring Chad. Violence continues today. Ultimately, the fate of the Darfuri people depends on establishing a lasting and just peace in all of Sudan and in the region.