What is to be done?

What is to be done?  Bashir is sending 45,000 genocidal PDF to the Nuba Mountains instead of humanitarian assistance!
Five weeks have passed since the SPLM-N signed an agreement with the United Nations, the African Union and the Arab League to send humanitarian assistance to the starving IDPs in Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains.  Moreover, on March 9th and 10th when the SPLM-N leadership met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Ambassador Princeton Lyman, and Haile Menkerios of the United Nations, we expressed our readiness for a humanitarian secession of hostilities whenever the modalities of delivering humanitarian assistance require it.  Since then, the National Congress government in Khartoum is buying time.  They are never short of excuses and promises to the international community that they will sign the agreement separately but nothing has materialized.  They are systematically engaging in mass starvation and scorched earth policies, denying food and mobilizing forces.  It is only General Bashir and General Abdel Rahim, the Minister of Defense, who are directly mobilizing 45,000 genocidal Popular Defense Forces (PDF) from fifteen states of Sudan and sending them hastily to the Nuba Mountains.  These are forces with a known reputation for committing war crimes against civilian populations.  Now the IDPs and more civilians are caught between the new brutal offensive of the genocidal PDF and the rainy season, which will start shortly in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile and it will make it almost impossible for any meaningful humanitarian operations.  The imminent offensive will result as usual in more deaths, injuries, IDPs and refugees.  The question remains, how long will the international community accept Bashir’s empty promises, buying time and mobilizing forces for a new offensive especially when an official of the United Nations recently visited Khartoum and spoke of progress.  Indeed, the only progress is that General Bashir is determined to have prayers in Kauda on the skulls of the civilian population!
We salute and admire thousands of activists and leaders around the world with a real social conscience and in particular, the late Congressman Donald Payne, Congressman Frank Wolf, Congressman Jim McGovern, Congressman John Olver, Congressman Jim Moran, Congressman Al Green, Martin Luther King III, Nick and George Clooney, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, Rev. Franklin Graham, John Prendergast, Baroness Caroline Cox, Dr. Mukesh Kapila and many other leaders who stand with courage to give our people hope that somewhere there are people who really care and are loudly saying, “Never again!”
As time goes on and Khartoum is sending forces and making empty promises, the fundamental question remains, “What is to be done practically to save lives, protect civilians and to stop war crimes and genocide?”
Yasir Arman
Secretary General, SPLM-N
March 19, 2012