Former U. S. Pres. Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Governor of North Darfur, Youssouf Kabir, accompanied by UN Diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, right.Back in July of this year, I circulated an email and article, announcing the creation of a group called, The Elders. Well I woke-up this morning to see, that they are moving forward to try to assist the resolution of peace in Darfur.
Today's action was led by wonderfully honest, to the point of being blunt, outspoken former Pres. Jimmy Carter. Pres. Carter is a man that has spent his days out of office putting his highly principled beliefs, and thoughts into immediate action. I love him for it. What a role model! He never bites his tongue, shoots from the hip, and always hits the target with his bullets of truth.
I'm going to present today's newz first, because it actually
focuses on the region this blog is named after. And that
is the region of the ancient Nubian Civilization of Meroe.
Meroe, the ancient capital was located on a tiny island at the
points where the waters of the Blue and the White Nile converge.
In the future I will share more of what I have received from Cosmic Consciousness about this ancient geographical site.
Meroe is located in the nation now known as Sudan. Meroe is also the source of my title, the name I was given at birth and that I am called here.....Kentke.
Right now, let's step away from the past, and as Michael J. Fox led us....go 'Back to the Future' or present......They are all contained in this moment,... and in this moment, we give our attention to the happenings in a region of the largest country in Africa,.... Darfur.
Following the article is my earlier email, introducing The Elders.
Oct 3, 12:00 PM (ET)By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
KABKABIYA, Sudan (AP) - Former President Carter got in a shouting match Wednesday with Sudanese security services who blocked him from a town in Darfur where he was trying to meet with refugees from the ongoing conflict.
The 83-year-old Carter walked into this highly volatile pro-Sudanese government town to meet refugees too frightened to attend a scheduled meeting at a nearby compound. He was able to make it to a school where he met with one tribal representative and was preparing to go further into the town when Sudanese security officers stopped him.
"You can't go. It's not on the program!" the local security chief, who only gave his first name as Omar, yelled at Carter, who is in Darfur as part of a delegation of respected international figures known as "The Elders."
"We're going to anyway!" an angry Carter retorted as a crowd began to gather. "You don't have the power to stop me."
U.N. officials told Carter's entourage the Sudanese state police could bar his way. Carter's traveling companions, billionaire businessman Richard Branson and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, tried to ease his frustration and his Secret Service detail urged him to get into a car and leave.
"I'll tell President Bashir about this," Carter said, referring to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Carter later agreed to a compromise by which tribal representatives would be brought to him at another location later Wednesday. But the refugee delegates never showed up.
The Darfur conflict began when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed - a charge it denies. More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in four years of violence.
The conflict has also affected Darfur's neighbors, Chad and Central African Republic. On Wednesday, French officials said a force of 3,000 European troops could begin deploying to those countries next month to protect refugees and other civilians caught up in the spillover violence.
One official said the operation would coincide with the start of the long-awaited deployment, expected this month, of a 26,000-member joint African Union-UN force in Darfur itself.
Tensions are running high after rebels overran an AU peacekeeping base in northern Darfur over the weekend, killing 10 in the deadliest attack on the beleaguered force since it arrived in the region three years ago.
Most of the Darfur refugees appeared too frightened to speak to Carter's team in Kabkabiya, a North Darfur town that has long been a stronghold of the pro-government janjaweed militia.
Branson said some refugees had slipped notes in his pockets. "We (are) still suffering from the war as our girls are being raped on a daily basis," read one of the notes, translated from Arabic, that Branson handed to The Associated Press. The note said that on Sept. 26, a group of girls had been raped, and a refugee had also been shot two days ago. Branson said it had been handed over by an ethnic African man.
The visit by "The Elders," which is headed by Nobel Peace laureates Carter and Desmond Tutu, is largely a symbolic move by a host of respected figures to push all sides to make peace.
Tutu led a separate group to a refugee camp in South Darfur, where he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that the joint AU-U.N. force was needed immediately to bolster the overwhelmed African force on the ground and help restore stability to the area.
"It's awful that AMIS (African Mission in Sudan) should be allowed to be here when it is so inadequately equipped - I mean they couldn't evacuate their injured from the camp after the attack because they don't have military helicopters," he said, referring to the rebel attack on the AU base in northern Darfur.
The U.N. mission in Sudan deemed it too dangerous for Carter to visit the refugee camp. Instead, he flew to the World Food Program compound in Kabkabiya, where he was supposed to meet with refugees, many of whom were chased from their homes by militias and government forces. But as the meeting was set to get under way, none of the nongovernment refugee representatives arrived, and Carter decided to walk out into the town to try to talk with them.
"We are in the security field. We're not that flexible," said the security chief, Omar, after the confrontation ended. He said Carter already breached security once by walking to the school and would not be allowed to breach security again.
"This illustrates the challenges that communities and humanitarian workers face in Darfur," said Orla Clinton, spokeswoman for the U.N. Mission in Sudan who witnessed the incident.
Carter later returned to the North Darfur capital of El Fasher and where he was planning to meet with community representatives later Wednesday.
"The Elders" delegation is trying to use their influence at a crucial time - with peace talks in Libya and the deployment of the AU-U.N. peacekeeping force to begin later this month.
Carter said he felt the trip was proving effective. He said al-Bashir told him this week that Sudan has committed $100 million to a fund for Darfur's reconstruction and another $200 million has been pledged by Chinese diplomatic allies.
Carter said the main goal of the three-day visit to Sudan was to seek guarantees for free and fair elections throughout the country in 2009. Observes fear the elections could be postponed and warn this would imperil the fragile peace in southern Sudan and worsen the conflict in Darfur.
The 2009 vote would be the first democratic election in Sudan since al-Bashir came to power in a military and Islamist coup in 1989. Carter said al-Bashir vowed to allow the election to take place during a private meeting between the two in Khartoum.
"If the CPA fails to fulfill its commitment to free and fair elections and democracy in this country, all other efforts will be futile," Carter said, referring to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended 21 years of civil war between the government and Christian and animist rebels in the south.
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Associated Press Writer John Leicester contributed to this report in Paris.
Click this link to see the photos that accompanied the article.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hwDgA5DI3HWtqNkkqqBLcGSr3iCgD8S1PTH00
My email sent 7/27-07:
Lastly, here's an article showing how some senior Statesmen and women might make good use of their knowledge, experience, charisma and I hope (most importently) creative genius. We really need some completley new ways to look at our existence, and then freedom to create completely new responses. If these folks just recycle capitalism and tout the greatness of representative democracy(?), which they all come out of....we'll just be swimmin' in the same ol' swamp.
Kentke
Published on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 by ABC News
Mandela and ‘The Elders’ Aim to Save the World
by Kate Snow
JOHANNESBURG — The Elders, a new alliance made up of an elite group of senior statesmen dedicated to solving thorny global problems, unveiled itself today in Johannesburg.The rollout coincided with founding member Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday.
After a grand entrance, Mandela, the former South African president, announced the rest of the Elders.
The members include Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop emeritus of Capetown; former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and Mohammed Yunus, the Nobel laureate and founder of the Green Bank in Bangladesh.
The group plans to get involved in some of the world’s most pressing problems — climate change, pandemics like AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, violent conflicts.
It was an extraordinary gathering; a who’s who of famous international leaders, with enough emotion to move some of them to tears.
Under a large white futuristic dome, British billionaire Richard Branson and rock star Peter Gabriel, who conceived the idea for the Elders, gathered enough star power to change the world, or at least that’s the hope.
“The structures we have to deal with these problems are often tied down by political, economic and geographic constraints,” Mandela said. The Elders, he argued, will face no such constraints.
Seven years ago, Branson and Gabriel approached Mandela about the Elders idea, and he agreed to help them recruit others. “This group of elders will bring hope and wisdom back into the world,” Branson said. “They’ll play a role in bringing us together.
“Using their collective experience, their moral courage and their ability to rise above the parochial concerns of nations ? they can help make our planet a more peaceful, healthy and equitable place to live, ” Branson said. ” Let us call them ‘global elders,’ not because of their age but because of individual and collective wisdom.”
Calling it “the most extraordinary day” of his life, Gabriel said, “The dream was there might still be a body of people in whom the world could place their trust.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who moderated the event and will serve as its leader, was moved to tears after Gabriel sang an impromptu accapella version of his hit song “Biko,” written about a famous South African political prisoner.
Branson and Gabriel have raised enough money — some $18 million — to fund this group for three years.
Also onboard are names less well known in the United States, including Indian microfinance leader Ela Bhatt; former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland; former Chinese ambassador to the United States Li Zhaoxing.
The group left an empty seat onstage — symbolically — for an elder who was invited, but could not attend because she is under house arrest in Burma, Nobel laureate and human rights advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Mandela and Carter emphasized the group’s ability to talk to anyone without risk.
“We will be able to risk failure in worthy causes, and we will not need to claim credit for any successes that might be achieved,” said Carter.
Carter said the group does not want to step on or interfere with other positive work that nations or organizations are doing but wants to supplement that work.
Several members acknowledged that the actual activities and actions of the group remain to be determined. There are no titles, no ranking of the members. And it is not clear if they will travel as a group, deploy individual members to global hot spots, or simply sit in a room together to develop strategies or assist those who are suffering find help.
But they certainly have high hopes.
“I didn’t like the title “elders,” because I didn’t feel like an elder,” said Yunus to laughter, “but I like the idea.”
Yunus said the world is without direction and he hopes the Elders can provide some direction.
Speaking of the Elders, almost in the way one would describe a cartoon about superheroes, Mandela said, “The Elders can become a fiercely independent and positive force for good.”
Annan added that the group does not “intend to go and take on Darfur or Somalia and resolve it singlehandedly. We don’t have a magic wand,” he said. But he argued that the group could intervene and perhaps force parties to honor agreements.
“There are certain crimes that shame us all,” said Annan. “We all have a responsibility, and I hope the Elders will take the lead in asking the question: What can we do to move the situation forward?
“Sometimes by saying ‘this is enough we can’t take this anymore it must stop,’ we are making a difference,” Annan continued
Mandela and Branson both celebrated birthdays today. At 89, Mandela looked frail. He walked with a cane and Carter helped him to the podium. But once Mandela got there, he stood tall and easily delivered some 10 minutes of remarks.
“He, as you know, walks sedately,” Tutu joked.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
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