Darfur Hunger Strike Day 22: Final farewell

My dear brothers and sisters around the world. As noted below I've been away from the 24 h/day Sudan Embassy Darfur Hunger strike for more than a day now to deal with a wrongful arrest that seems to be dropped. This has given me access to computer that I'll not have on the sidewalk of the Embassy. I expect this is my final goodbye to you as I'll spend what is left of my body trying to thaw el-Bashir's heart on his Embassy sidewalk.

You still don't see it. Saving Darfur is about saving your world. Darfur is a mortal wound on the humanity of your Soul, and the Soul of your global brothers and sisters. Leaving it un-Rescued and un-Restored is bleeding away from you whatever bit of Heart / Humanity / Sanity you've had left in this cesspool / toxic dump of a selfish world.

Your Heart will not survive much more of this. You need to get off of your death-bed now. Draw on your Heart. Through exercise it will regain strength - quickly.

Otherwise, you have once and for all lost planet earth to the end times. You will give Living Hell to your children.

May God help you.

Your loving brother forever, Start Loving

Darfur Hunger Strike at Sudan Embassy Day 21

It seems that the January 8th arrest for Viggiling for Darfur was "no papered." All morning today was spent going from room to room, District Court, Superior Court... in DC looking for the arraignment location I had been told to be at 9am. No records. No paperwork. No filing. Nothing in the computer of any form that anyone can find.

Tomorrow I expect to resume my final days on planet earth in front of the Sudan Embassy on Hunger Strike for Darfur. The road visibility, drive-by, if fabulous there in Mass. Ave by Dupont Circle. I am there with two Darfur Posters and I meditate/pray, read the Bible or speak to the one or two folks that stop to talk each day.

Thomas and Ellen bring me water each day. They are angels - family - fellow fighters but for slightly different causes.

If an iceberg is bearing down on your town, the only hope to save the town and its inhabitants is to melt the iceberg, and all you have is one match, and there are just a few days left... WHAT DO YOU DO?

Darfur Hunger Strike Day 20

This is my first night not at the embassy since the 13th. I am tonight with friends so I can be at what I'm told is an arraignment for the heinous arrest at the White House by an out of his mind, bully police officer. My religion, Loving, my Master being Jesus forbids going to "Law." I am not going for the purpose of winning or losing, but rather to talk to my brother an try to bring him to his senses.

I find the Sudan Embassy Darfur Hunger Strike to the Death to be utterly right, and utterly sacred. Someone has got to start the giving-our-lives for our Darfur family. I am overjoyed to try. Because of the sacred nature of this campaign I was going to blow off this date, but then I could be picked up and jailed for blowing it off. I hope this is just an arraignment tomorrow. If not I expect my demise to be greatly accelerated. They would force feed me in prison to stop the hunger strike. But through noncopperation with the evil of their inhumane treatment I'd probable wind up in solitary for a week and by discontinuing liquids I can carry the strike through to completion as I've promised my brother el-Bashir that I would.

If all goes well tomorrow morning I expect to be back at the Embassy 24/7 on the Darfur Hunger Strike until my heart stops somewhere's around 20-40 days from now.

There is much on this experience at another blog: http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/

Darfur Hunger Striker's Letter to President el-Bashir

March 13, 2007

President el-Bashier
Country of Sudan, Africa, Human Family

Dear brother,

I mourn to the point of death for your mutilated humanity / the “death” of your Soul, of your heart. I mourn for the torment, atrocity the Hell on Earth you have created as the result for my brothers and sisters in Darfur.

I love you my brother. You are no better or worse than I. You are no more to blame for who you are than I am for who I am.

But I am to blame if I do not do whatever I am able with my life to bring you back to your humanity, your sanity, your Divine Self.

I'm a poor student of life but everything I have learned in life* launches me on a course. This is my 13th day of Hunger Strike (60 in the last 9 months; 134 days of Vigil at the White House), intended to be Ransom for the restoration of your Humanity, for your Soul and for the salvation of my dear brothers and sisters in Darfur.

Today by noon I hope to be in front of your Embassy in Washington delivering this letter. I intend to continue my water only hunger strike until it is clear to me that your Heart has thawed toward your family of Darfur. I believe I am prepared to let the hardheartedness that is exterminating Darfuries exterminate myself as well in the hopes that one more body might help you see.

My brother, you are going down in history and in our Father's eyes as a butcher of humanity along side of Hitler, Bush, Cheney, the Zionists and Pol Pot. My brother, it is not too late. You need only turn from your head, from endless dialog, you need only turn to your Heart, the domain of our Father. Your heart, our Father will tell you what to do.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Your loving brother forever,

Start Loving
Sudan Embassy Sidewalk (until arrested or expired I expect.)
2210 Mass. Ave NW
Washington, DC

http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/

Press release attached: http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/2007/03/press-release-darfur-hunger-strike.html

PRESS RELEASE: Darfur Hunger Strike Moves to Sudan Embassy 24 Hours Per Day

Darfur Hunger Strike Moves to Sudan Embassy 24 Hours Per Day Until el-Bashir Regains His Humanity

Washington, DC March 12, 2007 Darfur Hunger Strike day thirteen moves to the Sudan Embassy on Tuesday, March 13, where the striker intends to remain until Sudan President el-Bashir regains his humanity and brings full and generous protection, relief and restoration to his tortured Darfur family. Start Loving, previously known as Jay McGinley, has attempted to end the Darfur Genocide since May 14, 2006 by vigiling 134 days at and around the White House, accompanying this with 60 days of water-only hunger strike.

Loving, an executive in the computer industry turning around failing organizations most of his adult life, is also a trained psychological counselor and was on the management team of a small retail chain in Philadelphia until May 13, 2006 when he gave up everything to fight nonviolently in DC for his Darfur family.

“I appeal to the heart, to the humanity, to the Immortal Soul of my brother el-Bashir,” said Loving. “Al-Bashir is headed toward a place in history alongside Adolph Hitler, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Zionists and Pol Pot. He has the blood of millions on his hands. I hope to give my life, if that is required, in an attempt to awaken his heart in time to save my brother and some of our Darfur brothers and sisters. I hope to find the heroism and courage of my blessed brother and sister U.S. Soldiers who willingly give their Lives in Iraq for others, as mistaken as their beliefs may be.”

According to the faith based SaveDarfur.org coalition, “not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter... Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men, women, and children are completely reliant on international aid for survival.”


Loving faces added difficulties in his Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike campaign including a record of arrests for peacefully demonstrating at the Pentagon, Federal Court House and the White House. Despite more than 60 nonviolent, all night vigils in front of the White House acknowledged by the police to be lawful and admirable, in late January of 2007 a rogue police officer, under the cloak of darkness, harassed and then arrested Loving for sitting up under a tree holding Darfur posters; just as Loving had done on the previous nights. Loving's court date for this arrest is March 21st and the Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike will preclude attendance at this hearing.

Loving faces added difficulties in his Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike campaign including a record of arrests for peacefully demonstrating at the Pentagon, Federal Court House and the White House. Despite more than 60 nonviolent, all night vigils in front of the White House acknowledged by the police to be lawful and admirable, in late January of 2007 a rogue police officer, under the cloak of darkness, harassed and then arrested Loving for sitting up under a tree holding Darfur posters; just as Loving had done on the previous nights. Loving's court date for this arrest is March 21st and the Sudan Embassy Hunger Strike will preclude attendance at this hearing.

Additionally, Loving is completely without support or backing for his campaign which will make his campaign more difficult to survive for any significant length of time. On previous strikes Loving has had access to water , bathroom facilities and the protection of Lafayette Park Officers. Additionally, without support Loving has no knowledge or experience to guide him regarding the potential behavior of police. Despite the fact that he will be entirely nonviolent it is unknown what police action may be mounted by the various law enforcement agencies.

“Time is long past “up” for our Darfur family, and for the Soul of my brother el-Bashir” said Loving. “I have no illusion that my efforts will make any difference, but that is not my responsibility. Our Father calls us to be faithful, not successful. As best I can tell Our Father, Humanity, Conscience, Love, whatever you call it demands that we risk everything we have to awaken a Saving Love, Brotherhood, Humanity in a brother, el-Bahsir, in the face of such suffering and atrocity. This is my best attempt.”


Contact:
Start Loving – Man seeking to end Darfur Genocide
Sudan Embassy Sidewalk, 2210 Massachusetts Ave, NW., Washington, DC
start_loving@yahoo.com (expected to be unattended during this Darfur Hunger Strike campaign.
Further information: www.StandWithDarfurWhiteHouseII.blogspot.com (all blogs at “Complete Profile”).
Attachment: Letter to el-Bashir

Darfur Heroics: Prison for Darfur Hunger Striker?

Start Loving, currently on day # 10 of his most recent Darfur Hunger strike (70 days in the last 10 months) may find out March 21st if he will be imprisoned up to 6 months for his Darfur vigil at the White House. Sitting under a tree at 11pm in late January with Posters for Darfur Genocide, Loving was arrested by a rogue police officer Mallott for "camping." All police regulations and behavior the privious 60+ days in that park indicated that Loving was NOT camping, but rather sitting up all night Vigiling for Darfur.

Darfur Hideous: THERE IS NO UN (ONLY INTL. ZOMBIES)

Sudan close to scuttling UN troop deal on DarfurWashington Post, DC - 10 hours agoBashir based his objections, centered mainly on putting the African Union in command and control functions, on the Darfur Peace Agreement in May between one rebel faction and the Khartoum government.

Darfur Hero: Brian Steidle (now with crew)

A former Marine's unfiltered photography leads an American documentary crew into Darfur

Babies with their heads smashed in, run over by a truck. Men castrated and left to bleed to death. Charred corpses of people whose ears had been cut off and eyes gouged out. Villages of 20,000 burned to the ground. In 2005, former U.S. Marine Brian Steidle came back from Darfur having smuggled out these classified photos, which he had taken during his six-month post as an unarmed military observer for the African Union. Initially, there was some interest, sparked by a New York Times piece by Nicholas Kristof in which Steidle's photos were published. He even got to physically hand the photos to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who all but blew him off while thanking him for his dedication.

So, Steidle made the cable news rounds, his mouth set in the thin, grim line of someone who has – in his words – seen things that people shouldn't see. He had proof that the Sudanese government was not only funding the Janjaweed (roughly translated to "devil on a horse," the name for the Arab militia that does the killing and burning and raping of the non-Arab Sudanese) but that government agents were even, in some cases, riding alongside them. He had stories to go along with his photographs, names of children who had died in their mothers' arms. One particularly moved him: a toddler who died from a bullet hole in her side.

But Steidle was vying for the attention of the comfortable American masses in a territory so crowded with misery – not only by our occupation of Iraq and the resulting violence, but also by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and our government's inability to cope with it. Eventually, news people stopped calling, and the documented deaths of what are now more than 400,000 people fell away to make room for round-the-clock coverage of one blond girl, gone missing in Aruba.

It was around this time that Steidle met with Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, who were just wrapping up their last project, a documentary 11 years in the making called The Trials of Darryl Hunt. The filmmakers were initially contacted by Steidle's sister, Gretchen Wallace, who was looking for advice on how to make a documentary about her work in the AIDS crisis in South Africa. After learning what her brother had witnessed in Sudan, Wallace shifted her focus to Darfur, and she and her brother decided to return to the region, this time focusing on the refugee camps. "Annie and Ricki helped us see how compelling a story about Brian as an American witness would be," explains Wallace, who is one of the producers of the film and who has since founded Global Grassroots, the film's nonprofit fiscal sponsor. "They very quickly secured development support from HBO so that we could take a film crew with us."

And so – armed with pens, paper, his sister, a translator, and cinematographer Jerry Risius (Our Brand Is Crisis) – Steidle returned to the refugee camps in Chad, to reconnect with the people he had met while working for the AU. There, they captured what turns out to be the most emotionally powerful footage of the film: a graceful, graying man named Adam Mussa eloquently explaining to Steidle and Wallace how thankful he is for the scant attention [that] his people get from the Americans and asking where the Arab countries are, for he is a Muslim. As Mussa gets up and walks around the corner of a building, Steidle and his sister sit, helpless to do anything but offer their sincere promises they will get this message out to the world. Only then, once Mussa believes [that] he is out of frame, does he allow himself to pause and cry, slumped shoulders shaking, before he continues to walk away, back to the camera.

It is by interspersing moments like this one with more than a thousand of Steidle's devastating photographs that Stern and Sundberg weave a tale that tells more about one guy's struggle with his country's indifference than it does about the conflict in Darfur. "Ultimately, I think that why the film works as an issue-based or educational film is because of Brian's perspective," Sundberg explains. "He's an American everyman to whom, hopefully, people can relate. The only way [that] we could get American investors and audiences to give a [s***] about Africa was through Brian's eyes. He has no agenda; he went to the Sudan for a paycheck and was so horrified by what he found there that he has dedicated his life to the cause."

But in large part, the film's purpose is to engage and educate the American public enough so that people will do something as simple as writing a letter to their senators. "We're really excited to be coming to Texas, because there are incredible student organizations and interfaith groups who have been really behind this issue in Austin, like STAND [Students Taking Action Now: Darfur] and the Genocide Intervention Network," Sundberg says. "Texas is also great for us because one of the biggest things on the books right now is the Sudanese divestment legislation, a great example of an incredibly effective strategy that doesn't necessarily involve sending troops to Darfur."

To learn more about House Bill 667, the divestment legislation in the House of Texas Representatives, see www.sudandivestment.org/texas or come to the launch party of the Helping Other People Everywhere Campaign at Lucky Lounge on Saturday, 5-9:30pm, where Steidle, Wallace, and Sundberg will be in attendance.

Darfur Fun: No amount of lip-service is too much for we citizens to pay

Genocide in Darfur: Will the World Act?
St.Louis Jewishlight.com, MO - Mar 7, 2007
At Washington University last week, a simple and stark message was written in large black letters on white paper plates posted on university bulletin boards on the campus: City of St.

Otherishness - opposite of Selfishness. "Love as I have loved."

Darfur Heroics: Quinnipiac calls for Radical Action`

Lesson from 1960s: Protest Darfur
Quinnipiac Chronicle (subscription), CT
This is a sugar-coated allusion to what is going on in Darfur. It would take over 66 Quinnipiac Universities lined side by side to equal the number of people who have been murdered in the Sudan.

Darfur Heroics!?!? China Pressures Bashir?!?!? Pray.

China uses economic leverage to pressure Sudan on Darfur - US
Sudan Tribune, Sudan
State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the move by Beijing “sends a very strong signal to the Sudanese Government [of Darfur] that the Chinese Government wants to see this AU-UN hybrid force get into Darfur”. McCormack welcomed the step and urged other ...

Darfur Heroics: White House Hunger Strike resumes

Day #5 of the next round of the Darfur Hunger Strike at the White House/DC area. The White House Darfur Vigil holds at 134 days while an injured friend is aided by j. "The question is not will this help Darfur. The question is - can j think of anything more hopeful to do with his life in the face of Darfur Genocide? Not that I've thought of yet," said j.

More Details at www.StandWithDarfurWhiteHouseii.blogspot.com, and http://JesusGodGoodEtcnJay.blogspot.com/

Darfur Heroics: Dr. Saleem Truth to Muslims

Muslim vs Muslim The News - International, Pakistan - 22 hours ago
By Dr Farrukh Saleem

"...Muslims have a long history of killing Muslims. In the eight year Iran-Iraq War, the longest conventional war of the 20th century, a million Muslims were killed by Muslims. In Darfur, Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims have already slaughtered 400,000 Muslims. In 1967, half a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in Nigeria. In 1991, a quarter of a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in Algeria. In Bangladesh, a million Muslims were killed by Muslims. In Afghanistan, half a million Muslims have already been killed by other Muslims, and the killing spree goes on.

Are Muslims preparing to kill even more Muslims? American arms manufacturers are the only ones laughing. Just who are they laughing at?"

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com

For complete article:

Muslim vs Muslim
The News - International, Pakistan - 22 hours ago
In Darfur, Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims have already slaughtered 400000 Muslims. In 1967, half a million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in Nigeria.

Darfur Hero: Awatif Ahmed, Journalist in Darfur

24 year old woman economics graduate in Darfur Awatif Isshag says, "Journalism is a profession of risk," she said matter-of-factly, her voice echoing slightly in the nearly empty room. She also said, "I will fast to get the story [in Darfur]." Ahh, but we here in the states, for Darfur we fast from luxuries and send emails. What do you say to that Ms. Isshag! Washington Post article below.

jay mcginley, Day 3 Darfur Hunger Strike, StandWithDarfurWhiteHouseII.Blogspot.com

In Darfur, a Journalist Branches Out
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page A14

EL FASHER, Sudan, March 3 -- In this dusty market town in northern Darfur, a lucky few with satellite dishes can get news of the war surrounding them from CNN or the BBC. Others rely on a tree.

For the past 10 years, Awatif Ahmed Isshag has handwritten monthly dispatches and commentary about life in El Fasher and hung them on a short, wiry tree that scatters shade along the yellow-sand lane by her house.

Along with advice on how to be a lady, Isshag, a slight 24-year-old with an undergraduate degree in economics, has satirized the local governor and described the suffering of displaced families and gun battles in the markets of El Fasher....
Working in her new office -- a cement-floored, cracked-walled space in a building with faulty wiring -- Isshag dismissed the notion that she was doing anything unusual.

"Journalism is a profession of risk," she said matter-of-factly, her voice echoing slightly in the nearly empty room. She also said, "I will fast to get the story."

Full article: In Darfur, a Journalist Branches Out