U.S. and European Media

January 9 , 2008

Associated Press: Sudanese Soldiers Fire on U.N. Peacekeepers in Darfur. Sudanese soldiers shot at a convoy of United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur, critically wounding a local driver and destroying a fuel tanker barely a week into the force’s new mission in the region, United Nations officials said Tuesday. South African peacekeepers protecting the convoy did not return fire, and United Nations troops suffered no casualties, officials said. The attack was the latest challenge for the United Nations force, which has been heralded by the international community as having the ability to quell the violence in Darfur, though it took the field with only a fraction of the anticipated troops. The United Nations condemned the attack, which occurred late Monday, and said it had protested to the Sudanese government that “a clearly marked supplies convoy was attacked by elements of the Sudanese Armed Forces while on its way from Um Baru to Tine in West Darfur.” “The government of Sudan has to provide unequivocal guarantees that there will be no recurrence of such activities by its forces,” the United Nations said in a sharply worded statement. A United Nations peacekeeper in Darfur said Sudanese troops apparently mistook the convoy for Darfur rebels who operate in the area near the border with Chad. “It was nighttime,” he said. “It seems the soldiers lost their calm.” A senior official with the peacekeeping mission, known as Unamid, an abbreviation for the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, said the Sudanese soldiers stopped shooting after 10 minutes. United Nations vehicles are painted white and marked with the United Nations logo to signal their neutrality. It was unclear how the Sudanese soldiers could have mistaken them for rebels, who usually drive camouflaged pickup trucks.

Agence France Presse: Bush "deeply troubled" by unending Darfur crisis. US President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was "deeply troubled" by the unending crisis in Darfur and called for rapid deployment of an effective peacekeeping force and dialogue to end the turmoil. He made the statement in conjunction with the third anniversary on Wednesday of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, which ended 21 years of civil war in that country. "I am deeply troubled that innocent civilians continue to fall victim to the scourge of government- and rebel-led attacks in Darfur," Bush said. "I remain firmly committed to the rapid deployment of an effective peacekeeping force coupled with serious political dialogue between the parties to help end the crisis and the suffering of the innocent people of Darfur," he added. Relations between Sudan and the United States have long been strained, most recently over the near five-year Darfur conflict where Washington has accused Khartoum of genocide. "The Comprehensive Peace Agreement laid the groundwork for lasting peace and unity for all of Sudan, and its vigorous application will continue to underpin US involvement across Sudan," Bush said.

Reuters: Divorce rates soar in Darfur due to conflict-paper. Divorce rates have rocketed in Sudan's Darfur region, where the festering conflict has taken a toll on family life, media reported on Wednesday. Independent daily newspaper Al-Ahdath reported that courts in south Darfur state ruled on 2,018 divorce cases during the first nine month of 2007. It gave no earlier figures but said there had been a significant rise on previous years. Researcher Salwa Muhammad Zariba attributed the increase in divorce cases to "the ramification of the conflict in Darfur and its effects on the important pillars of the family", the paper quoted him as saying. The worst statistics came from south Darfur's capital Nyala, the newspaper said. The town has seen increasing unrest in recent months and is surrounded by a string of troubled camps for families displaced by the conflict. The nearby Kalma camp, home to about 90,000 people who fled their homes during four-and-a-half years of rape, looting and killing in Darfur, has been the scene of repeated tribal clashes and armed raids.

The Hill: Lobbying World. Jerry Fowler will be the new executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition. Fowler joins the human rights advocacy group from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he served as director of its Committee on Conscience.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                             Contact: Allyn Brooks-LaSure, 202-478-6174

January 7, 2008                                                                       or Ashley Roberts, 202-478-6181

HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE JERRY FOWLER NAMED SAVE DARFUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

‘Jerry is known as a thoughtful intellect, a passionate advocate and a forward-thinking manager’

WASHINGTON – Following a six-month executive search, the Save Darfur Coalition board of directors today announced that human rights advocate Jerry Fowler has been selected to serve as the coalition’s new executive director. Save Darfur board members said Fowler has the skills, credentials and vision to lead Darfur advocacy efforts into this new phase. Fowler, who is scheduled to begin as executive director on February 4th, joins the coalition following service at the Washington-based U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as director of the Committee on Conscience.

On Fowler’s recommendation, the museum issued a Darfur “Genocide Warning” in January 2004 following streaming reports of mass violence and displacement. He traveled to the Chad-Darfur border region in May of 2004 to document the destruction and suffering and later that year co-convened the seminal meeting of faith-based and human rights activists – a meeting which marked the Save Darfur Coalition’s founding. He participated, along with other leading Darfur activists, in an April 2006 White House meeting with President Bush.

Fowler replaces Bill Wasserman, president of M+R Strategic Services, who has served as the coalition’s interim executive director since June.

“As the Darfur crisis approaches its fifth year, as peacekeeping efforts continue to lag, and as the Sudanese government continues its recalcitrance and obstruction, Darfur advocacy must enter into a new phase of action and activism,” the board said in a joint statement. “To spur effective action from the international community, the Save Darfur Coalition needs an executive director with a deep-rooted understanding of this conflict and the region, a familiarity with aggressive advocacy and activism, and an unswerving passion for human rights. We have found that person in Jerry Fowler, who is known as a thoughtful intellect, a passionate advocate and a forward-thinking manager.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that hundreds of thousands of civilians are still alive in Darfur today because of the tireless advocacy of concerned citizens here and abroad – part of an unprecedented constituency of conscience,” Fowler said. “But they remain at grave risk. Now more than ever, we need to redouble our efforts, expand our coalition and push for effective action to end the crisis in Darfur and promote a just peace in Sudan.”

Fowler’s full biography and headshot can be viewed here: http://www.savedarfur.org/fowler. 

As executive director, Fowler will lead the multi-million dollar advocacy organization and its staff of 30 professional organizers, policy advisors and communications specialists. In addition he will be charged with increasing coordination of joint Darfur advocacy efforts among the coalition’s more than 180 member organizations. Fowler will also direct communications with more than one million Darfur activists, more than one thousand community coalitions, and joint efforts within a strong global movement in 50 different countries.

The Save Darfur Coalition board of directors in June named a search committee that conducted a six-month executive search to identify and screen prospective executive director candidates. The search committee unanimously recommended Fowler to the full board of directors, who in turn unanimously ratified the recommendation. Members of the search committee included Sam Bell, advocacy director of the Genocide Intervention Network; Mike Edington of Wellspring Advisors; Omer Ismail, vice president of advocacy for Darfur Peace and Development; John Prendergast, co-chair of the ENOUGH Project; Martin Raffel of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; and the Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, M.D., director of My Sister’s Keeper.

Fowler is currently the founding director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee on Conscience and is recognized as an authority on the problem of responding to genocide and related crimes against humanity. Under his guidance, the museum's genocide prevention efforts have attained worldwide prominence. His publications include "Out of that Darkness: Preventing Genocide in the 21st Century," in Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views (Routledge, 2004). He also directed the short film A Good Man in Hell: General Romeo Dallaire and the Rwanda Genocide. He created and is the host of Voices on Genocide Prevention, the museum's award-winning interview program and podcast series. His media appearances have included CBS, Fox, National Public Radio, CNN and a host of other national and international outlets.

Fowler has taught at George Washington University Law School and George Mason University Law School and has been a Scholar-in-Residence at American University's summer Human Rights Institute. He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Princeton University. From 1983 to 1987, he was stationed in Germany as an officer in the United States Army. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Special Litigation Counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice. Before joining the museum, Jerry was legislative counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, where he worked on a broad array of human rights issues, including international justice and refugee and asylum policy. In 2006-2007, he was the William F. Podlich Distinguished Visitor at Claremont McKenna College, where he remains a senior research associate at the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights.

Fowler’s full biography and headshot can be viewed here: http://www.savedarfur.org/fowler.

About the Save Darfur Coalition – The Save Darfur Coalition raises public awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and mobilizes a unified response to the atrocities that threaten the lives of people throughout the Darfur region. It is an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and human rights organizations. The coalition’s member organizations represent 130 million people of all ages, races, religions and political affiliations united together to help the people of Darfur. For more information on the coalition, please visit www.SaveDarfur.org. To obtain footage from the Darfur border region, coalition events, various interviews, and more, please visit the Save Darfur Coalition media gallery at http://media.savedarfur.org. All footage may be previewed in non-broadcast quality and may be purchased in broadcast quality by filling out the purchase request form provided on the site.

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The Darfur Daily News is a service of the Save Darfur Coalition.  To subscribe to the Daily News, please email [email protected]. For media inquiries, please contact Ashley Roberts at (202) 478-6181, or [email protected].