Oil

Oil in Sudan
• In the 1970’s oil was discovered in southern Sudan.
• Sudan has an estimated $45-billion (U.S.) in oil reserves.
• In 2001, Khartoum sold $580 million dollars worth of oil, 60% of it went to the military to buy weapons from other countries.
• The Canadian-based Talisman Energy was one of the first companies to exploit Sudanese oil, paying Khartoum more than $1 million a day in money.
• The estimated oil revenue for the Sudanese government is $1,000,000 per day.
• Estimated oil reverses in Sudan range from 300 million to 3 billion barrels.

-Patrick Traverse

Toy Soldiers

In Sudan, when villages are raided boys young enough to still be raised in a different culture are taken. Any boy big enough to hold a gun is taken and conscripted into a militia. Whether they choose to or not they go through intense training to drive them to killing. Once on the inside they are given alcohol to stay with the militia.-Max

U.S. acknowledgement

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8364-2004Sep9.html

Click on the above website and read it thoroughly. What do you think about the U.S government just recently (2004) acknowledging genocide in Sudan?

-Sara

Justice

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jun/07/sudan.jeevanvasagar

Do you think it will work if Khartoum is brought to court? Will the genocide stop completely?What do you think about the fact that if problems are brought to authorities, they aren't taken care of? "Women in Darfur have told the Guardian the police refused to listen to their claims. Midwives in the refugee camps said police failed to act despite evidence, including injuries from beatings which often accompanied the rapes. One midwife in a camp near El Geneina said: "If a girl goes to the police, the police tell her: 'It is better for you not to say anything about this rape.' We have seen cases where women were injured. One had a cut to her neck from a knife, another was struck on the head by an axe."

-Sara

The River Gilo

The struggle at Gilo River was a big accomplishment for Valentino. At the thought that he couldn’t swim, he had to go across a crowded river while soldiers are surrounding and shooting. The water was filled with blood and women, men, and kids of all ages are struggling to get across the river. Along with being shot at, alligators surrounded and started to bite at people. Hundreds of people died. Throughout this section of the book, what do you think was the most powerful point of imagery? In this situation, would you stop and help other people get across, or would you only worry about getting yourself across first?

-Val Hall

How would you feel?

In the book there is a part where the Lost Boys come across a forgotten SPLA group. The soldiers allow the boys to stay there for a while. The next day another SPLA group of soldiers traveling with men, woman and children come. The Lost boys asked for some of their food and water but their request is rejected and they are chased out of the village. How would you feel if the people that were fighting for your rights denied you food and water then chased you out of the safety of the village?

Lindsay White

Dinka

Many people in the Dinka tribes had cattle and goats.
Some were out at the time of the attacks. How would you
feel if you didn’t know if you were going to make it the next
day or not. Throughout this film they show footage of the Lost
Boys then and now. How are they similar? How have they changed?
What do you think could be done in order to make all of the
villages this vibrant and lively?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCEpTqkWLFE

Care Package

We should put together a fundraiser for the people over in Sudan. Alexi Idreos’ Mom knows someone over in Sudan who would love to receive care packages to distribute to people in need in Sudan. Some of the ideas are:

Care Package Items and point Values:

-T-shirt = 5pts
-Undershirt = 3pts
-Socks = 1pt a pair
-Toiletries = 2pts per item
-Sweats = 15pts
-Sheets = 20pts
-Money = 1pt per 1$ double pints after 10$

It would be great to put pictures of the items on our blog. We were thinking that the person with the most points would get a gift card. I was thinking that the deadline for the collections would be the week after break. (Maybe that Thursday or Friday?) Let me and Alexi know what you think about this and if you have any suggestions please let us know.

From Africa to America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcDpvfooslQ

After watching this video, what do you think should be done to help these men and children in America? Do you think that four months of rent is enough to get them started? What else could be done?

Book 1: Vultures

In the novel, Valentino talks about the suffering that he and the 300 other Lost Boys in the group had to go through when walking through the desert. You could only imagine the expressions on their faces as they trudged through, trying to find food and trying to just stay alive. One specific part in the book is when he goes into great detail about the groups encounter with vultures. He describes one morning when he woke up to a vulture, “inspecting my bad leg.” (pg. 213) Further in the novel, he tells of when William K. dies. As he is trying to bury his friend, he is thinking that if not buried properly, his friend would become the birds next meal. How would you feel if, as you walked through the desert, you had to make sure that you were not eaten alive? “If we stayed in one place too long, the vultures would become more interested.” (pg. 213) They were afraid that if they didn’t stay awake the birds would, “begin to feast while we were alive.” (pg. 213) From what you know, do you think Dave Eggers was accurate about what was and is going on in Sudan?

Book Info

Throughout this video, Valentino talks about his life journey. First he talks about his life coming to and living in America. He talks about how his first flight to America was on the day 9/11/01. He also tells why he had the book written. He tells of the robbery in the book, and details about the struggle inside the apartment. It is amazing how he could forgive the robbers and remind himself that he was alive and that all Americans aren’t like the robbers. This video gives more background information and extra details to help to understand the book.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V7MeewG_MU

Comments about the book:

“What is the What”, a novel written by Dave eggers is based on the life story of a Lost boy of Sudan, Valentino Achak Deng. Valentino had to over come many hardships that children of his age in the United States could only dream of. At a young age he was separated from family, walked hundreds of miles to refugee camps only to have to walk to another and watch his friends and fellow Lost boy’s be killed by men and eaten by lions. The fear of being hunted down and eaten, or being shot and killed must have always been racing through his mind and for him to keep going was truly astonishing. It is truly depressing to hear that a child must go through something that when we Americans, are here and doing nothing to help them. What is your take on what has happened over the course of Valentino Achak Deng’s life so far? What do you think you would do if you were in Achak Deng’s position? If you could talk to Valentino, what would you say, and how do you think he would respond?


Paragraph by: Lindsay W.
Questions by: Rachel M.

Video Analysis

Watch this music video and then respond to the following questions.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aT434G38OBg

How does this video relate to the book? In what ways does the book differ from the video? In Sudan, young people were not suppose to display their affection for another person their age. How do you think the people around Lacare and Okello felt when they were scene holding hands? Why do you think they abduct young children to help fight in the war?

History

What is now northern Sudan was in ancient times the kingdom of Nubia, which came under Egyptian rule after 2600 B.C. An Egyptian and Nubian civilization called Kush flourished until A.D. 350. Missionaries converted the region to Christianity in the 6th century, but an influx or large amount of Muslim Arabs entering the country, who had already conquered Egypt, eventually controlled the area and replaced Christianity with Islam. During the 1500s a people called the Funj conquered much of Sudan, and several other black African groups settled in the south, including the Dinka, Shilluk, Nuer, and Azande. Egyptians again conquered Sudan in 1874, and after Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, it took over Sudan in 1898, ruling the country in conjunction with Egypt. It was known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan between 1898 and 1955.The 20th century saw the growth of Sudanese nationalism, and in 1953 Egypt and Britain granted Sudan self-government. Independence was proclaimed on Jan. 1, 1956. Since independence, Sudan has been ruled by a series of unstable parliamentary governments and military regimes. Under Maj. Gen. Gaafar Mohamed Nimeiri, Sudan instituted fundamentalist Islamic law in 1983. This exacerbated the rift between the Arab north, the seat of the government, and the black African animists and Christians in the south. Differences in language, religion, ethnicity, and political power erupted in an unending civil war between government forces, strongly influenced by the National Islamic Front (NIF) and the southern rebels, whose most influential faction is the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Human rights violations, religious persecution, and allegations that Sudan had been a safe haven for terrorists isolated the country from most of the international community. In 1995, the UN imposed sanctions against it.On Aug. 20, 1998, the United States launched cruise missiles that destroyed a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Khartoum which allegedly manufactured chemical weapons. The U.S. contended that the Sudanese factory was financed by Islamic militant Osama bin Laden.Since 1999 international attention has been focused on evidence that slavery is widespread throughout Sudan. Arab raiders from the north of the country have enslaved thousands of southerners, who are black. The Dinka people have been the hardest-hit. Some sources point out that the raids intensified in the 1980s along with the civil war between north and south.Ever since Lt. Gen. Omar Bashir's military coup in 1989, the de facto ruler of Sudan had been Hassan el-Turabi, a cleric and political leader who is a major figure in the pan-Arabic Islamic fundamentalist resurgence. In 1999, however, Bashir ousted Turabi and placed him under house arrest. (He was freed in Oct. 2003.) Since then Bashir has made overtures to the West, and in Sept. 2001, the UN lifted its six-year-old sanctions. The U.S., however, still officially considers Sudan a terrorist state.A cease-fire was declared between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in July 2002. During peace talks, which continued through 2003, the government agreed to a power-sharing government for six years, to be followed by a referendum on self-determination for the south. Fighting on both sides continued throughout the peace negotiations. In May 2004, a deal between the government and the SPLA was signed, ending 20 years of brutal civil war that resulted in the deaths of 2 million people.Just as Sudan's civil war seemed to be coming to an end, another war intensified in the northwestern Darfur region. After the government quelled a rebellion in Darfur in Jan. 2004, it allowed pro-government militias called the Janjaweed to carry out massacres against black villagers and rebel groups in the region. These Arab militias, believed to have been armed by the government, have killed between 200,000 and 300,000 civilians and displaced more than 1 million. While the war in the south was fought against black Christians and animists, the Darfur conflict is being fought against black Muslims. Although the international community has reacted with alarm to the humanitarian disaster—unmistakably the world's worst—it has been ineffective in persuading the Sudanese government to rein in the Janjaweed. Despite the EU and the U.S. describing the killing as genocide, and despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Sudan stop the Arab militias, the killing continued throughout 2005.On Jan. 9, 2005, after three years of negotiations, the peace deal between the southern rebels, led by John Garang of the SPLA, and the Khartoum government to end the two-decades-long civil war was signed, giving roughly half of Sudan’s oil wealth to the south, as well as nearly complete autonomy and the right to secede after six years. But just two weeks after Garang was sworn in as first vice president as part of the power-sharing agreement, he was killed in a helicopter crash during bad weather. Rioting erupted in Khartoum, killing nearly 100. Garang’s deputy, Salva Kiir, was quickly sworn in as the new vice president, and both north and south vowed that the peace agreement would hold.In 2006, the slaughter in Darfur escalated, and the Khartoum government remained defiantly indifferent to the international communities' calls to stop the violence. The 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers deployed to Darfur proved too small and ill equipped a force to prevent much of it. A fragile peace deal in May 2006 was signed between the Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel group; two smaller rebel groups, however, refused to sign. The UN reported that there has in fact been a dramatic upsurge in the violence since the agreement. The Sudanese government reneged on essential elements of the accord, including the plan to disarm the militias and allow a UN peacekeeping force into the region to replace the modest AU force. Khartoum eventually agreed to allow the modest AU force to remain in the country until the end of 2006, but rejected a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force entering the country. In. Jan. 2007, Sudan and Darfur rebel groups agreed to a 60-day cease-fire, which was intended to lead to peace talks sponsored by the African Union. Libya hosted peace talks in October, but several rebel groups boycotted the proceedings, and the summit ended shortly after the opening ceremony. In July 2007, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to deploy as many as 26,000 peacekeepers from the African Union and the United Nations forces to help end the violence in Darfur. The African Union peacekeeper base in Darfur was attacked in September. Ten peacekeepers were killed. Days later, the town was razed, leaving some 7,000 Darfuris homeless.In Feb. 2007, the International Criminal Court at the Hague named Ahmad Harun, Sudan's deputy minister for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Abd-al-Rahman, a militia leader, as suspects in the murder, rape, and displacement of thousands of civilians in the Darfur region. In May, the Court issued arrest warrants for Haroun and Ali Kosheib, a Janjaweed leader, charging them with mass murder, rape, and other crimes. The Sudanese government refused to hand over them over to the Court.The Bush administration expanded sanctions on Sudan in May, banning 31 Sudanese companies and four individuals from doing business in the U.S.In October 2007, the Sudan People's Liberation Army or SPLA quit the national unity government, leaving the peace agreement signed in 2005 on the brink of collapse. The SPLA claimed that the governing party, the National Congress Party, had ignored its concerns over boundary between the north and south and how to divide the country's oil wealth.Sudan faced international criticism once again in January 2008, when Musa Hilal, a Janjaweed leader, was appointed to a top government position as an adviser to the minister of federal affairs. Human Rights Watch called Hilal "the poster child for Janjaweed atrocities in Darfur."

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107996.html

David Littlefield

Working Class Hero- Greenday

Watch this film clip.....

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/Wzp2JFSBqzk/Working Class Hero- Greenday


After watching this clip on the survivors from Darfur, what is your reaction to the clip. The thought of one human doing something so cruel to another is hard to comprehend. Give your response to the film.

Leaders of the blog....

Another idea about the groups could be that the leaders of the groups would make a blog. They would have all of their group members give them all of their ideas and then the leader would choose which ones to send to me. Right now I have about five great pictures of Valentino and I can't put them all up. The group leaders could also put up polls so the group members could vote on different pictures and ideas. I would attach the leaders blog to this blog so that everyone could have access. You can post comments to let me know how you feel. Make sure you include your name.

Brief summery of book

Separated from his family, Valentino Achak Deng be... Separated from his family, Valentino Achak Deng becomes a refugee in war-ravaged southern Sudan. His travels bring him in contact with enemy soldiers, with liberation rebels, with hyenas and lions, with disease and starvation, and with deadly murahaleen (militias on horseback)—the same sort who currently terrorize Darfur. Based closely on actual experiences, What Is the What is heartrending and astonishing, filled with adventure, suspense, tragedy, and, finally, triumph.

(http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books/whatisthewhat.html)

If you have any information, post it here and I will post the most relevant information. Please include your name and group leader. Make sure to cite your work!

Hello and welcome to F Block's blog!

The leaders who helped to create this blog are:

Manager: Sarah T.

Background & Support groups: Alexi I.

Discussions: Rachel M.

All about the book: Tyana J.