After five years, the targeted and calculated violence towards innocent civilians in Darfur not only continues, but is worsening as you watch Stop Genocide Now and i-ACT field team members return to refugee camps in Eastern Chad for the fifth time. Our friends who made the treacherous journey across the border and to a refugee camp need your help. The thousands who are stranded at the border, at a time when Chad is no longer accepting new refugees, need your voice. And the more than 3 million Darfuris inside Sudan, who are at risk every day of death and destruction, need your protection.

Please take action today:

1. Tell 5 Friends (or more!) about i-ACT: Send them to our website and a story of one of our friends.
2. Join the 100 Day Fast for Darfur that began on April 7th, the day of the Rwanda genocide and continues until July 15th. Each dollar donated to WFP will be matched.
3. This coming weekend, bring the faces and stories of our friends to your place of worship. Say a prayer for Darfur, and make a commitment to actively end the violence.

8 June 2008
N’Djamena

The flight in to N’Djamena was not a good start to our arrival in Chad. We made it to Chad airspace and very close to N’D, but then had to circle around before landing because of bad weather. This going round and round went on for almost two hours. Except for the rain, the airport looked the same as the last time we came: the long line at the “get a first of many stamps on your passport” line; the luggage area, with many young men wanting to be the one that pushes your luggage cart; the taxis—beat up Peugeots—waiting in the dark streets. I was surprised at seeing that half of the route from airport to hotel had streetlights. Where there were none, it was very dark.

We had someone waiting for us at the airport, someone that works for the man that will help us navigate the many permits here in the capital. He did not speak English, but I did understand as he was telling the driver of the taxi to take us to the wrong hotel, the Red Dragon, which is next to the Le Meridien. When we got close to Le Meridien and saw that the car wanted to go past it, Katie-Jay and I told them “Le Meridien. Le Meridien.” The man told us, “No, Red Dragon.” I had made the reservation, so I knew where we were staying, but he had a piece of white paper with our name on it and the name Red Dragon, so he wanted to take us there. We insisted, “Le Meridien.” They finally relented and made us understand that we could try that, without taking our luggage out, and then they would take us to the Red Dragon.

As soon as I walked through the glass doors to Le Meriedien’s lobby, the same doors that were completely shot out the last time we walked out of the hotel, I was greeted with “Mr. Gabriel…welcome!” It is nice to see all the familiar faces from the hotel’s staff that did not stop taking care of us, even as bullets were flying.

Today has been a regular Chad day. For more than half of the day, we were not sure about our permits or about being on the manifest to fly out tomorrow. But, I still felt pretty good about it all. We spent our time doing tech stuff for our tech team back home, Yuen-Lin and Carolyn. YL did not sleep at all during his California night. He was working away, long-distance, on the computers we have out here with us.

It has been a pleasure to get to know our on-the-ground teammat es, Scott and Colin. They are very prepared for this, although they still are not sure of what is to come. They are bright and dedicated. We will be a good team out in the camps.

I hope, really, really hope that my next journal will come from Abeche, where we will spend the night tomorrow. From there, the next jump is out to Guereda and close to visiting camps Kounoungo and Mile. As with everything out here, we cannot be certain that things will go as planed. We are ready to adapt to what comes at us, though. That said, I’m concentrating and need all of your good vibes to get us out to our friends in the camps as soon as possible.

Peace,
g

We haven’t heard from our fixer, and it’s about 3pm. UNHCR hasn’t called back and we have a new cell phone number so we are confined to our room, until someone calls with information about our permits. I’m nervous that we might get stuck in N’Djamena. Swedish European Union forces and small Chadian children share the pool below while I gaze up to the sky, where only months ago we were filming black smoke billowing from the presidential palace. It feels like today’s heat has reached well into the 90’s, Abeche is expected to reach 103 degrees while we are there.

The familiar short buzz of the phone, a friend of our fixer has arrived and so has relief! All four of us head to the lobby to hand over our passports for the final stop at immigration; it feels like a strong team already. One last stamp, and we are set; my worries drop away. We are out of here, In Shallah, tomorrow morning, and on to Abeche for one night, then to see our friends in Kounoungo and Mile. They say that Adam might have been moved; I hope not. To move from camp to camp in a hostile environment, after having been displaced several times before, for the sake of his children - beautiful Raya, Nima, Abdulakim and the two others - I hope that they have found a little stability and are learning in Adam’s n ew library.

Still in the lobby, I struggle in French… baggage from 107… from February…? The beautiful, young front desk agent remembers something and moves her hands to a circle, “cd?” They have it! She opens the door to the back room and lets us look through the stored luggage – nope, nope… oh nope. We shrug our shoulders and begin to walk out. At the last minute, she hands us a stack of blank cds and dvds. We laugh, this is what they kept for us! We walk around the hotel identifying signs of the attack: patched up walls, the bullet hole that hit a foot above our head, doors with shrapnel marks.

But all I can really think about is holding the hand of one of friends, squeezing it and assuring them, that even after five years, we are still fighting, we are still standing with them everyday demanding change. With all the missions that have been cancelled since February, I wonder if they feel even more forgotten. I KNOW they still HOPE to go home, and I KNOW it is us who have failed to provide enough PROTECTION for them to do so. How would I continue after five years of broken promises and inaction? Would I still be able to hope?

Please, let’s make this our last i-ACT in Chad before we return with our friends to their villages in Darfur. Please take action everyday, share their stories, together we have a stronger voice, and our friends are depending on that voice.

Hopeful from N’Djamena, KTJ

We’re wrapping up our first full day in Chad now, and you should see Gabriel and KTJ’s room. It’s a maze of wires, boxes, cameras and computers, everything we need to keep you all updated as we make our way out east to the refugee camps. Today was a big logistics day, figuring out all of the permits, electronics and flight plans. It’s great to finally be in N’Djamena, but I’m anxious to get out to Abeche and farther where we’ll have more freedom of movement and can finally get the real work started.

After exploring around the hotel to see where the i-ACT4 team was crawling around to avoid gunfire and seeing the remaining bullet holes in the walls here, it feels a bit weird to be here. The hotel is guarded by at least 4 security guards, and there are a ton of military personnel staying here, so I actually feel very safe. It’s been interesting for me to think about the protection we have versus the protection that the refugees have in camps. I probably have 50 people within 200 yards of me that are trained for protection or combat, and I just can’t stop thinking how much better this situation would be if every refugee could enjoy the same security. I think that if the international community could provide anywhere close to that, we’d see people finally move back home.

It’s hard to describe the nervous excitement pitted in my stomach because of what lies ahead of us in the next 12 days. I’m less nervous about my own security, but more about the fact that I’m finally going to be sitting down with the people that so many activists and I have been working to help. The feeling is almost like I’m going in for an exclusive interview with some VIP that I really look up to. Gabriel and KTJ have enough experience with this that I’m sure we’ll hit the ground running and cover everything that we need to, but it will be nice to get to our first camp soon.

Along with the anxiety, I also can’t stop feeling incredibly lucky to be here. There are so many people that have worked the long days and sleepless nights for the Darfuris that are affected by this conflict, and I know every one of them would love to have the opportunity to do what Scott, Gabriel, KTJ and I are about to do. I really do think it’s chance more than anything else that has placed us, and not any of the other activists out there, in N’Djamena. Hopefully we can represent the student movement well and bring you all some valuable information and insight.

Four summers ago, I first learned about Darfur from the halls of Congress as a lowly intern. If you would have told me back then that the conflict would still be ravaging, and even worsening, four years later, I would not have believed you. But, at the same time, I probably wouldn’t have even gotten involved in Darfur activism. I always thought this would be a temporary gig; there’d be no reason to spend four years trying to end genocide.

As we get ready to enter the refugee camps, I’d be lying if I said the time and energy hasn’t worn on me. I’m no longer the bushy-eyed activist who believed that our government would act quickly and efficiently to end the atrocities. It’s been an incredibly frustrating road, one that quickly sees successful bills passed and money raised turn into heightened attacks and restriction on humanitarian aid. With this in mind, it would be easy to give up, easy to cast Sudan as an inherently complex, insolvable conflict that the international community simply won’t take arms to stop. And yes, some days I buy into this deep cynicism.

But that would be a mistake. Because the reality is that this fight is not about us, and we really have no legitimate right to be fatigued. The fact is that Darfur, is a very paradoxical manner, has provided us with a chance we really don’t deserve. An entire four years after Congress declared genocide in Darfur, we can still end the atrocities. We can still save lives. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees who have refused to quit fighting, and who still believe in our potential to help them withstand this terrible crisis.

I think that’s why I’m so anxious to get to the camps. It’s easy for me to stand back and pledge defeatism after four years of activism. But how can I do that after meeting people that have suffered through a lot more than I have, people that continue their fight in the midst of every type of adversity? So, no, this i-ACT trip won’t stop genocide on its own. And in the incredible complexity that is Darfur, we probably will experience pitfalls despite our successes. But through this trip, I hope we can shine light on the reason that we can’t, and won’t stop fighting; the people. While they are alive, while they are fighting, so must we. And so, as this trip begins, I once again renew my idealism. And I hope you will too.

Your messages of love and activism that we share with refugees often bring tears and smiles to the faces of our friends who have suffered for five years. It is your words and images that provide them with the essential human connection that gets lost in the isolated desert. Without your messages, they would lose hope all together.Please leave a comment below for our friends in the camps, and we will pass them on each day. Our field team will check back daily for message to share with the refugees they meet.