Telemovel desligado.
Copo de agua para aclarar a voz apos varias chavenas de cafe.
Uma enorme mesa com dezenas de folhas de papel minuciosamente expostas por tema e ordem.
Telefone a dez centimetros de mim.
Tecnica de respiracao e relaxacao em curso. Inspira - expiiiiiiiiiiiiira.
Toca o telefone.
"Hello?"
Puro sotaque Britanico.: "Hi Filipa, this is the Children's Legal Centre, are you ready for your interview?"
Foi ontem... a primeira entrevista de trabalho da minha vida.
Manifest Day
É hoje! É hoje! O Dia do Manifesto.
Trinta mil coisas para acabar, alinhavar, handover note-ar, sem tempo para comer, para ir à casinha, desde as 8h da manhã a carburar adrenalina...
Até às 16h da tarde, hora da verdade.
É hora de ir ver o Manifesto dos vôos das gloriosas linhas aéreas humanitárias do Programa Alimentar Mundial para amanhã.
Qual estudante à procura do nome na pauta para ver a nota, percorro nervosamente as dezenas de folhas afixadas no painel da recepção do PAM até soltar um suspiro de alívio e felicidade ao ver:
UYL - KHT
Filipa Guinote UNDP Portuguese ID0415
Check in 11:30
E vem um novo pique de adrenalina: vou de férias! vou ver o Príncipe! Vou comer bife strogonoff em Cartum!
Trinta mil coisas para acabar, alinhavar, handover note-ar, sem tempo para comer, para ir à casinha, desde as 8h da manhã a carburar adrenalina...
Até às 16h da tarde, hora da verdade.
É hora de ir ver o Manifesto dos vôos das gloriosas linhas aéreas humanitárias do Programa Alimentar Mundial para amanhã.
Qual estudante à procura do nome na pauta para ver a nota, percorro nervosamente as dezenas de folhas afixadas no painel da recepção do PAM até soltar um suspiro de alívio e felicidade ao ver:
UYL - KHT
Filipa Guinote UNDP Portuguese ID0415
Check in 11:30
E vem um novo pique de adrenalina: vou de férias! vou ver o Príncipe! Vou comer bife strogonoff em Cartum!
Eu sei que podia ser pior
Estou a chegar ao fim de mais um ciclo de seis semanas e preparo-me para, na quarta-feira a noite, voar para a Europa por uma semanita mais uma vez. Ha quem diga, com o conforto que o staff da ONU tem no terreno, e ridiculo dizer que apos seis semanas apenas se merece uma pausa de recuperacao. E verdade, a minha casa em Nyala e melhor que o apart onde vivi em Cartum no ano passado. E verdade, nao passo os meus dias a medir tamanhos de pulsos e a pesar bebes raquiticos com fome e malnutridos. E verdade nao tenho que me aventurar por estradas isoladas para levar material ou comida para uma populacao qualquer perdida no meio do nada arriscando-me a ser feita refem por um qualquer grupo armado que por la andar.
Sim podia ser muito mais dificil. E sim, era capaz de aguentar mais de seis semanas aqui. Mas quando vejo a data aproximar-se mal consigo conter a excitacao. E a antecipacao de ver o Principe. Mas nao so. E a antecipacao de ter privacidade, de ser anonima.
Ja me habituei as semanas de seis dias. Ja me habituei aos horarios das 09h00 as 21h00. Aquilo a que ainda nao me habituei e a falta de privacidade, embora goste muito das jovens com quem vivo (a excepcao da Alergica Mor). Aqui, os unicos momentos em que nao estou a comunicar com alguem sao as horas em que durmo e as sextas-feiras, em que me escondo no meu quarto a ver DVDs ate ficar esganada de fome e ter de por o pe la fora. Por isso e que estou tao furiosa com este periplo por El Fasher, que me roubou a minha sexta-feira.
Mas ao menos sei que daqui a uns diazitos vou ter de volta a minha vida privada. Com marido e tudo.
Sim podia ser muito mais dificil. E sim, era capaz de aguentar mais de seis semanas aqui. Mas quando vejo a data aproximar-se mal consigo conter a excitacao. E a antecipacao de ver o Principe. Mas nao so. E a antecipacao de ter privacidade, de ser anonima.
Ja me habituei as semanas de seis dias. Ja me habituei aos horarios das 09h00 as 21h00. Aquilo a que ainda nao me habituei e a falta de privacidade, embora goste muito das jovens com quem vivo (a excepcao da Alergica Mor). Aqui, os unicos momentos em que nao estou a comunicar com alguem sao as horas em que durmo e as sextas-feiras, em que me escondo no meu quarto a ver DVDs ate ficar esganada de fome e ter de por o pe la fora. Por isso e que estou tao furiosa com este periplo por El Fasher, que me roubou a minha sexta-feira.
Mas ao menos sei que daqui a uns diazitos vou ter de volta a minha vida privada. Com marido e tudo.
*!?**?????
Fui passar um dia a Zalingei e acabei por passear pelo Darfur inteiro nas ultimas 48h, gracas a inenarravel confusao que sao os voos da ONU. Ha sempre o classico problema de se ter reservado um voo para um sitio e o voo ser cancelado a ultima da hora. Mas o que me aconteceu foi mais um passo para a humanidade no mundo da incompetencia: reservar um lugar num voo que nao existe. Receber confirmacao para um voo que nao existe. No dia do voo, ver o meu nome preto no branco no manifesto, mas com um asteriscozito a dizer "no connection". Assim, tipo olha paciencia fica pra proxima, vais antes para El Fasher que tambem e bonito. Portanto ca estou na capital do grandioso Norte Darfur, onde ao menos tenho um escritorio e uma casa do PNUD e ha companhias aereas comerciais que me poderao levar ate casa amanha inshallah.
Porque é que cheguei ao potno de ter pena da minha chefe de escritório:
E uma académica especializada nas questões de "Género" (Gender), ou para simplicar: mulheres, que investigou questões de estatuto da mulher na sociedade, de relação homem-mulher, de percepção homem-mulher pelo prisma sociológico, psicológico, antropológico, económico, cultural, textual, natural, supra-natural etc... E veio parar a um sítio onde as mulheres querem acima de tudo não ser violadas quando têm que ir buscar água ou lenha. E onde ninguém, mas ninguém percebe ou se quer quer perceber a distinção conceptual entre género e sexo.
E uma expert em regulamentos e procedimentos do PNUD: contratar pessoal, gerir fundos do projecto através do famoso software Atlas, lançar appels d'offres para geradores de electricidade etc... E veio para a um sítio onde o responsável das finanças não sabe usar Atlas e é neste momento incapaz de dizer quanto dinheiro foi gasto e quanto dinheiro nos resta para o nosso projecto, onde só há um sítio para comprar geradores, e onde ninguém, mas ninguém respeita regras.
E alérgica a conservantes, farinha, nozes, leite, queijo, iogurte, natas, pó, picadas de aranhas, picadas de formigas, picadas de qualquer insecto voador e veio parar a um sítio no meio do deserto com tempestades de areia regulares, insectos em todo o lado, onde é practicamente impossível saber os ingredientes usados em qualquer prato culinário ou item alimentar.
E hiper-sensível ao calor e veio parar a um sítio onde estão 40 graus à noite e onde nem a electricdade de cidade nem o gerador aguentam ar condicionado por mais de 30 minutos.
Resultado, chegou neste momento ao ponto de:
- viver no escritório, onde o gerador aguenta ar condicionado
- não dormir mais de 3 ou 4h por noite
- desesperar os colegas de trabalho com tanta e tão inútil gíria de "género"
- deixar os coitados dos deslocados que têm que levar com a dita gíria de boca aberta de sono ou incredulidade
- tomar tantos anti-histaminicos que fica num estado de transe constante, olhos semi-cerrados, a enrolar a língua, e obcecada em convencer os miliatares da União Africana a darem-nos umas garrafas de whisky.
Eu já lhe disse que ela assim não sobrevive muito mais e que se calhar o que fazia melhor era voltar para Washington, para sua e nossa sanidade, mas ela não vai por mim!
E uma expert em regulamentos e procedimentos do PNUD: contratar pessoal, gerir fundos do projecto através do famoso software Atlas, lançar appels d'offres para geradores de electricidade etc... E veio para a um sítio onde o responsável das finanças não sabe usar Atlas e é neste momento incapaz de dizer quanto dinheiro foi gasto e quanto dinheiro nos resta para o nosso projecto, onde só há um sítio para comprar geradores, e onde ninguém, mas ninguém respeita regras.
E alérgica a conservantes, farinha, nozes, leite, queijo, iogurte, natas, pó, picadas de aranhas, picadas de formigas, picadas de qualquer insecto voador e veio parar a um sítio no meio do deserto com tempestades de areia regulares, insectos em todo o lado, onde é practicamente impossível saber os ingredientes usados em qualquer prato culinário ou item alimentar.
E hiper-sensível ao calor e veio parar a um sítio onde estão 40 graus à noite e onde nem a electricdade de cidade nem o gerador aguentam ar condicionado por mais de 30 minutos.
Resultado, chegou neste momento ao ponto de:
- viver no escritório, onde o gerador aguenta ar condicionado
- não dormir mais de 3 ou 4h por noite
- desesperar os colegas de trabalho com tanta e tão inútil gíria de "género"
- deixar os coitados dos deslocados que têm que levar com a dita gíria de boca aberta de sono ou incredulidade
- tomar tantos anti-histaminicos que fica num estado de transe constante, olhos semi-cerrados, a enrolar a língua, e obcecada em convencer os miliatares da União Africana a darem-nos umas garrafas de whisky.
Eu já lhe disse que ela assim não sobrevive muito mais e que se calhar o que fazia melhor era voltar para Washington, para sua e nossa sanidade, mas ela não vai por mim!
O que ainda ha por fazer
Passando comentarios sobre o facto de este artigo mostrar uma foto e dar os nomes das vitimas, eis o que se passa no campo de deslocados de Kalma, a meia hora de Nyala, onde estamos a organizar treinos sobre como lidar com vitimas de violacao - mulheres e meninas - na esperanca que ao menos a comunidade de algum apoio, quando os tribunais falham. Mas meu deus, o que ainda ha por fazer...
Darfur women describe gang-rape horror
Monday 28 May 2007 02:30.
May 27, 2007 (KALMA, South Darfur) — The seven women pooled money to rent a donkey and cart, then ventured out of the refugee camp to gather firewood, hoping to sell it for cash to feed their families. Instead, they say, in a wooded area just a few hours walk away, they were gang-raped, beaten and robbed.
Naked and devastated, they fled back to Kalma.
"All the time it lasted, I kept thinking: They’re killing my baby, they’re killing my baby," wailed Aisha, who was seven months pregnant at the time.
The women have no doubt who attacked them. They say the men’s camels and their uniforms marked them as janjaweed — the Arab militiamen accused of terrorizing the mostly black African villagers of Sudan’s Darfur region.
Their story, told to an Associated Press reporter and confirmed by other women and aid workers in the camp, provides a glimpse into the hell that Darfur has become as the Arab-dominated government battles a rebellion stoked by a history of discrimination and neglect.
Now in its fourth year, the conflict has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and rape is its regular byproduct, U.N. and other human rights activists say. Sudan’s government denies arming and unleashing the janjaweed, and bristles at the charges of rape, saying its conservative Islamic society would never tolerate it. It has agreed to let in 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, but not the 22,000 mandated by the U.N. Security Council. It claims the force would be a spearhead for anti-Arab powers bent on plundering Sudan’s oil.
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 civilians have died and 2.5 million are homeless out of Darfur’s population of 6 million, the U.N. says, and a February report by the International Criminal Court alleges "mass rape of civilians who were known not to be participants in any armed conflict."
Kalma is a microcosm of the misery — a sprawling camp of mud huts and scrap-plastic tents where 100,000 people have taken refuge. It is so full of guns that overwhelmed African Union peacekeepers long ago fled, unable to protect it. It is so crowded that the government has tried to limit newcomers — forbidding the building of new latrines, so a stench pervades the air.
Anyone venturing outside must reckon with the janjaweed, as Aisha and her friends found out.
In Sudan, as in many Islamic countries, society views a sexual assault as a dishonor upon the woman’s entire family. "Victims can face terrible ostracism," says Maha Muna, the U.N. coordinator on this issue in Sudan.
Some aid workers believe the janjaweed use rape to intimidate the rebels, and their supporters and families. "It’s a strategy of war," Muna said in an interview earlier this year in Khartoum, the capital. Sudan’s government is especially sensitive about such accusations and denies rape is widespread. Sudanese public opinion would view mass rape much more severely than other crimes alleged in Darfur, said a senior Sudanese government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from his superiors.
He acknowledged the janjaweed had initially received weapons from the government — something the government officially denies — and said authorities now are struggling to rein in the militias.
Nasser Kambal, a prominent human rights activist and co-founder of the Amel center, a Sudanese group helping victims of rape and other abuse, offers a similar view.
"I don’t think raping was planned by the government. Killing and looting and torture, yes, but not rape," he said.
Kalma isn’t the only place where multiple accounts of rape have surfaced. Some 120 miles away, in the town of Mukjar, two men separately described women being brought into a prison where they were being held and raped for hours by janjaweed.
They said the assailants shouted that they were "planting tomatoes" — a reference to skin color: Darfur Arabs describe themselves as "red" because they are slightly lighter-skinned than ethnic Africans.
According to Muna, U.N. agencies are working closely with Sudanese authorities to improve the government’s response to rape allegations. In 2005, the government created a task force on rape in Darfur, headed by Attayet Mustapha, a pediatrician, government official and women’s rights activist.
In an interview this year, Mustapha said social workers were being deployed to address the problem and a special female police unit was being assembled in Darfur.
"We tell officials that the government has decided to enforce a zero tolerance policy toward rape in Darfur," she said.
U.N. workers say they registered 2,500 rapes in Darfur in 2006, but believe far more went unreported. The real figure is probably thousands a month, said a U.N. official. Like other U.N. personnel and aid workers interviewed, the official insisted on speaking anonymously for fear of being expelled by the government.
Victims usually can’t identify their aggressors, which makes prosecutions impossible. Only eight offenders were tried and sentenced for rape crimes in Darfur by Sudanese courts in 2006, said Mustapha, the task force leader. "They received three to five years prison, and 100 lashes" in accordance with Islamic law, she said.
In May, after the top U.N. human rights official charged that Sudanese soldiers had raped at least 15 Darfur women during one recent incident, Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi asked where the evidence was.
"We always seem to get sweeping generalizations, without naming the injured, without naming the offenders," he told reporters.
In Kalma, collecting firewood needed to cook meals is becoming more perilous as the trees around the camp dwindle and women are forced to scavenge ever farther afield. It is strictly a woman’s task, dictated both by tradition and the fear that any male escorts would be killed if the janjaweed found them.
Agreeing to tell the AP their story earlier this month through a translator, the seven women’s voices wavered and hesitated, broken by embarrassed silences. All gave their names and agreed to be identified in full, but the AP is withholding their surnames because they are rape victims and vulnerable to retaliation.
The women said they set out on a Monday morning last July and had barely begun collecting the wood when 10 Arabs on camels surrounded them, shouting insults and shooting their rifles in the air. The women first attempted to flee. "But I didn’t even try, because I couldn’t run," being seven months pregnant, said Aisha, a petite 18-year-old whose raspy voice sounds more like that of an old woman. She said four men stayed behind to flay her with sticks, while the other janjaweed chased down the rest of her group.
"We didn’t get very far," said Maryam, displaying the scar of a bullet that hit her on the right knee.
Once rounded up, the women said, they were beaten and their rented donkey killed. Zahya, 30, had brought her 18-year-old daughter, Fatmya, and her baby. The baby was thrown to the ground and both women were raped. The baby survived.
Zahya said the women were lined up and assaulted side by side, and she saw four men taking turns raping Aisha. The women said the attackers then stripped them naked and jeered at them as they fled. On their way back, men from the refugee camp unraveled their cotton turbans for the women to partly cover up, but the victims said they were laughed at when they entered the refugee camp.
"Ever since, I’ve made sure that women living on the outskirts of the camp have spare sets of clothes to give out," said Khadidja Abdallah, a sheika, an informal camp leader, who took the women to the international aid compound at the camp to be treated.
They were given anti-pregnancy and anti-HIV pills, thanks to which their families haven’t entirely ostracized them, the women said. The baby Aisha was expecting at the time is doing well. His name is Osman.
Sheikas in Kalma said they report over a dozen rapes each week. Human rights activists in South Darfur who monitor violence in the refugee camps estimate more than 100 women are raped each month in and around Kalma alone.
The workers warn of an alarming new trend of rapes within the refugee population amid the boredom and slow social decay of the camps. But for the most part, they added, it all depends on whether janjaweed are present in the area.
The sheikas say they are making some headway toward persuading families to accept raped women back into their embrace and let them report attacks to aid workers. One advantage is that they get a certificate confirming they were raped.
"We tell husbands they might be compensated one day," said Ajaba Zubeir, a sheika. "But I don’t think that’s going to happen."
The seven women say they haven’t left the camp since they were attacked. They have started their own small workshop and make water jugs out of clay and donkey dung to sell to other refugees.
As they worked on their large pile of jugs and bowls, they said they are even poorer than before, because they now have to buy their firewood from other women.
"But at least we never have to go out again," said Aisha.
None of the women has any faith that Sudanese or international courts will ever give them justice. All Zahya asks is that one day she can return to her village.
"If people could at least help end the fighting, that would be enough," she said.
(AP)
Darfur women describe gang-rape horror
Monday 28 May 2007 02:30.
Aisha Hamid, center holding her son Osman, Zahya Yahyah, 30, right, holding her daughter Fatmya, 18 months, are seen in south Darfur refugee camp of Kalma Wednesday April 11, 2007. (AP)
May 27, 2007 (KALMA, South Darfur) — The seven women pooled money to rent a donkey and cart, then ventured out of the refugee camp to gather firewood, hoping to sell it for cash to feed their families. Instead, they say, in a wooded area just a few hours walk away, they were gang-raped, beaten and robbed.
Naked and devastated, they fled back to Kalma.
"All the time it lasted, I kept thinking: They’re killing my baby, they’re killing my baby," wailed Aisha, who was seven months pregnant at the time.
The women have no doubt who attacked them. They say the men’s camels and their uniforms marked them as janjaweed — the Arab militiamen accused of terrorizing the mostly black African villagers of Sudan’s Darfur region.
Their story, told to an Associated Press reporter and confirmed by other women and aid workers in the camp, provides a glimpse into the hell that Darfur has become as the Arab-dominated government battles a rebellion stoked by a history of discrimination and neglect.
Now in its fourth year, the conflict has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and rape is its regular byproduct, U.N. and other human rights activists say. Sudan’s government denies arming and unleashing the janjaweed, and bristles at the charges of rape, saying its conservative Islamic society would never tolerate it. It has agreed to let in 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, but not the 22,000 mandated by the U.N. Security Council. It claims the force would be a spearhead for anti-Arab powers bent on plundering Sudan’s oil.
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 civilians have died and 2.5 million are homeless out of Darfur’s population of 6 million, the U.N. says, and a February report by the International Criminal Court alleges "mass rape of civilians who were known not to be participants in any armed conflict."
Kalma is a microcosm of the misery — a sprawling camp of mud huts and scrap-plastic tents where 100,000 people have taken refuge. It is so full of guns that overwhelmed African Union peacekeepers long ago fled, unable to protect it. It is so crowded that the government has tried to limit newcomers — forbidding the building of new latrines, so a stench pervades the air.
Anyone venturing outside must reckon with the janjaweed, as Aisha and her friends found out.
In Sudan, as in many Islamic countries, society views a sexual assault as a dishonor upon the woman’s entire family. "Victims can face terrible ostracism," says Maha Muna, the U.N. coordinator on this issue in Sudan.
Some aid workers believe the janjaweed use rape to intimidate the rebels, and their supporters and families. "It’s a strategy of war," Muna said in an interview earlier this year in Khartoum, the capital. Sudan’s government is especially sensitive about such accusations and denies rape is widespread. Sudanese public opinion would view mass rape much more severely than other crimes alleged in Darfur, said a senior Sudanese government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from his superiors.
He acknowledged the janjaweed had initially received weapons from the government — something the government officially denies — and said authorities now are struggling to rein in the militias.
Nasser Kambal, a prominent human rights activist and co-founder of the Amel center, a Sudanese group helping victims of rape and other abuse, offers a similar view.
"I don’t think raping was planned by the government. Killing and looting and torture, yes, but not rape," he said.
Kalma isn’t the only place where multiple accounts of rape have surfaced. Some 120 miles away, in the town of Mukjar, two men separately described women being brought into a prison where they were being held and raped for hours by janjaweed.
They said the assailants shouted that they were "planting tomatoes" — a reference to skin color: Darfur Arabs describe themselves as "red" because they are slightly lighter-skinned than ethnic Africans.
According to Muna, U.N. agencies are working closely with Sudanese authorities to improve the government’s response to rape allegations. In 2005, the government created a task force on rape in Darfur, headed by Attayet Mustapha, a pediatrician, government official and women’s rights activist.
In an interview this year, Mustapha said social workers were being deployed to address the problem and a special female police unit was being assembled in Darfur.
"We tell officials that the government has decided to enforce a zero tolerance policy toward rape in Darfur," she said.
U.N. workers say they registered 2,500 rapes in Darfur in 2006, but believe far more went unreported. The real figure is probably thousands a month, said a U.N. official. Like other U.N. personnel and aid workers interviewed, the official insisted on speaking anonymously for fear of being expelled by the government.
Victims usually can’t identify their aggressors, which makes prosecutions impossible. Only eight offenders were tried and sentenced for rape crimes in Darfur by Sudanese courts in 2006, said Mustapha, the task force leader. "They received three to five years prison, and 100 lashes" in accordance with Islamic law, she said.
In May, after the top U.N. human rights official charged that Sudanese soldiers had raped at least 15 Darfur women during one recent incident, Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi asked where the evidence was.
"We always seem to get sweeping generalizations, without naming the injured, without naming the offenders," he told reporters.
In Kalma, collecting firewood needed to cook meals is becoming more perilous as the trees around the camp dwindle and women are forced to scavenge ever farther afield. It is strictly a woman’s task, dictated both by tradition and the fear that any male escorts would be killed if the janjaweed found them.
Agreeing to tell the AP their story earlier this month through a translator, the seven women’s voices wavered and hesitated, broken by embarrassed silences. All gave their names and agreed to be identified in full, but the AP is withholding their surnames because they are rape victims and vulnerable to retaliation.
The women said they set out on a Monday morning last July and had barely begun collecting the wood when 10 Arabs on camels surrounded them, shouting insults and shooting their rifles in the air. The women first attempted to flee. "But I didn’t even try, because I couldn’t run," being seven months pregnant, said Aisha, a petite 18-year-old whose raspy voice sounds more like that of an old woman. She said four men stayed behind to flay her with sticks, while the other janjaweed chased down the rest of her group.
"We didn’t get very far," said Maryam, displaying the scar of a bullet that hit her on the right knee.
Once rounded up, the women said, they were beaten and their rented donkey killed. Zahya, 30, had brought her 18-year-old daughter, Fatmya, and her baby. The baby was thrown to the ground and both women were raped. The baby survived.
Zahya said the women were lined up and assaulted side by side, and she saw four men taking turns raping Aisha. The women said the attackers then stripped them naked and jeered at them as they fled. On their way back, men from the refugee camp unraveled their cotton turbans for the women to partly cover up, but the victims said they were laughed at when they entered the refugee camp.
"Ever since, I’ve made sure that women living on the outskirts of the camp have spare sets of clothes to give out," said Khadidja Abdallah, a sheika, an informal camp leader, who took the women to the international aid compound at the camp to be treated.
They were given anti-pregnancy and anti-HIV pills, thanks to which their families haven’t entirely ostracized them, the women said. The baby Aisha was expecting at the time is doing well. His name is Osman.
Sheikas in Kalma said they report over a dozen rapes each week. Human rights activists in South Darfur who monitor violence in the refugee camps estimate more than 100 women are raped each month in and around Kalma alone.
The workers warn of an alarming new trend of rapes within the refugee population amid the boredom and slow social decay of the camps. But for the most part, they added, it all depends on whether janjaweed are present in the area.
The sheikas say they are making some headway toward persuading families to accept raped women back into their embrace and let them report attacks to aid workers. One advantage is that they get a certificate confirming they were raped.
"We tell husbands they might be compensated one day," said Ajaba Zubeir, a sheika. "But I don’t think that’s going to happen."
The seven women say they haven’t left the camp since they were attacked. They have started their own small workshop and make water jugs out of clay and donkey dung to sell to other refugees.
As they worked on their large pile of jugs and bowls, they said they are even poorer than before, because they now have to buy their firewood from other women.
"But at least we never have to go out again," said Aisha.
None of the women has any faith that Sudanese or international courts will ever give them justice. All Zahya asks is that one day she can return to her village.
"If people could at least help end the fighting, that would be enough," she said.
(AP)
PNG
Para quem escreveu uma tese sobre empresas militares privadas, PNG significa Papuásia Nova Guiné, onde os primeiros mercenários modernos deram um ar de sua graça.
Aqui, significa "Persona Non Grata". Ser-se declarado persona non grata é a maneira mais estilosa e ao mesmo tempo mais triste de se sair daqui - ser-se expulso porque se falou demais, porque se ofendeu o oficialzito do governo.
De maneira que se formou uma gíria nesta básica e linear língua que é o Inglês:
"they are going to PNG me", "he was PNGed", "they have been PNGing lots of people".
E claro que tudo isto é no fundo extremamente deprimente, porque já há quem tenha chegado ao cúmulo de aceitar sem pestanejar que um chefe de região exerça o poder presidencial de expulsar um expatriado com estatuto diplomático sem dar razões mesmo que esfarrapadas, nem ne se dar ao trabalho de pôr a expulsão por escrito. Só uma telefonadela a dizer tens 24h para sair daqui e se não vais por teu pé vais à força. Assim, simplesmente. E a resposta da inenarrável ONU em Cartum é "então a que horas é que queres que mande o carro buscar-te ao aeroporto amanhã?". E o assunto morre ali. Chamam eles a isto "quiet diplomacy".
Aqui, significa "Persona Non Grata". Ser-se declarado persona non grata é a maneira mais estilosa e ao mesmo tempo mais triste de se sair daqui - ser-se expulso porque se falou demais, porque se ofendeu o oficialzito do governo.
De maneira que se formou uma gíria nesta básica e linear língua que é o Inglês:
"they are going to PNG me", "he was PNGed", "they have been PNGing lots of people".
E claro que tudo isto é no fundo extremamente deprimente, porque já há quem tenha chegado ao cúmulo de aceitar sem pestanejar que um chefe de região exerça o poder presidencial de expulsar um expatriado com estatuto diplomático sem dar razões mesmo que esfarrapadas, nem ne se dar ao trabalho de pôr a expulsão por escrito. Só uma telefonadela a dizer tens 24h para sair daqui e se não vais por teu pé vais à força. Assim, simplesmente. E a resposta da inenarrável ONU em Cartum é "então a que horas é que queres que mande o carro buscar-te ao aeroporto amanhã?". E o assunto morre ali. Chamam eles a isto "quiet diplomacy".
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