Regime Watch: Beijing

The China Post describes the first day of a new cross-strait commercial air travel arrangement between Taiwan and Mainland China:

More than 700 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan while about an equal number of Taiwanese passengers flew to China yesterday in the first wave of regular cross-straits commercial flights in nearly six decades that could transform ties between the old foes.

On the first day of the operation, a total of 753 Chinese people, including 622 tourists, 31 officials and 60 news reporters and photographers, arrived in Taiwan on nine flights from China.

This is pretty significant. Keep in mind that the communist regime in Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan, even though is is plainly obvious that Taiwan functions as an independent state, and that Taiwanese go about their daily lives under threat of annihilation by Chinese ballistic missiles pointed at the island. So what good can possibly come from this? Well, hopefully a great many Chinese tourists will decide that life in a liberal democracy beats life under communism. Or as Michael Turton notes his blog, The View From Taiwan:

No doubt China is pondering the consequences of letting loose thousands of middle and upper class Chinese on a nation where Asians refute every day the lie that Asians are not suited for democracy.

In fact, that refutation may have already begun. From Saturday’s Taipei Times:

Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and unificationists took the opportunity to highlight their causes yesterday as the first cross-strait charter flights arrived.

The groups welcomed Chinese tourists with placards proclaiming their views outside Taipei Songshan Airport on Dunhua N Road.

“Human rights for China, independence for Tibet,” Tibetans and their supporters shouted, waving the Tibetan flag as buses carrying Chinese tourists passed by. “We welcome Chinese tourists to breathe the air of freedom in Taiwan!”

Chinese visitors waved at the Tibetan demonstrators and took pictures.

As has been on display to the world recently, under Beijing’s thuggish occupation of Tibet, advocating Tibetan independence (or even going on about human rights) gets you beaten down or killed in the streets by Chinese security forces. In contemporary Taiwan, an Asian nation that only a few decades ago was a one-party dictatorship, Tibetans and advocates for independence can invite Chinese to “breathe the air of freedom.”

That’s great stuff.

The latest Taiwan Communique, published by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, has an interesting essay by Charles Tannock of the British Conservative Party. Tannock notes that while China’s thuggish occupation of Tibet gets much (and well deserved) international attention, “the injustice of Taiwan’s ongoing international isolation has barely stirred a flicker of interest despite Taiwan’s recent presidential election and referendum on UN membership.”

As Tanner explains:

This seeming double standard can be explained partly by a sense of guilt. The West has, for the most part, embraced Kosovo’s independence in an effort to assuage its own culpability for not preventing late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing there. Similarly, much of the world is protesting on behalf of Tibet because countless millions have witnessed China’s brutal suppression of Tibetan culture.

Taiwan, on the other hand, does not grab our attention, because it is stable and flourishing economically. But it has never been part of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is an unrecognized independenct state with a vigorous democracy and high standards of human rights. Because Taiwan has not allowed itself to become a victim, the world simply does not feel guilty about it, and so ignores it.

Tanner may have a point about Western guilt, but could there be a worse reason to protest Beijing’s thuggish occupation of Tibet than to simply try and make one’s self feel better? Even worse is to ignore Taiwan’s international marginalization at the hands of Beijing because it doesn’t make one feel “guilty” enough to care.

Note that Tanner says guilt only partially explains this situation…here he gets to the good stuff:

The campaigns that the West waged throughout the 1980s in solidarity with democratic forces in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe helped bring about the end of communist domination. A similar commitment to the democratic rights of Taiwanese could have salutary effects in China. Moreover, Taiwan is a natural ally of any party that espouses the values of pluralistic politics, free markets and human rights.

It seems particularly shortsighted, indeed hypocritical, for the US and Britain to seek to spread democracy and human rights throughout the world while failing to recognize and reward the Taiwanese, a people who have embraced these concepts wholeheartedly.

Unquestioning recognition of the “one china” policy sends the message that we appreciate more a country that is a big, communist dictatorship rather than a small multiparty democracy.

Indeed, the U.S. does stubbornly cling to the antiquated “one China” policy. The lack of formal recognition of Taiwan by the U.S. actually lends support to Beijing’s remarkably successful efforts at marginalizing Taiwan internationally. This doesn’t mean there isn’t support for Taiwan in the U.S. government. The U.S. Senate has a Taiwan Caucus with twenty five members and the U.S. House of Representatives Taiwan Caucus has 151 members.

Still, at the end of the day, U.S. policy can be boiled down to appeasing the communists in Beijing at the expense of democratic Taiwan.

This morning regime watch hit two thousand page views. As I said when the blog hit one thousand page views, I don’t really know what this means considering the many thousands of blogs out there…but it seems like a pretty hefty number to me. The majority of visitors continue to come from within the United States, followed by the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada. About twelve percent of visitors come from “other” countries. Welcome and thanks to you all.

The first post on regime watch was about my article “Misery: China’s Main Export,” which describes Communist China’s moral illegitimacy to host the 2008 Olympics, and which was first published in the excellent weekly Colorado newspaper, Johnstown Breeze. Here it is, re-printed in its entirety. And again, thanks to everyone who found their way to this blog…hope you come back from time to time.

In 2005, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo introduced a resolution into the House of Representatives calling on the U.S. Olympic Committee to change the venue of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, citing among other things, the “egregious violations of human rights” by China.

And indeed, while Communist China is well qualified to host an international gathering of thugs and tyrants, the regime’s moral legitimacy as host of the Olympics is another matter entirely.

In May 2007, The Hill—a Washington, D.C. newspaper that covers Congress—reported on “a quiet lobbying campaign” in Washington by China in an attempt to “deflect threats that the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing will be boycotted because of what critics say is a Chinese failure to help end genocidal violence in Darfur.”

Actually, far from simply failing to help end the slaughter, China’s outright complicity in the genocide being perpetrated by the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum against non-Arab tribes-people in the Darfur region of Sudan is well established

A March 2007 report from the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation notes that China’s huge investment in Sudan oil in turn helps fund the genocide in Darfur, “Khartoum has doubled its defense budget in recent years, spending 60 percent to 80 percent of its estimated $500 million in annual oil revenue—half from China—on weapons. Some of these weapons find their way to the conflict in Darfur.”

Beijing has also helped subvert international arm embargoes against Khartoum. As the Heritage report continues, “Moreover, with Chinese assistance, the Sudanese government recently built three weapons factories.”

So with China’s help, the Janjaweed militias carrying out the genocide in Darfur are not only well-armed, but have also received military transportation and helicopter gunship support from Khartoum, making the slaughter all the more efficient.

In 2006, China not only abstained from a United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing the deployment of troops and civilian police into Darfur to provide security against the genocide, but also used its veto power to force language into the resolution requiring the consent of the same Khartoum regime whose mass-murder in Darfur created the need for an international security force in the first place.

But the lobbying campaign didn’t work out as Beijing may have hoped. In May 2007, Congressman Tom Lantos (D-Ca.) released a letter to the Chinese President signed by over 100 members of Congress, including Colorado’s Tancredo stating, among other things, “…unless China does its part to ensure that the government of Sudan accepts the best and most reasonable path to peace, history will judge your government as having bank-rolled a genocide.”

The letter continues, “If China fails to do its part, it risks being forever known as the host of the ‘Genocide Olympics.’ ”

Besides enabling genocide in Darfur, China is also well into its fiftieth year of a military occupation of Tibet. Many thousands of Tibetans—including Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama—are forced to live in exile around the world

Last year, Beijing showed its hyper-sensitivity to having its thuggish occupation of Tibet tied to the Olympics by detaining and then deporting Colorado resident Kirsten Westby and four other Americans for peacefully displaying a banner saying “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008” on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest.

The slogan was a clever play on Beijing’s own cynical slogan for the 2008 Olympics, “One World, One Dream.”

In addition, Beijing is again threatening violence against the peaceful and democratic island nation of Taiwan, over which China claims sovereignty—even though it is plainly obvious that Taiwan function as an independent state—and that only Beijing may represent Taiwan’s 23 million citizens in international organizations.

In 2005, Beijing enacted an “Anti-Secession Law” which codified China’s already long-standing threats against Taiwan. Article eight of the law mandates the use of “Non-peaceful” means against Taiwan if, among other things, “a major event occurs which would lead to Taiwan’s separation from China.”

After more than a decade of being turned down for United Nations membership under its traditional name “Republic of China,” Taiwan is planning a national referendum this year over whether to formally apply for UN membership under the name “Taiwan.”

Beijing recently stated that Taiwan’s referendum represents the kind of “major event” that would allow the regime to invoke article eight against Taiwan.

So Communist China is desperately trying to put on a friendly face for the Olympics while at the same time threatening one of Asia’s most dynamic representative democracies.

The eyes of the world will be on Beijing for the summer games, making the 2008 Olympics a unique opportunity to shine an international spotlight on the misery China exports around the globe.

No surprise here, but Tibet’s thuggish communist occupiers recently used the Olympic torch relay to “politicize” the Olympics and remind the world of their true colors. From Rueters (June 21):

Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of restive Tibet used the passing of the Olympic torch relay through the capital Lhasa on Saturday to defend their control and denounce the exiled Dalai Lama.

The torch procession ended under tight security below the towering Potala palace after having been run for just over two hours before a carefully-selected crowd, some three months after the region was convulsed by bloody anti-Chinese protests.

“Tibet’s sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it,” Tibet’s hardline Communist Party boss Zhang Qingli said at a ceremony marking the end of the two-hour relay through strictly guarded streets.

“We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique,” he added, in front of the Potala, traditional seat of the Dalai Lama, the most powerful figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

The Associated Press covered the torch passing through Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city. Here’s a part of the AP’s description of how an authoritarian communist regime celebrates the Olympic spirit:

Officers lined the route through the historic city at intervals of as little as 10 feet, while badge wearing onlookers, who had been carefully screened and individually approved beforehand, waved flags and chanted “Go China.”

A few dozen foreign reporters given special permission to cover the Lhasa leg were required to travel in a closely guarded convoy. They were only allowed to cover the opening and closing portions, isolating them from contact with ordinary residents.

Almost all foreign visitors have been banned from the region since the protests, hamstringing the local tourism industry.

These guys actaully get to host the Olympics?

Numerous sites re-printed my recent Denver Post article on some of China’s other (other than Tibet) captive peoples and nations.  These sites offer a lot of good information about Beijing’s oppression of Tibetans, Uighers, Mongolians, and people of faith in general.

A big thank you to the following, and apologies to any sites left off the list.

Phayul.com:  News, opinion and other information (including travel information) concerning Tibet

Canada Tibet Committee: Website of a pro-Tibet organizatzion in Canada

Uyghur American Association: An Uygher organization in Washington, D.C., USA

China Aid Association: An organization that monitors the persecution of Christians in China

Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center:  An Inner Mongolia human rights organization located in the U.S.

Both Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times and I have China related opinion articles in today’s Denver Post. Kristof writes on China’s use of dubious claims of terrorism threats against the Olympics in Beijing to engage in a wide-spread oppression campaign against ethnic Uighers in China’s Xinjiang region. There is no Post link for the piece, but here is the link to the Times edition.

My piece is on the other (other than Tibet) captive nations in Beijing’s imperialist empire. Here is the article re-printed in its entirety:

The international attention being focused on China’s thuggish military occupation of Tibet in the run up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is well-deserved, but it should be remembered that Tibetans are by no means the only group in western China living under the heel of the Beijing imperialists.

The Mongol people of Inner Mongolia and the Uighers (pronounced “wee-gurs”) of China’s Xinjiang region are also oppressed by Beijing. But unlike the Tibetans, they have neither a Dalai Lama nor sympathetic celebrities to present their problems on a world stage.

In 1949, the newly formed People’s Republic of China “peacefully liberated” by force the Uigher nation of East Turkestan, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was formed.

Like many Tibetans, many Uighers are seeking independence from their oppressors, but their efforts are under-reported. For instance, while world press attention focused recent Tibetan protests, few papers reported on a pro-independence demonstration by the Uighers. Similarly, most of the world failed to notice when expatriate Uighers held anti-China protests during an Olympic torch ceremony in Turkey in early April.

Like the Tibetans, the Uighers have a large diaspora, which has been forced to flee Chinese rule. Yet escaping China does not necessarily mean escaping China’s censorship power. The Associated Press reports: “In the late 1990s, the Chinese leadership exerted strong pressure on Turkey to silence and withdraw any government support for these advocates in an effort that was said to be largely successful.”

Speaking off the record, one American expert described China’s policy as “The only good Uigher is a dead Uigher.” Testifying before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations in 2001, Yemlibike Fatkulin, a Uigher asylum seeker, described Beijing’s population control tactics against ethnic Uighers including forced abortions, forced sterilization and heavy fines for “unauthorized” children.

Islam is the dominant Uigher religion. A 2005 Human Rights Watch report on Beijing’s religious repression of Uighers describes clerics being forced to listen to speeches by Communist Party and government officials. The reports notes the oppressive government regulations “pertaining to religious activities, Party doctrine, and positions on separatism.”

Inner Mongolia’s subjugation by Chinese communists began in 1947. While the Mongolians of Inner Mongolia are forced to live under rigid communist rule, the rest of Mongolia (sometimes called “Outer Mongolia”) is an independent nation that has moved from communist rule as a Soviet satellite to a sovereign parliamentary democracy.

During Mao Zedong’s genocidal “Cultural Revolution” in the 1960s and early 1970s, many thousands of Mongolians of Inner Mongolia were tortured, maimed and killed in a vicious campaign by Chinese communists against an alleged Inner Mongolia independence movement.

Today the Inner Mongolia People’s Party (so named in remembrance of the slaughter of the Cultural Revolution) actually exists as an organization of Mongolian expatriates based in New Jersey. Well outside the reach of Beijing, they affirm their goal of “establishing an independent state of Inner Mongolia.”

One of the historical affinities between Tibet and Mongolia has been Buddhism. Like Tibetans, the captive people of Inner Mongolia saw many of their temples destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Today, as in Tibet, the practice of Buddhism in Inner Mongolia is strictly “regulated” by the state.

Due to a massive re-settlement campaign by Beijing, Han Chinese now make up nearly eighty percent of the population of Inner Mongolia. Chinese imperialism has made Mongolians a minority in their own land.

Westerners eager to appease China tend to dismiss the rights of the captive nations in the Chinese empire. In an April 26 interview with the Financial Times, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge called on the west to be patient with China. Noting that the People’s Republic of China has only been around since 1949, Rogge compared contemporary China to past colonial powers such as Belgium, France and Portugal, “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Rogge admitted that China may not be a “role model” in the west, but “we owe China to give them time.”

Actually, if anyone is “owed” anything, it is the Tibetans, the Uighers and the Mongolians. They are all owed their inherent human right of self-determination. After more than half-century under the jackboot of the regime in Beijing, they have been patient long enough.

Columnist Nicholas Kristof has an interesting op-ed in the May 15 New York Times on Tibet’s “Terrified Monks.” Kristof tosses Beijing a few bones of appeasement such as his odd claim of “Tibetan brutality,” but overall the piece paints a grim picture of Beijing’s brutish occupation of Tibet, and is all the more interesting because, according to Kristof:

I sneaked through these Tibetan areas in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces, eluding the troops by taking a local car with curtains pulled over the windows, and it became clear that the recent anti-Chinese protests spread across a larger area in traditional Tibet than is sometimes realized.

Let’s start with the “Tibetan brutality.” According to Kristof:

Chinese citizens have been understandably outraged by anti-Chinese rioting by Tibetans in Lhasa in March. Tibetans burned 1,000 Chinese-owned shops (a few with people inside them) and savagely attacked or stoned ordinary Chinese citizens, even a child of about 10. The Dalai Lama and pro-Tibetan Westerners were far too leisurely about condemning Tibetan brutality, and America came across as hypocritical for apparent indifference when the victims in Tibet were Chinese.

Actually, for far too long, many Chinese and many of the Westerners who routinely appease Beijing have been far to leisurely about condemning Chinese brutality. That said, Krisof writes confidently about how “savagely” Chinese were attacked and stoned by Tibetans…confidently enough that he must be pretty sure of the accuracy of those statements. Yet later in his piece Kristoff writes:

Last month, the Chinese authorities ushered a group of journalists here on a tightly scripted tour to show that Labrang was calm — and then 15 monks rushed up to the group. One was crying, and all said that their human rights were being systematically violated.

After the reporters left, those who joined that peaceful protest were imprisoned, beaten and in some cases subjected to electric shock torture, the monks here say. That is impossible to confirm, and Tibetan versions of events are sometimes exaggerated.

So the Monks’ claims of what can only be described as “savage” and “brutal” beatings and torture are not only impossible to confirm (which is probably largely true) but also subject to exaggeration. But if this is so, then wouldn’t the claims of savage attacks on Chinese by Tibetans that Kristof notes also be, if not impossible, at least difficult to confirm and subject to exaggeration? After all, as Kristof notes, Western media coverage of the events in Tibet has been “tightly scripted” by Beijing.

Point is not to question whether some Tibetans-having lived a lifetime under the boot heel of a communist regime-might turn to violence, but rather that if a New York Times writer is going to be skeptical of the claims of beatings and torture by Tibetan Monks, then he should at least be willing to question claims about “Tibetan brutality” that might generate directly from the regime in Beijing, or that are passed along by China’s state-run media (which are, after all, one in the same).

That quibble aside, Kristof’s piece is a compelling read, as he continues:

Yet few will ever hear about the harsh crackdown unfolding here in the ancient Tibetan region of Amdo. Although there was some rioting here in Xiahe, and some attacks on the police and burning of police vehicles elsewhere, most of the demonstrators were peaceful. But even where protests were entirely peaceful, the repression has been merciless.

Whole thing here.

I turned my May 3 post on “Both Ways” Beijing into an op-ed piece for the Independence Institute.  Here is how “Both Ways” Beijing works:

First, China’s communist government vigorously pursues the 2008 Summer Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee makes the horrid decision to grant Beijing the games. Then when the regime’s domestic and world-wide thuggery–such as its brutal military occupation of Tibet, or its complicity in the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan– gets put under some scrutiny, Beijing cries foul and whines that the games should not be politicized.

“There is a handful of people who are trying to politicize the Olympic Games,” Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told reporters last year. “This is against the spirit of the Games. It also runs counter to the aspirations of all the people in the world, and so their aims will never be achieved.”

What a load of blather. Since Beijing is at the head of the line to politicize the Olympics for its own benefit, it is perfectly reasonable for those who care about human rights to take advantage of the Olympics and help shine a light on one of the world’s great human rights violators. And given the scope of the misery that Beijing heaps not only on its captive nations at home, but also exports around the world, there is no shortage of causes to take up.

And indeed, Beijing’s hosting of the Olympics offers a target rich environment of human righs abuses, including several of China’s captive nations that get much less attention than Tibet:

Like Tibetans, The Uighers (pronounced “wee-gers”) of China’s Xinjiang Province (or what was called East Turkestan before China took it by force) and the Mongolians of Inner Mongolia have lived under the thumb of Beijing for a half-century, suffering similar religious persecution at the hand of Chinese communists and likewise having their national identity steadily wiped out by the large-scale and deliberate re-settlement of Han Chinese into Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia by Beijing.

As I conclude in the article, if you care at all about human rights, go ahead and “politicize” the Olympics in Beijing to your hearts content.  China really has no room to complain.

Entire article here.

From MountEverest.net:

Alberto Peruffo, of the global campaign Sad Smoky Mountains, announced Sunday 11th May, at 13 local time as the first simultaneous ignition of red smokes as a protest action against the violation of human rights and Chinese repression in Tibet.

More than 100 summits are now involved: during the last few days the Sad Smoky Mountains project was joined by summits such as North Table Mountain (Colorado, USA), Rittner Horn on Süd Tirol Alps, Corno Grande, Corno Piccolo and Pizzo Cefalone on Gran Sasso (Apeninnes), Nanos on Dinaric Alps (Slovenia), Mount Giovo and Rondiniano (Modena Apeninnes), Puy de Manse (France) and also historically important summits such as Col Moschin and Summano (near Vicenza and Asiago) where a large number of soldiers died during World War I.

This comes only days after Beijing (and its toadies in Nepal) used the Olympics as an excuse to turn Mount Everest into a high-altitude police state.

While I’m pretty sure the very cool picture shown above is a photoshop job (since the Sad Smokey Mountains website posted it prior to the protest date) created for visual impact …..there are actual pics of climbers popping smoke in protest here.

Here’s how “both ways” Beijing works. First, the regime vigorously pursues the 2008 Summer Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee makes the horrid decision to grant Beijing the Games. Then when the regime’s world-wide thuggery, such as its military occupation of Tibet, or its complicity in the genocide in Darfur gets put under some scrutiny, the regime cries foul and whines that the Games should not be politicized.

An example from earlier this year:

Zhu Jing, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Olympic organising committee, said: “Linking the Darfur issue to the Olympic Games will not help to resolve this issue and is not in line with the Olympic spirit that separates sports from politics.”

What a load of blather.   Beijing is at the head of the line to politicize the Olympics for its own benefit.  Besides which, when have the Olympics not been politicized?

From an outstanding editorial last year from The Hill, a Washington, D.C. newspaper that covers Congress. This could have been written yesterday and it would still be spot on:

Sports and politics are not kept separate and rarely have been. Nazi Germany most notoriously used the 1936 games in Berlin to grandstand the master race (and Adolph Hitler walked out when Jesse Owens demonstrated what nonsense it was); Tommie Smith and other African-American athletes raised their gloved fists in Black Power salutes while standing on the medal podiums of the Mexico games in 1968; the United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow games to deny the Soviet Union the international acceptance it craved in the aftermath of its 1979 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan; the Russian empire struck back by boycotting the 1984 games in Los Angeles — and so on and so forth.

The games have long been used by host nations to showcase their modernity, power, and international prestige. Beijing worked doggedly to get the games for precisely these benefits. By unshackling itself from the economic strictures of communism, China has become a hugely successful international trading power while crushing political and religious freedom at home. It is thus both widely accepted and a rogue.

China wants to wear the games like a testimonial or badge of global acceptance — a rosette allowing it into the enclosure of top nations.

But it cannot have it both ways — inviting praise but complaining that criticism is out of bounds. As Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) noted, “to suggest that somehow it is unfair to ask those questions [about Chinese links to Khartoum] is ridiculous … If China doesn’t like the scrutiny, they can stop tacitly supporting genocide.”

One quibble with Representative Lee…China doesn’t so much “tacitly” support the genocide in Darfur, but rather outright subsidizes, enables and gives political cover to its perpetrators.

Eric Reeves (who runs the great Darfur website sudanreeves.org) from the March 22 Boston Globe:

Though Khartoum’s genocidal counterinsurgency campaign against Darfur’s African tribes has been authoritatively documented for years, Beijing seeks to obscure this grim reality through distortion, half-truths, and outright mendacity. In turn, nothing encourages Khartoum more than China’s refusal to speak honestly about violent human destruction in Darfur, where growing insecurity has brought the world’s largest humanitarian operation to the brink of collapse.

Why does China airbrush away Darfur’s genocidal realities? Why has Beijing been Khartoum’s largest weapons supplier over the past decade? Why has China repeatedly wielded a veto threat at the UN Security Council as the world body vainly struggles to bring pressure to bear on Khartoum? The answer lies in China’s thirst for Sudanese crude oil.

Though nothing excuses the sheer genocidal thuggery of the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum, the members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might as well be alongside the Janjaweed in Darfur pulling the trigger.