inicio sindicaci;ón

A Tenuous Peace

This all started with the desire to better understand what happens to a place once 21 years of civil war slips into the past with the signing of a peace agreement.

Soldier Poet Blogs Before Overseas Deployment

I am a soldier on active duty with the Canadian Forces who just happens to be a published poet. Most of the troops I serve with don’t know that I even write. In this blog, I aim to post irregular updates on my progress towards getting my current poetry published, raising a family, and deploying [...]

Category : Blogroll

Rick Prelinger Presents Visual Archive at FNC Lab

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 4°C] What to do with archive footage. What is its value and who does it belong to? These questions and others were addressed at the 38th edition of Montréal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) by Rick Prelinger. His name and more importantly his archive collection was introduced to me a couple of [...]

Category : Blogroll

Photo Exhibit Reveals Political Movements & Poverty in Manila

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 18°C] When I heard that Stefan Christoff was preparing for his second photo exhibit, I knew I had to go. His first one displayed photos from a trip he made to Lebanon. I bought one of the photographs in the exhibit of an image of Yasser Arafat stencilled onto a decaying wall [...]

Category : Blogroll

Al Jazeera & American Military Command in Africa (Africom)

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 22°C] Yesterday, a very good friend lead me to the article, Why I Love Al Jazeera by Robert D. Kaplan. The title reminded me of why I, too, loved the English-language edition of the Qatar-based Arab TV channel. I first started watching it every evening while staying with friends in Juba, Southern [...]

Category : Blogroll

Video Portrait From Southern Sudan #1: Rose Achan Beryl

This is Rose Achan Beryl’s story. During a 7-week visit to Southern Sudan, I interviewed about a dozen Southern Sudanese men and women. Each one offers an intimate view of their lives during the 21-year civil war and since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. We get a glimpse into their family lives [...]

Category : Blogroll

Juba Declaration By Southern Sudan Women

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 18°C] The upcoming 2010 elections in Sudan and the 2011 self-determination referendum for Southern Sudan, are fraught with many important challenges for everyone involved. But the challenges are probably greatest for women, both in the voting process and for representation in the respective legislatures. According to a recent Inter Press Service (IPS) article, [...]

Category : Blogroll

Perfect Binding: This is Not a Book

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 17°C] It’s been one and a half years since I decided to close the books of Cumulus Press and begin anew with mobile journalism and documentary filmmaking. But the love of books has never really dissipated and every so often I come across the printed page in all of its creative spleandour [...]

Category : Blogroll

Remnants of War in Southern Sudan

[Nairobi, Kenya 29°] A return to Nairobi after a heavy schedule across seven cities and countless villages throughout Southern Sudan leaves me tired and ready for a holiday in Tanzania. First a safari near Arusha, then a beachside break on the island of Zanzibar.

I haven’t had the opportunity to post in the last two weeks as I continued to visit sites, interview people and learn more about the complexities of Southern Sudan.

Once I return to Montréal in early May, I will begin to review my pages of notes and hundreds of photos taken during the sevens weeks in Southern Sudan. I will view the hours of video footage and listen to the dozens of audio interviews recorded during the visit. The books, newspapers, reports and other written documentation collected during the visit will be read and analysed upon return.

Here are a selection of photographs taken during the visit that portray…

Category : Uncategorized

Sudanese-born Canadian May Fly Home on Friday

[Abyei, South Kordofan, Southern Sudan 40°C] Abousfian Abdelrazik is a man from Montréal whose been living in ‘temporary safe haven’ in the Canadian Embassy in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, since late April 2008. He has been in Sudan since March 2003, when he went to visit his mother. According to a timeline of his case, Abdelrazik was arrested six months later and detained for ten months before being released.

Peoples Commission on Immigration Security Measures)

(source: Peoples Commission on Immigration Security Measures)

Documents obtained under the Privacy Act (.pdf 169Mb or ZIP 52Mb) and available from the website of the People’s Commission on Immigration Security Measures indicate that Mr. Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, was incarcerated in Sudan on the request of Canadian officials. While in prison in December 2003, he was interrogated by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Since his release in July 2006, he has been blocked from returning home to Montréal.

Mr. Abdelrazik’s family lives in Montréal and has…

Category : Uncategorized

ICC Arrest Warrant Repurcussions on Southern Sudan

[Warrap Town, Southern Sudan 45°C] Below is a podcast that was aired on Wednesday, March 25 on Amandla, a weekly Africa news and issues radio show on Montréal’s CKUT 90.3 FM.

Here is the transcript of the audio report with a few added photos:

Exactly three weeks ago, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur. Like many people in Sudan, I was glued to the television set to view the announcement. It was 4 p.m.

An anonymous blogger who worked for an international aid agency in Darfur wrote on AlertNet, that one hour after the announcement was made, his agency received a phone call. “The Government had revoked our licence and we must close all our programmes. No further explanation. First thing the next day we were told all international staff had to leave Darfur…

Category : Uncategorized

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