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Horrific rapes, bloody murders and ethnic cleansing are being carried out on hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in Darfur by the Janjaweed militia, aided by the Sudanese government.

The UN has pledged to send an international peacekeeping force to Darfur but it is being held up largely because no country has yet donated any of the 24 helicopters needed for the operation.

This petition is to ask Gordon Brown to set an example to the international community by immediately providing 5 of the helicopters required.

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A Guest Post by Clyde

Upon her return to the UK, Gillian Gibbons will be accorded celebrity status. It is scripted: there will be interviews both by tabloids and on TV, and there will inevitably be a book contract. She will enjoy her moment of fame.

And, she will follow the by now all-too-predictable multicultural meme: she will express affection for and tolerance of the savages who jerked the west around yet again, and use her pardon for the crime of “religious insensitivity” as an example of reason and negotiation over force.

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As one looks at the - entirely correct - reactions from so many Muslims in the UK, it becomes clear that the Gillian Gibbons affair has little to do with teddy bears or Mohammed and everything to do with throwing up a smokescreen to help Sudan continue to resist UN and Western efforts to halt the rape, slaughter and ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

Now, Jean-Marie Guehenno, the United Nations peacekeeping chief, has said that the obstacles raised by Sudan are putting in doubt the planned deployment of a peacekeeping force for Darfur.

“Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force that will not make a difference, that will not have the capability to defend itself, and that carries the risk of humiliation of the Security Council and the United Nations, and tragic failure for the people of Darfur?” asked Guehenno.

So it seems that, once again, the UN is proving itself to be completely and utterly fucking useless. What a surprise.

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The BBC has dug a little deeper into the Sudanese political scene, particularly with regard to overseas aid workers and ex-pats, in this article by Jonah Fisher.

During the two-and-a-half years I lived in Sudan, expatriates were regularly targeted by the authorities.

Aid workers who provided information about human rights abuses in Darfur were often arrested or expelled as spies.

On one occasion a small private party of aid workers and peacekeepers in Darfur was violently broken up by national security and one of the women was sexually assaulted by an officer.

The story that appeared in newspapers the next day was of a Western orgy having been halted.

In view of some of the incidents reported in this article and the apparent naivety of Gillian Gibbons, I wonder, “Does the Foreign Office issue sufficiently strong warnings and adequate guidelines to those British citizens who work or intend to work in this region?”