Ronan Farrow: GI-Net Representative
Ronan Farrow: GI-Net Representative
Ronan Farrow: Writer, human rights advocate and GI-Net Representative.
Ronan Farrow is a writer and human rights advocate. He has served as a UNICEF Spokesperson in Angola, Nigeria, and Sudan, and worked at the forefront of the student movement on Darfur through his work with Genocide Intervention Network.
His writings on refugee issues have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and other publications.
With UNICEF, Ronan worked with youth groups and local leaders on the AIDS epidemic in Nigeria and on post-war reconstruction efforts in Angola. During his time in Sudan, he traveled widely in Darfur, interviewing refugees, government officials and military leaders. He has appeared on MSNBC, ABC, and CNN among others advocating for the protection of Darfurian refugees.
He has testified on Sudan before numerous U.N. groups, and appeared as an expert witness before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus. He frequently coordinates and chairs events for the U.N., most recently hosting a summit at United Nations headquarters on the global AIDS pandemic.
Ronan has also worked as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and for the Chief Counsel of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
He is currently a student at Yale Law School.
The U.N.'s Human-Rights Sham
Column by Ronan Farrow, January 29, 2008
Even mild resolutions, like a Canadian proposal requesting the prosecution of those responsible for abuses in Darfur, have been rejected. Reports from U.N. fact-finding missions implicating Sudan's government in torture, rape and mass murder — including one led by Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams earlier this year — have been discarded. And while world leaders labeled the Sudanese regime's actions as genocide, the council continued to commend Sudan's conduct and assign blame to "all parties" involved. In the face of the world's worst human-rights crisis, it has refused to issue a single condemnation.
Read the complete article published in The Wall Street Journal.
Darfur’s Forgotten Rebel
Column by Ronan Farrow, June 21, 2007
In a bare hospital room to the east of Darfur, Suleiman Jamous is living out a nightmare. He is permitted no contact with the outside world. An armed guard is posted outside his door. Were he to attempt to leave, the Sudanese government’s intelligence service — notorious for its use of torture and indefinite imprisonment — would arrest him. Next week, he will have been incarcerated for a full year.
His crimes: extending the reach of life-saving humanitarian measures to tens of thousands of displaced people, attempting to unify volatile rebel groups, and courageously fighting against human-rights abuses. Suleiman Jamous has been described as the Nelson Mandela of Sudan, and he is one of the few heroes to emerge from the brutal conflict that has ravaged Darfur for the past four years.
Read the complete article published in The Wall Street Journal.
The ‘Genocide Olympics’
Column by Ronan Farrow and Mia Farrow, March 28, 2007
"One World, One Dream" is China's slogan for its 2008 Olympics. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn't be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan. ... For there is another slogan afoot, one that is fast becoming viral amongst advocacy groups; rather than "One World, One Dream," people are beginning to speak of the coming "Genocide Olympics."
Read the complete article published in The Wall Street Journal.
International Community Paralyzed By Khartoum
Column by Ronan Farrow, September 26, 2006
Sudanese President Omar El Bashir and his allies in the Arab League have indeed cultivated an image of unified opposition, calling the proposed U.N. peacekeeping mission “an effort to re-colonize Sudan” and placing picketers shouting anti-U.N. slogans to greet foreign officials visiting Khartoum. [Yet] across Darfur, from refugees in squalid camps and rebel fighters otherwise locked in deadly opposition, I heard the same desperate plea for U.N. peacekeepers.
Read the complete article published in The Washington Post's PostGlobal blog.
China’s Crude Conscience
Column by Ronan Farrow, August 10, 2006
Sudan has purchased the best protection in the world: a veto-wielding member on the U.N. Security Council willing to ensure that Khartoum’s campaign of human destruction in Darfur can continue. ... China is underwriting the first genocide of the 21st Century, and using their political weight to ensure that it is not stopped. How can we accept that?
Read the complete article published in The Wall Street Journal.
Yahia’s question: Who will protect Darfurians?
Column by Ronan Farrow, July 4, 2006
The United States, NATO and the European Union have played a game of hot potato with Darfur, ultimately throwing responsibility into the lap of the African Union, which dispatched a small force to the region in 2004. But while world leaders commend the notion of “African solutions to African problems,” the AU is floundering.
Read the complete article published in the International Herald Tribune.
Mia & Ronan Report from Darfur
Reflections on Darfur, Summer 2006
Though there is a small AU presence within the camp, they do not patrol outside the camp, and have stopped protecting women as they walk to collect firewood. Apparently, these firewood patrols have now stopped all across Darfur. The women of Zam Zam grew frustrated when I asked about the AU. “We tell them about the rapes and they do nothing,” they said. Everyone’s chief plea was for protection. When I asked if they were aware of a possible transition to a UN force, they cheered and chanted “UN! UN! We want UN!”
Read the Farrows’ complete account for the Genocide Intervention Network.
Darfur needs follow-through
Column by Ronan Farrow and Rebecca Hamilton, November 26, 2005
This month, government-backed militia in tandem with helicopter gunships attacked three more villages in West Darfur. With more than half of the villages incinerated and some 300,000 dead, the government of Sudan’s mission to obliterate the civilian population of Darfur is nearly accomplished. ... Is this our answer to a genocide? To make nice with its perpetrators?
Read the complete article published in the Boston Herald.
The cries of Darfur fall on deaf ears
Column by Ronan Farrow, February 18, 2005
I asked how many troops he would need to protect the refugees. A trace of frustration crossed Okonkwo’s face. “Protection is the responsibility of the Sudanese government. We are only to intervene within the resources available to us and the areas we are in,” he said, quoting the mandate nearly verbatim. How can we accept a mandate that offers no protection for 2 million people?
Read the complete article published in Newsday.