Rev. Danny Fisher

In an email today from the Save Darfur Coalition, Colleen Connors writes:

What did Sudanese President [Omar al-Bashir] do with a world-infamous war criminal? He gave him a promotion.

Bashir has appointed [Musa Hilal, the alleged leader of the janjaweed militias and orchestrator of the genocide in Darfur] as a senior adviser on ethnic affairs.

This brash and consistent defiance of the U.N. won’t stop–not as long as Bashir has China to protect him.

We must tell China that enough is enough, and our representatives can help. Leaders in Congress are gathering support for an official letter to President Hu of China letting him know that his indifference toward Darfur is unacceptable.

If you want to tell your representative to sign this official, bipartisan letter from Congress, just click here.

I’ve written about China’s relationship with Sudan in several past posts. (And the great Phil Ryan over at the Tricycle Editors’ Blog addressed the subject in a recent post as well.) As the email says, China is Sudan’s largest trading partner and foreign investor, as well as the biggest arms supplier to the Bashir regime. Connors is exactly right when she states:

Simply put, China has the power to put an end to the games Bashir is playing.

Our representatives must pressure the Chinese government to lead the world community and end the violence in Darfur.

This is hardly an impossible dream. As Connors also points out in her email, China played a crucial role in getting Sudan to agree to a hybrid peacekeeping force this past summer.

Get involved. Tell your representative to sign the official letter to President Hu here.

If you spend as much time on the Buddhist Channel as I do, then you’ve probably noticed all of the stories recently about scandals and controversies surrounding the management of the Mahabodhi Mahavihara. Blessedly, Reuters gets to the bottom of it all in a story published this morning and syndicated in media outlets everywhere.

Priests and monks allege that thousands of dollars in temple donations have mysteriously vanished, that a thick branch of the ancient holy Bodhi tree was lopped off and sold in Thailand in 2006, and that ancient relics have disappeared.

[...]

A police report obtained by Reuters accuses the three men of “nefarious activities” and asks for their private wealth to be investigated.

Witnesses questioned by police said the priest had ordered an employee to cut off “substantial parts” of the tree and take them to his home. The trio were also accused of selling off fallen leaves to pilgrims and pocketing the proceeds.

Former temple secretary Kalicharan Yadav denies the allegations, saying the branch was removed in 1978 when the tree was pruned, and said the charges against him were political, trumped up only after his party lost power in Bihar.

In addition, tensions between Hindu and Buddhist groups over control of the temple are aggravated by this shocking series of allegations.

The temple land has been owned by a nearby Hindu monastery for centuries, and the temple is managed by a committee where Hindus retain a majority over Buddhists.

But representatives of both religions stand accused.

Charges have been brought against the powerful former secretary of the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee, a Hindu, as well as the committee’s former public relations officer and the former Buddhist chief priest of the temple.

The feature in Reuters is the clearest and most thorough treatment I’ve seen of what is going on in Bodh Gaya right now. I recommend taking a look at it.