title: War in Darfur

text: During the first week of August, the Maalia claimed the Rezeigat had killed five members of their tribe in the southeastern region of Adila. They responded by seizing 400 Rizeigat cattle on 6 August. Community leaders intervened to prevent escalation. When the Maalia failed to return the cattle, violence broke out on 10 August. The Rezeigat attacked and reportedly destroyed a Maaliya compound. In the battle, 77 Maaliya and 36 Rezeigat were killed, and another 200 people were injured. Both sides said Land Cruiser vehicles were used in the battle. The Maaliya accused the Rezeigat of attacking and burning villages while employing "heavy weaponry". On 11 August, the fighting spread to several other areas in southeastern Darfur. The violence reportedly arose over a land dispute.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 19 March, peacekeepers said they had received recent reports of villages that were attacked and burned after the UN expressed concern over the increasing number of internally displaced persons. UNAMID said that the attacks were in Hashaba, about 100 kilometers north-west of the city Al-Fashir, the state capital of North Darfur.


title: War in Darfur

text: In November, local media reported that 200 women and girls had been raped by Sudanese soldiers in Tabit. Sudan denied it and did not permit the UN (who said their first inquiry was inconclusive "in part due to the heavy presence of military and police") to make another inquiry. An investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released in February said 221 were raped by government soldiers in "a mass rape that could constitute crimes against humanity". Witnesses reported three separate operations were carried out in one and a half days. Property was looted, men arrested, residents beaten and women and girls raped. Most of the town's population are Fur people. It had been controlled by rebel forces previously but HRW found no evidence that the rebel fighters were in or close to the village when it was attacked.


title: War in Darfur

text: 3,300 villages were destroyed in 2014 in attacks on civilians according to the UN Panel of Experts. Government forces or those aligned with them were behind most attacks. There were more than 400,000 attacks during the first ten months of the year. The report said that it was "highly probable that civilian communities were targeted as a result of their actual or perceived affiliations with armed opposition groups" and that "such attacks were carried out with impunity".


title: War in Darfur

text: In September 2016, the Sudanese government reportedly launched chemical weapon attacks on civilian populations in Darfur, killing at least 250 people; the majority of the victims were children. It is believed that the munitions contained mustard gas or other blister agents.


title: War in Darfur

text: Reports from UNAMID and the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies suggest that low-level violence continued in Darfur through early 2018, with Sudanese government forces attacking communities in the Jebel Marra area. As UNAMID forces began to be drawn down with an eye to exiting Darfur, there were competing views on the levels of unrest in the region: UN officials pointed to a significant reduction in the scale and distribution of violence in Darfur, while other NGOS such as HRW highlighted persistent pockets of unrest.


title: War in Darfur

text: The August 2019 Draft Constitutional Declaration, signed by military and civilian representatives during the 2018–19 Sudanese Revolution, requires that a peace agreement be made in Darfur and other regions of armed conflict in Sudan within the first six months of the 39-month transition period to democratic civilian government.


title: War in Darfur

text: In December 2019, "The Guardian" reported that irrigation projects built around community-based weirs are enabling "green shoots of peace" to appear, helping to end this conflict. This project was conducted with funding from the European Union and was overseen by the United Nations Environmental Program.


title: War in Darfur

text: Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb was arrested in the Central African Republic on 9 June 2020, thirteen years after he was charged by the International Criminal Court with 51 crimes against humanity and war crimes.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 31 August 2020, a peace deal was signed in Juba, South Sudan, between the Sovereignty Council of Sudan and several rebel groups, including the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM), Justice and Equality Movement, Transitional Revolutionary Council, and Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM–N).


title: War in Darfur

text: Under the terms of the agreement, the factions that signed will be entitled to three seats on the sovereignty council, a total of five ministers in the transitional cabinet and a quarter of seats in the transitional legislature. At a regional level, signatories will be entitled between 30 and 40% of the seats on transitional legislatures of their home states or regions.


title: War in Darfur

text: Notably absent were rebel factions led by Abdul Wahid al Nur and Abdelaziz al-Hilu who refused to be part of the agreement. On 3 October 2020, the SRF, SPLM–N led by Malik Agar and SLM led by Minni Minnawi signed another peace deal with the Sudanese government, with the absence of both al Nur and al-Hilu. However, the deal included terms to integrate rebels into the security forces, and to grant them political representation and economic and land rights, in addition to a 10-year plan to invest $750 million to develop southern and western regions, and to guarantee the return for displaced people.


title: War in Darfur

text: In December, Sudan started to deploy troops to South Darfur "in large numbers", following recent tribal violence between the Masalit and Fula.


title: War in Darfur

text: The United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) ended its mission on 31 December, with a complete withdrawal scheduled for 30 June. There are currently some 4,000 troops, 480 police advisers, 1,631 police, 483 international civilian staff, and 945 national civilian staff in the region.


title: War in Darfur

text: Fighting between Masalit people and Arab nomads in Al Geneina District, West Darfur, left 84 dead and 160 wounded, including soldiers, on 16 January. This was two weeks after the United Nations withdrew its peacekeepers from the region after 13 years. Based on a statement from the Darfur Bar Association, the fresh violence initiated after a member of an Arab tribe was stabbed by another member of the Masalit tribe. Following the unrest, a high profile delegation authorized by Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was sent to the region in order to assess the situation.


title: War in Darfur

text: Separately, clashes were also reported to have erupted in the eastern part of Sudan on Thursday and Friday between two ethnic groups, the Beni Amer and Nuba at Port Sudan.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 17 January, a curfew was put in place by the Sudanese authorities, including a state of emergency in Sudan’s West Darfur region.


title: War in Darfur

text: As of 18 January, the death toll was reported to have reached at least 129 people, including women and children, since the beginning of the clashes between the Arabs and non-Arabs in West Darfur on Friday, according to the ABC News.


title: War in Darfur

text: However, the United Nations has urged the Sudanese government to see to the de-escalation of the violence in West Darfur and safeguard civilian lives.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 20 January, the residence of the provincial Governor of West Darfur Mohammed Abdalla al-Douma, was under an attempted attack by unidentified gunmen. Security forces managed to repel the attack without any reports of casualties or destruction of properties. Meanwhile, reports from local media suggested that during the assassination attempt, several blasts were heard all over the state.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 24 January, the UN refugee agency revealed that since the initial outbreak of tribal clashes in Darfur earlier this January, at least 250 people have lost their lives. Three humanitarian workers were also among those who were killed, the agency added. Also, more than 100,000 people are believed to have been displaced, fleeing into neighboring Chad, with about 3,500 of them being mostly women and children.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 28 March, Al-Hilu, leader of SPLA-North, signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government in Juba, South Sudan, which would guarantee freedom of religion in a civil, democratic Sudan that would also have a single unified army to protect national security.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 5 April, fresh tribal clashes erupted in West Darfur’s El Geneina, which led to the death of at least 40 people, the United Nations revealed.During the three days of clashes, at least 58 people were also said to have been injured, according to the VOA News. Later in the evening, Sudan’s defense council declared a state of emergency and also deployed troops to the troubled region of West Darfur state.


title: War in Darfur

text: As of 6 April, the West Darfur State Doctors' Committee reported that the death toll had reached 50, with 132 others injured, according to the Middle East Online. According to the UN, reports suggest that there has been the destruction of humanitarian facilities, civilian lives, including women and children, during the violence in the region. Also, the decision to declare a state of emergency in the region was applauded by the UN envoy for Sudan, Volker Peretz and he urged the government to ensure the protection of humanitarian organizations, so as to provide services to the victims of the violence.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 7 April, 37 more deaths were recorded by the Sudanese doctors’ committee in West Darfur, increasing the total death toll to 87, according to Al Jazeera.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 8 April, the governor of the West Darfur state, Mohamed Abdallah Douma stated in a news conference that at least 132 people had been killed during the days of unrest in the state. However, the Western Darfur State Doctors Committee has placed the death toll to be at least 125 during the sixth day of tribal clashes consecutively, with 208 others wounded, according to CNN.


title: War in Darfur

text: The UN has called on the authorities to ensure that citizens are protected and that an immediate investigation of the clashes is launched. They also maintained that all the perpetrators of the violence must be held responsible, in order to attain justice for those affected during the clashes, including immediate deployment of security forces to the region.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 12 April, following several days of violence in West Darfur that led to the death of at least 144 people, the leader of Sudan reportedly visited the region, according to ABC News. Meanwhile, the head of the ruling sovereign council, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, including high-ranking security and military officials, also visited the provincial capital of West Darfur, Genena, where they held separate talks with the Arab Rizeigat and the non-Arab Masalit tribes. After the visit made by the Khartoum delegation, the Dar Masalit Displaced People expressed their refusal to accept the result of the mediation headed by El Burhan. They blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for the unrest in the region.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 14 April, a statement released by the U.N. refugee agency confirmed that the violence in the capital of West Darfur, El Geneina had stopped, based on reports which suggested that there haven’t been any shootings for the past four days. The days of deadly tribal clashes have compelled at least 1,860 people to flee into the neighboring Chad, the agency added. Most of the refugees are believed to be women, children, and the elderly. Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) maintained that the refugees arriving revealed that their homes and properties were being destroyed.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 28 April, clashes reportedly erupted during a sit-in protest in South Darfur’s Bielel between security forces and protesters. In an attempt by the Sudanese security forces to forcefully disperse the protesters, one woman was said to have been killed while leaving at least eight others wounded. Tear gas was said to have been used to disperse the crowd by a joint force from both the army and the police, including the firing of live rounds.


title: War in Darfur

text: Meanwhile, at the secretariat of the state government in Nyala, protesters gathered in front of the building to protest against an attack on their village, Gassat Enjemet, which left three people dead and others wounded.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 5 May, thousands of displaced people affected by the heavy clashes in El Geneina, have requested that they want to go back to their homes. They made the request due to the awful living conditions in their shelters, the acting governor of West Darfur, Mohamed Zakaria revealed.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 29 May, a group of armed men reportedly opened fire in a market in West Darfur’s Foro Baranga. As a result of the shooting, one person was said to have been killed, leaving five others seriously wounded. Angry protests erupted following the attack, with protesters setting many shops ablaze and also blocking all main roads leading to the town. According to Al Jazeera, some people threatened the doctors at the hospital to attend to their wounded patients and leave other patients.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 5 June, clashes between the Arab Taisha and ethnic African Fallata tribes in South Darfur’s Um Dafuq claimed the lives of at least 36 people, with 37 others wounded. An aid worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity revealed that the clash erupted as a result of a land dispute between the two conflicting parties. Subsequently, a certain state of calm was said to have been attained, following the deployment of more troops to the South Darfur’s Um Dafuk.


title: War in Darfur

text: The well-armed Janjaweed quickly gained an advantage over rebel factions. By the spring of 2004, several thousand people – mostly from the non-Arab population – had been killed and as many as a million more had been driven from their homes, causing a major humanitarian crisis. The crisis took on an international dimension when over 100,000 refugees poured into neighboring Chad, pursued by militiamen who clashed with Chadian government forces along the border. More than 70 militiamen and 10 Chadian soldiers were killed in one gun battle in April. A United Nations observer team reported that non-Arab villages were singled out, while Arab villages were left untouched:


title: War in Darfur

text: The 23 Fur villages in the Shattaya Administrative Unit have been completely depopulated, looted and burnt to the ground (the team observed several such sites driving through the area for two days). Meanwhile, dotted alongside these charred locations are unharmed, populated and functioning Arab settlements. In some locations, the distance between a destroyed Fur village and an Arab village is less than 500 meters.


title: War in Darfur

text: A 2011 study examined 1,000 interviews with black African participants who fled from 22 village clusters to various refugee camps in 2003 and 2004. The study found: 1) the frequency of hearing racial epithets during an attack was 70% higher when it was led by the Janjaweed alone compared to official police forces; it was 80% higher when the Janjaweed and the Sudanese Government attacked together; 2) the risk of displacement was nearly 110% higher during a joint attack compared to when the police or Janjaweed acted alone, and 85% higher when Janjaweed forces attacked alone compared to when the attack was only perpetrated by government forces; 3) attacks on food and water supplies made it 129% more likely for inhabitants to be displaced compared to attacks that involved house burnings or killings; 4) perpetrators knew and took "special advantage" of the susceptibility of Darfur residents to attacks focused on basic resources. This vulnerability came against the backdrop of increased regional desertification.


title: War in Darfur

text: Immediately after the Janjaweed entered the conflict, the rape of women and young girls, often by multiple militiamen and often throughout entire nights, began to be reported at a staggering rate. Children as young as 2 years old were reported victims, while mothers were assaulted in front of their children. Young women were attacked so violently that they were unable to walk following the attack.


title: War in Darfur

text: Non-Arab people were reportedly raped by Janjaweed militiamen as a result of the Sudanese government's goal of completely eliminating the presence of black Africans and non-Arabs from Darfur. The Washington Post Foreign Service interviewed verified victims of the rapes and recorded that Arabic terms such as "abid" and "zurga" were used, which mean slave and black. One victim, Sawelah Suliman, was told by her assailant, "Black girl, you are too dark. You are like a dog. We want to make a light baby." In an 88-page report, victims from Darfur have also accused the Rapid Support Forces of rape and assault as recently as 2015.


title: War in Darfur

text: Multiple casualty estimates have been published since the war began, ranging from roughly 10,000 civilians (Sudan government) to hundreds of thousands.


title: War in Darfur

text: In September 2004, 18 months after the conflict began, the World Health Organization estimated that there had been 50,000 deaths in Darfur, mostly due to starvation. An updated estimate published the following month put the number of deaths for the 6-month period from March to October 2004 due to starvation and disease at 70,000; These figures were criticized because they only considered short periods and did not include deaths from violence. A more recent British Parliamentary Report estimated that over 300,000 people had died and others have published even higher death toll estimates.


title: War in Darfur

text: In March 2005, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland estimated that 10,000 people were dying each month, excluding deaths due to ethnic violence. An estimated 2.7 million people had at that time been displaced from their homes, mostly seeking refuge in camps in Darfur's major towns. Two hundred thousand had fled to neighboring Chad. Reports of violent deaths compiled by the UN indicate between 6,000 and 7,000 fatalities from 2004 to 2007.


title: War in Darfur

text: In May 2005, the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) of the School of Public Health of the Université catholique de Louvain in Brussels, Belgium published an analysis of mortality in Darfur. Their estimate stated that from September 2003 to January 2005, between 98,000 and 181,000 persons died in Darfur, including 63,000 to 146,000 excess deaths.


title: War in Darfur

text: In August 2010, Dr. Eric Reeves argued that total mortality from all violent causes, direct and indirect, at that point in the conflict, exceeded 500,000. His analysis took account of all previous mortality data and studies, including that by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster.


title: War in Darfur

text: The UN disclosed on 22 April 2008 that it might have underestimated the Darfur death toll by nearly 50%.


title: War in Darfur

text: In July 2009, "The Christian Science Monitor" published an op-ed stating that many of the published mortality rates have been misleading because they include a large number of people who had died of disease and malnutrition, as well as those who died from direct violence.


title: War in Darfur

text: In January 2010, the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters published an article in a special issue of "The Lancet". The article, entitled "Patterns of mortality rates in Darfur conflict", estimated with 95% confidence that the excess number of deaths is between 178,258 and 461,520 (with a mean of 298,271), with 80% of these due to disease.


title: War in Darfur

text: International attention to the Darfur genocide largely began with reports by Amnesty International in July 2003 and the International Crisis Group in December 2003. However, widespread media coverage did not start until the outgoing United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, called Darfur the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis" in March 2004. Organizations such as , later under the umbrella of Genocide Intervention Network, and the Save Darfur Coalition emerged and became particularly active in the areas of engaging the United States Congress and President on the issue and pushing for divestment, initially launched by Adam Sterling under the auspices of the Sudan Divestment Task Force.


title: War in Darfur

text: In May 2009 the Mandate Darfur was canceled because the "Sudanese government is obstructing the safe passage of Darfurian delegates from Sudan." The Mandate was a conference that would have brought together 300 representatives from different regions of Darfur's civil society. The conference planned was to be held in Addis Ababa sometime in early May.


title: War in Darfur

text: In March 2005, the UN Security Council formally referred the situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, taking into account the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, but without mentioning specific crimes. Two permanent members of the Security Council, the United States and China, abstained from the vote on the referral resolution.


title: War in Darfur

text: In April 2007, the Judges of the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against the former Minister of State for the Interior, Ahmed Haroun, and a Janjaweed leader, Ali Kushayb, for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Sudan Government said that the ICC had no jurisdiction to try Sudanese citizens and that it would not surrender the two men.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 14 July 2008, the Prosecutor filed ten charges of war crimes against Sudan's incumbent President Omar al-Bashir, including three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. The Prosecutor claimed that Mr. al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity. Leaders from three Darfur tribes sued ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo for libel, defamation, and igniting hatred and tribalism.


title: War in Darfur

text: After an arrest warrant was issued for the Sudanese president in March 2009, the Prosecutor appealed to add genocide charges. However, the Pre-Trial Chamber found that there was no reasonable ground to support the contention that he had a specific intent to commit genocide ("dolus specialis"), which is an intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group. The definition adopted by the Pre-Trial Chamber is the definition of the Genocide Convention, the Rome Statute, and some ICTY cases. On 3 February 2010 the Appeals Chamber of the ICC found that the Pre-Trial Chamber had applied "an erroneous standard of proof when evaluating the evidence submitted by the Prosecutor" and that the Prosecutor's application for a warrant of arrest on the genocide charges should be sent back to the Pre-Trial Chamber to review based on the correct legal standard. In July 2010, al-Bashir was charged with three counts of genocide in Darfur by the International Criminal Court for orchestrating the Darfur genocide.


title: War in Darfur

text: Al-Bashir was the first incumbent head of state charged with crimes under the Rome Statute. He rejected the charges and said, "Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes ... will know that all of these things are lies."


title: War in Darfur

text: It is expected that al-Bashir will not face trial in The Hague until he is apprehended in a nation which accepts ICC jurisdiction, as Sudan is not a party to the Rome Statute, which it signed but did not ratify. Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University in Montreal and a former war crimes prosecutor, says although he may not go to trial, "He will effectively be in prison within the Sudan itself...Al-Bashir now is not going to be able to leave the Sudan without facing arrest." The Prosecutor warned that authorities could arrest the President if he enters international airspace. The Sudanese government has announced that the Presidential plane would be accompanied by jet fighters. However, the Arab League announced solidarity with al-Bashir. Since the warrant, he has visited Qatar and Egypt. The African Union also condemned the charges.


title: War in Darfur

text: Some analysts think that the ICC indictment is counterproductive and harms the peace process. Only days after the ICC indictment, al-Bashir expelled 13 international aid organizations from Darfur and disbanded three domestic aid organizations. In the aftermath of the expulsions, conditions in the displaced camps deteriorated. Previous ICC indictments, such as the arrest warrants of the LRA leadership in the ongoing war in northern Uganda, were also accused of harming peace processes by criminalizing one side of a war.


title: War in Darfur

text: Al-Bashir sought the assistance of non-western countries after the West, led by America, imposed sanctions against him. He said, "From the first day, our policy was clear: To look eastward, toward China, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and even Korea and Japan, even if the Western influence upon some [of these] countries is strong. We believe that the Chinese expansion was natural because it filled the space left by Western governments, the United States, and international funding agencies. The success of the Sudanese experiment in dealing with China without political conditions or pressures encouraged other African countries to look toward China."


title: War in Darfur

text: In 2007, Amnesty International issued a report accusing China and Russia of supplying arms, ammunition and related equipment to Sudan, some of which the government may have transferred to Darfur in violation of a UN arms embargo. The report claims that Sudan imported 10–20 combat aircraft from China in the early-mid-2000s, including three A-5 Fantan fighters that have been sighted in Darfur. The report provides evidence that the Sudan Air Force conducted indiscriminate aerial bombings of villages in Darfur and eastern Chad using ground attack fighters and repurposed Antonov transport planes. However, it does not specify whether the ground attack fighters in question are those purchased from China in the early-mid-2000s, and the Antonovs' origin remains unclear. The report also lists seven Soviet- or Russian-made Mi-24 Hind gunships that had been deployed to Darfur, though without specifying which country sold them to Sudan, or when. While noting that Russia sold arms worth tens of millions of dollars to Sudan in 2005 alone, the report does not specifically identify any weapons sold to Sudan by Russia after the outbreak of the Darfur conflict or after the imposition of the UNSC ban on arms transfers to Darfur, and it does not provide any evidence that any such weapons were deployed to Darfur.


title: War in Darfur

text: The NGO Human Rights First claimed that over 90% of the light weapons currently being imported by Sudan and used in the conflict are from China. Human rights advocates and opponents of the Sudanese government portray China's role in providing weapons and aircraft as a cynical attempt to obtain oil, just as colonial powers once supplied African chieftains with the military means to maintain control as they extracted natural resources. According to China's critics, China threatened to use its veto on the U.N. Security Council to protect Khartoum from sanctions and was able to water down every resolution on Darfur in order to protect its interests. Accusations of the supply of weapons from China, which were then transferred to Darfur by the Sudanese government in violation of the UN arms embargo, continued in 2010.


title: War in Darfur

text: Sarah Wykes, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, an NGO that campaigns for better natural resource governance, says: "Sudan has purchased about $100m in arms from China and has used these weapons against civilians in Darfur."


title: War in Darfur

text: According to the report Following the Thread: Arms and Ammunition Tracing in Sudan and South Sudan, released in May 2014 by the Swiss research group Small Arms Survey, "Over the period 2001–12, Khartoum's reports to UN Comtrade reveal significant fluctuation in annual conventional arms imports. The majority of the Sudanese government's total self-reported imports of small arms and light weapons, their ammunition, and ‘conventional weapons’ over the period originated in China (58 per cent), followed by Iran (13 per cent), St. Vincent and the Grenadines (9 per cent), and Ukraine (8 per cent)." The report found that Chinese weapons were pervasive among most parties to the Sudanese conflicts, including the war in Darfur, but identified few if any weapons of Russian origin. (The section "Chinese weapons and ammunition" receives 20 pages in the report, whereas the only mention of Russian arms is to be found in the sentence "the majority of...mines [in South Sudan] have been of Chinese and Soviet/Russian origin.").


title: War in Darfur

text: China and Russia denied they had broken UN sanctions. China has a close relationship with Sudan and increased its military co-operation with the government in early 2007. Because of Sudan's plentiful supply of oil, China considers good relations with Sudan to be a strategic necessity. China has direct commercial interests in Sudan's oil. China's state-owned company CNPC controls between 60 and 70 percent of Sudan's total oil production. Additionally, it owns the largest single share (40 percent) of Sudan's national oil company, Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company. China consistently opposed economic and non-military sanctions on Sudan.


title: War in Darfur

text: In March 2007, threats of boycotting the Olympic games came from French presidential candidate François Bayrou, in an effort to stop China's support. Sudan divestment efforts concentrated on PetroChina, the national petroleum company with extensive investments in Sudan.


title: War in Darfur

text: Gérard Prunier, a scholar specializing in African conflicts, argued that the world's most powerful countries have limited themselves to expressing concern and demand for the United Nations to take action. The UN, lacking initiative and will, initially left the African Union to deploy a token force without a mandate to protect civilians.


title: War in Darfur

text: On 16 October 2006, Minority Rights Group (MRG) published a critical report, challenging that the UN and the great powers could have prevented the crisis and that few lessons appeared to have been drawn from the Rwandan genocide. MRG's executive director, Mark Lattimer, stated that: "this level of crisis, the killings, rape and displacement could have been foreseen and avoided ... Darfur would just not be in this situation had the UN systems got its act together after Rwanda: their action was too little too late." On 20 October 120 genocide survivors of The Holocaust, and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides, backed by six aid agencies, submitted an open letter to the European Union, calling on them to do more, proposing a UN peacekeeping force as "the only viable option."


title: War in Darfur

text: "Watchers of the Sky", a 2014 documentary by Edet Belzberg, interviews former journalist and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power about the war in Darfur. Also featured is Luis Moreno Ocampo, former ICC jurist and lead prosecutor on the ICC investigation in Darfur.


title: War in Darfur

text: Brutality of militias, violence used by armed forces, corruption and human right abuse were also shown in "ER" television series (e.g. episodes 12x19, 12x20), and in 2007 documentaries "They Turned Our Desert Indo Fire" and "The Devil Came on Horseback".


title: Tom Hagen

text: Thomas Hagen is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel "The Godfather" and Francis Ford Coppola's films "The Godfather" (1972) and "The Godfather Part II" (1974). He is portrayed by Robert Duvall in the films. He also appears in the Mark Winegardner sequel novels, "The Godfather Returns" and "The Godfather's Revenge", as well as Ed Falco's novel, "The Family Corleone." Duvall was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA for his performance in the first film.


title: Tom Hagen

text: He operates as the "consigliere" and as a lawyer for the Corleone family, and is an informally adopted member of the family.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Hagen is the informally adopted son of the mafia boss Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). He is a lawyer and the "consigliere" to the Corleone American mafia family. Logical and gentle, he serves as the voice of reason within the family. The novel and first film establish that he is of German-Irish ancestry.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Vito's eldest son Santino (James Caan) befriends 11-year-old Tom, who was living on the street after running away from an orphanage. When Sonny brings Tom home and demands he be taken in, the Corleone family welcome him as a family member. Hagen considers Vito his true father, although Vito never formally adopts him, believing it would be disrespectful to Hagen's deceased parents.


title: Tom Hagen

text: After law school, Hagen goes to work in the Corleone family business. His non-Italian ancestry precludes his formal membership in the mafia family, but when the "consigliere" Genco Abbandando dies, Hagen is given his position. Consequently, the other New York families deride the Corleones as "The Irish Gang".


title: Tom Hagen

text: Hagen immerses himself in the Sicilian-American culture and speaks fluent Sicilian. His Northern European appearance, though distracting to the Five Families, is an advantage to his job. He is able to travel and conduct family business in non-Italian circles without potential witnesses noticing him.


title: Tom Hagen

text: While Hagen loves all the Corleones, he is closest to Sonny, and blames himself for Sonny's murder. When Vito semi-retires in 1954 and his youngest son Michael (Al Pacino) succeeds him as the head of the family, Michael removes Hagen as "consigliere", preferring his father informally assume the role; Michael claims Hagen is "not a wartime consigliere". Hagen is hurt, but respects their decision, and begins managing the family's legitimate businesses.


title: Tom Hagen

text: The novel and first film portray Hagen aiding Vito and Michael in warring against the other ruling New York Mafia families. In "The Godfather Part II", set in 1958–1960, Hagen serves as Michael's right-hand man during his power struggle with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg). In "The Godfather Part III", set in 1979–1980, he is said to have died some years before in an unspecified manner. His role in the story between the second and third films, including his death, is portrayed in Mark Winegardner's sequel novels, "The Godfather Returns" and "The Godfather's Revenge".


title: Tom Hagen

text: In both the novel and film, Hagen is introduced as an important member of the Corleone family. As a child he grew up in a broken family, the son of an abusive alcoholic. Sonny Corleone finds the orphaned Hagen living on the street and suffering from an eye infection, takes him home, and demands he live with the Corleone family. Vito Corleone becomes a surrogate father to Hagen, but never officially adopts him out of respect for the boy's biological father.


title: Tom Hagen

text: In the novel, Hagen asks to work for Vito after graduating from law school, knowing full well that his adoptive father is the most powerful Mafia chief in the nation. Vito is happy to employ Hagen into his empire, having often said that lawyers can steal more than a phalanx of gangsters. Hagen marries an Italian woman, Theresa, with whom he has two sons, Frank and Andrew, and a daughter, Gianna.


title: Tom Hagen

text: After Vito's longtime "consigliere" Genco Abbandando is diagnosed with cancer, Hagen becomes acting "consigliere" and succeeds to the post formally after Abbandando's death. Vito is initially reluctant to give Hagen the post full-time, considering Hagen is not a Sicilian.


title: Tom Hagen

text: When famous singer/actor Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) seeks his godfather Vito's help in securing a movie role that could revitalize his fading career, Vito sends Hagen, accompanied by some of his caporegimes, to Hollywood to persuade Jack Woltz (John Marley), a successful movie producer, to cast Johnny in his new war film. Hagen offers his benefactor's help with Woltz's union problems and also informs him that one of his actors has been using marijuana and heroin; a deleted scene in the movie shows that this information would be used to damage Woltz's studio. Woltz rebuffs Hagen but becomes more polite after learning he works for the Corleones. Woltz still refuses to cast Fontane, who slept with one of Woltz's protégées, but offers to do any other favor for Vito, expressing his intent to run Fontane out of the entertainment industry as retaliation for his affair. Hagen declines, and soon afterward, Woltz awakens in bed with his prized racing stallion's severed head planted under the satin covers, scaring him into casting Fontane in the film.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Tom arranges a meeting between Vito and drug kingpin Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), who wants Vito to help finance his narcotics business and provide legal protection and political influence. Vito ultimately rejects the deal, however, on the grounds that it would cost him his influence over the judges and police if they knew he was in the drug trade.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Offended at the rejection of his deal, Sollozzo has Vito's personal assassin Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana) murdered, Vito himself shot, and Hagen kidnapped off the street. Sollozzo tells Hagen that Vito is dead, and tasks him with persuading Sonny to make peace and accept his narcotics deal. The meeting is interrupted when Sollozzo receives word that Vito has survived the shooting, ruining Sollozzo's original plan. Hagen tricks Sollozzo into believing that he will broker the narcotics deal with the Corleones, and Sollozzo releases him, unharmed.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Tom meets with Sonny, Michael, and Corleone "caporegimes" Peter Clemenza (Richard S. Castellano) and Salvatore Tessio (Abe Vigoda), and advises that if Vito dies, Sonny should agree to Sollozzo's deal, and that the other Mafia families will most likely support Sollozzo to avoid a war. Two fish wrapped in Luca Brasi's bulletproof vest arrive at the Corleone compound, an unmistakable message that Brasi has been murdered by Sollozzo. Sonny orders Clemenza to execute Vito's traitorous bodyguard Paulie Gatto (John Martino). Clemenza, accompanied by "soldato" (and later caporegime) Rocco Lampone (Tom Rosqui), has Gatto drive out to a swampland, and exits the car to urinate as Lampone shoots and kills Gatto.


title: Tom Hagen

text: After Michael thwarts a second assassination attempt on Vito by Sollozzo, he calls the Corleone compound to warn Sonny. Tom goes to the hospital with private detectives that are licensed to carry firearms to protect Vito and stops Captain Mark McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), a corrupt NYPD officer on Sollozzo's payroll, from taking Michael into police custody. Sonny then orders Bruno Tattaglia, son and underboss of Sollozzo's ally Philip Tattaglia (Victor Rendina), to be murdered. Sollozzo requests a meeting and proposes that Michael be sent to broker a truce. Sonny, believing it is a trick, refuses and demands that the other Mafia families hand over Sollozzo to the Corleone family or else face war. Tom successfully convinces Sonny to wait because McCluskey has agreed to be Sollozzo's bodyguard and warns Sonny that killing McCluskey would violate a long-standing Mafia rule to not kill members of law enforcement. Violation of the rule would cause harmful backlash from rival Mafia families and law enforcement. Michael suggests they agree to Sollozzo's meeting but insist it be held in a public place, to lull Sollozzo into a feeling of safety. Michael devises a plan: he will kill McCluskey and Sollozzo and then have journalists on the Corleone payroll run stories about McCluskey's ties to drug trafficking operations, which will convince the other families not to retaliate on the grounds of McCluskey's corruption. Sonny agrees and approves the hit.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Tom is nervous about putting Michael at risk but Sonny discovers the location of the meeting, an Italian restaurant, from a policeman on the Corleone payroll in McCluskey's precinct. Clemenza plants a revolver behind a toilet tank in the restaurant's bathroom, which Michael retrieves before returning to his table and shooting both men dead. The killing of Sollozzo and McCluskey and the subsequent Mafia war between the Corleone family and the Five Families sparks a massive crackdown by law enforcement. Michael hides in Sicily and Vito returns home. Tom informs Vito that the police have cracked down on all Mafia operations. Tom informs Vito that it was Michael who killed Sollozzo and McCluskey and thus had to flee. As the impulsive Sonny takes command of the Corleone family while his father recovers, Tom advises peace while Sonny is eager for revenge. Impatient with Tom's rationality, Sonny lashes out and belittles Tom's abilities as a wartime consigliere, but immediately apologizes.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Tom again acts as intermediary when Michael's girlfriend Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) arrives at the Corleone compound wanting to contact Michael. Tom denies knowledge of Michael's whereabouts and refuses her letter. Tom advises she be patient and that Michael will eventually contact her.


title: Tom Hagen

text: When Sonny is murdered by men working for Vito's chief rival Emilio Barzini (Richard Conte), Tom tearfully informs Vito of his son's death. Tom accompanies Vito to the funeral home of Amerigo Bonasera (Salvatore Corsitto), where Vito has Bonasera repair Sonny's body for his funeral. Vito orders no retaliation for Sonny's murder and has Tom organize a meeting with the other Mafia bosses to end the war. Vito makes peace with Philip Tattaglia and gives his word he won't break the peace. After the meeting, Vito tells Tom that Barzini was behind Sonny's murder.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Vito semi-retires in 1954 and Michael becomes operating head of the family. Michael removes Hagen as "consigliere" in favor of having Vito fill the position, restricting Tom to handling the family's legal business in Nevada, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Michael and Vito explain that the Corleones risk inciting a fight with the planned move to Nevada, and they need a "wartime consigliere". Tom is hurt, but accepts the decision and remains loyal. In truth, Michael and Vito have been secretly planning to wipe out the other New York Dons and establish the Corleone family as the most powerful crime family in the country. Vito explains he advised Michael on removing Tom as consigliere, and although Vito considered Tom a good consigliere, and he, like Michael, has all of Vito's confidence, there are reasons why Tom must not have any part of the plan. Tom accepts the decision. In the novel (and in a deleted scene from the film), Tom notices that bodyguard Rocco Lampone has been secretly promoted to "caporegime" and hitman Al Neri reports directly to Michael, rather than through Clemenza and Tessio. Vito reminds Michael that he warned him these details wouldn't escape Tom's attention.


title: Tom Hagen

text: After Vito's death, Tom accompanies Michael to the funeral, where Michael deduces that Tessio has betrayed the family to Barzini. Tom is present when Tessio is taken away to be executed, and is also present when Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo), the abusive husband of Vito's daughter Connie (Talia Shire), is garroted and murdered by Clemenza for his complicity in Sonny's murder. Although Tom is used to violence and accepts that treachery is never forgiven, in the novel he feels sickened by Tessio's imminent death and had even asked if Tessio could be spared.


title: Tom Hagen

text: In the novel, Michael's wife, Kay learns that Michael ordered his brother-in-law Carlo's death, and flees to her parents' home in New Hampshire. Michael sends Tom there to persuade Kay to return. Tom ultimately risks his own life by "hypothetically" revealing some family secrets to Kay so she can understand Michael's motives.


title: Tom Hagen

text: In "The Godfather Part II", Hagen remains Michael's lawyer after their move to Nevada, but his role in the family has been reduced. For instance, he is excluded from the negotiations with Hyman Roth to legitimize the Corleone family by going into business with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. After an assassination attempt is made on Michael's life, Michael realizes he cannot trust anyone in his inner circle. Assuring their fraternal bond and explaining that he withholds information from him out of admiration, Michael proclaims Hagen acting Don while he leaves and attempts to uncover his betrayer.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Hagen later goes to see Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin), who had earlier tried to extort Michael, in a brothel owned by Michael's brother Fredo (John Cazale). Geary has woken up next to a dead prostitute, implied to have been murdered by Michael's personal assassin Al Neri (Richard Bright), and is led to believe that he killed her; Tom reassures Geary that he will clean up the mess and keep him out of trouble in return for the Senator's subservience.


title: Tom Hagen

text: The fall of Batista's regime in Cuba forces Michael to temporarily abandon his plans to become a legitimate businessman, and he resumes his role as the Don of the Corleone family. During the Senate hearings on the Mafia, Hagen is instrumental as the defense when Michael is interrogated. Near the end of the film, Hagen is unable to disguise his displeasure over Michael's increasing ruthlessness and paranoia, questioning the need to kill an already dying Hyman Roth. In response, Michael confronts Hagen about his competing job offers, and obliquely threatens to inform Hagen's wife about his mistress. Challenged point blank to confirm his loyalty to the Corleone Family, Hagen responds to Michael (in Italian) that he remains loyal. He dutifully fulfills his role as legal adviser, and also in the "consigliere"s traditional role as dispassionate family envoy. He gives Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), who had betrayed Michael, the "idea" of committing suicide so that Pentangeli's family will be taken care of, while agreeing with Pentangeli that at one point the Corleone Family "was like the Roman Empire".


title: Tom Hagen

text: In a deleted subplot, Sonny's widow Sandra Corleone becomes Tom's mistress, a fact that Michael uses to blackmail Hagen into remaining loyal despite Sandra urging Hagen to abandon the Corleone family.


title: Tom Hagen

text: According to "The Godfather Part III", Hagen has already died before the time frame of the film, which is 1979–1980. There is no specific indication in the film as to when or how he died, except that it was prior to his son, Andrew (John Savage), being ordained a Roman Catholic priest. The role of Corleone family lawyer and advisor is instead held by a new character, B. J. Harrison (George Hamilton), as well as Genco's grandson Dominic Abbandando (Don Novello).


title: Tom Hagen

text: Hagen was originally intended to have been featured in "The Godfather Part III", but was written out due to a salary dispute between Duvall and the film's producers. Coppola stated in the film's commentary that Duvall demanded the same salary as Al Pacino (who portrayed Michael Corleone). However, Duvall said in an interview that he was happy for Pacino to earn twice his salary, but not triple or quadruple it for the same film. Coppola has stated that "Part III" was to feature a split between Michael and Hagen as its central plot, as seeds of dissension were planted in the first two films.


title: Tom Hagen

text: "The Godfather Returns", Mark Winegardner's 2004 sequel to Puzo's original novel, portrays Hagen's role as "consigliere" in the first few years after Michael ascends to the head of the family. The novel, which covers the period from 1955 to 1962, portrays Hagen once again acting as Michael's right-hand adviser and taking an important role in the Corleones' dealings with a powerful political family, the Sheas (analogous to the Kennedys). Hagen makes a deal with patriarch Mickey Shea that the Corleone family would help get his son, James, elected president on condition that his youngest son, Danny, the new attorney general, would take a soft stance on organized crime. Meanwhile, Hagen has sights on a political career, running for a Congressional seat in Nevada (which Hagen was initially appointed to) with the ultimate goal of becoming the state's governor; he is badly defeated, however, and abandons any hopes of holding public office.


title: Tom Hagen

text: The novel also portrays Hagen covering up for Michael's brother Fredo when he kills a man in San Francisco, and bailing him out of jail when he attacks his wife's lover. Hagen and Fredo get into an intense argument over Fredo's recklessness and Hagen's blind loyalty to Michael. When Michael has Fredo killed (as originally portrayed in "The Godfather Part II"), Hagen guesses what really happened, but remains willfully ignorant.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Toward the end of the novel, Hagen personally murders Corleone rival Louie Russo, who conspired with the novel's antagonist, traitorous Corleone "caporegime" Nick Geraci.


title: Tom Hagen

text: In Winegardner's 2006 novel "The Godfather's Revenge", Hagen acts as Michael's right-hand man in dealing with the Shea family, especially Attorney General Danny Shea, who publicly declares war on organized crime. When Hagen's longtime mistress, Judy Buchanan, is murdered by thugs working for Don Carlo Tramonti, Hagen becomes a person of interest in the investigation, though he is later cleared of the charges.


title: Tom Hagen

text: In August 1964, Geraci kidnaps Hagen and drowns him in the Florida Everglades. Geraci then sends Michael a package containing a dead baby alligator along with Hagen's wallet. This message is similar to the one Sonny received following Luca Brasi's death, in which Brasi's bulletproof vest containing two dead fish was delivered to the Corleone compound. Michael later has Geraci ambushed and murdered.


title: Tom Hagen

text: The novel also expands on how Hagen became an unofficial member of the Corleone family. Hagen recalls that when he was living on the streets, he saved Sonny Corleone from a pimp who was notorious for raping and murdering boys. Sonny was so grateful that he brought Hagen home to live with his family.


title: Tom Hagen

text: Edward Falco's "The Family Corleone", which takes place before the events of "The Godfather", expands upon Tom Hagen joining the Corleone family crime business and becoming the family's "consigliere".


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: Ricky Helton Wilson (March 19, 1953 – October 12, 1985) was an American musician best known as the original guitarist and founding member of rock band the B-52's. Born in Athens, Georgia, Wilson was the brother of fellow member Cindy Wilson. The B-52's were founded in 1976, when Ricky, Cindy, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland and Fred Schneider shared a tropical flaming volcano drink at a Chinese restaurant and, after an impromptu music session at the home of their friend Owen Scott III, played for the first time at a Valentine's Day party for friends. Wilson's unusual guitar tunings were a large contribution to the band's quirky sound.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: On October 12, 1985, at the age of 32, Wilson died from complications related to AIDS following the recording of the band's fourth studio album "Bouncing Off the Satellites". According to Strickland, the album had been completed and mixed before Wilson's death, with only the cover art not yet designed (an illustration by Kenny Scharf was ultimately decided upon). Devastated, the band went into seclusion and did not tour to promote the album, though they did several photo shoots and TV appearances and filmed a video for "Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland".


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: In addition to his work with the B-52's, Wilson played the guitar on the song "Breakin' in My Heart" on Tom Verlaine's self-titled debut album in 1979. This was his only non-B-52's appearance on record. He also appeared in various films, notably "One Trick Pony". Posthumously, he also appeared in "", "The B-52's 1979–1989", and "" through archival footage.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: Wilson was born on March 19, 1953 to Bobby Jack Wilson, a fireman and a veteran of the United States Army, and Linda J. Wilson (née Mairholtz), in Athens, Georgia. He was the elder brother of Cindy Wilson. At an early age, Wilson developed an interest in music and learned how to play folk guitar from the NET series "Learning Folk Guitar". Upon entering Clarke Central High School, Wilson had upgraded to a Silvertone guitar and, to tape his music, purchased a two-track tape recorder with money earned from a summer job at the local landfill.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: In mid-1969, Wilson met former Comer resident Keith Strickland at the local head shop The Looking Glass. The two shared common interests in music and Eastern mysticist culture and quickly became friends.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: Wilson quietly came out as gay to Strickland while the two were in their teens, becoming the first member of the band to do so.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: During mid-1969, both Wilson and Strickland collaborated in writing and performing music, loosely calling themselves Loon, and aspired to perform live.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: From 1969 to 1971, Wilson and Strickland collaborated with high school friends Pete Love of Louisville and Athens native Owen Scott, III in performing together as the four-member band Black Narcissus.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: Upon graduation from the University of Georgia in 1976, Wilson kept in touch with Strickland and they toured Europe, eventually returning and taking jobs at the Southeastern Stages bus station in Athens, Georgia where Strickland's father was the manager.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: In late 1976, Strickland and Wilson returned to Athens in search of further employment. The two joined the B-52's when they, Wilson's sister Cindy, Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider of local protest band the Sun-Donuts, formed the group in an impromptu musical practice session after sharing a tropical flaming volcano drink at a Chinese restaurant. They played their first concert in 1977 at a Valentine's Day party for friends. The band's quirky take on the new wave sound of their era was a combination of dance and surf music set apart by the unusual guitar tunings used by Wilson.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: Wilson cited various children's records, the Mamas & the Papas, and Esquerita and the Voola as sources of inspiration in his musical career. Wilson also played the guitar on the song "Breakin' In My Heart" on Tom Verlaine's self-titled debut album.


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: In 1983, during recording sessions for the band's third studio album "Whammy!", Wilson discovered he had contracted HIV. He confided his illness to Keith Strickland, as stated in several interviews including one with "The Age". In 1985, during recording for their album "Bouncing Off the Satellites", Wilson's illness became more severe; both Strickland and Pierson have stated that despite this, he kept his illness secret from the other members of the band. In an interview, Pierson stated that Wilson did so because he "did not want anyone to worry about him or fuss about him".


title: Ricky Wilson (American musician)

text: On October 12, 1985, in the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, Wilson died of AIDS, at the age of 32. He was buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens. Devastated, the band did little promotional work and did not tour to promote the album. Upon reforming in 1988, the band continued as a four-piece, with Strickland replicating Wilson's riffs from their earlier material in live performances.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Charles Edward Coughlin ( ; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower. Dubbed "The Radio Priest", he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience. During the 1930s, when the U.S. population was about 120 million, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned to his weekly broadcasts.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin was born in Canada to working-class Irish Catholic parents. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1916, and in 1923 he was assigned to the National Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan. Coughlin began broadcasting his sermons during a time of increasing anti-Catholic sentiment across the globe. As his broadcasts became more political, he became increasingly popular.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Initially, Coughlin was a vocal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, but he became a harsh critic of Roosevelt, accusing him of being too friendly to bankers. In 1934, he established a political organization called the National Union for Social Justice. Its platform called for monetary reforms, nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of labor rights. The membership ran into the millions, but it was not well organized locally.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: After making attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program to broadcast antisemitic commentary. In the late 1930s, he supported some of the fascist policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The broadcasts have been described as "a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture". His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, using the slogan "Social Justice". After the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939, the Roosevelt administration forced the cancellation of his radio program and forbade distribution by mail of his newspaper "Social Justice". Coughlin largely vanished from the public arena, working as a parish pastor until retiring in 1966. He died in 1979 at the age of 88.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the only child of Irish Catholic parents, Amelia (née Mahoney) and Thomas Coughlin. Born in a working-class neighborhood, his modest home was situated between a Catholic cathedral and convent. His mother, who had regretted not becoming a nun, was the dominant figure in the household and instilled a deep sense of religion in the young Coughlin.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: After his basic education, he attended St. Michael's College in Toronto in 1911, run by the Congregation of St. Basil, a society of priests dedicated to education. After graduation, Coughlin entered the Basilian Fathers. He prepared for holy orders at St. Basil's Seminary and was ordained to the priesthood in Toronto in 1916. He was assigned to teach at Assumption College, also operated by the Basilians, in Windsor, Ontario.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: In 1923, a reorganization of Coughlin's religious order resulted in his departure. The Holy See required the Basilians to change the congregational structure from a society of common life patterned after the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice to a more monastic life. They had to take the traditional three religious vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Coughlin could not accept this.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Leaving the congregation, Coughlin moved across the Detroit River to the United States, settling in the booming industrial city of Detroit, Michigan, where the automotive industry was expanding rapidly. He was incardinated (or formally enrolled) by the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1923. After being transferred several times to different parishes, in 1926 he was assigned to the newly founded Shrine of the Little Flower, a congregation of some 25 Catholic families among the largely Protestant suburban community of Royal Oak, Michigan. His powerful preaching soon expanded the parish congregation.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: In 1926, disturbed by Ku Klux Klan-orchestrated cross burnings on his church grounds and aware that he was unable to pay back the diocesan loan which had paid for his church, Coughlin began broadcasting his Sunday sermons from local radio station WJR. Coughlin's weekly hour-long radio program denounced the KKK, appealing to his Irish Catholic audience.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: When WJR was acquired by Goodwill Stations in 1929, owner George A. Richards encouraged Coughlin to focus on politics instead of religious topics. Becoming increasingly vehement, the broadcasts attacked the banking system and Jews. Coughlin's program was picked up by CBS in 1930 for national broadcast. The tower where he would broadcast his radio sermons from was completed in 1931.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: In January 1930, Coughlin began a series of attacks against socialism and Soviet Communism, which were both strongly opposed by the Catholic Church. He criticized capitalists in America whose greed had made communist ideologies attractive. He warned, "Let not the workingman be able to say that he is driven into the ranks of socialism by the inordinate and grasping greed of the manufacturer."


title: Charles Coughlin

text: In 1931, the CBS radio network dropped Coughlin's program when he refused to accept network demands to review his scripts prior to broadcast, and several affiliates objected to the views of Coughlin. With backing by Richards, Coughlin established his own independently financed radio network for the "Golden Hour of the Shrine of the Little Flower", with flagship WJR and WGAR in Cleveland as core stations; WGAR was established by Richards under the Goodwill Stations banner several months earlier. With Coughlin paying for the airtime on a contractual basis, the number of affiliates increased to 25 stations in August 1932 and to a peak of 58 affiliates in 1938. Regional networks like the Yankee Network, the Quaker State Network, the Mohawk Network and the Colonial Network also carried the program. It became the largest independently run radio network of its type in the United States.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Throughout the 1930s, Coughlin's views changed. Eventually he was "openly antidemocratic", according to Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, "calling for the abolition of political parties and questioning the value of elections". His views were seen as mirroring those of Richards himself, who had held reactionary conservative beliefs. Leo Fitzpatrick, who had given Coughlin his initial airtime over WJR in 1926 and was retained as a part-owner when Richards purchased the station, continued to serve as a confidant and advisor to Coughlin.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Against the deepening crisis of the Great Depression, Coughlin strongly endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1932 Presidential election. He was an early supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal reforms and coined the phrase "Roosevelt or Ruin", which entered common usage during the early days of the first FDR administration. Another phrase he became known for was "The New Deal is Christ's Deal". In January 1934, Coughlin testified before Congress in support of FDR's agenda, saying, "If Congress fails to back up the President in his monetary program, I predict a revolution in this country which will make the French Revolution look silly!" He also said to the Congressional hearing, "God is directing President Roosevelt."


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Though he received them politely, President Roosevelt had little interest in enacting Coughlin's economic proposals. Coughlin's support for Roosevelt and his New Deal faded in 1934 when he founded the National Union for Social Justice (NUSJ), a nationalistic workers' rights organization. Its leaders grew impatient with what they considered the President's unconstitutional and pseudo-capitalistic monetary policies. Coughlin preached increasingly about the negative influence of "money changers" and "permitting a group of private citizens to create money" at the expense of the general welfare. He spoke of the need for monetary reform based on "free silver". Coughlin claimed that the Great Depression in the United States was a "cash famine" and proposed monetary reforms, including the nationalization of the Federal Reserve System, as the solution. Coughlin was also upset by Roosevelt's recognition of the Soviet Union.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: According to a 2021 study in the "American Economic Review", Coughlin's broadcasts reduced Roosevelt's vote shares in the 1936 election.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin urged Roosevelt to use silver to increase the money supply and also reorganize the financial system. These and other such ideas did not find a receptive audience. However, investment in silver was increased for a limited period following the Silver Purchase Act of 1934, which resulted in U.S. silver mines being nationalized between 1934 and 1943 through stamp taxes.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Among NUSJ's articles of faith were work and income guarantees, nationalizing vital industry, wealth redistribution through taxation of the wealthy, federal protection of workers' unions, and limiting property rights in favor of government control of the country's assets for public good.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: By 1934, Coughlin was perhaps the most prominent Roman Catholic speaker on political and financial issues with a radio audience that reached tens of millions of people every week. Alan Brinkley wrote that "by 1934, he was receiving more than 10,000 letters every day" and that "his clerical staff at times numbered more than a hundred." He foreshadowed modern talk radio and televangelism. However, the University of Detroit Mercy claims that Coughlin's peak audience was in 1932. It is estimated that at his peak, one-third of the nation listened to his broadcasts. In 1933, "The Literary Digest" wrote, "Perhaps no man has stirred the country and cut as deep between the old order and the new as Father Charles E. Coughlin." At its peak in the early-to-mid 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners. Author Sheldon Marcus said that the size of Coughlin's radio audience "is impossible to determine, but estimates range up to 30 million each week". He expressed an isolationist, and conspiratorial, viewpoint that resonated with many listeners.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: In 1934, when Coughlin began criticizing the New Deal, Roosevelt sent Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Frank Murphy, both prominent Irish Catholics, to try to influence him. Kennedy was reported to be a friend of Coughlin. Coughlin periodically visited Roosevelt while accompanied by Kennedy. In an August 16, 1936, "Boston Post" article, Coughlin referred to Kennedy as the "shining star among the dim 'knights' in the [Roosevelt] Administration". Increasingly opposed to Roosevelt, Coughlin began denouncing the President as a tool of Wall Street; Coughlin opposed the New Deal with growing vehemence, his radio talks attacked Roosevelt and capitalists and alleged existence of Jewish conspirators. Another nationally known priest, John A. Ryan, initially supported Coughlin but opposed him after Coughlin turned on Roosevelt. Joseph Kennedy, who strongly supported the New Deal, warned as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue". Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman, and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) in a successful effort to get the Vatican to silence Coughlin in 1936. In 1940 and 1941, reversing his own views, Kennedy attacked the isolationism of Coughlin.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin proclaimed in 1935: "I have dedicated my life to fight against the heinous rottenness of modern capitalism because it robs the laborer of this world's goods. But blow for blow I shall strike against Communism, because it robs us of the next world's happiness." He accused Roosevelt of "leaning toward international socialism on the Spanish question" (referring to the Spanish Civil War). Coughlin's NUSJ gained a strong following among nativists and opponents of the Federal Reserve, especially in the Midwest. Michael Kazin has written that Coughlinites saw Wall Street and Communism as twin faces of a secular Satan. They believed that they were defending those people who were joined more by piety, economic frustration, and a common dread of powerful, modernizing enemies than through any class identity.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: The priest supported populist Huey Long as governor of Louisiana until Long was assassinated in 1935. At a campaign rally for the NUSJ at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on May 11, 1936, Coughlin predicted the organization would "take half of Ohio" in the upcoming primary election, citing multiple congressional candidates that had the NUSJ's backing. Coughlin teamed up with Francis Townsend and Long associate Gerald L. K. Smith in support of William Lemke's Union Party 1936 campaign for president. Coughlin presided over two additional high-profile events in Cleveland during the summer of 1936: the Townsend Convention held at Cleveland Public Hall during mid-July and the Union party convention at Municipal Stadium on August 16; at the latter, Coughlin fainted near the end of his speech. One of Coughlin's campaign slogans was "Less care for internationalism and more concern for national prosperity", which appealed to the 1930s U.S. isolationists and especially to Irish Catholics. Lemke's candidacy was a failure, with Coughlin taking a brief two-month hiatus after the election.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Jewish television producer Norman Lear recounts in his autobiography how his discovery of Father Coughlin's radio broadcasts at the age of 9 disturbed him deeply and made him aware of the alarming and widespread antisemitism in American society. After the 1936 election, Coughlin expressed overt sympathy for the fascist governments of Hitler and Mussolini as an antidote to Communism. He believed Jewish bankers were behind the Russian Revolution, backing the Jewish Bolshevism conspiracy theory. At this time, Coughlin also began to support a far-right organization called the Christian Front, which claimed that he was an inspiration; after the Front's New York City unit was raided by the FBI in January 1940 for plotting to overthrow the government, it was revealed Coughlin had never been a member.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin promoted his controversial beliefs by means of his radio broadcasts and his weekly rotogravure magazine "Social Justice", which began publication in March 1936. During the last half of 1938, "Social Justice" reprinted weekly installments of the fraudulent, antisemitic text "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Despite this, Coughlin denied on various occasions that he was antisemitic, yet he received indirect funding from Nazi Germany during this period. A "New York Times" report from Berlin identified Coughlin as "the German hero in America for the moment" with his sympathetic statements towards Nazism as "a defensive front against Bolshevism". In February 1939, when the American Nazi organization the German American Bund held a large rally in New York City, Coughlin immediately distanced himself from the organization, and in his weekly radio address he said: "Nothing can be gained by linking ourselves with any organization which is engaged in agitating racial animosities or propagating racial hatreds. Organizations which stand upon such platforms are immoral and their policies are only negative."


title: Charles Coughlin

text: On November 20, 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht (the Nazi attack on German and Austrian Jews, their synagogues, and businesses), Coughlin, referring to the millions of Christians who had been killed by the Communists in Russia, said, "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted." After this speech, three radio stations—WMCA in New York City, WIND in Gary, Indiana, and WJJD in Chicago—dropped the program the following week on grounds of inciting racial prejudice, with Coughlin accusing them of being under "Jewish ownership". WMCA made their displeasure immediately known, with their booth announcer saying on-air after his November 20 speech, "Unfortunately, Father Coughlin has uttered many misstatements of fact". Station president Donald Flamm viewed an advance copy of the sermon and pressured Coughlin to edit it twice but did not see the final text, which he said "was calculated to stir up religious and racial hatred and dissension in this country". When WIND and WJJD also requested an advance copy of Coughlin's next sermon for prior review and approval, his refusal prompted them to drop the program. On December 18, 1938, thousands of Coughlin's followers picketed WMCA's studios in protest, with some protesters yelling antisemitic statements, such as "Send Jews back where they came from in leaky boats!" and "Wait until Hitler comes over here!" The protests continued for several months.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: While members of the Catholic hierarchy did not approve of Coughlin, only Coughlin's superior—Bishop Michael Gallagher of Detroit—had the canonical authority to curb him, and Gallagher supported the "Radio Priest". Owing to Gallagher's autonomy and the prospect of the Coughlin problem leading to a schism, the Roman Catholic leadership took no action. In 1938, Cardinal George Mundelein, archbishop of Chicago, issued a formal condemnation of Coughlin: "[Coughlin was] not authorized to speak for the Catholic Church, nor does he represent the doctrine or sentiments of the Church."


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin increasingly attacked the president's policies. The administration decided that, although the First Amendment protected free speech, it did not necessarily apply to broadcasting because the radio spectrum was a "limited national resource" and as a result was regulated as a publicly owned commons. The authorities imposed new regulations and restrictions for the specific purpose of forcing Coughlin off the air. For the first time, the authorities required regular radio broadcasters to seek operating permits.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: When Coughlin's permit was denied, he was temporarily silenced. Coughlin worked around the new restrictions by purchasing air time and playing his speeches via transcription. However, having to buy the weekly air time on individual stations severely reduced his reach and also strained his financial resources. Meanwhile, Bishop Gallagher died and was replaced by a prelate, Edward Aloysius Mooney, who was less sympathetic to Coughlin than Bishop Gallagher had been. In 1939, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis used Coughlin's radio talks to illustrate propaganda methods in their book "The Fine Art of Propaganda", which was intended to show propaganda's effects against democracy.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: After the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939, Coughlin made an on-air appeal for listeners to travel to Washington as "an army of peace" to stop the repeal of the Neutrality Acts, a neutrality-oriented arms embargo law, leading opponents to accuse Coughlin of stoking incitement bordering on civil war. This resulted in an intervention to finally remove Coughlin from the air, not by a federal agency but by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the industry's lobby group. The NAB formed a self-regulating Code Committee that imposed limits on the sale of air time to people deemed to be controversial. Ratified on October 1, 1939, the code required manuscripts for programs to be submitted in advance and effectively prohibited on-air editorials or the discussion of controversial subjects, including non-interventionism, with the threat of license revocation for radio stations that failed to comply. This code was drafted specifically as a response to Coughlin and his program. WJR, WGAR and the Yankee Network threatened to quit their memberships in the NAB over the code, but acquiesced and adopted it, with the majority of affiliate contracts running out at the end of October. In the September 23, 1940, issue of "Social Justice", Coughlin announced that he had been forced off the air "by those who control circumstances beyond my reach".


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin said that, although the government had assumed the right to regulate any on-air broadcasts, the First Amendment still guaranteed and protected freedom of the written press. He could still print his editorials without censorship in his own newspaper "Social Justice". After the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. declaration of war in December 1941, anti-interventionist movements (such as the America First Committee) rapidly lost support. Isolationists such as Coughlin acquired a reputation for sympathizing with the enemy. The Roosevelt Administration stepped in again. On April 14, 1942, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle wrote a letter to the Postmaster General, Frank Walker, in which he suggested that the second-class mailing privilege of "Social Justice" be revoked, in order to make it impossible for Coughlin to deliver the papers to its readers.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Under the Espionage Act of 1917, the mailing permit for "Social Justice" was temporarily suspended on April 14, confining distribution to the Boston area, where it was distributed by private delivery trucks. Walker scheduled a hearing on permanent suspension for April 29, which was postponed until May 4.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Meanwhile, Biddle was also exploring the possibility of bringing an indictment against Coughlin for sedition as a possible "last resort". Hoping to avoid such a potentially sensational and divisive sedition trial, Biddle arranged to end the publication of "Social Justice" by meeting with banker Leo Crowley, a Roosevelt appointee and friend of Bishop Mooney. Crowley relayed Biddle's message to Bishop Mooney that the government was willing to "deal with Coughlin in a restrained manner if he [Mooney] would order Coughlin to cease his public activities". Consequently, on May 1, Bishop Mooney ordered that Coughlin should stop his political activities and confine himself to his duties as a parish priest, warning him that his priestly faculties could potentially be removed if he refused to comply with the order. Coughlin complied with the order and was allowed to remain the pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower. The pending hearing before the Postmaster General, which had been scheduled to take place three days later, was canceled.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Although he had been forced to end his public career in 1942, Coughlin served as a parish pastor until his retirement in 1966. On May 30, 1951, he attended the funeral of George A. Richards, who died following a long legal fight to keep his broadcast licenses amid accusations of antisemitism and using the stations to further his political interests.


title: Charles Coughlin

text: Coughlin died in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 1979 at the age of 88. Church officials stated that he had been bedridden for several weeks. He was buried in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan (IAST: ', 3 April 1781 – 1 June 1830), also known as Sahajanand Swami, was a yogi and ascetic, who is believed by followers to be a manifestation of God Krishna, or as the highest manifestation of Purushottam, and around whom the Swaminarayan Sampradaya developed.


title: Swaminarayan

text: In 1800, he was initiated into the "Uddhav" "sampradaya" by his guru, Swami Ramanand, and was given the name Sahajanand Swami. Despite opposition, in 1802 Ramanand handed over the leadership of the Uddhav Sampraday to him before his death. According to the Swaminarayan-tradition, Sahajanand Swami became known as Swaminarayan, and the Uddhav Sampraday as the Swaminarayan Sampradaya, after a gathering in which he taught the Swaminarayan Mantra to his followers.


title: Swaminarayan

text: He emphasized "moral, personal, and social betterment," and "ahimsa", and is also remembered within the sect for undertaking reforms for women and the poor, and performing non-violent yajñas (fire sacrifices) on a large scale.


title: Swaminarayan

text: During his lifetime, Swaminarayan institutionalized his charisma and beliefs in various ways. He constructed six mandirs to facilitate followers' devotional worship of God, and encouraged the creation of a scriptural tradition, including the "Shikshapatri", which he wrote in 1826. In 1826, in a legal document titled the Lekh, Swaminarayan created two dioceses, the Laxmi Narayan Dev Gadi (Vadtal Gadi) and Nar Narayan Dev Gadi (Ahmedabad Gadi), with a hereditary leadership of acharyas and their wives, who were authorized to install statues of deities in temples and to initiate ascetics.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan was born on 3 April 1781 (Chaitra Sud 9, Samvat 1837) in Chhapaiya, a village near Ayodhya in present-day Indian state of Uttar Pradesh which in the Hindi speaking region of the country. Born into the brahmin or priestly caste of Sarvariya, Swaminarayan was named "Ghanshyam Pande" by his parents, Hariprasad Pande (father, also known as Dharmadev) and Premvati Pande (mother, also known as Bhaktimata and Murtidevi). The birth of Swaminarayan coincided with the Hindu festival of Rama Navami, celebrating the birth of Rama. The ninth lunar day in the fortnight of the waxing moon in the month of Chaitra (March–April), is celebrated as both Rama Navami and Swaminarayan Jayanti by Swaminarayan followers. This celebration also marks the beginning of a ritual calendar for the followers.


title: Swaminarayan

text: A Swaminarayan sectarian legend tells how Narayana from the Nara Narayana pair, was cursed by sage Durvasa to incarnate on the earth as Swaminarayan.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan had an elder brother, Rampratap Pande, and a younger brother, Ichcharam Pande. He is said to have mastered the scriptures, including the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the "Ramayana", and the "Mahabharata" by the age of seven.


title: Swaminarayan

text: After the death of his parents, Ghanshyam Pande left his home on 29 June 1792 (Ashadh Sud 10, Samvat 1849) at the age of 11. He took the name Nilkanth Varni while on his journey. Nilkanth Varni travelled across India and parts of Nepal in search of an ashram, or hermitage, that practiced what he considered a correct understanding of Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, and Pancaratra, the four primary schools of Hindu philosophy. To find such an ashram, Nilkanth Varni asked the following five questions on the basic Vaishnava Vedanta categories:


title: Swaminarayan

text: While on his journey, Nilkanth Varni mastered "Astanga yoga" (eightfold yoga) in a span of nine months under the guidance of an aged yogic master named Gopal Yogi. In Nepal, it is said that he met King Rana Bahadur Shah and cured him of his stomach illness. As a result, the king freed all the ascetics he had imprisoned. Nilkanth Varni visited the Jagannath Temple in Puri as well as temples in Badrinath, Rameswaram, Nashik, Dwarka and Pandharpur.


title: Swaminarayan

text: In 1799, after a seven-year journey, Nilkanth's travels as a yogi eventually concluded in Loj, a village in the Junagadh district of Gujarat. In Loj, Nilkanth Varni met Muktanand Swami, a senior disciple of Ramanand Swami. Muktanand Swami, who was 22 years older than Nilkanth, answered the 5 questions to Nilkanth's satisfaction. Nilkanth decided to stay for the opportunity to meet Ramanand Swami, whom he met a few months after his arrival in Gujarat. He later claimed in the Vachnamrut that during this period, he took up a severe penance to eliminate his mother's flesh and blood from his body so that the sign of his physical attachment to family, was completely removed.


title: Swaminarayan

text: According to the sect, Nilkanth's understanding of the metaphysical and epistemological concepts of the "pancha-tattvas" (five eternal elements), together with his mental and physical discipline, inspired senior swamis of Ramanand Swami.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Nilkanth Varni received "sannyasa" initiation from Ramanand Swami on 20 October 1800, and with it was granted the names "Sahajanand Swami" and "Narayan Muni" to signify his new status.


title: Swaminarayan

text: At the age of 21, Sahajanand Swami was appointed successor to Ramanand Swami as the leader of the Uddhav Sampradaya by Ramanand Swami, prior to his death. The Uddhav Sampradaya henceforth came to be known as the Swaminarayan Sampradaya. According to sources he proclaimed the worship of one sole deity, Krishna or Narayana. Krishna was considered by him his own ista devata. In contrast with the Vaishnava sect known as the Radha-vallabha Sampradaya, he had a more puritanical approach, rather than the theological views of Krishna that are strongly capricious in character and imagery. While being a worshipper of Krishna, Swaminarayan rejected licentious elements in Krishnology in favor of worship in the mood of majesty, alike to earlier Vaisnava teachers, Ramanuja and Yamunacharya.


title: Swaminarayan

text: According to Swaminarayan-tradition, Sahajanand Swami was later known as "Swaminarayan" after the mantra he taught at a gathering, in Faneni, a fortnight after the death of Ramanand Swami. He gave his followers a new mantra, known as the Swaminarayan mantra, to repeat in their rituals: "Swaminarayan". When chanting this mantra, some devotees went into samadhi, and claimed that they could see their personal gods. Swaminarayan also became known by the names Ghanshyam Maharaj, Shreeji Maharaj, Hari Krishna Maharaj and Shri Hari.


title: Swaminarayan

text: As early as 1804, Swaminarayan, who was reported to have performed miracles, was described as a manifestation of God in the first work written by a disciple and paramhansa, Nishkulanand Swami. This work, the "Yama Danda", was the first piece of literature written within the Swaminarayan sect. Swaminarayan himself is said to have intimated that he was a manifestation of God in a meeting with Reginald Heber, the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, in 1825.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Some of Swaminarayan's followers believe he was an incarnation of Lord Krishna. The images and stories of Swaminarayan and Krishna have coincided in the liturgy of the sect. The story of the birth of Swaminarayan parallels that of Krishna's birth from the scripture Bhagavata Purana. Most of his followers belief that Swaminarayan is the complete manifestation of Narayana or Purushottam Narayana - the Supreme Being and superior to other avatars.


title: Swaminarayan

text: The belief of many followers that their founder was the incarnation of the Supreme God has also drawn criticism. According to Professor Raymond B. Williams, Swaminarayan was criticized because he received large gifts from his followers and dressed and traveled as a Maharaja even though he had taken the vows of renunciation of the world. Swaminarayan responded that he accepts gifts for the emancipation of his followers.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan encouraged his followers to combine devotion and dharma to lead a pious life. Using Hindu texts and rituals to form the base of his organisation, Swaminarayan founded what in later centuries would become a global organisation with strong Gujarati roots. He was particularly strict on the separation of sexes in temples. Swaminarayan was against the consumption of meat, alcohol or drugs, adultery, suicide, animal sacrifices, criminal activities and the appeasement of ghosts and tantric rituals. Alcohol consumption was forbidden by him even for medicinal purposes. Many of his followers took vows before becoming his disciple. He stated that four elements need to be conquered for ultimate salvation: dharma, bhakti (devotion), gnana (knowledge) and vairagya (detachment). Doctrinally, Swaminarayan was close to eleventh century philosopher Ramanuja and was critical of Shankaracharya's concept of advaita, or monistic non-dualism. Swaminarayan's ontology maintained that the supreme being is not formless and that God always has a divine form.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan strived to maintain good relationships with people of other religions, sometimes meeting prominent leaders. His followers cut across religious boundaries, including people of Muslim and Parsi backgrounds. Swaminarayan's personal attendants included Khoja Muslims. In Kathiawad, many Muslims wore kanthi necklaces given by Swaminarayan. He also had a meeting with Reginald Heber, Lord Bishop of Calcutta and a leader of Christians in India at the time. Bishop Heber mentions in his account of the meeting that about two hundred disciples of Swaminarayan accompanied him as his bodyguards mounted on horses and carrying Matchlocks and swords. Bishop Heber himself had about a hundred horse guards accompanying him (fifty horses and fifty muskets) and mentioned that it was humiliating for him to see two religious leaders meeting at the head of two small armies, his being the smaller contingent. As a result of the meeting, both leaders gained mutual respect for one another.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan enjoyed a good relationship with the British Imperial Government. The first temple he built, in Ahmedabad, was built on of land given by the government. The British officers gave it a 101 gun salute when it was opened. It was in an 1825 meeting with Reginald Heber that Swaminarayan is said to have intimated that he was a manifestation of Krishna. In 1830, Swaminarayan had a meeting with Sir John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay (1827 to 1830). According to Malcolm, Swaminarayan had helped bring some stability to a lawless region. During the meeting with Malcolm, Swaminarayan gave him a copy of the Shikshapatri. This copy of the Shikshapatri is currently housed at the Bodleian Library at University of Oxford.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan ordered the construction of several Hindu temples and he had built six huge temples by himself and installed the idols of various deities such as Radha Krishna Dev, Nara-Narayana Dev, Laxminarayan Dev, Gopinathji Maharaj, Radha Raman Dev and Madanmohan Lalji. The images in the temples built by Swaminarayan provide evidence of the priority of Krishna. Disciples of Swaminarayan composed devotional poems which are widely sung by the tradition during festivals. Swaminarayan introduced fasting and devotion among followers. He conducted the festivals of Vasant Panchami, Holi, and Janmashtami with organization of the traditional folk dance raas.


title: Swaminarayan

text: The first temple Swaminarayan constructed was in Ahmedabad in 1822, with the land for construction given by the British Imperial Government. Following a request of devotees from Bhuj, Swaminarayan asked his follower Vaishnavananand to build a temple there. Construction commenced in 1822, and the temple was built within a year. A temple in Vadtal followed in 1824, a temple in Dholera in 1826, a temple in Junagadh in 1828 and a temple in Gadhada, also in 1828. By the time of his death, Swaminarayan had also ordered construction of temples in Muli, Dholka and Jetalpur.


title: Swaminarayan

text: From early on, ascetics have played a major role in the Swaminarayan sect. They contribute towards growth and development of the movement, encouraging people to follow a pious and religious life. Tradition maintains that Swaminarayan initiated 500 ascetics as "paramhansas" in a single night. Paramhansa is a title of honour sometimes applied to Hindu spiritual teachers who are regarded as having attained enlightenment. Paramhansas were the highest order of "sannyasi" in the sect. Prominent paramhansas included Muktanand Swami, Gopalanand Swami, Brahmanand Swami, Gunatitanand Swami, Premanand Swami, Nishkulanand Swami, and Nityanand Swami.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Prior to his death, Swaminarayan decided to establish a line of acharyas or preceptors, as his successors. He established two "gadis" (seats of leadership). One seat was established at Ahmedabad (Nar Narayan Dev Gadi) and the other one at Vadtal (Laxmi Narayan Dev Gadi) on 21 November 1825. Swaminarayan appointed an acharya to each of these "gadis" to pass on his message to others and to preserve his fellowship, the Swaminarayan Sampradaya. These acharyas came from his immediate family after sending representatives to search them out in Uttar Pradesh. He formally adopted a son from his brothers and appointed him to the office of acharya. Ayodhyaprasad, the son of Swaminarayan's elder brother Rampratap and Raghuvira, the son of his younger brother Ichcharam, were appointed "acharyas" of the Ahmedabad Gadi and the Vadtal Gadi respectively. Swaminarayan decreed that the office should be hereditary so that "acharyas" would maintain a direct line of blood descent from his family. The administrative division of his followers into two territorial dioceses is set forth in minute detail in a document written by Swaminarayan called Desh Vibhaag Lekh. Swaminarayan stated to all the devotees and saints to obey both the Acharyas and Gopalanand Swami who was considered as the main pillar and chief ascetic for the sampradaya.


title: Swaminarayan

text: The current acharya of the Ahmedabad Gadi is Koshalendraprasad Pande and Ajendraprasad Pande, of the Vadtal Gadi.


title: Swaminarayan

text: In 1830, Swaminarayan gathered his followers and announced his departure. He later died on 1 June 1830 (Jeth sud 10, Samvat 1886), and it is believed by followers that, at the time of his death, Swaminarayan left Earth for Akshardham, his abode. He was cremated according to Hindu rites at Lakshmi Wadi in Gadhada.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Swaminarayan insisted that education was the inherent right of all people, including women, despite considerable criticism from those in his own contemporary society who "loathed the uplift of lower caste women". At that time, influential and wealthy individuals educated their girls through private and personal tuition. Male followers of Swaminarayan made arrangements to educate their female family members. The literacy rate among females began to increase during Swaminarayan's time, and they were able to give discourses on spiritual subjects. Members of the sect consider Swaminarayan a pioneer of education of females in India.


title: Swaminarayan

text: According to the author Raymond Brady Williams, "Swaminarayan is an early representative of the practice of advocacy of women's rights without personal involvement with women". To counter the practice of "sati" (self-immolation by a widow on her husband's funeral pyre), Swaminarayan argued that, as human life was given by God, it could be taken only by God, and that "sati" had no Vedic sanction. He went to the extent to call "sati" nothing but suicide. Swaminarayan offered parents help with dowry expenses to discourage female infanticide, calling infanticide a sin. For calling a halt to these prevailing practices, Swaminarayan's "contemporaries naturally saw in him a pioneer of a reformed and purified Hinduism, and Swaminarayan Hinduism an 'ingrazi dharma' or British religion."


title: Swaminarayan

text: Professor David Harman observed that Swaminarayan "criticized the popular shakta cults and 'gosai' and 'nath' ascetics for the contemptuous and instrumental way in which they viewed and treated women. These cults were often responsible for gross sexual abuse of women." Hardiman added that Swaminarayan's view towards women was not in line with this type of misogyny and was rooted in his desire to prevent ill-treatment of women along with promoting celibacy for ascetics. Swaminarayan "forbade all sadhus and sadhvis (that is, male and female ascetics) of his sect from having any contact whatsoever with members of the opposite sex." This strict precept was one he likely internalized "after travelling as an ascetic throughout India [when] he was reported to vomit if approached by even the shadow of a woman". To help his male ascetic followers maintain their vow of celibacy, Swaminarayan taught “the woman who attracts attention is made up of bones, blood vessels, spittle, blood, mucus and feces; she is simply a collection of these things, and there is nothing to be attractive.


title: Swaminarayan

text: Members of the faith are defensive of the fact that some practices seem to restrict women and make gender equality in leadership impossible. They are only permitted to enter special sections of the temple reserved for women or have to go to separate women's temples. As with practices of niddah in Orthodox Judaism, concepts of pollution associated with the menstrual cycle lead to the exclusion of women from the temples and daily worship during the affected time. Swaminarayan also directed male devotees not to listen to religious discourses given by women.


title: Swaminarayan

text: In the case of widows, Swaminarayan directed those who could not follow the path of chastity to remarry. For those who could, he lay down strict rules which included them being under the control of male members of the family. This may seem regressive, however, it gave them "a respected and secure place in the social order" of the time. Swaminarayan restricted widows "to live always under the control of male members of their family and prohibited them from receiving instruction in any science from any man excepting their nearest relations."