Can "Just One" Make a Difference?

Can “Just One” Make a Difference?
Tuesday, April 18, 2006

On April 8th I attended the Third Annual Spring Conference, presented by the Rotary World Peace Fellows at Duke – UNC Rotary Center for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution. Rotary International sponsors the Duke-UNC Center, which is one of two in the U. S. and seven located at universities throughout the world. This year’s topics were: I Am Not Alone: Refugees Community Building; Post-Conflict Reconstruction in West Africa: The Role of Local Leadership in Post-Conflict Nation Building in Liberia and Sierra Leone; Education, Democracy and Conflict Prevention in Future Unified Korea; The Complexities of Conflict as Illustrated by the Angolan Conflict; A Public Health Perspective in Addressing Female Genital Cutting; Displaced Indigenous People Caused by the Chiapas Conflict in Mexico; The Economic Face of Conflict; and Conflict in Nepal: The Role of Foreign Aid.

At lunch I choose the table of Tzu Han Huang from Taiwan where I sat beside a young lady from Greensboro who will be going to Australia as a peace scholar. As our world becomes smaller, nations become even more interdependent economically and socially, one quickly gets the sense that these bright minds will one day made a difference for a better and more peaceful world. Many of these peace scholars will work in places such as The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, in their own country’s government, or in a high-ranking world leadership positions.
Even so, as we work toward a better understanding of our world situation, we don’t have to wait for theses young scholars to effect world peace. You and I as “just one” can make a difference now. President Bush has expressed concern and condemnation of the genocide in Darfur region of Sudan, Africa. The Save Darfur site http://www.savedarfur.org/home reports that 400,000 people have been slaughtered, and the murderous conflict now spreads into the neighboring country of Chad. On Monday of last week, the Bush Administration announced support for sending several hundred NATO advisers to aid African Union troops struggling to protect the innocent people of Darfur. This is a small step in the right direction, but much more still must be done to stop the genocide!
I believe it was the late Paul Tsongus, senator of Mass, who was quoted: “If only 100 people had written their senators and president Clinton, the Rwanda genocide would never have happened. Now there is an appeal to get one million voices to stop genocide in Africa. As “just one” you and I can make a difference: Join me before the April 30th rally to Stop Genocide in Washington, D. C., by downloading a card at http://www.millionvoicesfordarfur.org/?page=postcards, to print and mail to President Bush showing your concern and moral support that we can do more. You may send an electronic postcard from this link: http://www.savedarfur.org/ (If you can’t print the card, you may contact me for a card: Cornell Cox, 912 S. Vermont St., Smithfield, NC 27577 – phone: 919-934-2137 – Email: CornellCox@msn.com)
Rallying against genocide – The Washington Times
By Nat HentoffPublished April 17, 2006
George W. Bush was the first and only world leader to have said plainly that the mass killings in Darfur are genocide. And at Freedom House in Washington on March 25, the president emphasized: "When we say genocide, we mean genocide must be stopped." He continued by pointing out that the African Union's small force in Darfur is not enough: "There should be a NATO overlay of support. However, it was appalling to hear, on PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer say that "Africans feel very strongly" that they should take care of problems on their own continent. So, he added, one "should be careful" about imposing oneself on them. "There is not yet the need for declaring a willingness for [NATO] to participate." There is not yet a need when more than 300,000 unarmed African Muslims in Darfur have been killed or died of disease; 2 million have been displaced; and when the United Nations' chief humanitarian coordinator, Jan Egeland, declared on April 4 that barbarism in Darfur "is changing dramatically for the worse." The nations of the world seem to have forgotten what U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in 2005. "Experience has led us to grapple with the fact that no legal principle, not even sovereignty, should ever be allowed to shield genocide, crimes against humanity and mass human suffering," he said. "But without implementation, our declarations ring hollow. Without action, our promises are meaningless." Yet now, in America, a growing number of organizations have joined the Save Darfur Coalition for a huge rally on Sunday, April 30. This is a coalition of more than 160 faith-based, human-rights and humanitarian organizations. Rarely has there been such an extraordinary range of groups so committed to act -- not just sign petitions to end atrocities. Among them: The American Jewish World Service, the American Society for Muslim Advancement, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, Amnesty International,the United States Holocaust Museum, the National Black Church Initiative and an array of regional and local organizations. Also among the organizers is the Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group, which worked for years to awaken Americans to the mass killings and slavery perpetrated in the south of Sudan on black Christians and animists by the very same Sudanese government in Khartoum that is now guilty of conducting with its murderous militia, the Janjaweed, the genocide in Darfur. In addition, joining the coalition is Christian Solidarity International, which redeemed many thousands of slaves from northern Sudan over the years, and still is. At least 40,000 black Christian and animist slaves are still in the north. The April 30 "Rally to Stop Genocide" will take place between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on the National Mall, between Third and Fourth streets in front of the U.S. Capitol Metro Station Federal Center SW (Orange and Blue lines). The crowd will assemble from 1:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. For information on this rally and how to be a part of it, the Web site is: savedarfur.org/rally, or call Chuck Thies, the rally coordinator, at (202) 478-6302. Among the speakers will be Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Paul Rusesabagina, who risked his life to save more than 1,000 people at the hotel he managed during the genocide in Rwanda, a story told in the riveting movie, "Hotel Rwanda." Also, the former National Basketball Association star Manute Bol, a native of Sudan; Iman Rauf, founder and CEO of the American Society for Muslim Advancement; and Ruth Messinger, executive director of the American Jewish World Service, which has so far raised more than $2 million to provide emergency relief and support for the survivors of genocide in Darfur. Elie Wiesel, who knows genocide firsthand, said in a message to the coalition planning the rally: "Who is guilty? Those who commit these crimes. But to the question, 'Who is responsible?' we are compelled to say: "Aren't we all?" The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity planned to send a delegation to Darfur in April, but the government of Sudan told the foundation its request is under review. As of this writing, not surprisingly, there has been no further word from Khartoum. Among those invited to attend the "Rally to Stop Genocide" on April 30 are President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the four chairs of the Congressional Sudan Caucus and other members of the House and Senate. I hope they come so that they will fully understand and feel how vital it is for concerted action to save the black Africans not yet hunted down by the Janjaweed and the Khartoum government that is ruthlessly -- and so far with impunity -- committing such crimes against humanity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As the genocide of Africa becomes graver, Nicholas Kristof of NYT chronicles some of the latest events in his article printed below.
April 16, 2006 - N. Y. Times
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Slaughter Spreads
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Last month villagers along Chad's border with Sudan told me how brutal militias were attacking their towns, murdering their babies, raping their daughters and burning their huts, while shouting racial slurs against blacks. Now those impoverished Chadians may find themselves not only attacked by genocidal marauders but also ruled by them.
Over the past week, Sudan has sponsored a full-scale invasion of Chad, seeking to oust Chad's president and replace him with the warlord who has overseen the murder, rape and pillage in those border areas.
Sudan seems determined to extend its genocide to Chad, and the upshot is that the catastrophe of Darfur may now be multiplied manyfold.
One of the towns I stayed in during my visit to Chad last month was Adré, which by some accounts — denied by the government — has now been seized by this Sudanese proxy force known for throwing babies into bonfires. So I wonder what happened to the children I met in the Adré hospital, like Fatima Juma, a 13-year-old girl who would have been unable to flee because she had been shot in the chest and arm while fetching water.
That the fighting has spread to Chad underscores that our policy in Darfur has not only been morally bankrupt, but also catastrophic in a practical sense. Appeasing Sudan has allowed the situation to worsen, because our policy has essentially consisted, after every outrage, of making the Darfuris turn the other cheek.
Chad's president, Idriss Déby, is a corrupt dictator. But he at least had the gumption to show some discontent at the genocide next door, and Sudan is taking aim at him precisely for that reason. If we let Sudan get away with ousting him for refusing to applaud a mass slaughter, we will have compounded our own shameful record.
It's not that President Déby was even very active against the genocide. Worried about offending Sudan, his government threatened to arrest me if I again sneaked into Darfur illegally from Chad to cover the genocide. But Mr. Déby did have the guts to grant Darfur refugees a safe haven in Chad, saving their lives — although now, disgracefully, he has threatened to expel them if the Darfur conflict is not resolved by June.
The fighting in Chad, including a battle in the capital, Ndjamena, that reportedly killed 350 people on Thursday, is nominally between the government and rebels. But make no mistake: those "rebels" are simply a proxy force of Sudan, made up in part by the Sudanese janjaweed militias that orchestrated the killing of several black African tribes in Darfur.
The Chadian rebels operate from a base that journalists have visited in Sudan. The rebels' guns, vehicles and uniforms come from the Sudanese government.
Their leader, Mohamed Nour, was handpicked by Sudan to lead this invading force. Sudan's vice president, Ali Osman Taha, has visited Mr. Nour at his base. And the "rebels" often drop by the town of Geneina, where everybody sees that they include some Chadians but also many Sudanese janjaweed fighters.
"Even a kid of 5 years old in Geneina knows that the Sudanese government is organizing the militias," said Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a heroic Sudanese who leads an independent human rights group active in Darfur.
The danger now is threefold.
First, Chad may collapse into civil war, chaos and banditry, like Darfur itself but on a much larger scale.
Second, the 200,000 refugees who fled Darfur and are living in U.N.-run camps in Chad may be specifically targeted for mass slaughter.
Third, the unrest may force international aid workers to pull out of Chad. Then the refugees will starve to death more gradually.
The U.S. has called on "all parties ... to reduce those levels of violence" — which is a bit like suggesting in 1943 that Nazis and Jews alike cease hostilities. The U.S. and other major powers need to be much more forceful in shoring up Chad against the invaders.
France has a major military base in eastern Chad and should start strafing the invaders. The U.S. should back France, send a top envoy to Chad to show support, and provide intelligence to Chad and France about the invaders' whereabouts.
President Bush and millions of Americans today will celebrate Easter and the end of Holy Week. But where is the piety in reading the Bible while averting one's eyes from genocide? Mr. Bush, how about showing your faith by doing something a bit more meaningful — like standing up to the butchers?