Jewish Independent: Darfur still needs aid

September 22, 2006

Darfur still needs aid

Global day of action highlights ongoing trauma.

CASSANDRA SAVAGE

As roughly 200 participants huddled for warmth in the rain outside the Vancouver Art Gallery last Sunday, a speaker at the Global Day of Action for Darfur noted that Darfuri refugees in Chad and displaced people across Sudan endure much worse conditions on a regular basis, without the possibility of heading home to get warm at the end of the day.

Framed most often as a humanitarian crisis, the situation in Darfur, Sudan, has warranted only an occasional blip on the media screen over the past three years. Since 2003, Janjaweed forces (armed fighters claiming Arab descent) supported by the Sudanese government, have exerted brutal control over the Darfuri people and tortured them at will.

Although statistics vary, a 2005 report by the Coalition for International Justice estimates that 400,000 people have died in the conflict. In addition, thousands more have died from starvation, disease and fighting within refugee camps and thousands of women and girls have been systematically raped. The numbers increase daily.

The Global Day for Darfur was a gathering of people around the world to show support for the Darfuri people and encourage governments to take action. In Vancouver, participants were encouraged to put pressure on the Canadian government by sending letters and postcards to Prime Minister Stephen Harper – calling for Canada to uphold its promise that human slaughter would never again be allowed to take place in today's world. At Toronto's gathering, which attracted thousands of people, Sen. Roméo Dallaire (force commander of the United Nations mission to Rwanda, made famous by the film Hotel Rwanda and the 2004 documentary Shake Hands with the Devil) said the crisis in Darfur is indeed shaping up to become a case of history repeating itself.

As Stephen Schachter of Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, noted, "Today is not about remembering the horrors of Darfur. Today is about political leadership and the will to end this suffering."

"Canadian Jewish Congress has been lobbying for action in Darfur for close to three years," said CJCPR chair Mark Weintraub after the event. "The genocide is not over. The numbers are increasing. As a community, we have a responsibility to ensure that Canadians do not ignore this issue. On Sunday, organizations and individuals across the country gathered to call on the government of Canada to not only recognize what is happening in Darfur, but to lead the international community with a sense of urgency to stop the killing, rape and displacement."

Representatives from Canadian Students for Darfur, who played a key role in organizing Vancouver's rally, noted that we are witnessing just the kind of tragedy that never should have happened again after close to a million people were slaughtered during the 1994 ethnic conflict in Rwanda.

"Activists and social justice organizations have been calling for an end to this crisis for far too long now," said Shamus Reid of the Canadian Federation of Students, "and so it is somewhat frustrated and with a heavy heart that I stand before you again today, urging the Canadian government to heed the call of the global community and of victims of violence, rape and murder in Darfur."

Don Wright, regional development co-ordinator of Amnesty International Canada's B.C./Yukon chapter, reported on Sunday that the government of Sudan refuses the deployment of UN peacekeepers into the region, while eyewitnesses claim that Janjaweed militia continues to dominate the region. "The Sudanese government has persistently failed in its duty to protect civilians in Darfur from gross and systematic human rights violations," claimed Wright. "That responsibility has now devolved to the international community."

Vancouver rapper Babaluku, who performed at the event, asked people to also think of the many positive things happening in Africa. People tend to think of Africa as a place of poverty and suffering, he said, when there are also millions of bright, healthy, motivated and talented individuals working toward change on the continent.

Babaluku, who was born in Uganda and immigrated to Canada at the age of 12, performed "I'm from Africa," an upbeat piece that had everyone's head bobbing. The message was one of hope, pride and encouragement for other African immigrants to stay proud of their heritage, acknowledge the good in what's happening on the African continent and use whatever talents they have to make a difference back home.

Cassandra Savage is an MA candidate in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.