Western Jewish Bulletin: Jews mobilize for Darfur

September 3, 2004

Jews mobilize for Darfur
Imminent genocide needs urgent action, says Congress.

PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

Tens of thousands of people have died, more than a million have been displaced and as many as 1.2 million face death unless the world community unites to intervene in what appears to be a looming genocide in the African country of Sudan.

In recent weeks, cries of alarm have risen across the diplomatic community worldwide as the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur has spiralled into what observers call a genocide or potential genocide. The current crisis is imbued with urgency due not only to the scale of the human suffering, but by the memory of civilization's failure to intervene when a frighteningly similar constellation of events occurred a decade ago in Rwanda.

In April 1994, about 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered and two million refugees were forced from their homes and country while the world community watched.

For Canadian Jewish Congress, the echoes go back further, to the memory of the Jewish genocide in Europe during the Second World War. Reflecting what it says is a mandate of confronting genocide and intolerance, CJC is intervening in the Sudan issue and is urging all Canadians to immediately act to prevent a looming human catastrophe.

Canadian Jewish Congress has expressed to Prime Minister Paul Martin its concern and willingness to aid. The Quebec region of the national Jewish communal agency helped mobilize a public rally to raise awareness last Friday afternoon in downtown Montreal and Mark Weintraub, chair of CJC, Pacific Region, is spearheading an effort to bring the issue to the fore of public consciousness in British Columbia and across the country. The group is working closely with the tiny Sudanese-Canadian community to co-ordinate efforts.The issue should be a top priority for Canadian Jews, as well as others, said Weintraub.

"We're taking up this issue for a number of reasons," said Weintraub, a Vancouver lawyer who is in his first year as regional head of Congress. Jewish history, recent and ancient, endows this community with a responsibility and a unique perspective on human catastrophes like the one occurring in Sudan and the one that was allowed to unfold in Rwanda a decade ago, Weintraub said.

"I think that goes right back to who we are as an organization and who we are as a people," said Weintraub. "We have a religious heritage of Abraham arguing with God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah so as to save the lives of a few innocents. We have the commandment to the Israelites to remember kindness to the stranger. We have the prophetic call to pursue justice. Congress is a Jewish organization and we are informed by our history. It's who we are to be hopefully preoccupied – and I would hope even more preoccupied than we currently are as a community – with the challenge of how to make the world better.

"It would be completely insular and inconsistent with the most profound teachings of our traditions to take the view that now that we have successfully shunted the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism to the fringes we can pack up our tents and go home. Anti-Semitism is not defeated and the extraordinary gains we made in Canada within one generation were not made just through our own efforts, they were made with the assistance of others. We partnered with other minority groups in fighting for full civil and human rights. We were champions of all the civil rights and human rights legislation that developed over the last 50 years and champions of international declarations of human rights, which had as their backdrop the Holocaust and the Second World War."

The mobilization taking place in diplomatic and activist circles over the issue of Sudan is haunted by echoes of Rwandan failures.

"The message that comes through there is that the world could have done something and it didn't," Weintraub explained. "What's happening now is the recognition that the possible horror could be happening again in the continent of Africa on an absolutely massive scale. What we're being told is that upwards of 1.2 million people are at risk of death through the conflict there. This is something we don't want to look back on 10 years from now and say there was another Rwanda and the world remained silent."

Weintraub conveyed a letter to Canada's special envoy to the Sudanese peace process, British Columbia Sen. Mobina Jaffer, commending her work on the issue and offering support. Jaffer has toured the ravaged region of Sudan and spoken forcefully on the unfolding disaster.

Peace talks continued Sunday between Darfur rebels and the Sudanese regime. The conflict is the massive and catastrophic escalation of a long-simmering dispute between Arab nomads in the region and the largely agricultural population of African ethnicity. An estimated 50,000 have died in the past 18 months of conflict. The Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, are supported by the Khartoum regime and are apparently initiating a genocidal attack in the guise of crushing a rebellion by the primarily black African farmers.

Human Rights Watch, an international body, has stated that the Sudanese government is directly involved in the attacks on three African ethnic groups in Darfur.

"Government forces oversaw and directly participated in massacres, summary executions of civilians – including women and children – burnings of towns and villages, and the forcible depopulation of wide swathes of land long inhabited by the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa," HRW reported.

A U.S. State Department study, in conjunction with independent observers late last month in the neighboring country of Chad, to which refugees have fled, indicated 60 per cent of the Sudanese refugees had witnessed the murder of a family member and 20 per cent had witnessed a rape, according to the New York Times.

"There are enough reports from different organizations, which are not partisan, which collectively communicate that the people there are facing a crisis of proportions," Weintraub said. "We already know that tens of thousands have died and that over one-and-a-half million people have been driven from their homes by this conflict.

"It is of a magnitude that requires the conscience of Canadians to be moved," he said.

"We think there is always more that can be done and politicians are political leadership that responds to concerns of Canadians," said Weintraub. "Our community would be surprised as to how responsive our political leadership can be when they realize there is an issue that is of concern to the populace."

The leading role Congress appears to be taking on the Sudanese crisis stems in part from the special experience of Jewish history, said Weintraub.

"We ourselves know the tragedy and darkness of exile and genocide," he said. "I'm not saying the Jewish community has the only responsibility to speak out when ethnic and religious intolerance is rampant in the world, but there is no question that because of our experience we have greater empathy and certainly we don't want to [have] happen to others what happened to our own people 60 years ago. Tragically, we have that unique perspective. More importantly, we are not an island. We are connected and the Canadian Jewish community has mandated Canadian Jewish Congress since its inception to be concerned about religious intolerance and racism wherever it may be. This is not an issue that we are picking out of the air. It's an issue that goes to the heart of ethnic and racial intolerance, which we know something about."

Pat Johnson is a Vancouver journalist and commentator.

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