Jewish Independent: Shoah lesson for Sudan

February 4, 2005

Shoah lesson for Sudan
Now is the time to scream, says Holocaust survivor.
PAT JOHNSON

In the Buchenwald concentration camp, Robbie Waisman listened to his elders imagine a world without the sort of barbarism they were experiencing under the Nazis. They were sure that, once the world understood what people had done to other people during the Third Reich, such inhumanity would never be allowed to happen again.

"In the dark, in the bunks before falling asleep, I remember listening to some of the inmates who were important men before the war – learned, intelligent, politicians, writers and philosophers. They were there because they were against the Nazis," Waisman said last week on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp Auschwitz. "Their conversations gave me hope. I was a teenager. They believed anyone lucky enough to survive would live in paradise – no more war, no more hunger. That resonated within me, I wanted to live in that kind of world. I wanted to survive."

Waisman did survive, but his dreams, as well as those of other inmates, of a world without human-made atrocities, did not. Next to him at a table in the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver Jan. 27 was Nouri Abdalla, a British Columbian who is a representative of the Darfurian community in Canada.

In Darfur, a region in the northeast African country of Sudan, armed militias and Sudanese government soldiers are perpetrating atrocities. The United Nations is debating whether the violence there should be called "genocide."

About 1.6 million people have been forced from their homes in Darfur, some escaping to neighboring Chad, but most displaced internally, without adequate food, water or shelter. About 70,000 have been killed, with hundreds of thousands more in immediate peril. As many as 12,000 villages have been burned in their entirety. Thousands of women have been raped, thousands of children have been abducted. International aid organizations say more than three million people in Darfur – half the population – are completely dependent on relief aid.

Waisman and Abdalla were speaking at a news conference convened by Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, to mark the anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation but also to draw attention anew to the crisis in Darfur.Abdalla echoed Waisman's warning that the world must not avert its eyes again when it sees genocide looming.

"The world community has not learned at all from past experiences with regard to genocidal acts going back to World War Two, through Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and now we have a genocide standing tall in Darfur and it seems like nobody is doing anything about it, to stop it," said Abdalla. "The situation in Darfur today is worse than what it was six or seven months ago when the [United Nations] Security Council had actually started to intervene to stop the genocide, the mass killing, the mass raping and the mass abducting of children and the burning of villages in the Darfur region of Sudan."

In July 2004, the security council passed a resolution asking the Sudanese government to disarm the Janjaweed militias, which had been operating independently, but with the approval and active support of the Sudanese government. Although the Sudanese government maintains it is not directly involved in the conflict, evidence refutes this. Darfurian villages are being bombed from the air, said Abdalla, and the Sudanese government is the only entity in the conflict with air power.

"Unfortunately, what the Sudanese government has done since then is incorporated those Janjaweed militias, or members of the Janjaweed militias, into its paramilitary forces," said Abdalla. "It's incorporated them into their regular armed forces and now they're working with even more impunity in Darfur than ever."

Though the UN approved the intervention of 3,300 African Union troops in Darfur – a fraction of the number Darfurians and others say are needed – only 1,200 have been deployed and those are only observing. They are not empowered to intervene on behalf of endangered civilians.

"The intervention up to date is simply not working at all," said Abdalla. "What the security council is doing in Darfur is absolutely not working."

Reportedly, last week government troops raided civilian villages and government planes bombed three more Darfur villages.

"It has been such a great comfort for those of us who are Darfurians living here in Canada to see the Canadian government taking the lead. We have definitely been able to count on the prime minister to raise this issue to the highest level."

Abdalla commended Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin – one of the few world leaders to press the issue onto the international agenda – but urged the government and ordinary Canadians to do more.

"We are certainly looking for more from our government and from the prime minister," Abdalla said. He urges the international community to demand the immediate imposition of a no-fly zone over Darfur, an arms embargo against the Sudanese government and the complete disbanding of the Janjaweed.

"Without doing that, there is no end that I can see," said Abdalla.

Mark Weintraub, chair of Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, said his organization has sent a second letter to the Canadian prime minister. It acknowledges the actions by Canada and calls on the government to "mobilize all resources – political, diplomatic and financial" to stop the suffering and prevent a genocide.

He urged Canadians to keep the issue at the top of the Canadian agenda by calling or writing politicians.

"Our message to the larger Canadian community is that we know Canadian leadership is deeply troubled by Darfur, but there are many issues with which our politicians are engaged and it is vital that Canadians speak out so our decision-makers know that many Canadians want and expect powerful leadership on this issue," said Weintraub.

Reflecting on the echoes of history, Waisman compared the near-silence of the contemporary world on Darfur to the silence of the world as the Final Solution unfolded.

"My eyes have seen unimaginable horrors. I'm a witness to the ultimate evil. I'm a witness to man's inhumanity to other humans," Waisman said.

"I represent one and a half million Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust and no one protested. The world remained silent," said Waisman. "Today, we have instant communication. There's no excuse for silence. I cannot understand why so many people with good intentions, with all the evil around them, choose to look the other way. We must not let it happen again.

"What do we need to do to finally learn the lesson and look out for one another?" he asked. "Now is the time to speak out. Now is the time to scream."

Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.

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