Pax Christi USA has signed onto a "Unity Statement" from the Save Darfur Coalition, a coalition comprised of faith-based, humanitarian and human rights organizations helping to raise public awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan. The "Unity Statement" appears below. For more information on the Save Darfur Coalition, please visit www.savedarfur.org.
UNITY STATEMENT AND CALL TO ACTION
The emergency in Sudan’s western region of Darfur presents the starkest challenge to the world since the Rwanda genocide in 1994. A government-backed Arab militia known as Janjaweed has been engaging in campaigns to displace and wipe out communities of African tribal farmers.
Villages have been razed, women and girls are systematically raped and branded, men and boys murdered, and food and water supplies targeted and destroyed. Government aerial bombardments support the Janjaweed by hurling explosives as well as barrels of nails, car chassis and old appliances from planes to crush people and property. Tens of thousands have died. Well over a million people have been driven from their homes, and only in the past few weeks have humanitarian agencies gained limited access to some of the affected region.
Mukesh Kapila, the former United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said on March 19 that the violence in Darfur is “more than a conflict, it's an organized attempt to do away with one set of people.” The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has issued its first ever genocide emergency. John Prendergast of International Crisis Group warns, “We have not yet hit the apex of the crisis.”
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates that 350,000 people or more could die in the coming months. Ongoing assessments by independent organizations such as Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) suggest that USAID’s estimate may be conservative. If aid is denied or unavailable, as many as a million people could perish.
Lives are hanging in the balance on a massive scale.
Call to Action
We commend the efforts of the U.S. government in brokering a peace deal to end the gruesome 21-year Civil War in the South and its generous pledge of $300 million in U.S. humanitarian aid. We also applaud the recent visits of Secretary of State Colin Powell and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to the region of Darfur to assess the atrocities human rights organizations are calling the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. And we congratulate Congress for taking decisive legislative action. But we must not wait for a legal determination of “genocide” to ensure a massive worldwide humanitarian response and call to end the violence and investigate crimes against humanity.
As Elie Wiesel passionately declared at our Darfur Emergency Summit on July 14, “the perils of indifference enable killers to kill and tormentors to torment…we cannot stand idly by [the crimes against humanity being committed in Sudan] or all our endeavors will be unworthy…We must act.” We therefore call on people of conscience everywhere to take any and all actions permitted by each individual’s or organization’s abilities and constraints to:
encourage worldwide efforts to stop the displacement and end the crimes against humanity
demand massive worldwide governmental humanitarian support and access to match the need
help in the relief efforts by supporting organizations giving aid
promote efforts to rebuild villages and return the displaced
call for a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide
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