WHAT
Darfur Fast and Rally
Politicians, student, non-profit and community leaders will speak at Rally to bring attention to genocide in Darfur and urge the US government to lead our nation and the international community by taking a stronger more decisive action to end the violence in Darfur and protect its vulnerable citizens. Participants will fast for one meal and donate the cost of the meal to an organization providing humanitarian aid to civilians in Darfur. Also, the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition will be presenting a petition signed by over 1,300 Pittsburghers calling on our government to take action against the genocide in Darfur to Senators Specter and Santorum and President Bush.
This event is free and open to the public.
Visit www.pittsburghdarfur.org for more information.
WHEN
Thursday, October 6, 12:00 – 2:00
Speakers and other events of media interest will begin at 12:20 and last approximately 40 minutes.
WHERE
Mellon Square Park (behind William Penn Hotel)
WHO
Sala Udin, Pittsburgh City Councilman
Bill Peduto, Pittsburgh City Councilman
Paul D’Allesandro, Pittsburgh District Director for Congressman Mike Doyle
Dr. Michael Yemba, Former President of the Sudan Council of Churches USA
Kahdra Mohammad, Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Refugee Center
Sabira Bushra, Partnership for Minority HIV/AIDS Prevention
Rabbi Alvin Berkun, Tree of Life Congregation
Molly Rush, Co-founder of Thomas Merton Center, Steering Committee of Pennsylvania United for Single-Payer Health Care (PUSH)
Ruth Portnoff, Co-founder of Schenley High School STAND
David Rosenberg, Coordinator of Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition
How to participate in fast
List of organizations to which you can send donations
5 comments:
"Also, the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition will be presenting a petition signed by over 1,300 Pittsburghers calling on our government to take action against the genocide in Darfur to Senators Specter and Santorum and President Bush."
Let me get this straight. The US and the UK have been the most vocal parties against the genocide in Darfur. In fact, it was the US Secretary of State who famously declared what is happening in Sudan "genocide," a point that's debated by the UN General Assembly and other members on the Security Council.
The U.S. and UK have pledged combat troops for the mission, but have received scant help from the UN in rallying other members to the fight. This has been noted by progressives across the globe.
And yet you want to deliver a note to Bush and Santorum? Curious.
When the first U.S. soldier hits the ground in Darfur, I imagine ANSWER and others will immediately condemn it as U.S./UK imperialism, no blood for Darfur, yada yada yada.
Armed or not, we need to speak up about this and every other instance of genocide - consistently.
So, Maria, two years into the Darfur Crisis, what would you wish for policymakers to do?
A Security Council resolution for military action is impossible, given China's veto. Even mild proposals for a united global push for economic sanctions have failed.
The Abuja peace talks have gone nowhere, but it's not as if ECOMOG hasn't given as much help as they could to a fellow OAS member.
GWB and Blair have discussed inserting U.S. troops into the province to protect the dispossessed of Darfur from Sudanese troops, their henchmen, rival insurgent militias and the bandits that have now moved in to fill the power vacuum there.
Would you support that unilateral use of American and British power to remove a dictatorship's hegemony in that Islamic country and police the country?
I ask because the Thomas Merton Center, et al, so vociferously resist U.S. and U.K. military action in Iraq.
So. What to do. What to do.
The purpose of the fast was to use the money that one would spend on lunch (and hopefully add a bit more to that) and donate that sum to various groups that provide humanitarian aid to Darfur. I assume that you don't quibble with giving humanitarian aid, but then again, that may be a wrong assumption on my part.
As to what can be done to help to stop the violence itself, you are correct that China (and Russia) have issues with military intervention because, for example, Russia would not want military intervention against them in, say, Chechnya and both Russia and China have problems with economic sanctions because of their interests in Sudan's oil reserves.
However, that said, the Security Council did decide to deploy a UN peacekeeping mission to Southern Sudan (UNMIS) and further agreed to use the International Criminal Court to punish human rights abusers (despite Washington's long-standing opposition to the Court). And, the African Union has more than doubled its peacekeepers in the region, and is discussing proposals to cooperate with NATO and the UN to strengthen the mission. It would be great if the US and the UK did better at helping the African Union in Darfur than they did in Rwanda where Britain offered early Cold War vintage trucks and the Pentagon supplied armored personnel carriers stripped of guns, radios, spare parts and training manuals.
As far as comparisons between Iraq and Darfur; when Saddam was actively engaging in genocide, we were supporting him. Perhaps you've seen this picture of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam right after the gassing of the Kurds.
Also, I'm quite certain that no one supporting the fast/rally want the kind of "unilateral use of American and British power" where we go in and bomb their infrastructure and kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
"I assume that you don't quibble with giving humanitarian aid, but then again, that may be a wrong assumption on my part."
Actually, if anyone could make a strong case about bungled NGO work in any country on earth, it would be Sudan. The evangelicals famously created a market for enslavement by paying high prices to buy freedom for slaves, a cycle that only bred more raids for slaves.
I do not wish to speak precisely about this because it's been seven years since I witnessed the war in south Sudan. Perhaps the leopards in the NGO ranks have changed their spots.
The secular NGOs are now so controversial in Africa as to trigger ongoing attacks within and outside Africa about their role in keeping people docile and poor.
Zimbabwe went to the extreme of creating a "NGO Bill" to limit their activities. But Mugabe was only following Egypt's 1999 lead.
The reality is that OAS/AU troops aren't going to do poo on the ground and everyone knows it. They are not competent, modern, mechanized units with the logistics to support longterm military operations.
Thus the African calls for U.S. and British troops.
I only say this to illustrate a point about the complexity of foreign politics and power projection. Whereas one might like to retreat to the moonbat position on Iraq or anywhere else (I seem to recall Michael Moore's crusade against U.S./NATO combat in Serbia, Kosovo or Bosnia), the complexities of achieving true peace in Darfur defeat easy analysis.
Clinton was faced with similar questions to protect the Kurds in Iraq in 1998 (that wiley ol' Saddam I guess was still supported by the U.S. then in his genocidal bloodlust), not to mention Somalia, Rwanda, Taiwan, North Korea, Kosovo and Bosnia.
But I'm sure a pretty little note from the Thomas Merton Center will affect the deliberations of Bush and Santorum on the Darfur Crisis, experts that the Pittsburgh peaceniks are on the use of violence to achieve foreign
policy goals.
I hope you at least had a nice non-lunch lunch.
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