Detroit Free Press, MI
Aug 25 2004

LOCAL VOICES: Cleanse world of genocide

Collective action can end Darfur atrocities

BY VICTOR BEGG DAVID GAD-HARF AND THE REV. DANIEL KRICHBAUM

We are blessed in metro Detroit to have a great number of activists
committed to improving interfaith and inter-race relations in our
community.

The connections we have built allow us to ensure positive and
constructive solutions to problems that may arise between our groups
and maintain an atmosphere of acceptance, tolerance and civility.

Taking a look into our history books underscores the importance of
working together to foster intergroup relations.

Toward the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire began a program of
ethnic cleansing targeting the Armenian population. During the
Holocaust, over 6 million Jews and an equal number of non-Jews were
slaughtered in Europe. In the mid-1990s, 800,000 Rwandans were killed
in that African country’s program of mass murder. Around the same
time, Muslims in the former Yugoslavia were subjected to genocide.

Is it conceivable that such ethnic cleansing that so stained the 20th
Century continues today?

Not only is it conceivable, but it is happening. As we speak, blacks
in Sudan’s Darfur region are being killed, raped and displaced by
militiamen known as the Janjaweed. These militias are supported by a
Sudanese government that continues to allow the Janjaweed to commit
these atrocities against fellow Muslims in the African nation. Both
the U.S. Congress and UN Security Council have issued resolutions
condemning the ongoing genocide.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan also have visited the Darfur area, but these minimal efforts
are not enough. The Save Darfur Coalition (), made
up of more than 80 organizations, including representation from major
faith groups and humanitarian organizations, has designated today,
Aug. 25, as the Day of Conscience.

Across North America, communities are engaging in interfaith efforts
to raise public awareness about the horrific situation in Darfur and
to demand that the international community take immediate and
decisive action to stop the ethnic cleansing.

So what can each of us do today and in the coming days, weeks and
months to end this great tragedy unfolding before us? Each of us
should write to President George W. Bush and urge him to declare what
is happening in Darfur genocide (he has not done so, even though such
a declaration would solidify support for Darfurians). We can also ask
our members of Congress to express their outrage that genocide can
still occur and speak publicly about the issue.

Our religious clergy can bring this issue to the attention of their
congregations. We can pledge financial support — no matter how large
or small — to the relief organizations trying to provide food,
water, health care and shelter to over one million refugees of this
crisis.

The value of every action — whether individual or collective — can
bring an end to this great human tragedy.

Who knows what could have been had more people stood up to Hitler, if
more nations had spoken out against Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia?

Here in metro Detroit, we are committed to improving our
understanding of, and relations among, all religious, racial and
ethnic groups despite our differences. One important lesson that we
have learned is that no matter which faith we hold so dear, we are
all commanded to respect life, care for those in need and create a
better world.

It is this belief that underscores today’s Day of Conscience. Let us
act now to raise awareness of the atrocities being committed in
Sudan. Let us act together, quickly, so that this new century does
not carry the bloody stains of the previous one.

VICTOR BEGG is vice chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of
Michigan; DAVID GAD-HARF is executive director of the Jewish
Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit; THE REV. DAN KRICHBAUM is
executive Director of the National Conference for Community &
Justice. Write to them in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 600
W. Fort St., Detroit, MI 48226.