Boca Raton News, FL
Aug 26 2004
Protesters demand halt to Sudan `genocide’
Boca Raton religious leaders
by Dale M. King
Death is rampant in the Sudan.
And South County religious leaders want it to stop.
Some 40 people, many carrying signs, gathered at noon Tuesday in
front of Boca Raton City Hall to demand an end to the senseless
carnage and to pray for the victims.
`We are gathering out of moral imperative,’ said Rabbi Richard Agler,
senior rabbi and spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Israel in
Boca Raton.
`The world has seen entirely too much of this,’ he said. `We know
that such evils are most likely to occur when people are either
unaware or looking away. We are doing our part to make sure that
people are both aware and informed.’
Leaders from several congregations joined the demonstration held one
day before the `Sudan Day of Conscience’ on Wednesday.
`In situations like this, it is incumbent upon all decent human
beings to make their voices heard,’ said the Rev. Henry Willis,
pastor of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Boca Raton.
`Whether mass murder of the innocent is taking place in Europe, Asia
or Africa, it cannot be tolerated,’ he said. `This time, it is
Africa. Next time, it may be somewhere else. But as religious leaders
of conscience, we say that is something the world cannot tolerate.’
The Very Rev. Nareg Berberian of St. David Armenian Church in Boca
Raton added his voice, saying that humanity cannot `stand idly by
while another genocide takes place.’
`Given the history of the 20th century, which has included so many
genocides,’ he said, a genocide in the 21st century `cannot be
tolerated.’
While demonstrators massed at City Hall, the International Committee
of the Red Cross this week airlifted supplies to Sudan’s troubled
Darfur region which has been scourged by a war between African rebel
troops and Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.
The United Nations reports that more than 30,000 people have been
killed and 1.4 million were forced from their homes during the past
18 months of fighting.
In a passionate address, Rabbi Agler said `organized mass murder of
the innocent, state-sponsored or at least state-aided murder of the
innocent’ is happening `before our very eyes.’
Organizers of the event said they will call on the government of the
Sudan to halt all activity that is causing the mass murder, rape and
plundering of villages in the Darfur area.