ACTIVISTS CALL FOR END TO GENOCIDE IN SUDAN
By Elbert Aull, Portland Press Herald Staff Writer

Portland Press Herald, ME
April 23 2007

Activists called for an end to violence in Sudan and remembered
millions of genocide victims worldwide during a vigil Sunday night
in Monument Square.

The vigil was one of more than 230 events planned in 150 cities
nationwide this week to draw attention to violence in Sudan’s Darfur
region.

"It is very shameful to be killed by your own government, and that
is happening to our people in Darfur," Mansour Ahmed, 40, of Portland
told a crowd of about 150 at the vigil.

Organizers with the Washington-based Save Darfur Coalition are trying
to build pressure on the Sudanese government to open its doors to an
international peacekeeping force.

The campaign comes after more than four years of violence in western
Sudan that began when local tribes rebelled against the Arab-led
government.

The Sudanese government is accused of backing Arab Janjaweed militias
that have terrorized villagers in Darfur ever since, killing an
estimated 200,000 to 400,000.

Members of Portland’s Fur community, the largest tribe in Darfur,
said they are skeptical of the Khartoum government’s recent agreement
to allow a United Nations peacekeeping force into the region.

The latest go-ahead comes after the government spent months
sidestepping its initial agreement to a hybrid U.N.-and-African Union
peacekeeping force.

Officials in Khartoum gave the United Nations approval to send an
international force into the region last week.

The Sudanese government first agreed to the hybrid force in November.

"They’re not committed to the peacekeeping agreement," Niemat Ahmadi
said.

Ahmadi, who came to the United States recently to lobby for action
in Darfur, said the Sudanese government has failed to protect its
citizens, so the U.N. shouldn’t need its permission to enter with a
peacekeeping force.

Other Fur community members said the international community should
tighten its financial grip on Sudan’s leaders, freezing their assets
if necessary, to force them to accept a peacekeeping force without
further delays.

"We need immediate intervention to protect the civilians there,"
said Portland’s Ahmed.

Sunday’s vigil honored genocide victims and survivors worldwide.

Abraham Peck, director of the Academic Council for Post-Holocaust
Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Studies at the University of Southern
Maine, called the survivors of past genocides, and their descendents,
members of a "sorority and fraternity of death."

"All together, they total 265 million human beings. It’s a shame.

It’s a disgrace," Peck said.

Representatives of Portland’s Armenian, Jewish and Rwandan communities
spoke to the crowd as their candles flickered and wax dripped to
the pavement.

Suleiman Nsenga, 29, who came to Portland from Rwanda, where
inter-tribal conflict escalated to the level of genocide in 1994,
praised the event.

"It’s beautiful, man. It’s beautiful," Nsenga said of the crowd.

The Associated press contributed to this report.