A FLICKER OF LIGHT: SPARKING HOPE AND SPEAKING OUT TO END GENOCIDE
By Taressa Stovall And Mark S. Porter of The Montclair Times
Montclair Times, NJ
May 3 2007
Human rights activist Yahya Osman of Darfur at the 2d annual Rally
to Save Darfur Sunday, April 29, at the Union Congregational Church.
Staff photo by Adam Anik.
A year ago, a rally of perhaps 2,000 people gathered in Watchung
Plaza to decry the deaths occurring in Darfur.
Speakers, including influential politicians, denounced the brutal
rapes, the pillaging of villages and the undeniable genocide
perpetrated by Sudan and pro-government tribal militias against the
western region of the huge nation located in northeast Africa.
A year later, the killings have increased.
Terror has grown. Peacekeeping efforts have failed to slow methodical
raids against Darfuri towns and refugee camps. Aid workers have been
murdered, assaulted, or intimidated into departing. Sudan wields its
oil wealth to win strategic support from China – and its leader’s
promise to resist the Islamic terror group al Qaeda has won at least
acquiescence from the Bush administration.
This year’s rally, in Union Congregational Church, 176 Cooper Ave.
sought to get people to take action – from sending e-mails to the
White House to purchasing $25 solar heaters. These heaters already
enable some of the more than 400,000 Darfuri refugees to prepare food
in their destitute camps without risk of rape or murder, which often
occur when they forage outside the camps seeking wood for stoves.
"Just a year ago, only 15 percent of the American people knew anything
at all" about the situation in Darfur," Gloria Crist, a leader of
the Essex County Coalition for Darfur, which organized the rally,
told the crowd. "Now that we know what’s happening, what are we going
to do about it?"
The rally in Montclair coincided with more than 400 other gatherings
throughout the United States on behalf of the "Global Days for Darfur"
project.
Along with hundreds of adults filling Union Congregational Church,
participants included scores of college-age, teenage and younger
students energized to effect change in an area where an estimated
400,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million people have become
refugees.
"Silence is complicity," said Sen. Robert Menendez, who has actively
worked to help Darfur through his strong support of the Darfur Peace
and Accountability Act, and sponsored a $60 million appropriation to
create a United Nations peacekeeping force.
Menendez scornfully noted that this $60 million funding "sits in an
account instead of saving lives."
"The truth is that the situation in Darfur is a time bomb which could
explode at any time," Menendez said, expressing his frustration at the
lack of progress and calling for "serious sanctions" against Sudan,
including a no-fly zone over Darfur and the possibility of bringing
Sudanese leaders before the International Criminal Court.
An escalating obstacle to helping the Darfurian people is the
increasing danger to relief workers providing aid. "Several
international aid agencies announced last Monday that they are
suspending their efforts because of at-tacks," Menendez said.
Menendez said that he plans to introduce a bipartisan Senate resolution
to send a message to China, which pumps oil from Sudan while providing
arms and money to the janjaweed. With China slated to host the 2008
Summer Olympics in Beijing, "we cannot allow China to host the
Olympics with blood on their hands," he said, as an enthusiastic
audience cheered.
"Chinese investments fuel the atrocities taking place in Darfur,"
said Menendez.
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., who co-sponsored the Darfur Peace and
Accountability Act in 2006 and has supported several measures to
stop the genocide and help the victims, said he was "heartened to
see this mobilization," and "encouraged by our students. Never have
I seen our youth so engaged in an issue.
"While we love our young here, the children of Darfur are
systematically being robbed of their families, their futures, their
lives," Pascrell said. "We may be late, but we are not too late for
hope. We will not be too late unless we allow ourselves to become
silent."
Yahya Osman, a Darfurian who is a leader in the Darfur Rehabilitation
Project, a national organization based in Newark, thanked the crowd
for their presence and commitment, noting that the students in the
crowd provided "a sign of hope" for the future.
"But we need to stop the genocide before it is too late," he
emphasized. "I ask you not to forget the people who need your help."
Noting that the lack of food, water medicine and schooling "is part
of the genocide," Osman forcefully advocated reconciliation. "We
don’t want our people to grow up with hatred in a refugee camp."
Before the event commenced, Osman told The Times: "We’re asking the
world to stand up and take action. We believe in people power. People
can bring attention to the crisis by educating, by donating and by
holding their leaders’ feet to the fire."
Assemblyman William Payne, who authored New Jersey’s landmark Sudan
divestiture law, spoke to the crowd, as did his brother, Rep. Donald
M. Payne, who was one of earliest and most forceful supporters of
securing peace in Darfur. Payne was responsible for a congressional
resolution declaring that the onslaught in Darfur was genocide. Both
men have visited the refugee camps.
"There has to be a new attitude about ending the genocide," said Rep.
Payne, who was appointed chairman of the Subcommittee on African and
Global Health in February. "~TWe’re demanding that China put more
pressure on the government of Sudan." he said, adding that he is
introducing legislation to get a no-fly-zone declared around Darfur.
PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES
Speakers referred to Darfur as the first – and hopefully the last –
genocide of the 21st century. During a candle-lighting ceremony,
speakers referred to other mass-murders such as the Holocaust prior
to and during World War II, the rampaging killings in Cambodia, the
slaughter in Rwanda, the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s and
widespread killings of Armenians by Turks early in the 20th century.
"I am here as a genocide survivor to call the international community
to action before it is too late," said Joseph Sebarenzi, who lost
his parents, seven siblings and numerous other relatives during the
genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
Sebarenzi commended Montclair for its leadership in raising awareness
and urging action to help the people of Darfur, adding, "I believe
that the international community should press the government of Sudan
to stop this genocide. I think the members of the United Nations
Security Council have the legal and moral responsibility to protect
the people of Darfur.
"Allow a UN force to protect the people of Darfur," urged Sebarenzi,
who said a UN force "should act without delay."
Rabbi Steven Kushner of Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield and a founding
member of the Essex County Coalition for Darfur, led a remembrance and
vigil for Darfur. Survivors, descendants and representatives of 20th
century genocide victims in Armenia, the Nazi Holocaust, Cambodia,
Bosnia and Rwanda lit white candles "to return even a flicker of
light to our world," Kushner said.
Then Osman lit a green candle for Darfur, "to show us the way, how
we can stop this genocide," he said.
"Am I my brother’s keeper?" Kushner asked. "It’s a question we need
to ask ourselves as well.
"It strikes me that, if all we do is remember, we learn nothing,"
Kushner said. "If not now, when?"
The ceremony ended with Kushner sounded the shofar, a horn used in
Jewish religious ceremonies to call people together and sound warnings.
TOGETHER
The Montclair Academy Drummers played before the rally, directed by
Maya Milenovic Workman with Kevin Jones and Reggie Workman. Music for
the program was performed by members of the Christian Love Baptist
Church Youth Choir, Irvington; B’nai Keshet & Ner Tamid Choirs;
and OSAU Choir, Montclair State University, under the direction of
David Sanders.
Sara Gold, a senior at Montclair High School who has been involved in
the Darfur cause since attending the 2006 rally, brought her mother,
Judy Becker. "She is definitely raising my awareness about Darfur,
and it was just very moving to hear peoples’ experiences from all
genocide," Becker said.
Cheryl Marshall-Petricoff, a founder of the Coalition, brought her
three children, ages 9, 3, and the baby, now 8 months, she was carrying
when she spoke at last year’s rally. "I’m saddened that we’re having
a rally again and not much has changed," she said. "But my spirit is
always very lifted when I see everyone come together in the commu-nity
and work together to put more pressure to make change happen."
The Rev. Charles Ortman of the Unitarian Church of Montclair told The
Times: "We’ve allowed humanity too many opportunities to destroy itself
in the past while we just sat there. We have to be present, stand up
and raise our voices so our political leaders and our corporate leaders
can take any measures they can to secure peace and protect human life."
"Four years is enough," Sebarenzi said of the genocide in Darfur. "We
need actions, not words."
"President Bush, time is up," Menendez said. "It’s time to save
Darfur."
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