Divisions Cast Aside in Cry for Darfur / Out of Diversity, a Unanimous Demand / In "Darfur Is Dying," The Game That's Anything But / Rally decries Darfur killings / Americans rally for Darfur / D.C. rally urges action on Darfur
Twenty-one newspaper stories (including three from the "Washington Post" alone) from very late last night or this morning; try to at least skim through them all (updated originally to add the ones from the "Dallas Morning News", the "Toronto Sun", and the "Toronto Star"; updated further to add the ones from the Portland "Oregonian", the "Portland [Me.] Press Herald", the "Austin [Tex.] American-Statesman", the Eugene "Register-Guard", the Louisville "Courier-Journal", and the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer"; updated still further to add the one from the "Cincinnati Enquirer"; updated yet again to add the one from the "Seattle Times"):
(For pictures from the event, check out a set of photos from the "San Francisco Chronicle" [linked from the source page] and an online "Washington Post" photo gallery [linked from the source page of the first story], as well as posts from "The Tension" and "The Blogatron 2000". Also, the "New York Times" has produced an accompanying video report.)
By Sudarsan Raghavan of the "Washington Post" (which overwrites the source page of his story from last evening that had been included in the earlier batch)...
Clutching signs that read "Never Again," thousands of protesters from across religious and political divides descended on the Mall yesterday [Sunday] along with celebrities and politicians to urge President Bush to take stronger measures to end the violence in Sudan's Darfur region that the United States has labeled genocide.
They wore skullcaps, turbans, headscarves, yarmulkes, baseball hats and bandanas. There were pastors, rabbis, imams, youths from churches and youths from synagogues. They cried out phrases in Arabic and held signs in Hebrew. But on this day, they said, they didn't come out as Jews or Muslims, Christians or Sikhs, Republicans or Democrats.
They came out as one, they said, to demand that the Bush administration place additional sanctions on Sudan and push harder for a multinational peacekeeping force to be sent to Darfur.
By Washington standards, where protests often draw more than 100,000 people, yesterday's rally -- estimated by organizers at between 10,000 and 15,000 -- was not huge. Yet the Rally to Stop Genocide appeared to be distinctive for being one of the more diverse rallies the capital has seen in years. Most demonstrations attract fairly homogenous crowds, who often share political, religious and ethnic makeup, as was the case when Latinos dominated immigration protests last month.
But yesterday's rally brought together people from dozens of backgrounds and affiliations, many of whom strongly disagree politically and ideologically on many issues. Judging from T-shirts and banners identifying the various groups, Jews appeared to be among the largest contingent of demonstrators.
Among the speakers were Rabbi David Saperstein; Al Sharpton; Joe Madison, a liberal black radio talk-show host who has been pushing the issue; Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist [Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission]; rap and fashion mogul Russell Simmons; and former basketball star Manute Bol, who is himself Sudanese.
"This is one world, and we are all one family," said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of the Washington Archdiocese. "What happens to the people of Darfur happens to us."
Speaking later before the crowd, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said: "Paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong. . . . If we care, the world will care."
Lawrence B. Mogga, a former Sudanese diplomat who was forced to flee his country, stared at the crowd from his perch backstage and said: "I have never seen this type of organizational arrangement. I think this is the first of its kind."
Yesterday's rally, along with protests planned in 17 other cities, was the largest public outcry for Darfur since the conflict began three years ago. It underscores growing public support across the nation to end the bloodshed, in much the same way activists in the 1980s launched a social justice campaign to end South Africa's apartheid system.
"The world policy on Sudan is failing," said actor George Clooney, who recently visited the Chad-Sudan border, where hundreds of thousands of Darfuris live in refugee camps. "If we turn our heads and look away and hope it will all go away, then they will, and an entire generation will disappear."
His father, Nick Clooney, a veteran journalist, said: "We didn't stop the Holocaust. We didn't stop Cambodia. We didn't stop Rwanda. But this one, we can stop."
In recent months, universities, states and municipalities have divested some of their investments from companies doing business with Sudan. Last month, Providence, R.I., became the first city to stop investing in Sudan. There are divestment campaigns underway at the University of Maryland and the University of Virginia. And Maryland is considering a formal request by Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R) to have the state's pension plan divest billions of dollars from firms with ties to Sudan.
The Darfur conflict began in February 2003, when mostly non-Arab rebels launched attacks seeking greater political autonomy. Sudan's Arab-dominated Islamist government, in response, dispatched troops and pro-government Arab militias known as the Janjaweed to quell the uprising. The militias embarked on a campaign of terror, killing and raping civilians mostly from non-Arab ethnic groups, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their villages. In 2004, the United States labeled the atrocities as genocide.
At about the same time, the villagers, who like their attackers are mostly Muslim, got an unlikely ally. American Jewish groups were growing alarmed by the atrocities. They drew parallels to the Holocaust and how the world remained silent as Jews were killed. Many also said they were disturbed by the world's failure to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. They were determined not to let it happen again and soon launched the Save Darfur Coalition.
The coalition has grown into a broad-based alliance of more than 160 faith-based groups that include religious and secular Jews, evangelical Christians, Catholics, Muslims, human rights organizations, Arab groups, black churches and Buddhists.
Yesterday, demonstrators came from as far as Maine and as near as Tenleytown. More than 200 buses, from as many as 41 states, arrived in the District. They wore T-shirts with slogans like "Not on Our Watch" and "Save Darfur."
As the rally began, the crowd sang a message to the children of Darfur:
"You are not alone."
"You are not alone."
The rally comes as the humanitarian situation is worsening, the United Nations and human rights groups say. At least 200,000 have died and 2.5 million, most of them non-Arabs, have fled to refugee camps inside Darfur or to neighboring Chad, including 60,000 in the last month, according to the United Nations. U.S. and international diplomatic and political efforts have so far failed to stop the violence.
President Bush, who met with Darfur advocates at the White House on Friday, praised the protesters and said the United States is serious about solving the problem.
But protesters said he needs to do more.
The urgency, as well as a sense of the past, was not lost on many of the speakers yesterday.
The speakers' podium was thick with the sweep of history, as survivors of the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the ethnic conflict in Bosnia drew parallels to Darfur.
As the rally's first speaker, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel drew a direct comparison to his own suffering in Nazi concentration camps.
"As a Jew, I'm here because when we needed people to help us, nobody came," Wiesel, the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner, told the applauding crowd. "Therefore, we're here."
Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan hotel manager who is credited with saving 1,200 Rwandans from slaughter, spoke later.
"Twelve years ago, a militia was slaughtering innocent civilians in cities and towns in Rwanda," said Rusesabagina, whose story was depicted in the movie "Hotel Rwanda."
"As Rwanda has been abandoned, Darfur is also abandoned," he said. "The world is still standing by when a genocide was taking place."
Several speakers urged universities and governments to divest their assets from Sudan.
Younis Tagelalla, 40, was among a small contingent of immigrants from Darfur. He looked around in awe at the sea of black, white and brown faces showing their support for his homeland.
When he lived in Sudan, he said, he was told that Jews were the enemies of Muslims.
Yesterday, he knew different.
"This is not about religion. This is about saving humanity," said Tagelalla, a cabdriver, who got on a bus from New York that was funded by a Jewish group.
"The whole world is behind us. We are so grateful."
Also from the "Washington Post"...
Thousands of people poured into Washington on trains, in buses and in cars from across the country yesterday [Sunday]. Evangelicals joined Hollywood entertainers, black civil rights leaders joined conservatives, and politicians from both parties spoke in unison on the same stage.
But among the largest contingents at yesterday's "Rally to Stop Genocide" on the Mall were Jewish Americans, who said they were appalled by the violence in Sudan.
Vladimir Vishnevskiy, of the Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, came to Washington with two busloads of Holocaust survivors, World War II veterans and youths.
"This is extremely important," he said. "We are Russian Jews, people who know firsthand what hate and the Holocaust and genocide is about."
It is unclear how many Jewish Americans were among those at the rally, but they were among the most visible, wearing shirts or clutching signs that read, "Not On Our Watch" and "Dare to Interfere in Darfur" and "Never Again," the latter a reference to the Holocaust. They came as part of Jewish youth groups, community centers or religious groups; they were teenagers, parents and grandparents.
Fourteen-year-old Sabrina Kestenbaum donned the same bright-yellow T-shirt -- bearing a bull's-eye on a map of Africa and the words "Darfur 'Never Again' " -- as classmates from the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan.
She said she was overwhelmed by the crowds and surprised by how many people she knew.
"We see a lot of Jewish kids that we recognize from other schools," she said.
"Or from camp," added her friend, Susan Moskovits.
Gary and Mira Foote came with members of Beth Shalom Congregation in Westminster, Md. As the Footes headed to the Metro station for the two-hour trip home, an African American woman going to the rally spotted one of the "Never Again" signs their children were carrying and stopped them.
"Can I borrow that?" the woman asked.
The rally included people from a broad spectrum of racial, ethnic and religious groups -- many of whom have different interests and agendas. It had been a long time since an issue has brought ordinary blacks and Jews together, said Mira Foote, a public school teacher.
"Holocaust memorial day has just been observed," she said. "This pricks the soul of everyone who has ever studied and mourned the loss of fellow Jews and fellow human beings."
Some Sudanese immigrants said they were pleased to see a wide range of people at the rally.
"It makes me feel wonderful that there are people that actually care about what is going on in the world," said Emtithal Mahmoud, 12, whose father is a member of the Darfur Alert Coalition. "People that want to make a difference, people who want to help." Emtithal's family was forced to flee their homeland when she was 5.
Sharon Benveneste, 67, of Havertown, Pa., came to town with a group representing five or six congregations from the Philadelphia area.
"We hate the idea of wholesale killing anywhere in the world. But this is so dastardly, what is happening in Darfur. And hopefully we will convince our government to help stop the raping and the killing in the villages," Benveneste said.
The rally also drew veterans of the civil rights movement, including Al Sharpton and Benjamin Chavis Muhammad, who was executive director of the Million Man March about a decade ago and is president of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, an advocacy group, as well as elected officials from both major political parties.
Sharpton, who at times has clashed with Jewish leaders, said: "I think it is historic, but the historic part of it will only mean something if we stop the genocide. We can't just have this as a picnic of interdenominational, interpolitical harmony. We must go to our respective constituents to have it stop."
Also from the "Washington Post"...
In the online game "Darfur Is Dying," launched at yesterday's Save Darfur rally on the Mall, atrocity is a click of a mouse away. A player can be a 14-year-old girl in a blue dress with white polka dots named Elham, in search of water for her camp, chased by gun-carrying Janjaweed militiamen. Run, Elham, run!
Suddenly a game that takes no more than 15 minutes to play seems too real and not real enough at the same time.
Sponsored by Reebok and MTVu, the college-oriented TV network, and designed by a group of students at University of Southern California, "Darfur Is Dying" is part of a growing but still nascent "games for change" movement within video games. This movement is not about the alien fighters of "Halo["] or the sprawling fantasyland of "World of Warcraft" or the action-packed "Madden NFL." It's about "very serious subjects that are meant to be taken seriously," said Susana Ruiz, 33, one of the game's designers. "Food Force," a game about world hunger developed by the United Nations, served as a model for her, Ruiz explained.
[...] The game is available free at http://www.DarfurIsDying.com, and yesterday Joey Cheek, the Olympic gold-medal speedskater who donated his $25,000 prize money to the children of Darfur, was on hand to be the first to play the game, which has a simple, two-level structure. The player is either inside a refugee camp, collecting food and building shelter, or [...] outside foraging for water.
"We got captured by the militiamen!" Cheek, 26, said to no one in particular. "We gotta get the water!"
Standing less than five feet from Cheek, not too far from a guy walking with a poster that read "'Schindler's List,' 'The Killing Fields,' 'Hotel Rwanda' . . . 'Darfur, 2006' . . . Don't wait for the movie,'" was John Keenan, a freshman at George School, a Quaker boarding school in Newtown, Pa. The 15-year-old said: "I'm a gamer, but I don't know how I really feel about making a game out of what's going on. I mean, I don't think you can get a real experience of being a Darfurian refugee by playing a game on the computer."
Added Loren Berlin, 28, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina: "I'm not a gamer, but I know that having a game about Darfur reaches out to lots of young people out there who are clueless about what's going on. But on the other hand, in this age when so much information is on the Internet, do we really need a game -- a game -- to remind people that something so terrible is happening in the Sudan?"
Among the hundreds of college and high school students gathered at the rally, Berlin and Keenan represent the Facebook-MySpace-Friendster generation of young activists who have used the Internet as a crash course on everything they know about the crisis in Darfur. Via message boards and instant messages, they share what they know and show where they've been. Online, the world seems smaller, more immediate, more personal, they say. Anne Eichmeyer and Ryan Pfeffer, for example, were busy taking digital pictures of the rally to post on their Facebook accounts. "It's for our friends who couldn't make it here," said Pfeffer, who like Eichmeyer is a student at the University of Wisconsin. They've both heard of the game and are eager to give it a try.
Zac Childers, a senior at American University, is eager to play the game, too. But he's one of the those guys who'd rather skateboard down Constitution Avenue -- he skateboarded his way to the rally -- than play "Tony Hawk's Underground," a popular skateboarding game. The 23-year-old is skeptical of the game, how "real" and "unreal" it might feel as he plays it, how it "seems to objectify and trivialize" what he considers "something that has to be as serious as possible for all for us."
From the "Washington Times"...
Religious organizations, political groups and foreign nationals led thousands of people in a rally yesterday [Sunday] on the Mall to urge U.S. leaders to help end the widespread killings in Sudan's Darfur region.
The rally brought together an unusual coalition of about 160 Catholic, evangelical, Muslim and Jewish organizations and Democratic and Republican lawmakers to help stop what many have called "a genocide."
"This issue crosses every religion, every race, every age," said Rinat Manhoff, 28, who came with about 200 people from Temple Micah in Northwest [D.C.]. "And now there is no excuse for the world not to do something about it."
Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Catholic archbishop of Washington, was among the key religious leaders who participated in the rally.
"It's time now to say, 'No more,'" he said. "We've been awakened to how these people suffer. We in Washington understand that we are all people, that we are all brothers and sisters. We can make a difference."
The years of fighting between ethnic groups and Arab militias in western Sudan have killed at least 180,000 people and have left about 2 million homeless. The U.N. World Food Program said Friday that it was cutting rations there in half because of a lack of money.
Organizers estimated that about 75,000 people attended the event on the Mall, including 240 buses of activists from 41 states.
Organizers of the event, sponsored by the Save Darfur Coalition, had a permit for 10,000 to 15,000 people, said Sgt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police. The agency does not give official crowd estimates.
The rally was just one of 18 over the weekend in several U.S. cities and coincided with a U.N. deadline for Darfur's warring parties to reach a peace deal to end the three-year conflict.
Salim Ahmed Salim, a lead mediator for the African Union, said the talks would continue until midnight tomorrow, pushing back the deadline for talks that have gone on for two years but so far have failed to halt the violence.
Earlier, the rebels called for changes to the pact -- after the Sudanese government indicated that it would accept the proposal.
"The African Union has extended the deadline of the peace talks by 48 hours, as requested by the United States and other international partners to allow extensive consultations to go ahead," he said at the talks' site in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
"Darfur is about human lives," said Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, a Republican now running for the U.S. Senate. "It is about our brothers and sisters dying on a continent that is 14 hours away. The power of your compassion [will] help cure the problems of the people of Darfur."
The international community has poured in help while pressuring both sides to settle the conflict. Ralliers, however, said more needs to be done.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States has led the humanitarian relief efforts and is leading the push for a U.N. peacekeeping force.
"The United States has been one of the most active states" in seeking peace in the region, she said on ABC's "This Week."
"We also do need more support, frankly, from other members of the international community -- from China, from Russia," she said.
Sudanese officials had indicated that they might accept a U.N. force in Darfur to aid African Union troops if the peace treaty is signed.
President Bush met Friday at the White House with Darfur advocates and gave his support for the rallies.
"For those of you who are going out to march for justice, you represent the best of our country," he said.
Actor George Clooney was one of several celebrities, athletes and high-ranking lawmakers to speak at the rally. Others included Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California; Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel; and Olympic speed-skating champion Joey Cheek.
However, it was Mr. Clooney's recent trip to Darfur with his father, Nick -- and his "credit card" of celebrity, as he described it last week in the District -- that sparked much of the interest in the rally.
"This is the first genocide of the 21st century, but there is hope. There is you," Mr. Clooney said. "My father and I are proud to stand with you today and tomorrow, and we'll stand with you every day until this travesty has ended."
Mr. Cheek, who donated his Olympic bonus money to relief efforts in Darfur, said he was sad because celebrity was needed to draw attention to the crisis.
"But I feel we have a moral obligation to these people," he said.
Religious leaders also praised those who attended the rally for crossing so many political and religious lines.
"A crisis like this can help bring together groups," said Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, who spoke alongside hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. "We need to find issues that bring us together, especially the African Americans and Jews."
With the Capitol Rotunda as backdrop, ralliers chanted "Not on our watch" while waving flags and posters with such slogans such as "Never Again" and "Save Darfur."
"We're standing in for the victims, because they can't speak for themselves," said Camilla Blomquist, 22, who came to the rally with about 40 other people from New York.
Several U.S. Park Police cruisers lined the north side of the Mall between Third and Sixth streets Northwest, and at least two mounted officers monitored the crowd. The Metropolitan Police Department did not close streets, turn on surveillance cameras or provide other assistance, Chief Charles H. Ramsey said. No serious injuries or other problems were reported.
In front of thousands of people rallying on Sunday on the Mall, religious leaders, politicians and celebrities urged the American people and the Bush administration to do more to help end the ethnic and political conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The rally here was one of nearly 20 events across the country sponsored by the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 160 organizations.
The Washington event attracted dozens of speakers, including Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois; Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize; the Rev. Al Sharpton; the actor George Clooney; Joey Cheek, the Olympic speed skater; and Big & Rich, the country music group.
Since violence erupted in 2003, it is estimated that more than 200,000 people have died in Darfur, more than two million have been displaced and countless others are suffering from hunger and disease.
In 2004, the House of Representatives approved a declaration of genocide for Darfur, and since then the House and Senate have urged stronger peacekeeping missions and approved billions of dollars in aid to Sudan and the Darfur region of the East African nation.
That is not enough, demonstrators and speakers said.
Dominic Oduho, 32, came to the United States as a refugee from southern Sudan six years ago. He now lives in Dallas in a community with about 200 Sudanese, but he hopes to rejoin his parents in Sudan.
With tears in his eyes, Mr. Oduho said: "I'm personally moved by the way the American people are supporting us; the faces here, there are almost more white people than black people. This message is not a message that will remain here."
Many in the crowd said the Save Darfur rally was the first of any kind they had attended. For others, it was their first in decades.
Esther Muencz, 64, and her husband, Tamas, 65, both Holocaust survivors, left Cleveland at 4:15 a.m. to travel here by bus with members of their synagogue.
"I was one of the hidden children, taken in by a gentile family in Poland," Mrs. Muencz said. "If somebody would have done this when they murdered six million of us, maybe some would have been saved."
Elizabeth King, 43, drove from Maplewood, N.J., with her husband and daughter Sophie, who is 7.
"My husband and I got home late last night and thought about how hard the long drive down here today would be," Mrs. King said. "But you feel different when you're a parent. You feel more of an obligation to teach your children and follow through."
Last year, Sophie and her friends set up a lemonade stand and raised $30 for victims of Hurricane Katrina. She said she wanted to do the same for the people of Darfur. "It made me sad that all the people are getting hurt in Africa," she said.
Another demonstrator, Suzanne Thompson of New Hampshire, made signs using her grandchildren's markers and Sudanese children's artwork that she printed from the Internet.
"I haven't spoken out for a while — I'm embarrassed to say the last time was Vietnam — but this seemed very important," Ms. Thompson said. "It's important as a mother, a grandmother and a former schoolteacher, to speak out for other human beings. If we speak out, our country will hear us and the world will hear us."
Stephen Kiir, 30, another demonstrator from the Sudanese community in Dallas, said: "When I came here today, I thought it would be Sudanese alone. I thought we were the only people suffering in the world, but there are other people suffering even more than us."
Mr. Kiir continued, "It's good that young people are here to see this, because they are the ones who can tell other people what is going on. We will see the result of it."
Tens of thousands of Americans from across the country rallied here [Washington] yesterday [Sunday] to demand an end to genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, marking the first massive US outcry since the government-backed killings of civilians erupted there in 2003.
Busloads of university students, evangelical Christians, Jewish groups, teachers' unions, and African-American civic organizations packed the National Mall in front of the Capitol, chanting ''enough is enough" and waving placards that read ''stop the genocide."
''You are here today to shine a bright light on the horrors and to show the world that America will not stand quietly by while the genocide continues," US Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Somerville Democrat, told the cheering crowd. ''I am here to tell you that your elected leaders are listening."
The rally, one of several that took place across the country yesterday, aimed to push the US government to take stronger measures to help civilians in Darfur who were maimed, raped, or driven from their homes by government-backed Arab militias.
The killings began in February 2003, when two rebel groups had stepped up their armed struggle against the government in Khartoum. The government responded by arming the militias, known as Janjaweed, who began killing civilians of non-Arab tribes that they considered sympathetic to the rebels, according to State Department officials.
The Janjaweed attacks, which US officials and human rights groups say have been supported by Sudanese government helicopters, have caused 3 million people to flee their homes for barren refugee camps. Hundreds of thousands have died from violence, malnutrition, and disease.
''We are here because of leaders who are timorous, complacent, and unwilling to take risks," Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, author, and Nobel laureate told the crowd. ''We want them to take risks and stop the massacre."
Congress and President Bush have declared the killings in Darfur to be genocide. Yet $50 million that the United States pledged in support of the ill-equipped African Union troops who are protecting civilians there has been tied up for months in bureaucratic wrangling. The United States also supports transferring the task of protecting civilians to the United Nations, which has more resources than the African Union, but so far Russia and China have blocked the move.
Bush met Friday with seven Darfur activists, including the Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, co-pastor of Bethel AME Church in Jamaica Plain.
Hammond, who also helped organize yesterday's rally, said that the activists asked Bush to appoint a special envoy for Darfur and he seemed receptive to the idea for the first time.
''We need him to act with greater urgency," she said. ''Our frustration has been over the last few years as we watched this genocide occur. This administration has been too slow."
International inaction on Darfur has created an unlikely coalition of passionate protesters -- from Christian conservatives to African-American civic groups and Jewish activists.
Yesterday, T-shirts, banners, and signs showed the diverse backgrounds of the protesters. The Baltimore Teachers' Union. A Texas chapter of Young Judea, a Jewish youth group. A group called New Yorkers Against Genocide.
''We are responding to a conflict in a part of the world that a lot of people don't know exists," Kim Stietz, interim director for international policy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church [in] America. ''From a spiritual perspective, we are called to be a voice for the voiceless."
''I feel like the entire Jewish community of New York is here," said a young member of the Ansche Chesed congregation, a synagogue in New York. ''I'm here because it would just be a disgrace for Jews not to be here."
The permit for the rally estimated a turnout of 10,000 to 15,000 people, but several of the speakers said they felt that the crowd was larger than expected.
Actor George Clooney spoke, just after returning from a trip to Africa. So did Congressman Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, who was arrested Friday protesting at the Sudanese Embassy.
In the crowd below, giant puppets in African clothing cradled a puppet of a dead baby. A boy on his father's back held up a sign that said, ''Now you know."
''I think this is a breakthrough," said Roann Rubin, of Glen Rock, N.J., who said her town of 12,000 people organized 17 busloads of rally participants from northern New Jersey. She said so many people wanted to come because of a successful effort by the town's interfaith coalition of Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Baha'i, and Sikh groups.
The size and spirit of the crowd surprised Salih Khatir, a 37-year-old from Darfur who moved to New York four years ago. ''It's amazing," he said. ''I can't believe it."
Khatir said the Janjaweed attacked his village of Marla about eight months ago, killing many of his aunts and uncles and forcing his grandparents into a refugee camp.
''They lost everything," he said, adding that he felt the root cause of the violence was the refusal of the Arab government in Khartoum to share power with the non-Arab tribes in Darfur.
Khatir, who traveled with four busloads of Sudanese from New York, said the rally gave him hope that international pressure would persuade Khartoum to agree to a power-sharing deal with the rebels in Darfur.
But the government of Sudan said in a statement on its embassy website that the rally would make it harder to broker a peace deal.
''The message that will be sent by the demonstrators to the Darfur rebels is: Don't Make Peace. The US supports you," the statement read.
Indeed, peace talks between the rebels and the Khartoum government faltered in Nigeria yesterday after rebel groups rejected a peace agreement that Sudan's government had said it would support. A spokesman for the rebels said the deal did not give enough autonomy to Darfur. The African Union said last night the talks would continue for another 48 hours.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick responded by urging the parties to try harder to finalize a peace accord. ''Much good work has been done, and should not be allowed to slip away," he said. ''Today in Washington and other cities, many Americans are gathering to express their concerns over the tragedy in Darfur. People want a solution."
From the stage at the east end of the National Mall, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned the crowd of the cost of keeping quiet about the genocide in Darfur.
"Silence helps the killers," said Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor. "Never the victims."
From the middle of the crowd, surrounded by members of his congregation, Rabbi Bradd Boxman nodded.
"As Jews, we have no right to say 'never again' if we don't do anything now," said Boxman, of Har Sinai, a Reform Jewish synagogue in Owings Mills. "We have a moral responsibility to do something."
Thousands crowded the National Mall yesterday [Sunday] to demand the U.S. government stop the bloodshed in the Darfur region of Sudan. Years of fighting between ethnic rebels and Arab militias backed by the central government have left at least 180,000 dead and about 2 million homeless.
The violence has spilled into neighboring Chad and threatens to escalate: Osama bin Laden urged his followers last week to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. presence.
President Bush called the crisis a genocide again last week, and said the United States was serious about solving the problem. Organizers of the Rally to Stop Genocide, which drew crowds in Washington and more than a dozen other U.S. cities yesterday, want Bush to back the deployment of a stronger multinational peacekeeping force to the African nation.
In Sudan yesterday, rebels rejected a proposed peace deal, a spokesman calling it "imbalanced" hours before a deadline imposed by the African Union. The Sudanese government had indicated that it would accept the plan.
In the United States, the movement for Darfur has attracted a remarkably broad coalition of faith-based and secular groups, uniting Christians and Muslims, blacks and whites, liberals and conservatives. But the cause has resonated particularly among Jews, many of whom hear in the killing fields of western Sudan echoes of the Holocaust.
"If Jews want to make a special claim here, it is that we know better than almost anyone else," Ruth W. Messinger, executive director of the American Jewish World Service, said last week. "We and the Rwandans know better than anybody else the dangers of silence and neglect from the international community,"
Days after Yom HaShoah, when Jews remember the victims of Nazi Germany, busloads traveled from the synagogues of Baltimore to make their numbers known. They joined demonstrators from synagogues, churches, humanitarian and human-rights organizations throughout the United States to hear speeches by Wiesel; Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington; Hotel Rwanda subject Paul Rusesabagina; Sen. Barack Obama; former NBA star Manute Bol, who was born in Sudan; and actor George Clooney.
Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele and former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, both aspirants to replace retiring Democrat Paul S. Sarbanes in the Senate, were also on the program.
"The timing of it, coming so close after Yom HaShoah, made it obvious," said Lisa Pintzuk, a member of Har Sinai. "What's the point of remembering the Holocaust if you let it happen again?"
At Chizuk Amuno, a Conservative Jewish congregation in Pikesville, Rabbi Ron Shulman incorporated concern for Darfur into the observance last month of Passover. During the Seder, Jews open a door for the Prophet Elijah.
"Not only did they open their door to Elijah, but they have an obligation to go out that open door and into the world," Shulman said yesterday.
Chizuk Amuno brought 200 members to the rally.
"One of the things that allowed the Holocaust to happen was the world's silence," said Joel Nathanson, a dentist and part-time cantor at the synagogue. "We just don't want it to happen again. Especially in this day and age, when information travels so much faster. It's our responsibility to speak up."
Three non-Jews hitched a ride to the rally with Hillel of Greater Baltimore.
"It's nice to see people finally taking notice of it, even though it's been happening for years," said Sam John, a political science major and vice president of the College Democrats at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who traveled with classmates Allen McFarland and Kristen Hayden.
"This doesn't make the news enough," John said. "A spirit of internationalism is important to have, to recognize what's happening outside of America and our sphere of influence. What's happening on the back page of the papers really affects what's happening in the world."
After worship services yesterday, several members of Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore traveled to the rally with their pastor, the Rev. Qismat Alim, who also brought her 2-year-old grandson.
"We need to do something to stop this senseless killing. If we don't do anything, we're just as guilty ourselves as the killers," Alim said.
Another Payne Memorial member, Deborah Peaks Coleman, was there as executive assistant to the Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, an AME pastor who founded My Sister's Keeper, a human rights organization in Sudan.
"It's been awesome. The response has been overwhelming," Peaks Coleman said. "You'd be surprised, when you first talk about Darfur, a lot of people say, 'Dar-who?' But once you explain it, they can't believe it." She helped recruit churches and African-American groups for White-Hammond's Million Voices Campaign, one of the organizers of yesterday's event.
Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen was planning to bring several dozen members from the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. She cited injunctions from the Torah.
"There's a verse that says you must not remain indifferent," Sachs-Kohen, associate rabbi of the Reform Jewish synagogue, said last week. "We also learn it from a verse that says you shall not stand by the shedding of the blood of your fellow man.
"We have a responsibility to other human beings. Whether we know them or not, whether they are people like us or not, they're human beings."
Martha Lessman Katz, an attorney who chairs the social action committee at Har Sinai, brought her 14-year-old daughter, Meredith Katz, to the rally.
"It's really important for our children to see us active," she said. "If there had been things like this going on during the Holocaust, maybe it would have made our government do something. If Germans had protested the Nazi government, it might never have happened."
Meredith agreed.
"It's something that can be stopped," she said. "The more people we have coming out, the more chance we have of stopping it."
From the "Los Angeles Times"...
Thousands of people rallied Sunday on the National Mall against human rights abuses in Darfur, joining celebrities, politicians and activists who called on the Bush administration to strengthen its efforts to end the violence in Sudan's western region.
"Let's tell President Bush he needs to do more," said David Rubenstein, coordinator of the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of 165 religious and humanitarian groups that sponsored the rally. "His heart is in the right place, but he is not doing enough. We need George Bush to work harder to save Darfur now."
People came from as far away as California to send that message and to hear such speakers as actor George Clooney, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Olympic speedskating gold medalist Joey Cheek.
The Save Darfur Coalition wants Bush to push harder for a stronger multinational peacekeeping force to protect people in Darfur. Its members have collected more than 750,000 postcards urging him to do so.
The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when Arab tribal militias, known as janjaweed, began a campaign of terror to crush a rebellion in Darfur. The Sudanese government denies widespread accusations that it backs the militias.
The White House and Congress have described the campaign of mass killings and rapes of civilians as genocide. More than 180,000 people have died, and more than 2 million are homeless.
On Sunday, hours before a deadline for peace talks imposed by African Union mediators, the rebels rejected a proposal to end the fighting, the Associated Press reported. One rebel faction said the measure did not address its demands for greater autonomy and for the appointment of a vice president from Darfur, the Associated Press said.
The Sudanese government had said earlier in the day that it would agree to the plan, although there were indications that it did so only after determining that the rebels would reject it. The proposal could bring as many as 20,000 United Nations forces to bolster the 7,000 African Union troops that have largely failed to prevent violence.
In response, the African Union extended the deadline for negotiations for 48 hours.
Appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on China and Russia to join the United States in trying to get Sudan to accept U.N. truce forces.
"Obviously, a peace agreement would be a very important step forward in getting this done," she said.
On Sunday afternoon, Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick issued a statement "urging the parties to finalize the agreement right away."
He praised the participation of the thousands who came to more than a dozen rallies scheduled in cities across the country, including Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Seattle; and Portland, Ore.
"People want a solution," he said. "Their activism and energy is commendable."
The rally on the Mall attracted 240 busloads of activists, according to organizers, who said last week that they expected 10,000 to 15,000 to attend. The National Park Service, which is responsible for events on the Mall, no longer provides estimates of crowd sizes.
Sunday's gathering under a bright blue sky brought together older people, families with young children, and students from a wide variety of religious and ethnic backgrounds.
"I heard that there wasn't a bus left in New Jersey," said Stacey Orden of Hillsdale, N.J., who came with 55 people from her temple.
"In 1944, when 6 million people died in concentration camps, the U.S. waited too long to intervene. Never again. And never again means never again," Orden said. "Innocent people are being killed, and women are being raped."
Nan Myers of Philadelphia said she wanted to "make our views known to the people who can make a difference to stop the genocide in Darfur. It is gratifying to see so many young people."
About 50 students traveled from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, even though they have final exams today.
"This is a lot more important than exams," said Joanna Zelman, 20. "There is genocide going on, and you cannot sit by and let that happen."
She and her friend Jamie Persons, 19, said they were inspired by the movie "Hotel Rwanda," which told how hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina saved more than 1,000 lives during ethnic violence in that country.
Rusesabagina, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year and has visited Sudan, addressed the rally: "What I saw in Darfur is exactly what was going on in Rwanda."
Seminary students Dan Peake and Kevon Gray came from Columbus, Ohio, because Gray had heard about the problems in Darfur while on an evangelical mission in Africa.
Anderia Arok, a Sudanese who came to this country four years ago and lives in Colorado, said, "They are committing genocide to get land in Darfur."
Peter Marcus, a Los Angeles lawyer, led a delegation of more than 100 from Jewish World Watch, a Southern California organization he described as opposing "egregious human rights abuses, including genocide."
"Darfur is currently our primary focus," Marcus said. "The rally this weekend is to draw attention to the issue. Genocide is a particularly sensitive issue in the Jewish community, for obvious reasons."
He said of Darfur: "The United States and the world are not doing enough."
From the "San Francisco Chronicle" (sidebar omitted; see also the previous post)...
Young and old, rich and poor, black and white, students and retirees, Muslims, Jews and Christians, nearly 100,000 people from all stations of life rallied Sunday in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and other U.S. cities to urge the Bush administration to take decisive action to stop the genocide in Sudan.
Between 4,500 and 5,000 people, most wearing dark green shirts to show their support for Darfur, stood in a human chain that linked one end of the Golden Gate Bridge to the other about a mile away.
The rallies nationwide were the most emphatic and symbolic expressions to date of growing outrage over the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Sudan's Darfur region since early 2003.
Speaker after speaker at the National Monument in Washington -- including Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, former pro basketball player and Sudanese expatriate Manute Bol, and actor-director George Clooney -- called for the deployment of international peacekeeping troops to Darfur and implored Americans to make their voices heard.
"Silence helps the killer, never his victims," Wiesel said. "Darfur today is the capital of the world's human suffering. Darfur deserves to live. We are its only hope."
"The U.S. policy, the U.N. policy, the world policy is failing," Clooney told the crowd. "Well, fortunately, this is not a dictatorship. You make the policy."
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, a survivor of the Holocaust, said America's "patience is over. ... We shall no longer mourn this genocide. We shall stop it."
"Stand up, America, and protect Darfur from the longest-ruling genocidal regime in modern history," San Francisco activist Elvir Camdzic, a survivor of the Bosnian genocide, told the Washington rally.
There were several Darfuri and Muslim speakers.
"Most of us can easily recognize racism in others. It is difficult to acknowledge that it exists within our own Muslim ranks," said A. Rashied Omar, a coordinator for the Program [in] Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame. "We need to purify and heal our souls and rid our communities from the scourge of racism. ... The teachings of Islam leave no doubt about the importance of peacemaking."
In San Francisco, some 15,000 people turned up at Crissy Field for an afternoon of political speeches on Sudan. There also were rallies in Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, Toronto and Wellington, New Zealand. A rally is scheduled for today in Chicago.
A Vermont couple visiting friends in Mill Valley drove down for the vigil, and a mother and two daughters from Palo Alto held hands with strangers.
"The things that are happening in Darfur are similar to all the awful things that happened in the Holocaust," said 12-year-old Arielle Fishman of Palo Alto. "We know how horrible it was for those families. We don't want that to happen ever again."
Many participants came with Jewish groups, including two dozen who flew up from a temple in Los Angeles, but Bay Area Christians and Muslims also turned out in steady numbers, and San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer was a featured speaker.
Jews feel a special connection to the situation in Darfur because of their own experience with genocide, said Rabbi Sydney Mintz of San Francisco's Congregation Emanu-el, the Bay Area's largest Jewish congregation.
"After the Holocaust, people said, 'Never again.' As Jews, you can't sit idly by now," said Mintz, whose congregation has been working with the American Jewish World Service, an aid group sending money, supplies and workers to help in refugee camps in Sudan and nearby Chad.
Silvestro Akara Bakheit, who moved to San Francisco nine years ago from Sudan, said several family members joined him in April. Two of his uncles were killed in their homes, an aunt was raped and killed, he said, and his 16-year-old sister was killed while she hid under her bed.
"We need to stop this genocide," Bakheit said before speaking to the crowd on Sunday. "Seeing these people here, it gives me hope that we'll stop the suffering. This is giving me the impression that, yes, this is going to be changed."
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who has twice visited refugee camps in Sudan and Chad, called the situation a "humanitarian disaster."
"This is a moment of truth for the world," Lee told the crowd at Crissy Field to wild applause. "You are the conscience of America. Not on our watch will we remain silent while genocide takes place."
The liberal organization MoveOn.org had collected 95,042 signatures by Sunday afternoon for a "virtual march" of people who want U.S. foreign policy in Sudan to change.
"Today, we know what is right and what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told the crowd in Washington. "Women gang raped while gathering firewood is wrong. Silence and paralysis in the act of genocide is wrong. ... I know that if we care, the world will care. If we bear witness, the world will know. If we act, the world will follow."
The Washington rally attracted people from throughout the Eastern seaboard and beyond. More than 200 buses brought people to the event.
A group of middle school students from Zanesville, Ohio, had held a bake sale to raise money so they could rent a 16-passenger van to attend the Washington rally.
Organizers estimated the Washington crowd at more than 75,000. In addition, they announced that the Million Voices [for] Darfur Campaign had collected 760,000 signed postcards -- calling for a multinational peacekeeping force in Sudan -- that will be turned over to the White House.
"The loss of 400,000 lives while the world stands idly by is simply disgusting. It's unacceptable," Erin Mazursky, a Georgetown University student, told the Washington rally. She represented a group called STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur), which has grown in the past year to some 500 chapters at college and high school campuses.
Eight members of the Save Darfur Coalition, which organized the Washington rally, met Friday with President Bush. Also that day, five members of Congress, including Lantos, were arrested for blocking the entrance to the Sudan Embassy in Washington.
The. Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, a Boston pediatrician and pastor, was among those who met with the president.
"We will not back up, George Bush," she told the rally. "We will not back down, Kofi Annan. We are not going to shut up until the genocide and rapes stop and justice reigns throughout all of Sudan."
Like many other participants and organizers at Sunday's San Francisco events, Fidele Lumeya was grinning for much of the day, heartened by the turnout. Lumeya is an associate director of Church World Service, the social service arm of the World Council of Churches, which is trying to raise $14 million worldwide for Darfur.
While visiting a refugee camp last year, Lumeya said he was taking inventory of water and food supplies when a little girl ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his leg. Lumeya assumed the girl, Amna, needed water, but when he asked her what she wanted, she said, "Can you help my mom go back home?"
"I promised Amna that I would go around the world and bring her voice to people who can help her," Lumeya said. "The people in Darfur don't want to leave. They want protection, and they want security."
A crowd of thousands joined human rights activists, movie stars, athletes and politicians in front of the U.S. Capitol Sunday to press for political support to end genocide in Sudan's southern Darfur region.
"Paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told the crowd. He urged demonstrators to call on political leaders to put pressure on all sides to end the killing in Darfur.
The rally drew actor George Clooney, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, Olympic speedskating champion Joey Cheek and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California. Clooney told the crowd it was critical to keep up public pressure "until this travesty (against refugees) is ended."
"If we turn our heads and look away and hope they will disappear, then they will," he said.
Rebels in Darfur, made up largely of Muslims from several non-Arab tribes, resisted what they saw as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government. Militias, drawn from Arab tribes, tried to crush the rebellion. The conflict has killed at least 180,000 people and left about 2 million homeless. The Sudanese government might accept a United Nations force in Darfur to aid African Union troops if a peace treaty is signed.
Amid ongoing peace talks, the plight of refugees in Darfur has worsened. The U.N. World Food Program, citing a lack of funds, is cutting rations in half.
President Bush met with Darfur advocates at the White House on Friday and lent his support to the weekend rallies. "For those of you who are going out to march for justice, you represent the best of our country," Bush said.
The crowd, holding signs that read "Not on our Watch" and "Never Again," ranged from Sudanese refugees to Jewish students. Saul Finkelstein, accompanied his two elementary-school-age sons, Ethan and Aaron, from New York City aboard one of five buses from the Abraham Joshua Heschel School.
"It's the biggest event of the year," Finkelstein said. "The school really rallied around it."
Emily Raebeck, 21, a student at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., said she learned about the rally on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She said she wondered, "How have I not heard about this?"
There were no official estimates of the crowd, but people were packed into a two-block area across from the Capitol.
Refugee Satima Haround, 40, of Philadelphia said conditions in Darfur are "horrific" for the victims. "It's torture, humiliation, rape, shooting and slaughter right in front of their eyes," she said.
Hassan Cober of Portland, Maine, said he was forced to leave his family and flee Sudan four years ago after many people were killed and raped in his village. He urged the United States and United Nations to act quickly, saying he had no idea where his relatives were or whether they were OK.
"We need deeds, not words," he said.
From the "Dallas Morning News"...
Thousands of people attended rallies Sunday in Washington and other U.S. cities, including Dallas, urging the Bush administration and Congress to help end violence in Sudan's Darfur region.
"It is the socially responsible, good conscience thing to do," said Ron Fisher of Cleveland, who took a bus from Cleveland to Washington, D.C., with his 15-year-old daughter, Jordyn. "It's an opportunity to show my daughter what people do when they care about something."
The Washington event attracted high-profile speakers such as actor George Clooney, just back from Africa; Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.; House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California; Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel; Olympic speedskating champion Joey Cheek; and Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington.
"If we care, the world will care," Mr. Obama said. "If we act, then the world will follow."
Mr. Clooney said the United States' and United Nations' policies are failing – and citizens must demand change.
"This is in fact the first genocide of the 21st century, but there is hope: all of you," the actor said. "Every one of you speaking with one voice, every one of you."
Jendayi Frazer, who leads the State Department's Africa bureau, said President Bush has not shied from calling the Darfur violence genocide.
He met with Darfur advocates at the White House on Friday and lent his support to the weekend rallies.
The U.S. provides $1.3 billion in humanitarian assistance, Ms. Frazer said.
"The strategy is working, but you must continue to push for faster international action," she told the crowd.
In Dallas, several hundred people gathered at City Hall Plaza for a midafternoon rally sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas with local interfaith organizations. The groups used similar events during the past week to collect 10,000 postcards that will be presented to the White House as part of a nationwide campaign to bring attention to the plight of Darfur, organizers said.
"We know this is happening," said Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg of Temple Emanu-El after other speakers described murder, rape and the burning of villages in Sudan.
"There are no elusive weapons of mass destruction here to debate. We've seen the pictures, and we as a community have the power to do something about it."
"Listen to this statistic," said Rabbi Adam Raskin of Congregation Beth Torah. "Seventy-five percent of the people who have died in Darfur are children age 5 and under."
Years of fighting between ethnic groups and Arab militias in western Sudan have left at least 180,000 people dead and about 2 million homeless.
Sudan has indicated it might accept a U.N. force in Darfur to aid African Union troops.
About 1,000 protesters cried out at Queen's Park yesterday [Sunday] at a rally to show their support for people suffering in Darfur.
Instead of a moment of silence, the demonstrators screamed for 10 seconds to symbolize the plight of people in the war-ravaged region.
Since the hostilities began there in 2003, at least 180,000 people have died. Some put it as high as 400,000.
"We hope the Canadian government sees that Canadians will not be silent on the issue," said Ben Singer, 18, one of five students from Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto who organized the rally.
The protesters said they want Ottawa to send aid and Canadian forces to Sudan.
Teens organized the rally but it attracted people of all ages.
Al Freirich, a 75-year-old retired stockbroker, brought his 3-year-old granddaughter to the protest because he said he wanted to show her that she can help change the world.
"People forget about the underdog, and we can't do it any more," he said.
Iris Benedikt, an 11-year-old student at Cedarvale Public school, said she just wanted to show she cared.
NDP Leader Jack Layton, and his wife MP Olivia Chow joined other MPs and activists at the event.
COMMONS DEBATE
Canada's role in Darfur will be the subject of a special debate in the House of Commons tonight.
Grit [Liberal] MP Keith Martin said the issue is increasingly desperate as the death toll mounts and millions of refugees go hungry.
Layton said the NDP will support an increase in food aid and will encourage Canada to take a stronger role at the UN.
"We could be saving many lives today as part of an international force," he told the Sun.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay could not be reached for comment.
When Mohamed Mohamed raised his fist to the clear blue sky in Queen's Park, he had a lot to scream about.
In 2003, the 23-year-old had fled his home in West Darfur, leaving behind a mother and a sister. His older brother had already been killed by government-backed soldiers.
"They're still killing people," he said. "My people. I'm here to let everyone know what's happening down there."
Indeed, as many as 400,000 people may have already been killed in Darfur and 3 million people left homeless since the government waged war on its own region in 2003. There have also been thousands of beatings, tortures and rapes.
The United Nations has called the crisis in Darfur the world's worst humanitarian disaster. Mohamed, along with about 700 other people at the Queen's Park rally, simply summed it up with a scream.
It was a scream that spanned a continent, timed to coincide with similar rallies in Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities yesterday [Sunday]. Protestors at the rallies, many of them in their 20s and early 30s, hoped to send a message to their respective governments — "stop the killings."
"We can let everybody know what's going on down there," said Mohamed, a refugee in Hamilton. "Save my people."
At the Queen's Park rally, many students carried their messages on shirts and signs.
"Stop Genocide," read one sign.
A T-shirt simply read, "Enough."
Speaking to the crowd, David Kilgour, a former federal cabinet minister and long-time advocate for peace in Darfur, called it a racial conflict, noting that the Sudanese government does not consider Darfurians human beings.
"The 21st century's first genocide," he said, "has now entered its third year while the world watches."
At the rally, he proposed a three-point plan for Darfur: Establish a no-fly zone over the region, ensuring the government can't use helicopter gunships and bombers for indiscriminate bombing runs; build a recognized and legitimate government for the region; and finally, invite international peacekeepers to protect civilians, disarm the region and train a new police force.
Kilgour was part of a contingent that included NDP Leader Jack Layton, his wife, MP Olivia Chow, and Mohamed Haroun, president of the Darfur Association of Canada.
Haroun condemned the international community for "shaking hands with the devils, while their victims are screaming for help."
"Canada must lead."
Toronto councillor Adam Giambrone did not step on the stage, but stood nearby, keenly interested in the message. He worked in Sudan for years as an archaeologist for the Royal Ontario Museum and developed a passion for the embattled nation.
But the message is earmarked for Ottawa, where the House of Commons is scheduled to debate the Darfur issue today.
"Sometimes, there's a little too much thumb-twiddling," said Layton, who screamed with the throng, then once again at the podium for good measure.
"I think, in the past, I may have underestimated the value of screaming out loud."
At the Washington event, speakers included Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, and actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle, as thousands of surging protestors chanted, "Not on our watch!" [Updated to note that Don Cheadle did not speak at the Washington event, but Paul Rusesabagina did. - EJM]
Darfur fell into chaos shortly after a 2003 rebellion that saw two rebel groups emerge, both of which accused the government of favouring Arabs and neglecting Darfur. The government responded by bombarding the region and mounting a campaign of terror that included the killing of women and children.
Today, the United States provides about $1.3 billion (U.S.) in humanitarian assistance to Sudan.
At the urging of the U.S., mediators from the African Union agreed to give both sides in the Darfur conflict an extra 48 hours to sign a peace deal.
The deadline would have passed at midnight last night, but the U.S. said both sides needed more time to weigh two vital security issues — the disarmament of the Janjaweed militia, which has been accused of rape, murder and looting, and the integration of rebel forces into the Sudanese security forces.
But yesterday, representatives from two rebel groups announced they would not sign the peace deal as written. The deadline for an accord was extended 48 hours.
"Obviously a peace agreement would be a very important step forward in getting this done," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday on ABC's This Week.
Sudan has suggested it would be open to a peacekeeping force led by the U.N. only if rebels signed a peace treaty.
But Max Kelly, an organizer of yesterday's rally in Toronto, has heard the talk before. And it's not enough any more.
"All you know is people are being killed and you're running for your life to camps that don't have enough food," said Kelly, policy director for STAND, which stands for Students Taking Action Now, Darfur.
Beaverton 10th-grader Sam Swire, standing with hundreds of others in Pioneer Courthouse Square, said he first learned about atrocities in Darfur from an episode of "Boston Legal," a fictional TV series.
Swire, 15, said he came to Sunday's rally to help make sure the issue continues to emerge from obscurity and become part of Portland's -- and the nation's -- conscience.
"We're connected strongly to it because it's a lot like the Holocaust," said Swire, who, along with several friends from Temple Beth Israel, held a hand-lettered banner decrying the killings and marauding in the Sudanese region. "We need to make sure everyone gets this message."
There was no official crowd estimate for the Portland rally, which partially filled the square. It coincided with a larger one in Washington, D.C., where more than 10,000 listened to celebrities and lawmakers lay out concerns for the innocent victims of a years-long struggle for control of the region. At both rallies, and at others in cities across the country, the theme was "not on our watch."
In Portland, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said he's increasingly asked why Congress hasn't done more to intervene. He said he asks himself the same question.
"With the way the U.S. is willing to flex its muscles around the world, how can we let this happen in Darfur?" he said. Little will happen, he said, until the American people make themselves heard.
"This is no ideological divide, no red-state, blue-state" issue, he said. "This has the potential to unite us."
Darfur, in western Sudan, has been the center of a brutal ethnic and political conflict since 2003, when rebels took up arms in the ethnically mixed region over what they saw as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government. In-fighting between ethnic groups and Arab militias have left at least 180,000 people dead and about 2 million homeless, according to The Associated Press. Estimates from various organizations of the number of dead vary widely in the fluid conflict.
Despite the extensive death toll, the situation drew scant attention until New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof began a written crusade describing the civil war, which he and others have labeled "genocide."
The series covered tales of killing, rape and brutality carried out by the Sudanese Army and janjaweed militia in a region where water and food often are scarce. It earned Kristof a Pulitzer Prize and helped galvanize a movement aimed at pressuring Sudan to bring peace to the region and the Bush administration to step up its involvement.
"The tragedy is, once again we are late," Rabbi Emanuel Rose, of Congregation Beth Israel, said at the rally. He compared the reaction to Darfur to that of the Jewish Holocaust. So far, he said, the powers that could try to stop the violence -- the United States, the United Nations and the African Union -- have done little.
His comments were supported dramatically by Holocaust survivor Al Wiener, who also spoke at the rally. Wiener described bleak conditions of humiliation, starvation and terror while in a German labor camp.
"I wondered why nobody came to my rescue," Wiener said. "I felt abandoned."
The Portland rally, aided by a return of sunny skies after afternoon showers Saturday, attracted people of all ages -- from schoolchildren learning about Darfur as part of classroom projects to adults who said they were only just becoming aware of the issue.
For about an hour and a half, they listened to speeches, prayers and songs. Hundreds filled out postcards urging President Bush to support a "multinational force" to protect Darfur civilians.
Linda Wells, 62, of Southwest Portland, said she came to the rally to show support for the people of Darfur and to call for action. She said she sat on the sidelines during the Vietnam War and wishes she hadn't, and was outraged by the failure of the world to stop similar genocide in Rwanda.
Said Wells, "We're letting it happen again."
From the "Portland Press Herald"...
"Not on our watch."
That was the message more than 50 Mainers brought to Washington, D.C., on Sunday, joining a crowd of several thousand at the National Mall.
They rallied for the end of genocide in Darfur, the western border region of Sudan, where at least 180,000 have died and millions more have been displaced since civil war broke out in 2003.
"There is very strong support for people of Darfur," said Hassan Cober of Portland. He and about 15 other Darfur refugees traveled by bus to Washington, arriving about 7 a.m. Sunday. Cober called on the United Nations to stop the violence and bring the perpetrators to justice through the International Criminal Court. About 100 Darfurese refugees now call Portland home.
"I am very happy," Cober said during a telephone interview, on his way home. "People came from different states in the U.S. This rally will send the message."
One of several rallies held in U.S. cities Sunday, the event was orchestrated by SaveDarfur.org and brought together more than 150 humanitarian and religious groups. It featured prominent speakers, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, actor George Clooney and Olympic speedskating champion Joey Cheek.
Some call the Darfur conflict the first genocide of the 21st century. Arab militias, with the backing of the Sudanese government, are blamed for the mass violence against black farming villages. The United Nations and the African Union have led peace talks in the past two years. They gave the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebels until Sunday to reach an agreement, but no deal was made.
The U.N. food agency announced last week that it was cutting food rations in half for survivors, thousands of whom are living in camps. The agency needs $746 million this year for Sudan, and has received only $238 million from donor governments.
Adam Zuckerman, a Deering High School senior, organized the bus trip. He said 56 people rode to Washington. Representatives from Peace Action Maine and the NAACP were on board. A handful of others, including some Portland High School students, went in cars. The bus trip cost about $6,000, with much of the funding coming from grants and private donations. Congregation Bet Ha'am in South Portland, where Zuckerman worships, also helped with funding.
Ruth Messinger, president of the American Jewish World Service, co-founded the Save Darfur Coalition, and has become a leading voice among activists. While speaking to the crowd Sunday, Messinger highlighted the work of Zuckerman and the Maine Darfurese community. Zuckerman was awed by the crowd, and noted the interfaith aspect of the rally.
"I got chills from some of the speeches," he said. "It was amazing being around all these people who are so passionate about it."
Zuckerman said he will help plan a similar rally, to be held in Portland within the next few months.
In Lewiston on Sunday afternoon, about 150 people attended a rally at the multi-purpose center.
"We couldn't make it to Washington, but we still wanted to be heard," said Rabbi Hillel Katzir, of Temple Shalom in Auburn, who coordinated the event. Speakers drew connections among Darfur, Rwanda, the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian genocide.
"Our theme was that in each one of those instances, the world knew what was going on and did nothing," Katzir said.
From the "Austin American-Statesman"...
Emanuel Agook stood in front of the Capitol dressed in a black suit Sunday, holding a sign that read "Stop the Genocide." He faced a green banner bearing a quote from author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel that read: "To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all."
Agook, who is Sudanese, was one of about 200 people gathered at the Capitol to bring awareness to mass murder in his homeland, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced in the western Darfur region in the last three years.
The Austin rally was one of hundreds throughout the country Sunday organized by the Save Darfur Coalition, a group of more than 150 organizations, to draw attention to the conflict in the region.
The conflict began when armed forces and Arab, government-backed militia known as the Janjaweed began fighting an uprising of mostly African rebels in 2003. Civilians who shared the ethnicity of the rebels have been killed as part of a campaign that included the destruction of villages and rape.
Agook said he escaped to Kenya, then moved to Houston. His mother is hiding in Darfur, where he fears for her life.
"Right now, the United States is preoccupied with another war," Agook said, referring to the war in Iraq. "And the U.S. has acted by holding sanctions against Darfur, but it is not enough. People are still suffering. The Sudanese government is still killing innocent people."
In Austin, local religious and community leaders urged the crowd not to leave the rally indifferent.
"Anytime people are being slaughtered anywhere in the world, it's a threat to the soul of the world," said Nelson Linder, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "This is not just a Sudanese problem. If this can happen there, it can happen anywhere."
Rabbi Barry Gelman, of the United Orthodox Synagogues-Houston, told the Austin rally that he was able to be there with three of his four children because during the Holocaust, someone of a different faith had enough courage to save his ancestors.
"Years down the road, will Darfurians be able to stand here with their children? The answer is up to us."
From the Eugene "Register-Guard"...
Call it an exercise in transglobal empathy, or of disproportionate activism.
It was simply a moral obligation for the 300 people who showed up in Eugene on Sunday to rally for an end to genocide that has killed at least 180,000 people during the past three years in the Darfur region of Sudan in northeast Africa.
"I think it's people of faith, but also people of conscience - which sometimes go together and sometimes don't," said Rabbi Yitzhak Husbands-Hankin, part of a large ad hoc committee that has been working since late last year to raise local awareness of the Darfur tragedy.
"I think this is like drawing a moral bottom line," he said. "This genocide - we can't accept it anymore."
Eugene's rally on the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza of the Lane County Courthouse was one of dozens around the country on Sunday that were part of a call to action by the loosely organized Save Darfur Coalition - a nationwide group of more than 150 organizations.
At the local gathering, speakers acknowledged that the United States has been among the first governments to recognize the situation, but maintained the Bush administration has responded too slowly and indecisively - possibly to gain favors from the Sudanese government.
Speakers were hopeful but not optimistic that the latest news out of Darfur - that mediators, under pressure from the United States, had agreed to extend talks for two more days after rebels rejected a peace proposal on Sunday - would produce a settlement.
Mayor Kitty Piercy proclaimed Sunday "rally to stop genocide day" in Eugene, and state Rep. Bob Ackerman, D-Eugene, called for "a regime change in Washington" that would result in a more responsive U.S. government.
"We're trading our morals for political expediency," said Ibrahim Hamide, a Eugene restaurateur and member of the city's human rights com- mission.
Hamide, a Muslim who was born in Palestine, said his heritage has made him particularly sensitive to the Darfur situation, which has grown out of a rebellion against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government. He urged the U.S. government not to use the conflict to gain advantages in the country located just across the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula.
"We cannot trade life for political secrets, or military secrets," Hamide said.
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio reminded the crowd that after the massacres in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, "many world leaders said `never again' " - but that the killings in Darfur continue a year and a half after the Bush administration recognized them as genocide.
DeFazio urged the U.S. government to assert itself on behalf of the people in Darfur, and use the situation to gain respect as a champion of the oppressed.
"This is a shining moment," he said. "It's a time for the United States to start rebuilding its image around the world."
From the Louisville "Courier-Journal"...
Yasser Osman wiped tears from his face yesterday [Sunday] as he recounted the terror he faced when his village in Sudan's Darfur region was attacked.
Osman, 42, has been in Louisville since January. He and millions of Sudanese refugees around the world have fled the war-torn African country to escape what the United Nations says is the world's worst humanitarian disaster, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.
Osman spoke to about 100 people yesterday for the Voices for Darfur Louisville Rally, held at The Temple, 5101 Brownsboro Road.
"I don't know what's going to happen to me and my family," he said. "I need for this community to do anything to stop the war in Darfur. They need peace."
Officials estimate that nearly 400,000 people have died in the Darfur region since February 2003, when fighting broke out between black farmers and the Arab-dominated government. Millions have been driven from their homes.
Osman, who is Muslim and now lives in Louisville with his wife and four daughters, said he will never forget the day in 2004 when his village was ransacked.
"They attacked my village and killed my father in front of my eyes," he said as his voice quivered. "I can't forget that. We only ask that the American people help the Sudanese."
Such stories have moved Bob Brousseau and other Temple members to form The Temple Taskforce on Darfur. Brousseau, a graphic designer, said he had to act when he began to read about the Sudanese conflict.
"Quite honestly, I got mad," he said. "We felt like we needed to do something."
Brousseau coordinated yesterday's rally, which coincided with national events over the weekend. The goal: Urge the United States to play a greater role in ending the strife in Sudan.
A rally in Washington drew support from actors, athletes and politicians, including George Clooney, Olympic speed skater Joey Cheek and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
At the Louisville rally, Rabbi Joe Rooks Rapport of The Temple showed an educational video that he helped create. Even if people don't feel as if they can help on a grand scale, every little bit counts, he said.
"We can't solve the whole problem, but we can solve part of it," he said. "Bringing attention to this will save thousands of lives. That's no small thing."
The task force urged the audience to write letters to their representatives and senators and to talk to their friends and family about Sudan.
Refugee James Malou, 28, came to Louisville from Sudan in 2001. Malou, a Christian, is one of nearly 20,000 young boys who were driven from their homes in the 1980s and forced to walk about 1,000 miles in search of safety.
Malou, who is pursuing a biology degree at the University of Louisville, spoke of the suffering the Sudanese have endured.
"The first right of human beings is the right to live," he said. "We need peace. We need equality."
From the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer"...
Calls to end the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region filled downtown Seattle on Sunday, as protesters marched in the streets and demanded that world leaders take greater responsibility for the atrocities.
"We're tired of being silent," Andrea Jones, a Lakeside School senior and an event organizer, told the crowd of about 400.
Organizers of the afternoon protest, which started at Westlake Park and ended at the Federal Building, estimate Sudan's government-sponsored militias have killed as many as 400,000 people in the past three years, displacing 2.5 million others. Other estimates place the numbers much lower.
Jones and classmate Nick Welch, also a senior, said the bloodshed can be traced to conflicts over race, oil and resources shared by Sudan's ethnic groups.
Human Rights Watch reports the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militia have engaged in an "ethnic cleansing" of civilians associated with two main rebel groups.
Sunday's student-led protest was one of many Darfur demonstrations held nationwide. One of the biggest, drawing thousands of people, unfolded in Washington, D.C.
The Seattle rally was the latest attempt by local student activists to prod the American public into taking action on the African genocide.
On Thursday, UW and Seattle University students sponsored a fund-raiser, which included art and performances. UW junior Anna Boiko-Weyrauch, one of the organizers, said about 250 people attended.
The event raised more than $200 for Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian group helping in Darfur.
"The message did get out," said Boiko-Weyrauch, 19. "(People) were able to gain a fuller understanding of the complexity of the conflict."
Last year, UW students persuaded the Board of Regents to use its $1.4 billion investment portfolio to pressure companies to stop doing business in Sudan.
Social activism also isn't new for Lakeside's Jones and Welch. Their teacher, Bob Mazelow, said the students traveled last year to India, where they met the Dalai Lama and talked about the value of compassion.
Sunday's rally started with speeches at Westlake Park and also served as a teach-in. Two young men asked an organizer what the commotion was about, and she quickly detailed the killings and rapes in Sudan. "Really," one of them said.
Before the protest started, Lakeside junior Becky Davis stood at Fifth Avenue and Pine Street handing out pamphlets. While some downtowners were more interested in shopping, Davis, 16, was heartened.
"Some people are really receptive," she said.
Once the march was under way, the sea of people caught A.J. Shokar, manager of Pabla Indian Cuisine on Second Avenue, by surprise. At first, he thought they were marching to support immigrants in the United States. But that march is set for this afternoon [Monday].
First-time protester Milana Kuliyeva, a UW junior, walked with her friends down Second Avenue to the Federal Building.
"It feels great to be part of something bigger," she said.
While there were plenty of youthful protesters from Lakeside, the UW, Roosevelt High School and elsewhere, there were older demonstrators, too.
Shoreline resident Chuck Emmons, 75, stood next to a protest sign created by his wife's group -- Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church.
"I think the United Nations needs to go in there with a large army," he said. At the very least, Emmons said, the U.S. government should contribute money or troops to a peacekeeping force.
Ojulu Ogala, a 33-year-old from southern Sudan who now lives in Seattle, said he attended the rally to protest the atrocities in his homeland. While the deaths in Darfur are known, he said, there are killings going on in other parts of Sudan.
Before the protesters waded into the street, he stood before them and said, "Thank you, American people."
A rally organized by teenagers drew from 700 and 1,000 people to downtown Seattle on Sunday to protest genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
The rally at Westlake Center and march to the U.S. Federal Building that followed was made up largely of young people who wore "Save Darfur" T-shirts and held "Stop Genocide" signs. They marched 10 blocks with a police escort.
When the group got to the Federal Building in Second Avenue, some of the students lay down on the ground to represent those who have died in Darfur. The event ended with a 10-second scream instead of a moment of silence — to "break the silence," organizers said, about the strife in Darfur.
The rally was organized by a group of 16 seniors from Seattle's Lakeside School and coincided with a much larger demonstration Sunday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Lakeside students had been studying the violence in Sudan, and "we realized that we're just sitting there, talking about it," said student Andrea Jones, 17.
Arab militia, backed by the Sudanese government, have terrorized non-Arab tribes in the region in western Sudan over the past three years, killing and raping tens of thousands, burning villages and driving more than 2 million people into squalid camps in Darfur and neighboring Chad.
"I don't think any of us are idealistic enough to think that this march is going to change the world but in our eyes, it's better than being silent," Jones said.
The Lakeside School students' teacher, Bob Mazelow, said his students were upset when they learned about the situation. They teamed up with University of Washington students and a group called savedarfurwa.org to plan the rally, get permits, make signs and arrange for speakers.
"I think what's been surprising the most is that we are actually able to do this, because it just started out as this idea," Jones said. "It started with just a couple of kids wanting to do something."
One of the speakers was Ojulu Ogala, 33, a Sudanese refugee. "It means a lot," he said, "I mean, for somebody like me, who ran away from war. I thought maybe I would not get support at all, but here these kids organized this march."
From the "Cincinnati Enquirer"...
Residents gathered for peace in Darfur locally and in the nation's capital Sunday.
Elhadi Hassan, an immigrant from Darfur, spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of more than 300 in West Chester during a prayer service at the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati.
Hassan's village of Kass had a population of 5,000 when he lived there. It is now one of the largest refugee camps and home to 750,000 people.
He told those gathered of the atrocities in the region of Sudan that was once his home - as many as 400,000 killed, more than 2 million displaced.
"The faith community must be vigilant and act to end this humanitarian crisis," he said.
And the crowd responded in a booming, unison reading from their programs, "We have the power to stop it. But we must act now, before it is too late. Let us stand together in solidarity with all people of conscience to stop the violence, provide the aid and resolve the conflict."
The interfaith rally included prayers from a Muslim educator, a rabbi, a Baptist preacher, a Buddhist and a nun.
Tearrace Freedman, 34, of Hyde Park attended to add his voice to the others calling for action to stop the crisis.
"If we do not do something as Americans, the world may not respond," said Freedman, a Christian. "We need the momentum of this nation to come together and lead the world. You can't sit idly by and expect something to happen."
For Lillian Arons, 92, and her daughter Paula Arons, 54, of Golf Manor, a sense of history brought them to the rally.
Arons was living in the United States during the Holocaust but she had relatives who did not survive that genocide.
"As a citizen of the world and Jew, I felt it was important to take a stand," Paula Arons said.
Meanwhile, several people from Greater Cincinnati participated in the "Rally to Stop Genocide" in Washington, D.C.
"The tenor of the speakers is about 'not on our watch,'" said Michael Schreiner, 36, of Mount Auburn. "How will we write the history books on our response to this, the first genocide in the 21st century?"
Schreiner traveled to Washington with Oliver Mogga, 37, of Oxford, a former resident of the Sudan; Susie McLaughlin, 30, of Clifton Heights; and Lea Minniti, 25, of Norwood.
The rally was held on the National Mall and attracted thousands, including celebrities, politicians and activists.
Back in Cincinnati, prayers were offered for an end to the violence, aid to those affected and even for change in the hearts of the militias perpetrating much of the violence.
On their way in and out of the rally, nearly everyone in attendance picked up or filled out letters to send to congressmen and postcards to send to the president calling for action.
Fifteen-year-old Michal Washofsky of Amberley Village, who attended the Washington rally with her mother Connie Hinitz, summed up the day.
"I really hope the government got the message that something needs to be done, and it needs to be done now," she said.
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