Progressive Wednesday

This Wednesday: Genocide in Darfur

May 23rd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday

Problem:

There aren’t many that are bigger than this one. As many as 450,000 people have been killed in Darfur, Sudan by their own government and the Janjaweed militia group, in an attempt to eliminate all of those in the region that are not of Arab descent. That’s roughly the population of Wyoming. Two-and-a-half million more Sudanese have been displaced, driven from their homes. Women and children are raped and murdered every time the Janjaweed ambush their villages. More than 1,600 villages have been burned to the ground.

The Untied Nations defines genocide as:
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

After the Holocaust, world leaders said, “Never again.” But then there was Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and now Darfur.

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Make Progress:

It’s easy to think of this problem as one that must be dealt with by the United Nations and other multi-national unions. And, in large part, it is. But there are things that you and I can do about it.

This is an insult to humanity. I’m embarrassed that it is happening while I’m alive. I plan to take some action. Please join me.

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Picture courtesy of this photographer.