Interfaith rally protests Darfur deaths
By Tania Valdemoro, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 27, 2006

photo by Bob Shanley, The Post

BOCA RATON — In one of the largest ever interfaith meetings in Boca Raton, members of 31 religious and civic groups stood solemnly together Thursday to confront death, suffering and ignorance.

Their heads bowed, people of varied beliefs, blacks, whites, the young and the old followed the words of Nareg Berberian, head of St. David Armenian Church in Boca Raton.

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings encourages people Thursday to pressure politicians to halt the genocide in Sudan's Darfur province: 'We live in comfort. They die in misery.'

"In a makeshift refugee camp in Darfur, a tear flows down the cheek of a defenseless mother as she strokes the arm and face of her starving child," Berberian began.

"We will not stand idly by the blood of this child," people replied in hearty tones.

"Innocent people are forcibly abducted, enslaved, raped and slaughtered in mass numbers," Berberian continued.

"We will not stand idly by their blood," they replied again.

More than 200 people turned out at the Save Darfur Rally at Don Estridge High Tech Middle School. The event comes nearly three years after fighting erupted in Darfur, a region as large as Texas.

The clashing began between the Sudanese government, its Arab alliesand two African rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Armyand the Justice and Equality Movement, after black rebels attacked a police station in February 2003

The Sudanese government responded by launching a brutal counterinsurgency with Arab militias. Human rights groups say the militias, known as Janjaweed, have killed and expelled black Africans from their villages. The Sudanese government denies supporting the Janjaweed.

President George Bush called the killing of Africans there genocide.

The conflict has claimed the lives of between 180,000 to 300,000 people, according to estimates from the federal government and human rights groups.

More than 2.4 million people have been expelled from their homes in Darfur and live as refugees elsewhere in Sudan. Another 200,000 people have fled to neighboring Chad, according to U.S. State Department reports.

The interfaith rally comes a day after African leaders in Khartoum, Sudan, persuaded the Sudanese government to abandon its bid to lead the African Union this year. The African Union's 6,800-strong peacekeeping force is responsible for monitoring a tenuous 2004 cease-fire between the warring factions. Human rights groups criticized the peacekeepers for not halting the bloodshed, a failure blamed on the lack of a political mandate and the supplies to do so.

Despite international attention and $2 billion in American aid over the last two years, the situation in Darfur has worsened, according to several recent international reports.

On Wednesday, African peacekeepers came under fire and a U.N. helicopter crash killed a Sudanese humanitarian worker during evacuations prompted by heavy fighting that erupted two days earlier when rebels attacked the government garrison town of Golo.

During a fact-finding mission in November, U.N. observers noted "violations against civilians, including children, namely arbitrary execution of civilians; cruel and inhumane treatment; looting of property and forced displacement."

Around the same time, human rights groups reported that rebels beat aid workers and kidnapped peacekeepers while looting and attacks on civilians increased. Meanwhile, a seventh round of peace talks between the rebels and the Sudanese government have started in Abuja, Nigeria, but no agreement has been reached, State Department reports say.

Despite the sobering news, U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, encouraged people at the rally to pressure their elected officials to stop the genocide.

"No man or woman in this room would want their child subjected to the things children in Darfur are subjected to," Hastings said. "We live in comfort. They die in misery."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

We also got about 30 seconds last night on News12 CBS, including a quote on-air from Rabbi Agler, more time than I expected they'd give it. I have a VHS tape of it, and will see if we can get it on a DVD for you.

You and your crew did a great job. It was a well-organized and dramatic event. You should be proud.

Jay Schleifer, PR/Editorial Director, The Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County