April 22, 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Trying to end a tragedy, By Tim Collie.

South Floridians campaign to aid darfur

When many of the South Floridians now fighting to save lives in Africa first heard of Darfur two years ago, they weren't sure if it was a country, a cause, or an endangered species.

But the conflict in the African region known as Darfur has inspired dozens of Broward and Palm Beach county residents to launch rallies, letter-writing campaigns and legislative efforts to pressure the world to stop what the United States calls ongoing genocide.

None have illusions that a candlelight vigil, a fund-raiser or a bag of mail will end a war fought thousands of miles away in Africa. Since 2003, an estimated 450,000 people in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, have died from fighting, famine and disease. Another 2.5 million people have become refugees to avoid the violence sponsored by an Islamic fundamentalist regime hostile to the United States.

"I think we all realize that we may fail to stop it," said Rabbi Richard D. Agler of Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton, who many local activists credit with starting one of the first South Florida efforts for Darfur two years ago. "But at the very least we have not been silent. We have that for our consciences--that these were our best efforts."

About $4,000 was raised at a rally in January and sent directly to Darfur through three groups doing aid work in the region.

"We didn't want it going through governments or even some of the large charity groups because they have to deal with the government in Sudan," said Sister Frances Madigan, who works with Agler in the Save Darfur Coalition of South Palm Beach County. The local group is a chapter of the Save Darfur Coalition, a national alliance of religious, humanitarian and school groups.

Madigan said the group was especially worried that Sudan's government would pilfer the aid. "We wanted to be certain that we got it directly to people on the ground in Darfur. It's things like this that a group can do," said Madigan, a nun in her 70s formerly affiliated with St. Jude's Catholic Church in Boca Raton.

The rabbi and the nun were among the first members of an interfaith effort to bring attention to Darfur that now includes 45 churches, synagogues, schools and activist organizations in Palm Beach County. The effort began in 2004, as the crisis in Darfur gained publicity. Agler asked members of his congregation to organize an interfaith Darfur effort.

The genocide in Darfur has special resonance in South Florida, home to one of the largest communities of Holocaust survivors in the world. For Catholics and others, there is lingering guilt that the United States didn't react to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where an estimated 800,000 members of an ethnic group were killed.

"When we first met, the members of the different faiths had to get comfortable with each other over this issue," said Andrea Schuver, from Agler's congregation.

"It took a while, but through constant discussion of each others' faith, concentrating on Darfur and meeting at different houses of worship, we all began to get comfortable with each other," said Schuver, a public relations consultant for nonprofit groups. The group of about 20 activists, including university and high school students, meets at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton.

Over the past two years, at least a dozen local rallies have been held to focus attention on Darfur. There are smaller Save Darfur chapters in West Palm Beach and Miami. One is planned for Broward County.

Recently, Nova Southeastern University hosted a symposium that drew victims of the conflict as well as diplomats from the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and Sudan. The gathering was organized by Careen Hutchinson, a Nova student frustrated that the massacres continue.

"What happens there matters to all of us, and if there's a way to help, we should," she said. She received no class credit and spent months cajoling Washington diplomats via e-mail and telephone to attend the event.

"We're all connected -- that's why I think it's important, even though many people never heard of Darfur," Hutchinson said.

She quotes from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" -- "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" -- as one reason she organized the Darfur symposium.

"That's how I feel -- we can't let these things go even if we're safe in South Florida," Hutchinson said.

In the past year, Darfur activists nationally have pushed universities, the Catholic Church and other organizations to dump investments in Chinese companies, which conduct most of the international business in Sudan. Seven states have passed Darfur divestment laws, and 12 others are considering them. In Florida, a bipartisan group of South Florida legislators is pushing to divest state pension money from any companies linked to Darfur.

Federal law has prohibited U.S. companies since 1997 from doing business in Sudan because the State Department considers it a state sponsor of terrorism.

Local activists say their main push is to draw publicity to the cause. That creates political pressure, which can keep the issue before China, Sudan's Islamic allies and the United Nations.

Fran Steinmark, an attorney and artist, recalls the Boca group's early days: "When we first started talking about Darfur, people would ask me, 'What's a Darfur?' They thought it was some kind of endangered species."

"These are grass-roots efforts, and I think the lesson is that you have to keep at it," Steinmark said. "The United States and other countries didn't react to help the Armenians, to stop the Holocaust. In Rwanda, the world allowed 800,000 people to be very quickly killed. I think we've learned that lesson."

What does that pressure mean to those still suffering?

"People in Sudan know that this effort is being made, and they can see and hear the pressure in the media," said Altayeb Bashier, 41, a native of Sudan and a Broward County resident who has spoken at several local Darfur rallies. Bashier was a television announcer in Sudan who immigrated in 1998 to the United States, and he's studying diplomatic relations at Nova. His father and the rest of his family still live in Darfur.

Though he returns to Sudan to visit family, he says he has been threatened frequently on the Internet by pro-government groups there.

"The government will say that these efforts are being pushed by Israel, the Jews, and manipulated by the United States," said Bashier.

"Yes, some are Jews, but others may be Muslims or Christians. The key is that they all care and want to help stop what's going on."

Tim Collie can be reached at tcollie@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4573.

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