Take action on Darfur

Editorial

The genocide facing the people of Darfur is at a determining historical moment.

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) ordered Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrested for war crimes. In retaliation, he threw out of the country 13 international aid groups that are providing what support they can to millions of displaced Darfurians struggling to survive in the face of starvation, drought and violence initiated and supported by Bashir's government. Ejected groups include Doctors Without Borders, Care International and Oxfam.

Though numbers are notoriously sketchy, the United Nations estimates that 300,000 have already died and 2.7 million people are displaced – living in the most marginal circumstances, completely dependent for limited water supplies and food on the very aid agencies thrown out during the weekend.

Bashir's government, with its torturing, raping and murdering proxies the Janjaweed militias, have terrorized the black African Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples, with the support of the Sudanese government, for racial, religious, tribal and political reasons.

The ICC's action seems to have empowered Bashir to flaunt his disdain for international law and basic humanity, leading some international commentators to suggest that the charges may harm, rather than help, the cause of Darfur.

There are several factors at issue. First, potential reprisals do not seem justification for withholding promises of justice, though when millions of lives are at stake, certainly, pragmatism has its place. Perhaps international governments, the United Nations, the African Union or some previously unknown alliance of humanitarian parties might coalesce to give teeth to the ICC's warrant, but given the four years the world has had to respond to the situation, such a humanitarian response seems a fantasy.

Perhaps the best hope is that, knowing that their leader is viewed as an international war criminal – alleged, let's say – will inspire some military or other forces in the Sudanese body politic to rise up if, for no other reason, than because they fear war crimes charges themselves. Remote as all this may seem, and as potentially harmful as Bashir's defiant reaction to the warrant may be, the answer to injustice is not continued silence.

Last week, Hillel students at Simon Fraser University marked Holocaust Awareness Week on that campus, joining forces with Canadian Students for Darfur to draw important parallels between the Shoah and the world's reaction – or lack thereof – to the impeding genocide in Darfur. The parallels, while obviously not precise, are similar enough in broad view. The world knows what is happening in Darfur. We have known for years. We have stood by, largely, while 300,000, or by other estimates 450,000, have died, while millions more stand on the precipice between death and life, subject to displacement, rape and torture.

It has been noted on this page before that it was Jewish people – Jewish Canadians, in fact, including some from this very community, who first drew world attention to the crisis in Darfur and, thereby, drew the attention of the Canadian government, who drew the attention of the world community. This is the meaning of "Never Again" made real.

When the haggard survivors left the camps of Europe in 1945, their promise that the world must learn, then remember, then ensure that such horrors are never repeated was not a statement only about attacks on Jews. It was a promise to ensure that the world would never stand by knowingly while a people were imperiled.

The sad truth, of course, is that the world has done just that, on several occasions since 1945. And each time, the world has expressed mild recriminations and turned its attentions back to its own affairs.

But now we are at a moment of irrevocable consequence. With the ousting of aid groups – the only thing standing between the Darfurian people and mass extermination – the government of Sudan is telling the world that the moment is at hand. It is probably not helpful to draw too direct an analogy, particularly with at least 300,000 already dead, but this moment could be seen as similar to the decisive moment when years of institutionalized discrimination turned catastrophically to the Final Solution. If you have not done so already, call your MP, mobilize your congregation and friends, scream bloody murder to the world. For us to live up to the promise of "Never Again," we must speak out now.

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