Wednesday, August 25th is the National Day of Conscience on Sudan. The day is meant to draw worldwide attention to the on-going genocide in Darfur. "The Sudanese Government, using Arab "Janjaweed" militias, its air force, and organized starvation, is deliberately and systematically killing the black Sudanese of Darfur." Many people will mark the day by fasting from sunrise to sunset. I’ll be one of them. You can join the fast by clicking here. Let your friends and family know why you are fasting to help bring light to this problem and the responsibility we all have for stopping it.
Please leave a comment to let me know if you sign-up for the fast.
Call To Action
announced by the Save Darfur Coalition on August 2, 2004:
We commend the efforts of the U.S. government in brokering a peace deal to end the gruesome 21-year Civil War in the South and its generous pledge of $300 million in U.S. humanitarian aid. We also applaud the recent visits of Secretary of State Colin Powell and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to the region of Darfur to assess the atrocities human rights organizations are calling the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. And we congratulate Congress for taking decisive legislative action. But we must not wait for a legal determination of "genocide" to ensure a massive worldwide humanitarian response and call to end the violence and investigate crimes against humanity.
As Elie Wiesel passionately declared at our Darfur Emergency Summit on July 14, "the perils of indifference enable killers to kill and tormentors to torment--we cannot stand idly by [the crimes against humanity being committed in Sudan] or all our endeavors will be unworthy--We must act." We therefore call on people of conscience everywhere to take any and all actions permitted by each individual’s or organization’s abilities and constraints to:
1. encourage worldwide efforts to stop the displacement and end the crimes against humanity
2. demand massive worldwide governmental humanitarian support and access to match the need
3. help in the relief efforts by supporting organizations giving aid
4. promote efforts to rebuild villages and return the displaced
5. call for a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide
