Washington, DC — The campaign to highlight the growing humanitarian crisis in Sudan has gotten a publicity boost this week from the arrests at the Sudan Embassy in Washington, DC. of U.S. Representative Charles Rangel (D - New York) and former Rep. Bob Edgar, who currently heads the National Council of Churches in Christ in the USA.
"What is going on in Sudan is an atrocity," Rangel said in a statement before stepping in front of the embassy's door at noon on Tuesday in a symbolic action reminiscent of anti-apartheid sit-ins at the South African embassy two decades ago. "It's criminal," he said, as other protestors sang "We Shall Overcome."
The scene was repeated Wednesday by Edgar, an ordained United Methodist Church minister who served six terms in the House as the Democratic representative from Pennsylvania's seventh district before being elected general secretary of the largest ecumenical church organization in the United States in 2000.""It is clear that a genocide is unfolding in Sudan, Edgar said. "Two months ago, as the world commemorated the tragic Rwandan genocide of 1994, we all said we would never allow this to happen again. Yet we are faced today with another horror that is clearly preventable."
Rangel, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee and a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, denounced the government of Sudan for supporting militias attacking black African Muslims in the Darfur region of western Sudan. "We have to use any available means to compel the Sudanese government in Khartoum to stop assisting the murderous Janjaweed militias in their campaign of genocide, and we must assure that aid groups are given unfettered access to the millions of refugees who currently lack proper food, water, and shelter," he said.
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"The situation in Sudan has clearly reached the level of a genocide," Rangel said. The lawmaker applauded Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Sudan last week, but expressed concern "that our government is constructively engaging a government who has, by almost all accounts, been the primary sponsor of genocide in Sudan."
"We need to get an international peacekeeping force on the ground to save lives immediately," he said. "We have to avert what threatens to become one of history's greatest catastrophes."
Edgar echoed the appeal for action by the United States and the rest of the international community. "As our governments hesitate to do what is right, the loss of precious lives accelerates with each passing week," he said.
The protests have been organized by several groups and individuals including members of the Sudan Campaign to End Slavery and Genocide as well as former Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives Walter Fauntroy, who was arrested last week at the embassy.
Resolutions condemning the killings in Darfur have been introduced in both houses of Congress. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), who traveled to Darfur last month with Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) is chief sponsor of a measure that he says "requires the United Nations and the international community to take decisive action." A similar resolution in the House is being pushed by Wolf and leading members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Donald Payne (D-New Jersey).
