Rally planned in Washington to protest Darfur genocide
April 30, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — Actors, athletes and activists concerned about the atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region are joining politicians and religious leaders in urging a greater U.S. role in ending what the United Nations says is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
A Sunday rally on the National Mall, near the Capitol, that organizers hoped would attract 10,000 or more was one of more than a dozen planned in U.S. cities over the weekend.
Headlining the Washington event was actor George Clooney. Others scheduled to speak included Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel and Olympic speedskating champion Joey Cheek, who donated his bonus money to projects in war-torn Darfur.
“You feel completely overwhelmed,” Clooney, just back from Africa, told AP Radio News ahead of the rally. “We flew over areas and my father and I would look at each other and go, this is just too much. But then what are we to do? Nothing?”
David Rubenstein, coordinator of the Save Darfur Coalition, covering more than 160 humanitarian and religious groups, said the aim of the “Rally to Stop Genocide” is to highlight the need for a multinational peace force in the region.
About 180,000 people have been killed and 3 million driven from their homes by fighting in the western Sudanese region since February 2003, when rebels from black farming villages took up arms against what they consider discrimination and oppression by the Arab-dominated government.
Sudanese government leaders allegedly encouraged militiamen from nomadic Arab tribes to wage a campaign of murder, rape and arson against civilians in the villages.
The international community poured in help in 2005 while pressuring both sides to settle the conflict.
Obama plans a visit to Africa in August and said he hopes by then “we’ll be making some progress on some of these diplomatic fronts.”
“The situation there is very delicate,” Obama said in an interview. “You’ve already got people who are displaced. … Things could get much worse.”
President Bush met with Darfur advocates at the White House on Friday and lent his support to the weekend rallies. “For those of you who are going out to march for justice, you represent the best of our country,” Bush said.
Five members of Congress were among 11 people arrested Friday after protesting outside the Sudanese Embassy.
The coalition’s permit estimates a turnout at 10,000 to 15,000 and is for the area on the Mall in front of the Capitol, said Sgt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police.
Others on the speakers’ list were Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington; Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier whose shelter of hundreds of people from the 1994 Rwandan genocide was the subject of the movie “Hotel Rwanda”; and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.
(ST/AP)
– On the Net:
Save Darfur Coalition: http://www.savedarfur.org