Cambodians join rally calling for end to Darfur killings
Sept 17, 2006 (PHNOM PENH, Cambodia) — Cambodia, still haunted by memories of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in which nearly 2 million were killed in the late 1970s, joined a global rally Sunday to call for an end to violence in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan.
“As victims of the Khmer Rouge, we would like to make our voices heard and unite with the rest of the world in demanding all parties involved in the conflict in Sudan to stop the killings,” said Ly Sok Kheang, a researcher at the Documentation Center of Cambodia which is gathering evidence of crimes against humanity that took place during the Khmer Rouge regime.
About 140 staff and students from the center will visit Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum before attending a candlelight vigil at a local mosque this evening to remember Darfur victims, Ly Sok Kheang said.
Protests and other events for the “Global Day for Darfur” are scheduled in four dozens cities worldwide to show support for the people of Darfur and pressure the Sudanese government to protect its civilians and end the conflict.
At least 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than 2 million have fled their homes since 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government.
A May peace agreement signed by the government and one of the major rebel groups was supposed to end the conflict in Darfur. Instead, it has sparked months of fighting between rival rebel factions that has added to the toll of the dead and displaced.
The Sudanese government has rejected a United Nations’ plan to send peacekeeping troops to Darfur to replace the largely ineffective African Union peacekeeping force, whose mandate expires at the end of this month.
Many fear that the situation facing civilians in the region will worsen, if the U.N. troop deployment plan fails.
Ly Sok Kheang said he feared the international community was repeating the same mistakes that occurred in Cambodia, where some 1.7 million people died from starvation, disease, overwork and execution at the hands of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 until 1979.
“As far as the genocide in Cambodia is concerned, for over three years the state committed killings of its own people while the international community, including the United Nations, failed to intervene to stop it,” he said.
(AP/ST)