A coalition of conservative and liberal groups has formed a Coalition for
CFD reports on a lengthy floor statement on Friday by Senator Bill Frist:
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, as my colleagues know, I have a special interest in Sudan. I have spent much time there on an annual basis for the last several years participating in various types of work — mission work, some medical work, as well as a Senator. . .
It is clear, as I mentioned, that what is going on — the destruction, the death, the killing — is genocide. This body has said that. . . Since October of last year, the State Department has formally recognized the conditions in Darfur as genocide. Congress has also acted, placing sanctions on Sudan’s Government and authorizing about $100 million in aid. . .
In addition, last year, we in this body voted unanimously to urge the Secretary of State to take appropriate actions within the United Nations to suspend Sudan’s membership on the U.N. Human Rights Commission. . . .
Every day the world fails to act, Khartoum gets closer to its genocidal goal, and every day the world fails to act, it compounds its shame.
Bill
"I want you to look at me," the 19-year-old told the ambassador. "This is the future. The people that you have oppressed, the people that your government has kicked out of the country will go back. We will make the country greater than it has ever been since you have raped it since 1989."
Hobbs reports that a Rwandan refugee also spoke, making an "emotional call for the world to act now . . . and discuss the international politics of it later:"
"This happened in our country in 1994 while the UN and powerful countries were discussing the word ‘genocide’ and whether it was a genocide, while every day 10,000 people were dying. We had the UN soldiers there, 5,000 of them. They did nothing.
“Now we are discussing the word genocide. Now, when we are talking, people are dying. We know it is a genocide. You know that. Why don’t you act? You discuss. Save lives, and then discuss."
Finally, Hobbs reports on another Belmont student who spoke, a “senior from South America who is a Jew.”
Mentioning the Rwandan speakers’ remark that the mass killing in Rwanda and Darfur made him "ashamed to be an African," student Fabian Sborovsky said it made him "ashamed to be a human being."
Sborovsky then told his family’s story — many of his ancestors died in the Holocaust — and noted that in the room were Muslims, Christians and Jews, but what mattered was not religion but action:
"While we debate, people are dying," he said. "Words are good — action is better. All I have left of my family is memories and pictures. We should pray as if everything depends on God and act as if everything depends on us."
Jewish World Watch notes the following email addresses and phone numbers and urges each of us to take some action:
Sudanese Embassy: info@sudanembassy.org
Sudanese U.N. Mission: sudan@un.int (telephone: 212-573-6033)U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan: Fax: 212-963-3511
President George W. Bush: president@whitehouse.gov
Act as if everything depends on us.