Bruce S. Gordon, President and CEO, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), has called on NAACP members and others to write to President Bush and members of Congress urging action to stop the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and to attend Sunday's rally in Washington, D.C. urging an end to the killing.
The NAACP is joining the effort by humanitarian and civil rights groups calling on hundreds of thousands of people to rally in support of an end to ethnic violence in Darfur on Sunday, April 30 on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Gordon said: "When the President came into office, he wrote of the devastating genocide in Rwanda: 'Not on my watch.' But right now in Darfur, millions have been uprooted and hundreds of thousands have been killed systematically by an armed militia – the very type of genocide the administration pledged to stop. We must hold them to their promise. That is why we are collecting one million postcards to send to the President urging action in Darfur."
As many as 400,000 people may have died in Sudan's western Darfur region in a conflict that erupted in 2003, according to a report published in the 2005 American Bar Association International Law Review. After decades of low-level ethnic clashes, the mostly non-Arab tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated government of neglect. The government reportedly retaliated by arming militia known as Janjaweed, who began a campaign of murder, rape, arson and plunder that drove more than two million villagers into squalid camps in Darfur and in neighboring Chad. The central Sudanese government denies backing the Janjaweed.
"The United States and the rest of the world cannot continue to stand by while the genocide continues in Darfur," said Crispian Kirk, NAACP Director International Affairs. "On an average day in Darfur tens of thousands of innocent civilians face the threat of torture, starvation, rape and uprooting from their homes, families and livelihoods."
Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, former NBA star Manute Bol, Olympic speed skater Joey Cheek and many others are scheduled to appear at the "Save Darfur Coalition's Rally to Stop Genocide" on Sunday, April 30. The rally is organized by the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 155 faith-based, humanitarian and human rights organizations.
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
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