Messinger shares Darfur horrors
By Amy Kaufman
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An eyewitness to the genocide in Darfur, Ruth W. Messinger, president of the American Jewish World Service, urged Jews not to turn their backs on the escalating crisis when she spoke at Congregation Beth Israel April 20.
She quoted New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote on Oct. 29, 2006: "Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of Darfur isn't that gunmen on the Sudanese payroll heave babies into bonfires as they shout epithets against blacks. It's that the rest of us are responding only with averted eyes."
"We (Jews) know better than anyone the dangers of silence from the rest of the world," Messinger said.
On her visits to Sudan and Chad, Messinger heard the stories of 40 villagers. "They were all chilling," she said. "The most chilling thing is how similar they are. In every instance they begged, 'Please, go back to America and tell people what's happening here so they will help us."
Messinger came upon two sisters carrying wood to cook the grain they had received from aid workers.
"The only way to get firewood was to go outside the perimeter of the camp," she explained. "The sisters told me, 'If we send men for firewood, they are killed by the Janjaweed. If we are found, we will only be raped.'"
Janjaweed, referring to the government-allied Arab militia, is "an Arabic word that means, more or less, devils on horseback," Messinger said.
Most stories began, "First planes came and bombed my village," said Messinger. "I want to focus on the word planes. No matter how complicated the story of Darfur gets, there is no doubt: The planes are flown by the government of Sudan, attacking their own people. We now have photographic evidence that Sudan is painting planes white and writing 'U.N.' on them so they will be mistaken for humanitarian aid planes."
She said most stories end: "The Janjaweed slaughtered our children and livestock, and they stuffed the carcasses in the wells to poison the water. Then they burned our village to the ground."
Messinger estimated 450,000 to 500,000 have died, "half from the violence in their farming communities" and the others from disease and starvation in the camps.
"The largest refugee camp in the history of the world is now dependent on us for food," she said.
The United States is "the leading humanitarian donor" to Darfur, having "provided more than $2.7 billion in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006," stated Andrew S. Natsios, President Bush's special envoy for Sudan, in his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Feb. 8.
AJWS has raised $4.5 million for humanitarian relief for Darfur and Chad. See its Darfur Action Campaign at ajws.org.
Messinger said AJWS is "mobilizing a massive targeted divestment campaign to put additional economic pressure on Sudan and on China for a protector on the Security Council. The effort is to get states to divest from pension funds from the 18 or 20 large companies that trade in Sudanese oil."
She said, "[F]or sure, some of you have monies invested with Fidelity or with Berkshire Hathaway, two major money management companies that have so far refused to divest from the international oil companies."
Messinger said, "Activism is spreading and building from the 2006 rally in the Washington mall to the local events that will be in 24 countries by the end of this month."
"The next wave of focus and protest," she said, "will be against China, specifically for protecting Sudan—spotlighting the nerve of China promoting itself as the home of the 2008 Summer Olympics, whose slogan is, believe it or not, 'One world, one dream,' while China protects the government of Sudan in killing its own people."
Saying Darfur appears "infrequently" in media headlines, Messinger urged citizens to demand appropriate coverage.
"I want to suggest to you that how we respond to Darfur is part of the moral legacy we are leaving our children and grandchildren. When (they) ask us what we did to stop the first genocide of our century, we will each of us have a proud answer."
Congregation Beth Israel hosted the Daniel J. and Elizabeth O. Cohn Lecture during joint Shabbat services with Havurah Shalom.