Rally attacks Darfur genocide
By Paul Haist
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Members of Portland's Jewish community joined with delegates of the Unitarian Universalist Association convention in Portland and the Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness to rally June 24 at Portland's Oregon Square Courtyard to help focus public attention on the continuing genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.
Charlie Clements, the national president and chief executive officer of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, in Portland for the UUA convention last month, was among various speakers at the rally.
Clements, who recently met with leaders of Darfurian refugee camps in Chad, told those present that most of what the United States has said to address the genocide "has no teeth."
He chastened the U.S. financial services companies Berkshire Hathaway and Fidelity Investments for their support of PetroChina, which is widely viewed as the "highest offending" company helping to fund the Darfur genocide.
In its search for petroleum to fuel China's economic expansion, Chinese companies have provided financial aid to Sudanese leaders believed behind the Darfur genocide.
"Berkshire Hathaway and formerly Fidelity said, "We have to be responsible to our stockholders," said Clements."Imagine if I.G. Farben (manufacturers of Zyklon B, the gas used in the Nazi gas chambers) had said that."
Fidelity has since announced sharp reductions of holdings in oil companies targeted by human-rights activists for their ties to Sudan's rulers.
Clements praised actress Mia Farrow, good will ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund, for her recent public effort to place pressure on filmmaker Stephen Spielberg in regard to China's role in the Darfur Genocide.
Farrow's open letter to Spielberg in the Wall Street Journal motivated the filmmaker to call on the Chinese government to alter its policies on Darfur. Spielberg has been engaged by the Chinese government as their artistic advisor for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Spielberg subsequently sent a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao condemning the killings in Darfur and asking the Chinese government to use its influence in the region "to bring an end to the human suffering there," according to Spielberg spokesman, Marvin Levy.
China soon dispatched an envoy to Darfur to address the issue, which earlier had led some to dub the Beijing Games the "Genocide Olympics."
"Clearly the Chinese were fearful enough of all of you to do something," Clements told the assembled activists.
Clements called the Olympics "our greatest leverage" on behalf of the Darfurians, "but we must act quickly," he said.
"We clearly have some kind of hands-off policy," said Clements of the U.S. government's response to Darfur. " We must do something about that."
He said, "The people in Darfur need us. We have to call for justice, and that means calling people to account before the International Criminal Court of Justice."
Speakers representing other groups included Emily Gottfried, area director of the American Jewish Committee in Oregon, and Marty Frommer and Katy-Jay Scott, both of the Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness.
Holocaust survivor Alter Wiener of Portland, author of the recent Holocaust memoir "From a Name to a Number," also addressed the crowd.
"'Never again' rings hollow today," said Wiener of the phrase Jews have used since the end of World War II in response to the Nazi Holocaust.
"By what criteria are the people in Darfur inferior? Why does no one come to rescue the people in Darfur today?" asked Wiener. "The people in Darfur today look as I did then," he said, recalling his condition as a survivor. "I suffered from anti-Semitism. In Darfur they suffer from anti-humanism."
Others taking part in the rally included a group of seven young African-style drummers from North Portland's Open Meadow Middle School under the direction of teacher Tab Waterman and Alex Addy of Homowo, the African Arts and Culture group established by Addy's father, famed African drummer Obo Addy.