Hillary Roberts: Darfur action is possible

By BDN Staff

"We must be a leader and voice of reason and hope in this terrible crisis."

We are lucky to live in our close-knit, "Mainers take care of Mainers" communities. I am reminded of this on a daily basis. Despite occasional unsettling stories of crime and tragedy, positives prevail here. This can make it easy to overlook the world’s ugliness, that side of humanity that I never saw growing up in a small Piscataquis County town of 300 people.

In 2003, the first genocide of the 21st century began in Western Sudan in a place called Darfur. An Arab militia called the Janjaweed, aided by the Sudanese government, began what can only be looked at as a campaign of terror and genocide. The victims of this genocide are mainly non-Arab or African tribal groups, primarily the Fur, Massaleit, and Zaghawa.

The ethnic cleansing by the Janjaweed sounds more like a fictional horror movie than a reality that continues to plague Darfur and other parts of Africa. The militia groups have killed civilians, burned villages, raped women and young girls, abducted children, poisoned water supplies and destroyed food sources. In 2005, an estimated 15,000 people were being killed every month. Since 2003, when the killing began, an estimated 400,000 people have perished. More than one million people have been forced from their villages and homes to refugee camps in other parts of Africa.

The U.S. government officially declared the crisis in Darfur a genocide in July of 2004. Since 2005, both the U.S. House and Senate have had opportunities to support several important pieces of legislation that would help to end the genocide. The first piece that was introduced, a bill called the Darfur Genocide Accountability Act, did not pass. However, that initial bill sent a powerful message that action from every level of government was needed in order to support an end to the tragedies taking place in Africa. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>