Join the 2nd Annual Bay Area Walk Against Genocide! Registration Is Now Open!

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April is Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. The 2nd Annual Bay Area Walk Against Genocide is our way to take part. Join genocide survivors, community leaders, students, and neighbors for a day of reflection, speeches, advocacy training, and a collective walk around Lake Merritt.

Event info:
Sunday April 29, 2012
Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA

Noon-4pm: Music and Tabling
1-2pm: Program
2-3pm: Walk

Please visit www.WalkAgainstGenocide.org to learn more and register >>

You can also get the latest Walk updates via Facebook and Twitter.

Why Your Participation Matters

In 2010, the California State Legislature proclaimed April of each year Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month (Assembly Concurrent Resolution). The State Legislature chose April because several 20th century genocides, from the Armenian genocide to Cambodia and Bosnia, are commemorated during that month. California is the first state in the nation to declare a Genocide Prevention Month, making April 2011 a historic month for California, and for the nation.

The 2011 Walk Against Genocide was the first Bay Area event to implement the new resolution. The Walk is our chance to publicly show our support for the victims of these conflicts, walk in solidarity with genocide survivors, hear their stories, and learn how awareness and effective action can prevent future atrocities from taking place.

Why Walking Matters

Violators of human rights want nothing more than for the public to remain silent in the face of those violations. Through silence, the pathway for continuing those violations stands free and clear. When you walk against genocide, you demonstrate to local, national and world leaders that the people of the Bay Area will not look away in the face of past, current and future genocides and mass atrocities. When you walk, you send a message to perpetrators of genocide that here in the Bay Area, we will not be silent.

Genocide Is Not Just An International Story. It’s A Local Story.

Survivors of mass atrocities live among us right here in the Bay Area. Our community is home to Jews, Sudanese, Armenians, Cambodians, Rwandans and many other survivors and descendants of victims of genocides. The Bay Area Walk Against Genocide gives you, your friends, your family and your children a unique opportunity to meet them, hear their stories, and learn how we can all make a difference by getting more involved.

Join us in raising the visibility and voices of survivors and descendants of past genocides, supporting our youth activists, growing a community of annual walkers, raising funds for ongoing services to conflict-affected civilians, and advocating to end and prevent genocide. Start a team, bring your children, walk with your family, or join a group of individuals dedicated to this cause.

Proceeds support the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), The Genocide Education Project (GEP), and the San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition (SFBADC). Your voice and steps will add volume to masses around the world working to prevent and end genocide!

RELEASE: Amid Reports of Ethnic Cleansing, Sudan Activists Request Escalated Action

Posted by nikki | posted in Announcements, News | 0 Comments

UPDATE, JULY 19, 2011: The State Department has responded to the open letter. Click here to read the transcript.

Citing responsibility to protect, rights groups issue open letter to President Obama

CITIES NATIONWIDE — July 19, 2011 — Amid reports of government-sponsored aerial bombardment of civilians, summary door-to-door executions and evidence of mass graves in Southern Kordofan, 54 human rights and anti-genocide organizations in 27 states have issued an open letter to President Obama asking for limited military action to destroy carefully selected military assets of the government of Sudan. The organizations represent U.S. citizens and members of the diaspora from all parts of Sudan, including Darfur and the Nuba Mountains, and from the Republic of South Sudan. This letter is the first broad-based call by activists for a military response. The letter was also signed by leading genocide scholars, Eric Reeves, Samuel Totten and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.

The letter states, “It is time for significantly escalated action by the United States consistent with the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, for both The Republic of South Sudan and the marginalized people of Sudan. Condemnations of new war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are necessary, but not sufficient. We strongly believe that only concrete, escalated action will change the calculations of the government of Sudan and reverse the pattern of grave crimes, human rights abuses and humanitarian crises.”

According to the letter, “recent events in Darfur, Abyei and Southern Kordofan prove that the government of Sudan is continuing to use the same deadly methods that it has employed for years against its own people: attacking civilians on a broad scale with its army, militia, and air force; limiting and blocking humanitarian assistance to millions displaced by attacks; and focusing the attention of the west on negotiations that are not honored and the struggles of providing humanitarian assistance.”

Read the full press release and text of letter here.

From the U.S. State Department Special Briefing on the Current Situation in the Horn of Africa: July 19, 2011

QUESTION: Can I ask a Sudan question while we have Johnnie Carson here?

MS. FULTON: If you want.

QUESTION: There’s — I mean, there’s a letter going around today with a lot of activists talking about much tougher action against Sudan, including the possibility of drone strikes or cruise missile strikes to prevent ethnic cleansing going on in Southern Kordofan and Abyei, and I wonder if you’ve received these recommendations, whether you have any concerns about — what are your latest concerns about what’s going on in those two regions?

MS. FULTON: Would you indulge us?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARSON: Just—

MS. FULTON: Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARSON: —very, very briefly, only to say that we remain very focused on Sudan and the need to encourage both parties, North and South, to complete all of the elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that have not yet been resolved. These issues are Abyei, they are also oil and transitional financial arrangements, they also include the need to resolve issues related to citizenship, and five, issues related to border demarcation. It is important that both sides resume their discussions as quickly as possible to move towards a resolution of all of these issues.

We also remain deeply concerned about the continuing violence that we have seen in Southern Kordofan, and we urge the Government of Sudan to move as quickly as possible to stop the violence that is being perpetrated by its soldiers, and to align itself, again, with its commitments under the global — under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

MS. FULTON: Thank you.

MR. STEINBERG: Can I—

MS. FULTON: Oh, yes.

MR. STEINBERG: —just comment very, very quickly? Because USAID is indeed launching, in a whole-of-government approach, a very aggressive response to the humanitarian crisis that we’ve talked about here with about 180,000 people driven from their homes, both from Abyei and from South Kordofan. We do, as Assistant Secretary Carson said, have a very serious access problem, and in — especially in the Nuba Mountains. And we have called aggressively, both bilaterally but also multilaterally, on the Government of Sudan to open up access to those regions, to allow humanitarian workers in, to, as Assistant Secretary Carson said, to cease the violence that is occurring now, and to reach a permanent solution to the question of the SPLM’s North role in that region.

Message from Mohamed Suleiman, President, SF Bay Area Darfur Coalition

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On June 28th 2011, Sudan Tribune reported about a conference regarding water projects in Darfur. The conference, which was held in Khartoum, has just ended.

The international community and the donors will make a big mistake if they put such amounts of money in the hands of the regime in Khartoum to execute these projects for the following reasons:

• The regime in Khartoum is facing severe shortage in Cash. In a few days (9th of July) the southern part will be declared an independent state. With it will go 80% of the oil revenue. The government of Sudan is hunting now for every dollar to run a semi-bankrupt country. There is no guarantee that these funds will ever find their way to these projects.
• There are more than 3 millions of Darfuris in the IDP camps. These IDPs (internally displaced persons) used to inhabit thousands of communities across Darfur. Their villages and towns were destroyed through a deliberate campaign of displacement. New arrivals, who are supported by GoS (Government of Sudan) called janjaweed, are rewarded by GoS by allowing them to occupy the best lands and villages. Yes Darfur needs badly water projects which will contribute to peace and stability in Darfur. Yet before initiating such projects, the problem of the return of these IDPs to their villages and homes in peace and security, should be addressed first.
• Darfuris are growing suspicious of some of the international bodies (UN, Arab League, African Union). Under current situation, such funds would be mismanaged and wasted without proper monitoring and without participation of Darfuris themselves (the displaced persons, not the pro-government Darfuris).

As a Darfuri, I believe that the following points might be considered to ensure success of such projects:

• Just peace and security for Darfur should be the priority of the international community and the donors.
• No funds should be put in the hands of the regime of Khartoum. The donors and the International community should supervise directly the execution of such projects.

In Sudan, Genocide Anew?

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from The Washington Post, June 18, 2011
by Eric Reeves

We are, once again, on the verge of genocidal counterinsurgency in Sudan. History must not be allowed to repeat itself. By early 2004, it was clear that the ideologically Arabist and Islamist regime in Khartoum was waging a genocidal counterinsurgency war throughout the western region of Darfur. Yet months passed before a broad range of human rights, government and academic voices said as much, even as the consequences of silence and inaction were conspicuous. In February 2004 I argued on this page that a “credible peace forum must be rapidly created. Immediate plans for humanitarian intervention should begin. The alternative is to allow tens of thousands of civilians to die in the weeks and months ahead in what will be continuing genocidal destruction.” Full article>

2011 Days of Remembrance – Justice and Accountability: What Have We Learned?

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The 2011 Days of Remembrance them marks the 65th anniversary of the first Nuremburg trial and the 50th anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann. The challenge of justice and accountability continue to be enduring legacies of the Holocaust. We invite you to join in remembrance by watching these brief videos:

• 2011 Days of Remembrance on Justice and Accountability after the Holocaust
• Days of Remembrance on Why we Remember
• Defying Genocide

Why April Is the right month for genocide awareness

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April 21, 2011
By Ellen J. Kennedy, source: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/04/21/kennedy/

It was in April 1915 that the Ottoman government began rounding up and murdering leading Armenian politicians, businessmen and intellectuals, a step that led to the extermination of more than a million Armenians.

In April 1933, the Nazis issued a decree paving the way for the “final solution,” the annihilation of 6 million Jews of Europe.

In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Cambodia’s capital city and launched a four-year wave of violence, killing 2 million people.

In April 1992, the siege of Sarajevo began in Bosnia. It was the longest siege in modern history, and more than 10,000 people perished, including 1,500 children.

In April 1994, the plane carrying the president of Rwanda crashed and triggered the beginning of a genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in 100 days.

In April 2003, innocent civilians in Sudan’s Darfur region were attacked; 400,000 have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in a genocide that continues today.

April is the cruelest month.

The world has witnessed nearly a century of genocides that all began in April. Millions of people perished; cultures were destroyed; communities and nations were ruined.

What can we do to pay tribute, to honor those who suffered unimaginable tragedy, and to prevent future atrocities?

This month, the Minnesota Legislature passed a remarkable resolution that designates April as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. The resolution was sponsored by DFLers and Republicans, men and women, legislators whose constituents include survivors and descendants of those who perished, and constituents whose families have lived peacefully in this country for generations.

More than 800 Minnesotans signed letters to their elected officials supporting this effort. What does it mean to have a month designated for genocide awareness and prevention?

Most people don’t know much about genocide. The word didn’t even exist until it was coined in the 1940s by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who fled from the Holocaust. Although he found refuge in the United States, his entire extended family, 49 in all, perished at Auschwitz.

Lemkin believed there had to be a word to describe what happened in Europe and a law to prevent its recurrence. He wrote the Genocide Convention, an international treaty to prevent the extermination of people based on their race, religion, ethnicity or national origin. This treaty, passed in the United Nations in 1948, wasn’t ratified by our country until 1988, fully 40 years later, and then only through heroic efforts by the late Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin. Proxmire gave 3,211 speeches on the floor of the Senate, a speech a day for 19 years, urging passage of the Genocide Convention.

Even though we have the word to describe it, and the law to prevent and punish it, genocide continues. Genocide has no boundaries in time, geography or target. It has happened on every continent and to people of widely different backgrounds and identities. It can happen anywhere — and everywhere.

In 2008, the United States Holocaust Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy and the U.S. Institute for Peace convened a task force, headed by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, to outline strategies to prevent genocide. Their report included many recommendations, one of which is that education can help protect individual rights and promote a culture of lawfulness that will prevent future genocides.

We encourage organizations in faith, civic, educational and human rights communities to raise awareness about genocide. Show a film, host a speaker, meet with some of Minnesota’s thousands of genocide survivors, or discuss a book such as “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” by Samantha Power.

These steps will increase awareness, the first part of this important state resolution. The second part is genocide prevention. Most people feel that preventing genocide is far beyond anything they can do as ordinary individuals. Yet it is exactly ordinary individuals who have the power to prevent genocide.

Former President Bill Clinton was in office during the tragedy in Rwanda. He said, after the genocide, that he probably could have saved a few hundred thousand lives. Imagine being able to say that you could have saved a few hundred thousand lives, or a few thousand, or a few hundred, or even one. Clinton said he did nothing because he didn’t hear from a single one of our 100 senators in Washington, or a single one of the 435 representatives, asking him to take a stand. He didn’t hear from them for a very simple reason: They didn’t hear from us.

Each of us can create the political will to prevent genocide. Each of us can make sure that our elected officials know we want innocent people to be protected, wherever they are. Each of us can speak up.

April is the cruelest month. We must ensure that the list of April’s genocides grows no longer.

—-

Ellen Kennedy is the executive director of World Without Genocide at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.
Minnesota Public Radio ©2011 All rights reserved

Breaking news: Californians of all faiths walking together to end genocide

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The horrors of genocide are almost unimaginable on a bright sunny day. But imagined and examined they must be if kindness and compassion are ever to rule the day on our planet.

And eradicating the use of rape as a weapon of war, genocide, and other mass atrocities is just what the organizers of the first San Francisco Bay Area Walk Against Genocide intend to do today at Lake Merritt in Oakland. More>

Walk Against Genocide Photos

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Don’t Rush To Reward Khartoum

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President Obama has appointed Ambassador Princeton Lyman to be the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan. With Southern Sudanese independence looming and increasing instability in Darfur, the new Special Envoy needs to send a clear message to the Bashir regime that the United States will not support any rewards for Sudan until there is real, verifiable progress on the ground. Tell the new Special Envoy: Don’t rush to reward Khartoum. Post your message.

Nowhere To Be Home – Narratives From Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime

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The seventh volume in the Voice of Witness series presents the narratives of former political prisoners and refugees from Burma. Decades of military oppression in Burma have led to the systematic destruction of over 3,000 ethnic minority villages, one of the largest numbers of child soldiers in the world, and the displacement of millions of people internally and across borders. The narratives in this book offer a powerful depiction of daily life within Burma as well as the tenuous border regions to which an estimated 1-2 million have fled.

In their own words, men and women from Burma describe how their lives have been deeply altered by the country’s current military regime: refugees who have fled military-sponsored violence and ethnic and religious persecution; political dissidents jailed and tortured for their actions and youth and community leaders working for solutions at great personal risk. Their stories reveal the human toll exacted by the country’s regime, with intersecting issues of forced labor, sexual violence, displacement, environmental degradation, the drug trade and HIV/AIDS. This book is a unique compilation of stories from Burma, as seen through different lenses of gender, location, education, political opinion, and ethnicity. Woven together, these stories are testament to the complexity and magnitude of the human rights crisis in Burma, as well as to the resilience of its people. More>