USA: Thousands gather in New York's Central Park to call for the immediate deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan

Peace activists around the world staged a day of action on Sunday (September 17) to highlight the "forgotten war" in Darfur where tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million left homeless. In New York, a Central Park crowd estimated by organizers at around 20,000 demanded that the U.S. government pressure the Sudanese to stop the killings and displacements in Darfur and to allow U.N. peacekeepers to enter the country. The crowd had symbolically donned blue hats in calling for the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur. "The world has to act and it must do so now because it's not, the time is not on our side. The possibility exists that by this time next month, there will be no peacekeepers in Darfur or humanitarian workers, just killers and victims. That would be a failure and we cannot be complicit to it. To be clear, the issue is not about trying to impose U.S. western values on Sudan, for the protection of the civilians is a universal responsibility," said former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright while addressing the rally. She also told reporters before the rally that the U.N. alone cannot take all the blame for what was happening in Darfur as the world body is "the sum of its parts." Since the U.N. does not have troops of its own, Albright said that the international community needed to readily come forward with troop contributions for helping in Darfur. Albright also called for a stronger message to be sent to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and said that he needed to be told clearly that if his government is not able to protect its own people, the international community would have to do it. The New York rally saw a wide range of people come together for the Darfur cause -- from entertainers like singer Suzanne Vega and actress Mira Sorvino, to Darfuri diaspora groups. An emotional Sorvino said that with the Darfur violence having been termed "genocide" by several important voices a while back, it was a shame that the international community had still not been able to stop the killing there. "Knowing that the U.N. convention on genocide compels its member states to do everything in their power to stop and prevent such atrocity, once that word has been used, punishing those responsible, how have we let this occur? How have these hundreds of thousands more died on our watch? The commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation in the world has called it genocide and yet we have not followed that with strong, effective action to tide the stem of blood, to stem the tide of blood," said Sorvino. Before the speeches and song began on stage at the rally, a group of Darfuris who now live in the United States stood together to present their message. They chanted that Bashir should be sent to the ICC (International Criminal Court). One of the protesting Darfuris was Mohammed Adam, who has been in America for three years and now lives in Chicago. "The U.N. has not done enough to help, while the Sudanese government is looking for time to kill more people, to kill all Darfurians. the U.N. has to act quickly to stop genocide because right now the Sudanese government is just wasting time and lying to the U.N. The U.N. cannot afford to delay action," said Adam. The rally in Central Park was part of the "Global Day for Darfur", with additional events in over 30 nations on 6 continents. Darfur, the western region of Sudan bordering Chad has been plagued by political and ethnic violence since 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government. A new estimate of the number of people killed in Darfur published last week put the toll at 200,000 or more. And the more than 2 million people displaced by conflict have created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Western leaders, some African presidents and humanitarian groups are piling pressure on Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to accept a U.N. resolution to deploy more than 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned last week of "yet more death and suffering, perhaps on a catastrophic scale" if the government in Khartoum does not allow international peacekeepers into the region. The mandate for 7,000 poorly equipped African Union (AU) troops expires on Sept. 30 and Sudan has said they would only be allowed to extend the mission if they remained under AU control. Bashir reiterated at a meeting of Non-Aligned nations in Cuba Saturday that under no circumstances would he accept U.N. troops in western Sudan. He told a news conference in Havana that his government didn't want the United Nations back to Sudan no matter the conditions. But, even as the rally progressed in New York, Bashir too was in the city. He is here to attend a United Nations meeting on Darfur, reported to possibly opening the way for further talks. Bashir is expected "interact" with the U.N. Security Council over the issue and attend a summit of the African Union's peace and security council, said South African President Thabo Mbeki after talks in Havana with Bashir and Annan. Bashir has likened a U.N. presence to an invasion force bent on regime change in Khartoum, which would result in an Iraq-style quagmire. Analysts say the government might also be concerned U.N. troops could arrest suspects eventually named in war crimes warrants by the ICC.

ITN Source | September 18, 2006

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