Message from CT UCC Conference Minister about Darfur

This Sunday, April 30, thousands of people will gather in Washington, DC and San Francisco to renew the call for providing a well-funded U.N. peacekeeping force to protect civilians and allow a peace process to begin in Darfur.  I urge you to uphold Darfur in your pastoral prayers this Sunday/weekend especially.  The conditions are overwhelming.  Following is from the UCC:

Darfur is a region of the western Sudan in Africa in a deepening crisis over a brutal civil war.  More than one million people have been displaced, and over 400,000 are estimated to have been killed, although it is difficult to estimate with the population spread throughout the region in refugee camps.  The growing violence across the region is making it increasingly difficult for humanitarian organizations working with the United Nations and other international relief agencies to do their job.  Unless there is greatly enhanced multinational intervention, the death and devastation will continue.

In 2004, Congress and the President labeled the situation in Darfur “genocide,” yet two years later, little has been done to stop the killing.  It is time for the world’s leaders to intervene.  Regrets about failure to act in Darfur will join regrets expressed much too late with regard to the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s. 

This weekend, demonstrations will call on President Bush to work through the United Nations to provide an adequate multinational peacekeeping force to protect civilians in Darfur.  Already more than 500,000 postcards have been sent to the President through A Million Voices for Darfur .  Click http://www.ucctakeaction.org/darfur to send your message to President Bush urging him to seek new action through the U.N. Security Council.

Click http://www.savedarfur.org/rally for details on the Washington, DC and San Francisco rallies scheduled for Sunday, April 30.

Worship and study resources are available at http://www.dearsudan.org/ for congregations wanting to engage in further education and advocacy.

Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree
Conference Minister
Connecticut Conference, United Church of Christ
125 Sherman Street
Hartford, CT 06105