It’s been just over 7 months since 'Sudan: Day of Conscience,' when I and other people of faith and good will were arrested as we called on the government of Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur. I am dismayed that so little progress has been made since then. Thankfully, momentum is once again building around legislation in the US Senate and proposals in the UN Security Council. I applaud the efforts of the UU United Nations Office to rally Unitarian Universalists to action, and hope that many congregations will answer the call to help stop the violence in Darfur.
Rev. William G. Sinkford
President, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
Use the following information to send a letter
of advocacy to your local MP.
You can find your local MP's fax number and postal address here.
If you would like to use our preformatted letter,
you can find that here (MS Word, HTML).
Primary Points for Letters to Elected Officials
The loss of life continues in Darfur as a result of the continuing violence and lack of security. In addition, hundreds of thousands continue to suffer rape, hunger, lack of clean water, and the many other effects of mass displacement.
Canada is not doing enough. The resources committed to Darfur represent less than one tenth of the total that CIDA has committed to Tsunami Relief and Reconstruction.
Canadians speak highly of the “responsibility to protect”, but through our silence we are in fact condoning the unwillingness of the international community to stop the killing.
Secondary Points
In just over two years, government supported militias and state-sponsored raids in Darfur have killed roughly 300,000 people and displaced more than 2,000,000.
Although Canada does not sit on the Security Council, it should use its good standing to press the Security Council to insist on a series of sanctions:
- Prime Minister Paul Martin should take a leadership role in bringing the international financial institutions and the creditor Paris Club together to discuss how to use the debt and arrears levers to force the Khartoum government to negotiate in good faith with rebel groups.
- Canada should put in place travel restrictions on senior National Islamic Front officials
- Although Canada does not sit on the Security Council, it should use its good standing to press the Security Council to insist on a series of sanctions:
- freeze all assets of the Khartoum government and companies controlled by it in the European Union, Canada and the United States;
- withdraw any rights of the government in the International Monetary Fund;
- institute an effective and monitorable ban on arms sales to Sudan.
