AVISit Of

Consequence

HARRY KI RS BAUM

Staff Writer

W

hat was promised to occur
"never again" is happening
once again.
That's the message an interfaith
group of three rabbis and four African
American ministers from Metro
Detroit took to Michigan's congres-
sional leaders in Washington, D.C.,
on May 25-26.
The group of nine clergy members
was first brought together by the
Jewish Community Council of
Metropolitan Detroit on a 2002
Council-sponsored mission to Israel
and Senegal.
On their first day in Washington,
the seven of these clergy members who
made the trip received briefings from
advocacy groups and then met with a
representative from the Committee on
Conscience, a separate branch of the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
charged with identifying genocide.
"The museum has a Darfur exhibit,
and the group met with someone who
went to Darfur and some of the
refugee camps in Chad," said Eric
Adelman of the Council.
On May 26, the group met with a
member of the U.S. Agency for
International Development, the gov-
ernment agency that all humanitarian
assistance appropriated by Congress
flows through, Adelman said. "This
was a chance for them to learn what
the government is doing in the
Sudan."
Then the group met with congres-
sional members and their staffs.
"In the 1994 genocide in Rwanda,
Bill Clinton and members of Congress
said they didn't hear from the
American public; that's why they did-
n't do anything," Adelman said. "One
of our goals was to take away people's
excuses."
The delegation "used its moral
authority to point out that the United
States and the world has a responsibil-
ity to end the genocide when there is

Local religious leaders

travel to Washington on behalf

of victims of genocide.

one going on," he said. "It's been

identified as genocide by the House,
the State Department — and the pres-
ident has used the word.
"There have been groups doing
something in their communities, but
this is the first time, to our knowl-
edge, that there's been significant con-
gressional outreach of this sort, and
we're hoping that this serves as a
model for other communities across
the country," he said.
At least 180,000 people have died in
the Darfur region of the Sudan since
March 2004 when the government-
backed Arab militia took up arms and
committed wide-scale abuses against
Sudanese of black African origin.
Many have died from hunger and
disease, and about 2 million others
have fled their homes.
International donors pledged an
additional $200 million on May 26 to
fund the peacekeeping operation on
the region. The United States added
an additional $50 million to the S95
million pledged, said a State
Department official, according to a
CNN report.

Clergy Speak Out

Rabbi Nelson, Rev. Flowers, Dr. Robinson and Dr. Baker
pose in the office of Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit.

"In the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Bill Clinton

and members of Congress said they didn't hear

from the American public; that's why they didn't

do anything. One of our goals was to take away

people's excuses.

– Eric Adelman, Jewish Community Council

The Rev. Robert Dulin of the
Metropolitan Church of God in
Detroit said the tragedy is difficult to
put into words.
"It's difficult to know what you're
accomplishing when you're talking to
legislators because they have so many
issues on their table to deal with," he
said. "We recognize that, but our con-
cern was to bring this particular issue
to a level of priority. What we need to
do now is to heighten the awareness of
the public.
"Even though there is a high level of
violence and suffering on the part of
Darfurians, it takes so long to mobi-
lize the forces necessary to stop it,"
Rev. Dulin continued. "That is the
most painful part: To see something,
to know that it is wrong, but then to

VISIT OF CONSEQUENCE on page 40

6/ 2
2005

39

