Genocide Awareness Day Press Conference/Rally to Launch Media Campaign and Call Attention to Expansion of Genocide in Sudan
Members of the Colorado Sudanese Community will gather Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. on the West Steps of the State Capitol with Colorado activists to call attention to the ongoing genocide in Darfur, South Kordofan(Nuba Mountains), Abyei. Speakers will include, Rt Rev. Andudu Adam Elnail, Episcopal Bishop of Kadugli and Nuba Mountains(South Kordofan). At an emergency Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., Bishop Elnail provided moving testimony describing ethnic cleansing, murders, rapes and the growing humanitarian crises in his region. Omhagain Dayeen, who recently returned from a four month visit to her homeland of Darfur, will also share what she witnessed. Co-sponsors of this event are the Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action and the Sudanese Community of Colorado.
The purpose of the press conference is to launch a Media Campaign in Colorado that will bring awareness to Coloradans about what the Sudanese government has been doing to its own people and continues to do with impunity. In the last two decades there have been five genocides-one in South Sudan in the 1980’s-2005; one in Nuba Mountains in the early 1990’s; one in Darfur from 2003 until the present: one in Eastern Sudan from 1994-2005. It will also highlight the present waging of war in the Nuba Mountains and Abyei. Collectively, these crimes have resulted in the displacement of over 7 million people and the deaths of nearly 3 million people, the largest state-sponsored ethnic killing since World War II.
The rally will call for Coloradans to contact elected officials to support the following actions in Sudan:
1. End all attacks in Sudan that violate international humanitarian law, including deliberate attacks on civilians and indiscriminate aerial bombings; and hold all those responsible to account, regardless of rank.
2. Deployment of a neutral UN peacekeeping force in Nuba Mountains(South Kordofan) until a workable peaceful solution is achieved.
3. Fulfill obligations of cooperation with the ICC, as in executing the ICC arrest warrants against President Al-Bashir and his lieutenant and indicted war criminal Ahmed Haroun.
4. No-FlyZone application: The immediate imposition of a No fly Zone over Numba Mountains(South Kordofan) and Darfur States is urgently needed to protect civilians from bombardment.
5.Call on the Sudanese government to ensure unfettered access by UNAMID peacekeepers and humanitarian activists to all parts of Sudan including those most affected by conflict.
6. Protection of people in Nuba Mountains, Darfur and Abyei: The immediate demand for the disarmament and removal of President Al-Bashir’s dangerous Popular Defense Force(PDF) and his militias in Nuba Mountains(South Kordofan) and Janjaweed militias in Darfur.
7. End the harassment, detention and torture of journalists, human rights workers, and activists, and church leaders.
8. End the Sudanese government policy of dismantling Internally Displacement Persons’(IDP) camps in Darfur and of deliberately preventing food, water and medical supplies to reach civilians as a weapon of war in Darfur, South Kordofan(Nuba Mountainss) and all affected areas of Sudan.
9, Freeze assets of the Khartoum regime’s leaders and their businesses.
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