Genocide - what can be done?

Today Chad and I attended an amazing guest speaker event at JUC. It was Eugenie Mukeshimana - a Rwanda native and a survivor of the 1994 genocide there.

(See some of her story here) Since leaving Rwanda and coming to the US, Eugenie was one of the panelists at the 59th annual United Nations Conference on Human Security and Sustainable Development, and she often speaks at Holocaust observances.

I knew the topic of genocide was going to be powerful and emotional, but when you sit there and listen it all in full detail, all you can think is -- Oh. My. God. It is utterly amazing that people can live through such events.

It makes you feel bad for complaining (as I had minutes before) that the room we were sitting in was beginning to get stuffy and hot and wishing someone would crack open a window. Then to hear Ms. Mukeshimana detail how she hid under a childs bed for three weeks straight when 8 months pregnant - not moving for fear of being found and only being able to get out for 5 or 10 minutes a day to go to the bathroom or eat. Being afraid to sleep because she didn't want to sneeze and alert the rooms occupants that she was there. And that was just one of a whole amazing amount of horrible things this woman had to endure. Hers is an amazing story. But what is even more amazing is that genocide is still happening in places like Darfur today, yet what is being done to stop it?

Did you know that 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes in Darfur, Sudan? Each day, they face threats that are hard for us to even imagine including rape, disease, and starvation.

There are ways that we can help in taking the first step to stopping the violence. We need to make stories like Darfur and Rwanda, and stories like Eugenie's, part of the past and not part of our future.

Click here to sign the Save Darfur Coalition's petition urging President Bush and UN Secretary-General Ban to take immediate steps to stop the killing.

Together, we can make a difference in the lives of millions of people in the region who desperately need outside help.

The Save Darfur Coalition is urging the international community to prevent further killings, displacement, and rape by deploying the UN peacekeeping force that has already been authorized, strengthen the understaffed African Union force that is already in Darfur, establish a no-fly zone, increase humanitarian aid, and ensure access for delivery of food, medication and other essential supplies.

You can make a difference. Click here now to get involved.

Then please forward this message to your friends and family and ask them to join you.

If you'd like to make a donation to support the campaign, you can do so by clicking on the Save Darfur link to the right of my blog.

Think peace, and pass this information on!