Since early 2000 I have been calling on Canadian leaders to condemn the crimes of General Omar Mohammed al-Bashir.
President and leader of the National Islamic Fundamentalist party, the current government of the Republic of Sudan.
Bashir has been consistently pursuing his party’s stated goal of “Arabizing and Islamizing Africa”.
In 1992, The Chief Negotiator for the so called peace talks in Abuja, Dr. Ghazi Salahudin declared “We came to fulfill a mission of Islamization and Arabizing Africa, so the issue of Self-determination is a non-starter.”
All of Bashir’s talk of peace, all of his participation in so called negotiations have been delaying tactics
so he can implement ethnic cleansing on the ground and present the world with a fait accompli.
I know you need numbers, and I’ll give you some in a minute, but for now let me ask you a question.
How many of you have children?
I want you to imagine your child as a baby.
Imagine you are holding her in your arms.
Now I’m going to ask you to do something terrible, but this is a terrible war.
Imagine yourself completely helpless as a janjawee, an “evil horseman” rips her from your arms, throws her down your village well and tosses an grenade in after her.
I apologize for putting you through this, but Sudanese survivors don’t imagine this, they live it; and they only wish they could forget.
When Rwanda was drowning in blood the West wouldn’t use the word Genocide because they were afraid that if they did, they would have to do something about it.
Today we see Rwanda’s fate clearly, and those survivors still suffer terrible conditions.
Now the US and even the UN have declared the Sudanese Government’s crimes against humanity a genocide, and still they do nothing.
Here we are in 2004 and once again black men, women, and children are being sold into slavery.
Thousands have been butchered.
Thousands more have been raped.
Hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes.
As we saw last Tuesday when Sudanese soldiers surrounded two refugee camps in Darfur, my people are not safe from al-Bashir anywhere.
I ask you; where is Canada's voice?
Where is Canada’s help that reaches out so quickly when others are in need?
The slaughter in Darfur began 18 months ago.
Hundreds of thousands more may soon die from starvation, disease and despair.
And why shouldn’t they despair when the world has abandoned them?
The Canadian government still refuses to call what’s happening in Sudan a Genocide.
The Canadian Special Peace Envoy to Sudan reported that there is “violence on both sides”.
If she were being raped would we condemn her for fighting back?
Would we dismiss her cries for justice by saying there was violence on both sides?
The Government of Canada and the UN were quick to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda but they allowed it to happen.
Just last year the Government of Canada established a national Holocaust Remembrance day; but during WWII, the Government’s policy towards Jewish refugees was “None is Too Many!” Boatloads were sent back to Nazi death camps.
When will our Government stop lying when it says “Never again”.
Our Government has had almost four decades to respond to genocide in Sudan.
In 1966 more than ten thousand men, women and children from the Equatorial region of Southern Sudan were massacred by order of Prime Minister Sadiq Al_Mahdi.
Tens of thousands more were driven to refugee camps in Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and central Africa.
In March 1987 more than ten thousand Dinka men, women and children were massacred, some burned to death by inhabitants of the town of Al’da’ein, in western Sudan.
The international community stood by as these state run atrocities were committed.
Canada was quick to send troops to Afghanistan and a vast amount of development aid goes there.
When will the Government of Canada even condemn the ongoing Genocide in Sudan?
Ladies and gentlemen, I am just one man and our organization is small; without funds staff or resources.
We need your help.
My people are dying as we speak.
I beg you, help me raise such a cry in this wonderful country that this Government cannot help but do the right thing.
©Justin Laku
House of Commons
Canadian Parliament
Ottawa, On, Canada
Feb 132004
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