President Obama’s Rwanda Moment

Sudanese refugees say Obama broke his promise to them.

From El Marco

A group of African former slaves turned human rights activists are walking from New York City to Washington, D.C. at this moment. They are calling attention to the ongoing crisi of genocide and slavery in Sudan. A New York Times op-ed recently referred to the situation there as “President Obama’s Rwanda moment … unfolding now, in slow motion.”

Sudan is less than 100 days from a referendum that is the culmination of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA,) which was a welcome example of what the United States can do when it uses its influence effectively. That agreement, a major focus for the Bush administration, is seen by expertsas endangered by a lack of resolve on the part of Obama and his team at the State Department.

Human rights activist Simon Deng is leading the fourth Sudan Freedom Walk to call attention to the impending disaster his people face in South Sudan. Deng, now a U.S. citizen, sees the upcoming referendum as a stark choice for his people:

… whether they’re going to remain under the islamization and arabization, under enslavement, or they’re going to choose freedom for the first time. I, for one, don’t want to go back to being a slave again. I’ve tasted freedom. I’m proud today to stand in this country, as a free man, speaking to free people.

Of course they’re going to chose freedom. Because freedom is a God given right to all human beings. That being said, we, the people of South Sudan, for sixty years we went through a lot at the hands of the sitting governments in Khartoum. They slaughtered three and a half million South Sudanese. They enslaved thousands. They turned their arms and guns on the people in the Nuba Mountains. They turned their arms and guns on the people in the Blue Nile. And the world came to their senses by saying what happened in western Sudan in Darfur region is genocide.

Simon Deng addressed his remarks to Obama before start of the Sudan Freedom Walk in New York

The Secretary of State a month ago, Hillary Clinton, said that the problem in South Sudan is a ticking time bomb. We don’t want to go back. We don’t want to go back to Islam. We don’t want to go back to enslavement. We don’t want to go back to arabization. We are proud as Africans in that continent. Sudan is the land of the blacks.

And that is why we don’t want to turn our backs to our brothers in Darfur. … after southern Sudan becomes independent next year we’re still going to be their voice because they’re being victimized the way we’re being victimized in that country, and we’re going to Washington to ask our (United States) governenment that CPA that we talk about it is the legacy of the American government and, I’m speaking directly to President Obama. He was there with me when we talked about the issue in the South Sudan as a senator, shoulder to shoulder, when we talked about the Southern Sudan. I’m asking you, why are you distancing yourself from me, why are you distancing yourself from the issue of Sudan? Why are you putting heavyweights to be envoys here and envoys there, and you’re sending someone who has to learn on the job to be the envoy, knowing the magnitude of the problem in the Sudan? Why not Colin Powell? Why don’t you call him? Colin Powell even said it himself: “If the President calls on me, I will pick up the phone.” Call on him tomorrow, Mr. President. I’m walking to Washington, and I’m looking forward to discuss this matter with you.

Mr. Deng and other Sudanese refugees say that then Senator Obama promised them during a meeting in Philadelphia in 2008 to make peace in Sudan his first priority when he became president. Many Sudanese in Philadelphia campaigned door to door for Obama because they believed his promise. They say that the Obama administration has only played lip service to the plight of South Sudan and Darfur and that Obama’s percieved lack of interest has emboldened the Khartoum regime and imperiled the CPA.