Congressman to be arrested over Sudan
Rep. Charles Rangel to participate in protest at embassy today
July 13, 2004
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., will join protesters at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., today and expects to be arrested for his actions, reports Christian Solidarity International.
CSI says the demonstrators will call for an end to the "genocide" going on in Sudan at the hands of the Muslim regime in Khartoum.
Rangel and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus have called for an end to the ethnic cleansing of blacks in Sudan by government-backed Arab militiamen and have demanded sanctions be placed on Khartoum.
Also participating in today's protest, says CSI, is radio talk-show host and civil-rights leader Joe Madison, who will launch a hunger strike.
Madison demands an immediate end to the Sudanese government's obstruction of humanitarian aid to victims of the Sudanese genocide. He says if trucks filled with food and medicines are not allowed through to the victims before the rainy season begins, hundreds of thousands of people could die.
In the Darfur region of western Sudan, the conflict between the militiamen and mainly black rebels has led to the deaths of thousands and the displacement of as many as 1 million people.
According to CSI, demonstrations are also planned in Boston, New York City, San Antonio, San Diego and Toronto.
The Sudan Campaign, of which CSI is a part, calls on the Security Council of the United Nations to adopt Chapter 7 sanctions on Sudan, to suspend Sudan's membership on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and to enable slaves and other victims of the Sudanese government's declared jihad against black Africans to return to their homes.
Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have died from war and related famine due to the government's targeting of Christians and others in southern Sudan and black Sudanese in the western part of the nation. About 5 million people have become refugees. |
