Save Darfur Coalition

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The Save Darfur Logo. Save Darfur Logo.jpg
The Save Darfur Logo.

The Save Darfur Coalition was an advocacy group that attempted "to raise public awareness and mobilize a massive response to the atrocities in Sudan's western region of Darfur." [1] Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it was a coalition of more than 190 religious, political, and human rights organizations organized to campaign for a response to the atrocities of the War in Darfur, which culminated in a humanitarian crisis. By 2013, reports indicated that the conflict had claimed approximately 300,000 lives and had displaced over 2.5 million people. [2] [3]

Contents

History

Founding

The Save Darfur Coalition was founded at the "Darfur Emergency Summit in New York City" on July 14, 2004. The Coalition began when the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and American Jewish World Service organized this event at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan featuring Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel.

The coalition grew into an alliance of more than 190 religious, political, and human rights organisations committed to ending the alleged genocide in Darfur. Save Darfur was headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a staff of 30 professional organizers, policy advisors, and communications specialists. [4]

The coalition's members initially signed on to the following unity statement: [1]

"We stand together and unite our voices to raise public awareness and mobilize a massive response to the atrocities in Sudan's western region of Darfur. Responding to a rebellion in 2003, the regime of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and its allied militia, known as the Janjaweed, launched a campaign of destruction against the civilian population of ethnic groups identified with the rebels. They wiped out entire villages, destroyed food and water supplies, stole livestock, and systematically murdered, tortured, and raped civilians. The Sudanese government's genocidal, scorched earth campaign has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives through direct violence, disease, and starvation, and continues to destabilize the region. Millions have fled their homes and live in dangerous camps in Darfur, and hundreds of thousands are refugees in neighboring Chad. Violence continues today. Ultimately, the fate of the Darfuri people depends on establishing lasting and just peace in all of Sudan and in the region."

Dream for Darfur

The Olympic Dream for Darfur campaign, initiated in the lead-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, aimed to draw attention to the conflict in Darfur and press China to reconsider its support for Sudan's regime. The campaign organized a symbolic relay, with genocide survivors and activists, including Mia Farrow, visiting various countries like Rwanda, Armenia, Germany, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Cambodia. [5]

In September 2007, a U.S.-based relay was launched, led by Jill Savitt and Mia Farrow, and supported by organizations like GI-Net, the Save Darfur Coalition, and the Enough Project. The primary goal was to make foreign policy information more accessible to citizens and engage them in the cause. [6]

The Dream for Darfur team urged major Olympic Games sponsors, such as McDonald's, Anheuser-Busch, Microsoft, and Volkswagen, to privately engage with Chinese officials regarding their concerns about the situation in Darfur. The campaign's efforts also led to Steven Spielberg's decision to resign as the creative consultant for the opening ceremonies. [5]

Merger

In 2011, in order to create a more effective and collective voice dedicated to preventing and eliminating genocidal violence, the Genocide Intervention Network and the Save Darfur Coalition merged to establish United to End Genocide. The merger created the largest anti-genocide campaign that encompasses a membership base of over 800,000 global activists, a mass student movement, and a network of institutional investors with over $700 billion in assets. [7]

Advocacy programs

STAND

STAND (formerly known as Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) was founded in 2004 [8] by students at Georgetown University as the student-led division of United to End Genocide. [9] [10] STAND opposes violence in Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, and Syria. [11] In April 2015, STAND merged with the Aegis Trust. [12]

Million Voices for Darfur

On January 22, 2006, the 55th anniversary of the ratification of the U.N.'s Convention on Genocide, the Save Darfur Coalition launched the campaign, Million Voices for Darfur, which involved the collation of uniformly worded postcards from citizen advocates across the country. The postcards insisted that President Bush support "a stronger multinational force to protect the civilians of Darfur." [5]

On June 29, 2006, just six months after the start of the campaign, Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader at the time, and Senator Hillary Clinton, signed the 1,000,000th and 1,000,001st postcards. [13]

The Million Voices program was the first example of the Save Darfur Coalition's attempt to influence the executive branch of the U.S. government to enact change. [5]

Divest for Darfur

In order to exert financial pressure on the government of Sudan to change its policies, Save Darfur launched a divestment campaign, Divest for Darfur. The campaign was similar to Genocide Intervention Network’s divestment project, The Sudan Divestment Task Force.

Divest for Darfur focused on using print and broadcast advertisements to target the "highest offending" companies that conducted business in Sudan, such as Fidelity Investments and Berkshire-Hathaway. Both companies heavily invested in PetroChina, whose revenue supported the Sudanese military. [14]

Divest for Darfur’s broadcast advertisements aired on CNN and were featured in such publications as The Hill , Roll Call, and the Washington Times . Besides creating general ads encouraging companies to divest in Sudan, the Save Darfur Coalition also directly called on the United States Senate to pass the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act. [15]

Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide

On April 30, 2006, the Save Darfur Coalition organized the "Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide" to occur on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and encouraged other national communities to hold rallies of their own. Over 50,000 people gathered among prominent speakers, such as Barack Obama, Elie Wiesel, Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney, Paul Rusesabagina, and Brian Steidle, to demand the withdrawal of any objection to a UN peacekeeping force, better humanitarian access to refugees, adhesion to existing treaties and ceasefire agreements and a commitment to a lasting peace agreement in the Abuja peace talks. [13]

Tour for Darfur – Eyewitness to Genocide

Brian Steidle, former Marine Captain and observer to the African Union peacekeeping forces stationed in the Darfur region, toured the United States in 2006. The aim was to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, as well as the actionable steps Americans could take to aid in the cause. The tour covered 21,000 miles and 20 different locations. It continued to promote the messages of other campaigns of the Save Darfur Coalition, such as the Million Voices for Darfur and the Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide. [13]

1-800-GENOCIDE

1-800-GENOCIDE was a toll-free number that allowed individuals to voice their concerns about genocides and mass atrocities to their elected public officials. [5]

DarfurScores.org

DarfurScores.org was a legislative scorecard system that graded the United States Congress and their respective representatives have acknowledged problems in Darfur. DarfurScores.org made legislative action regarding Darfur more transparent. The objective of the initiative was to hold representatives accountable, and to inform constituents in order to apply more pressure on government officials to instigate policy change. [16]

Genocide Watch

Genocide Watch was the first human rights organization to declare the crimes in Darfur as genocide in April 1994. It sponsored a hearing on the crimes of Omar al-Bashir at the Church Center for the United Nations. The hearing was chaired by Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Prize winning Nigerian writer. The prosecutor was Beth Van Schaack, who later became United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice. The defense counsel was a Canadian law professor. The panel of judges convicted al-Bashir of crimes against humanity and genocide. [citation needed]

Genocide Watch then worked with Nick Rostow, the legal advisor to the US Mission to the United Nations to draft UN Resolution 1593 to refer the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. The resolution passed 13-0-2. The resolution included language that allowed China and the USA to abstain. It was the first referral by the Security Council to the ICC and resulted in convictions of two persons for crimes against humanity in Darfur, as well as ICC charges of genocide against Omar al-Bashir in 2009, with additionally charges in 2010. [citation needed]

Endorsements

The Save Darfur Coalition had over 190 national and regional organizational supporters including Amnesty International, Genocide Intervention Network, NAACP, Genocide Watch, United to End Genocide (whom it later merged with) and Physicians for Human Rights. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omar al-Bashir</span> President of Sudan from 1989 to 2019

Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as Sudan's head of state under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état. He was subsequently incarcerated, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges. He came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier general in the Sudanese Army, he led a group of officers in a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi after it began negotiations with rebels in the south; he subsequently replaced President Ahmed al-Mirghani as head of state. He was elected three times as president in elections that have been under scrutiny for electoral fraud. In 1992, al-Bashir founded the National Congress Party, which remained the dominant political party in the country until 2019. In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur. On 11 February 2020, the Government of Sudan announced that it had agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC for trial.

The Janjaweed are an Arab nomad militia group operating in the Sahel region that operates in Sudan, particularly in Darfur and eastern Chad. They are also active in Yemen due to participating in the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen. According to the United Nations definition, Janjaweed membership consists of Arab nomad tribes from the Sahel, the core of whom are Abbala Arabs, traditionally employed in camel herding, with significant recruitment from the Baggara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Congress Party (Sudan)</span> 1998–2019 ruling party of Sudan

The National Congress Party was a major political party of ousted President Omar Al-Bashir, it dominated domestic politics in Sudan from its foundation until it was dissolved following the Sudanese Revolution.

The Genocide Intervention Network was a non-profit organization aiming to "empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide". Founded in 2004, in 2005 the Genocide Intervention Fund changed its name to Genocide Intervention Network, and in 2011, it merged with the Save Darfur Coalition to form a new organization, United to End Genocide.

The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act or DPAA restates the United States government's position that the Darfur conflict constitutes genocide, and asks the government to expand the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (AMIS) and give the force a stronger mandate, including more generous logistical support. It also directs the government to assist the International Criminal Court in bringing justice to those guilty of war crimes. It was passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Bush on 13 October 2006 along with a companion executive order.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Republic of Sudan (1985–2019)</span> Government of Sudan from 1985 to 2019

This article covers the period of the history of Sudan between 1985 and 2019 when the Sudanese Defense Minister Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab seized power from Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry in the 1985 Sudanese coup d'état. Not long after, Lieutenant General Omar al-Bashir, backed by an Islamist political party, the National Islamic Front, overthrew the short lived government in a coup in 1989 where he ruled as President until his fall in April 2019. During Bashir's rule, also referred to as Bashirist Sudan, or as they called themselves the al-Ingaz regime, he was re-elected three times while overseeing the independence of South Sudan in 2011. His regime was criticized for human rights abuses, atrocities and genocide in Darfur and allegations of harboring and supporting terrorist groups in the region while being subjected to United Nations sanctions beginning in 1995, resulting in Sudan's isolation as an international pariah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War in Darfur</span> Genocidal conflict in Western Sudan

The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of the War in Darfur</span>

This is the bibliography and reference section for the Darfur conflict series. External links to reports, news articles and other sources of information may also be found below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International response to the War in Darfur</span>

While there is a consensus in the international community that ethnic groups have been targeted in Darfur and that crimes against humanity have therefore occurred, there has been debate in some quarters about whether genocide has taken place there. In May 2006, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur organized by United Nations "concluded that the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide ... [though] international offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be more serious and heinous than genocide." Eric Reeves, a researcher and frequent commentator on Darfur, has questioned the methodology of the commission's report.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Darfur</span>

Throughout its history, Darfur has been the home to several cultures and kingdoms, such as the Daju and Tunjur kingdoms. The recorded history of Darfur begins in the seventeenth century, with the foundation of the Fur Sultanate by the Keira dynasty. The Sultanate of Darfur was initially destroyed in 1874 by the Khedivate of Egypt. In 1899, the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan recognized Ali Dinar as the Sultan of Darfur, in exchange for an annual tribute of 500 pound sterling. This lasted until Darfur was formally annexed in 1916. The region remained underdeveloped through the period of colonial rule and after independence in 1956. The majority of national resources were directed toward the riverine Arabs clustered along the Nile near Khartoum. This pattern of structural inequality and overly underdevelopment resulted in increasing restiveness among Darfuris. The influence of regional geopolitics and war by proxy, coupled with economic hardship and environmental degradation, from soon after independence led to sporadic armed resistance from the mid-1980s. The continued violence culminated in an armed resistance movement around 2003.

Ahmed Mohammed Haroun is one of five Sudanese men wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Despite international pressure on the government of Sudan to surrender him to the ICC, Haroun served as Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs until May 2009, when he was appointed to the governorship of South Kordofan. In September 2007, he was appointed to lead an investigation into human rights violations in Darfur. In July 2013 he resigned as Governor of South Kordofan, and was reappointed by Omar al-Bashir as Governor of North Kordofan. On 1 March 2019, President Omar al-Bashir handed over the running of the country's leading political party, the National Congress, to him. He was arrested in April 2019 by local authorities in Sudan following a coup which overthrew al-Bashir.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sudan–United Kingdom relations</span> Bilateral relations

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Throughout the ongoing Darfur genocide in the Darfur war there has been a systematic campaign of rape, which has been used as a weapon of war, in the ethnic cleansing of black Africans from the region. The majority of rapes have been carried out by the Sudanese government forces and the Janjaweed paramilitary groups. The actions of the Janjaweed have been described as genocidal rape, with not just women, but children also being raped, as well as babies being bludgeoned to death and the sexual mutilation of victims being commonplace.

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Adeeb Abdel Rahman Youssef is a Sudanese human rights activist and former politician. From 2003 he documented evidence of atrocities in his native Darfur. For his activism he was imprisoned and tortured by Sudanese authorities. At one point he moved to the United States where he remained for several years and studied at George Mason University. After the Sudanese revolution he served as governor of Central Darfur from 27 July 2020 until his removal during the 2021 Sudanese coup d'état on 25 October 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 "Unity Statement". Archived from the original on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  2. ↑ "Genocide in Darfur". Armenian Youth Federation - Western United States. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  3. ↑ "The Darfur Conflict". A&E Television Networks. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  4. ↑ "2008 SDC Annual Report". The Save Darfur Coalition. 23 July 2009. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Hamilton, Rebecca (2011). Fighting for Darfur . New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-0230100220.
  6. ↑ Greenberg, Ilan (30 March 2008). "Changing the Rules of the Games". New York Times. Retrieved 7 February 2013.
  7. ↑ Brown, Anne. "Advocacy Groups Save Darfur Coalition and Genocide Intervention Network Announce Merger to Create Powerful Constituency Focused on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities". Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  8. ↑ "STAND | History".
  9. ↑ Totten, Samuel; Parsons, William S. (2012). Centuries of Genocide: Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. Routledge. p. 554. ISBN   9781135245504.
  10. ↑ Cheadle, Don; Prendergast, John (2007). Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond . Hachette Books. ISBN   9781401387945.
  11. ↑ "About". STAND. Retrieved 2019-03-23.
  12. ↑ Russell, Alex (2015-04-09). "US anti-genocide movement STAND merges with the Aegis Trust". Aegis Trust . Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  13. 1 2 3 "Previous Initiatives". The Save Darfur Coalition. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  14. ↑ Brown, Ann. "Save Darfur Coalition joins call for Sudan divestment with 'Divest for Darfur' initiative, national ad campaign". Save Darfur Coalition. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  15. ↑ Brown, Ann. "Advocates Launch On-the-ground Phase of 'Divest for Darfur' Efforts in Boston". Save Darfur Coalition. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  16. ↑ "Annual Report: 2008". Genocide Intervention Network. Retrieved 7 February 2013.
  17. ↑ "Organizational Members". Save Darfur Coalition. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
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