Vaheguru ji ka khalsa,
Vaheguru ji ki fatheh!
Khalsa Ji,
The Khalsa has a responsibility to stand up and defend the defenseless, with the grace of the Guru, in the spirit of the Guru’s teachings. We are failing our responsibility with this one crisis – the first genocide of the 21st century, a horrible reality that is happening in the present day as you read these words. There is not enough Sikh activism to help stop this genocide.
Please add this information and the links of savedarfur.org/home and standnow.org to your blog and Sikhi website. Please do whatever you can to help in this crisis. We are all one human race, children of the same God, and the Khalsa must not only say “sarbat da bhalla” (wellbeing of all) but actually live for it and practice it.
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The ethnic conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has resulted in an estimated 400,000 deaths, 200,000 refugees in Chad, and 2.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). The vast majority of these are ethnic-black African Darfurians, many from the three largest ethnic tribes of the Fur, Masaalit, and Zaghawa. The recent cycle of violence, of which the above statistics result from, began in February 2003 when two ethnic-African rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) attacked government outposts. The government of Khartoum (led by the National Congress Party, formerly the National Islamic Front) and its proxy Arab militias (the janjaweed) responded by targeting civilians, in addition to clashing with the rebel groups. The US Congress has labeled the Sudanese government’s counter insurgency strategy “genocide”, while the UN and others have determined Khartoum’s actions to be “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”. Beyond playing around with terminology, the international community has only meagerly addressed the issue of Darfur. Efforts have been made in three main areas in attempt to manage the conflict, relying heavily on the young African Union: peace negotiations, peace monitoring troops, and diplomatic, symbolic action. As approximately 10,000 civilians continue to die each month due to violence, malnutrition, and disease, the measures taken by the international community – the most capable, experienced, and arguably responsible actors in stopping the conflict – have been too little, too late.
For more information:
www.studentsagainstgenocide.org
Vaheguru ji ka khalsa,
Vaheguru ji ki fatheh!
