04315
July 15, 2004

NCC chief arrested in Sudan protest

Edgar calls attention to ‘genocide’ under way in Darfur

by Carol Foulke
National Council of Churches Communications Office

WASHINGTON — The Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), was arrested Wednesday during a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy here.

       Edgar, a United Methodist minister and a former U.S. Congressman (D-PA), was part of a group calling attention to a genocide under way in Darfur, Sudan, and trying to mobilize U.S. and world officials to stop the killing.

       The campaign, coordinated by Christian Solidarity International (CSI), has sponsored daily lunchtime demonstrations in front of the embassy since June 30. It is pressing Congress to pass a resolution calling the Darfur situation genocide and urging the Bush Administration to impose sanctions on Sudan’s government, establish an aid fund for victims and intervene to stop the slaughter.

       During Wednesday’s protest, about 50 participants demanded that the Khartoum government stop attacks by its military and proxy militia on civilians in Darfur. The Rev. Dr. Walter Fauntroy, pastor of Washington’s New Bethel Baptist Church, a former Congressman, led the demonstration. Edgar and Carole Burnett, a professor at Baltimore’s Ecumenical Institute of Theology, presented themselves for arrest by the Secret Service and were taken to a local police station, where they were fined and released.

       According to the United Nations, tens of thousands of people have died and more than a million have been displaced in an “ethnic cleansing” campaign in Darfur against the Fur, Massaleit and Zaghawa peoples by Arab militias supported by the National Islamic Front that governs Sudan. Most of the refugees live in makeshift camps where mass rapes of women and girls are common, living conditions are deplorable and diseases such as cholera, meningitis and polio are rampant.

       “It is clear that a genocide is unfolding in Sudan,” Edgar said. “In April 2004, as the world commemorated the tragic Rwandan genocide of 1994, we all said we would never allow this to happen again. Yet we are faced today with another horror that is clearly preventable. ... Getting arrested for this cause is the very least one could do to bring attention to the urgency of this situation. ...

       “We must face the fact that time grows dangerously short for action. As our governments hesitate to do what is right, the loss of precious lives accelerates with each passing week.”

       Fauntroy was arrested last week. Congressman Charles Rangel of New York was arrested Tuesday. CSI said further acts of civil disobedience are planned.