Rep. Walz Calls for World Community to More Urgently Press for Ending Genocide in Darfur

REP. WALZ CALLS FOR WORLD COMMUNITY TO MORE URGENTLY PRESS FOR ENDING GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

This week, the Save Darfur Coalition is sponsoring national "Global Days for Darfur." In Darfur, more than 200,000 people are dead and 2.3 million people have been displaced since the genocide began three years ago. Civilian killings are frequent and large-scale attacks, rape and torture are commonplace.

Rep. Tim Walz issued the following statement in support of the international movement to end the suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan. Walz is a past Belfour Fellow at the United States Holocaust Museum.

"The genocide in Darfur is unconscionable and unacceptable. We teach our students about the Holocaust and they repeat the phrase "never again" and yet again and again we as a government fail to prevent genocide. As the most powerful nation on earth, it is our duty to work to prevent genocide, to intervene when genocide begins and to recognize all instances of genocide, both past and present.

We witnessed progress last week when the Sudanese government announced it would accept the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force that is has opposed since November. The United States, in partnership with the rest of the international community must act with urgency to ensure peacekeepers enter and secure the region before the Sudanese government again changes its mind.

The world community has an obligation to the people of Darfur - including millions of suffering children - to not rest until the Sudanese government complies with international agreements and allows the full deployment of this new peacekeeping force.

I am humbled by the citizen activists across the world and in this country who fight daily for justice in Darfur and everywhere. I can only hope that Congress and the international community will follow their lead and work to end the genocide as quickly as possible."

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