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May 28, 2005

Important Follow-Up

Dear Friends,

As you probably already know, the Sudanese government is supporting a genocidal campaign against non-Arab Africans in its own country. It is now estimated that 400,000 people (mainly women and children) have been killed so far, and possibly 2 million left homeless.

Thanks to all of you who have responded to my messages about this, contacting your Senators and Congressmen (remember, www.congress.org lists all the contact info) and the President to demand that the US take a lead in helping to stop the madness. Please do that now if you have not done so already.

At a meeting in Ethiopia over the last few days, several countries pledged nearly $300 million to finance a bigger African Union force to help end the fighting. The African Union had requested $466 million, in order to triple the size of its force. Interesting statistics:

Canada gave $133 million

The US gave $50 million (In comparison, we're spending billions in Iraq)

Britain gave $12 million

For more information, you might want to check out www.darfurgenocide.org, or of course just Google Darfur, etc.

Don't forget that on the weekend of September 11, we're having our Dept. of Peace Conference in Washington DC http://www.dopcampaign.org/events/sept_conf_05.htm. I hope you'll be there. In the words of the late French philosopher Albert Camus, "Peace is the only battle worth waging."

Love,

Marianne

Posted by mwblog at May 28, 2005 06:06 PM