More Must Be Done in Darfur

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) discussed the need for a more effective approach to ending the genocide in Darfur at a rally in the National Mall this afternoon.

Today, we know what is right and we know what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong. Two million people driven from their homes is wrong. Women, gang-raped while gathering firewood is wrong. Silence, acquiescence, paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong…If you take a poll of senators and representatives, they will tell you that they too are against genocide. (The Bush) administration, unfortunately, has been better than many European nations in acknowledging the facts on the ground, which is a sad testimony to what is happening around the world. But for all that, not enough has been done and the facts on the ground remain the same.

Obama continued

A friend of mine who is no longer here, named Paul Simon (former Illinois senator) served for a time in the United States Senate. And he said something that bears on today. During the Rwanda crisis he said , “If a hundred people in every single congressional district had written to their senators and written to their representatives, then the atrocities that happened there would not have happened.”…

I know that if we care, the world will care. If we bear witness, then the world will know. If we act, then the world will follow. And in every corner of the globe, tyrants and terrorists, powers and principalities, will know that a new day is dawning and a righteous spirit is on the move, and that all of us, together, have joined hands to ensure that never again will these kinds of atrocities happen again.