May 22, 2005

The Reverend Roger Fritts

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church

Bethesda, Maryland

All of us struggle with issues in our lives. One saying I carry around in my head is: "Be kind. Nearly everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." In the last week:

Much of our lives we spend trying to deal with such hard battles. We turn to religion for help. We find strength in prayer, in community and in singing together. And religion reminds us that even if we are fighting a hard battle, part of being a good human being is helping others. World religions have many stories about the responsibility that we have for others. The most famous one in our culture is the story of the good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke.

Of course, sometimes the struggles in our lives are so difficult that all we can do is try to take care of ourselves. However, most of the time our struggles are not totally consuming. Most of the time we can devote some of our time and energy to helping others, even helping strangers who may live on the other side of the world. It turns out that when we do this, when we help others, we often feel happier about our lives, especially if we feel that what we have done has been effective.

This morning I want to offer you a chance to help the people of Darfur. The late Illinois Senator Paul Simon said:

If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different.

Today I would like to send a hundred letters to a key leader of the House and to the President. I want to send copies to our Maryland Senators and the member of the House who represents the district in which our church is located.

Less then a year ago I first heard about the crisis in Darfur. I learned that hundreds of thousands of refugees were fleeing to Chad as Janjaweed militias carried out killings of African villagers. I learned that the Darfur conflict started in February of 2003 in the region of western Sudan. I read that Sudan has enormous oil reserves, and may soon become the richest country in Africa selling oil primarily to the Chinese. Still, right now the people of Darfur are very poor. Their lives are almost entirely dedicated to subsistence agriculture or livestock herding. Northern Darfur is becoming more of an arid desert region with little vegetation because of a twenty-five-year drought and because of over grazing by animals. In recent years the nomads of the Northern Darfur area, who take their livestock from the dry north to better water and grazing lands in the south during the dry season, have been moving into southern Darfur earlier and earlier. This has brought them into conflict with the farmers in the south. Herds of camels or cattle trampled on and consumed the farmers" crops. The Sudanese government leaders come mostly from the nomadic tribes and they support the nomads. To protect their water wells, crops, homes, and families from incursions by the nomadic raiders riding camels or horses, the farmers formed a militia.

In early 2003 the farmers, angry about the government support of the nomadic tribes, attacked government forces and installations. The government, caught by surprise, had very few troops in the region. Since many Sudanese soldiers were of Darfur origin, the government distrusted many of its own units. So the Sudanese government mounted a campaign of aerial bombardment of the farmers’ villages. These aerial bombings supported ground attacks by a militia, the Janjaweed, recruited from local nomad tribes and armed by the government. Estimates of the number of people who have died so far in this war range between 60,000 and 400,000.

In early July 2004, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Sudan and the Darfur region. He urged the Sudanese government to stop supporting the militias. July 23, the United States Senate and House of Representatives passed a joint resolution declaring the armed conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur to be genocide and called on the Bush administration to lead an international effort to put a stop to it. On September 9, US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared to the US Senate that genocide was occurring in Darfur, for which he blamed the Sudanese government. President Bush issued a statement condemning the killings and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for the refugees.

Other countries also got involved. Starting last July, the African Union provided peace keeping troops. The African Union includes fifty-three countries as members, covering most of the continent of Africa. The number of AU troops has grown from the first group of 300 peacekeepers to more than 2,000 troops by this March.

All this was not enough to stop the dying. By last fall most of the attacks on the villages had ended, but still the refugees are afraid to return home. At the same time President Bush appears to have backed away from his statements of last September. Mr. Bush has not mentioned Darfur in a public statement since January.

Over the winter and spring frustration grew among persons in the United States concerned about Darfur. The Jewish community in the United States has provided much of the strong leadership on this issue because of their strong feeling that we all have a moral obligation to always speak out against the mass killing of men, women and children. On March 2, United States Senators Jon Corzine and Sam Brownback introduced the Darfur Accountability Act. The bill seeks:

Representative Donald Payne of New Jersey introduced a similar bill in the House. As a believer in non violence, I checked to see if the Quakers were supporting the Darfur Accountability Act and I found that they are supporting it.

On April 22, the Darfur Accountability Act passed the Senate unanimously as part of a supplemental appropriation bill. However, on May 5 congressional leaders removed the Darfur Accountability provisions from the appropriation bill.

The House bill on Darfur is languishing in a new "super" subcommittee on the International Relations Committee called "Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations." The chair is Congressman Chris Smith. The most effective thing we can do about Darfur right now is send letters to Congressman Smith, urging him to mark up bill 1424. In other words urge him to put a bill in final form and report it out for a vote by the House. Mr. Bush is backing away from leadership on Darfur so we also need to send a letter to the President.

[Inserted in the order of service were two sample letters below, They were not read as part of the sermon.]

Sample letter to President Bush,

I want to thank you for your excellent September 9, 2004, statement on the violence in Darfur. Like you, the violence appalls me and I applaud your having provided more than $461 million in aid and humanitarian relief. I support your work to end the conflict by helping to broker a cease-fire and work closely with the African Union to deploy monitors and soldiers to investigate violations.

Therefore, I was sorry to read in the New York Times on May 3 that "the Bush Administration is fighting to kill the Darfur Accountability Act." I was sorry to read statements from Senator Jon Corzine and Congressperson Donald Payne that you refuse to support the Act.

I encourage you to support the Darfur Accountability Act. The bill, passed by the Senate, calls for sanctions against the Sudan and the establishment of a special presidential envoy to the region.

I also encourage you to continue to provide aid and relief for the people of Darfur. USA Today, on May 17, quoted the World Food Program as saying that "its Darfur operation is ‘severely under funded’ and has received only $281 million (84% from the United States) of the $467 million it needs for 2005. But as many as 3.25 million Darfuris may need to be fed this summer—twice the current number—as the rains begin and Darfuris’ food stores run out."

You have my full support in using my tax dollars to help these hungry people.

Sample letter to Congressperson Chris Smith, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Africa:

Congressman, on March 17 the committee you chair heard testimony from Brian Steidle, a former U.S. marine who helped African Union peacekeeping forces in Sudan’s western Darfur region. Mr. Steidle showed photographs of people killed by Janjaweed militia and Sudanese government helicopters assisting in attacks: He said, "This individual had been hit in the head, a direct shot by a rocket from a helicopter gun ship. It is common practice for the Janjaweed to lock people in their huts, pull the door shut, before they burn the huts down and this is the result. A helicopter gun ship flying over the village of Labado after just recently firing. This village is no longer there."

I strongly urge you to lead your committee to mark up Bill 1424, the Darfur Accountability Act. You have a reputation as a man who will choose principle over the party line. Jesus taught us to work together for the common good of all. Please make the passage of this bill the highest priority of your committee.

[The sermon continued:]

Evelyn Falkowsi sent the sample letters to Ambassador Princeton Lyman, a member of the UN Association National Capital Area Board, who has served in Africa and was Assistant Secretary of State for International Affairs during the Clinton administration. She sent me his reply Friday evening after the sample letters were already printed, and I want to share with you his words.

Dear Evelyn:

. . . re the proposed letter, the tough issue here is the balance between accountability (impunity) and conflict resolution. It is perfectly understandable that many, including the members of the United Nations Security Council, (UNSC) want the perpetrators of war crimes, etc. in Darfur referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and otherwise sanctioned. On the other hand, some of these same perpetrators are critical to political resolution of the crisis, and must be part of the negotiations. If the Darfur bill constrains the Administration re the latter, then those in Administration involved in the negotiations would naturally oppose it (I have not studied the bill in detail). It is also true that some of the rebels in Darfur are guilty of these crimes, making the issue even more complicated. Note that the Africa Union recently rejected the UNSC’s referral of perpetrators to the ICC, stating that there would be an African solution to this matter: the real reason for this is that the AU feels it cannot conduct negotiations with the Sudanese Government if possible ICC indictments hang over everyone’s head.

This is always a difficult issue. I would suggest that the letter urge the Administration to work with the Congress in a way that maintains the objective of accountability in the bill without constraining efforts to bring about peace.

Princeton N. Lyman

Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow and Director of Africa Policy Studies Council on Foreign Relations

Congressional staff members have told me they count handwritten letters, and a congressman receives a report of that count. A hundred hand written letters will get the attention of a member of congress. On the other hand I am sorry to report Congressional staffs ignore groups of identical letters. Therefore, if you simply sign your name to the sample letter in the order of service, the summer intern who looks at your letter will very likely ignore it.

Because of the anthrax scare, the best way to send a letter is by fax. We have a fax machine in the church and we will be happy to fax your handwritten letter, with your name an address clearly printed.

If you can, include a sentence about your connection to the issue. You might start your letter off by saying "I have worked in the field of international development," or you might say "I have been in a war," or you might say "as a parent I look at the pictures of children dying from preventable illnesses in camps. I feel something must be done."

Passing the Darfur Accountability Act will not fix all the problems in Darfur. Over at least the next eighteen months even with aid from the United States and other countries, the people in Darfur face a difficult existence. If they can get back to their villages within the next year, if they can plant crops for next year’s rainy season, and if they can harvest those crops in October 2006, they can feed themselves. So it is possible that by the fall of 2006 life in Darfur could return to something resembling normal.

All of us fight hard battles during our lives. We turn to religion for help. We find strength in prayer, in singing together, and in community. And religion reminds us that even if we are fighting a hard battle, part of being a good human being is helping others. Most of the time, our struggles are not totally consuming, and we can devote some of our time and energy to helping others. Our religious tradition is rooted in the story of the good Samaritan. The story says to us that we should not look away when others need our help. It turns out that when we do this, when we held others, we often feel happier about our lives.

So, after we sing the closing hymn, I invite you to sit right here right now and take a few moments to write two letters, one to President Bush and one to Congressman Chris Smith. Our task force has paper and pens. Use your hymnal as a hard surface. My goal is to FAX at least a hundred letters to President Bush and Representative Smith, with copies to our Maryland senators and representative. Please print your name and address clearly so that you will get a reply.

Remember, the late Illinois Senator Paul Simon said:

If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different.