Ride Against Genocide: End the Genocide in Darfur, Sudan

August 2005

We the undersigned, residents of Canada and America and citizens of many countries, deplore the atrocities being committed upon the peoples of Darfur by the Government of Sudan and its allied janjaweed militias.

Since the spring of 2004 we have seen the world community, as represented by various international groupings, express disapproval, conduct investigations, and make threats. And yet these organizations, the United Nations and the African Union, have undertaken troop and observer deployments that have proven to be unconscionably slow and unacceptably limited in their size, mandates and scope of action.

We find these international measures no significant improvement over the policies in force that failed to prevent or even slow down the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

We furthermore submit that soundings of popular opinion and other surveys of our suffrage indicate that we are willing to accept far stronger and more rapid use of our joint military assets in the pursuit of security and peace in Darfur.

We therefore urge the Governments of Canada and the United States of America to join together in the following measures:

1. To monitor aggressively and thoroughly the NATO support of the African Union Mission in Sudan announced as having begun this summer, and to give weekly reports to the public on the progress of these planning, training, transportation, communication, and supply activities. We find the current official timetable for these activities completely unjustifiable and unacceptable. It is likely to contribute to deaths, rapes, and further subjugation of innocent civilians throughout the summer of 2005, things that do not have to happen if NATO acts with the speed that it did in Kosovo.
2. To secure a mandate for any troops deployed that will allow them to protect civilians and aid workers with all the means the local commanders deem necessary.
3. To secure passage and enactment of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act in America and a similar Act in Canada.
4. To encourage all other peoples and their Governments to join in these measures designed to bring justice, an atmosphere of security, and hope for a better future to Darfur and to all the peoples of Sudan.