This announcement comes from the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of over 180 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations whose mission is to raise public awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and to mobilize a unified response to the atrocities that threaten the lives of more than two million people in the Darfur region.

Have you heard of divestment? It's one of the key tactics that was successfully used to end apartheid in South Africa.

It refers to the act of withdrawing investments from companies that support the genocide in Darfur by doing business with the government of Sudan and offers a powerful way to put economic pressure on the Sudanese government to cooperate with international efforts to end the genocide.

The good news is that divestment is already taking place in the United States. Eight courageous states (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont) have enacted divestment resolutions that will withdraw the states' pension funds from any companies doing business with Sudan.

The bad news is that the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) is trying to stop them!The NFTC recently successfully challenged Illinois's state divestment law in court, arguing that the state of Illinois was violating the Constitution by trying to conduct its own foreign policy in opposition to federal foreign policy.

Please help secure the rights of states to fight the genocide in Darfur by urging your Senators to support a new bill that would stop the NFTC's attacks. Click here to send a message to your Senators now.

This new bill, the Sudan Divestment Authorization Act, would make clear that state divestment is perfectly in line with U.S. foreign policy, thereby rendering the NFTC's argument moot, and protecting Illinois and other states from similar lawsuits. No state should be obligated to invest its citizens' retirement funds in genocide.

Please help make sure that your state has the right to fight the genocide in Darfur. Click here now to contact your Senators to urge them to support this new bill.

Thank you again for your dedication to ending the violence in Darfur.

Best regards,

David Rubenstein
Save Darfur Coalition

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From Sojourners:

Join Us This Weekend to End Genocide in Darfur

Religious groups from left to right have been deeply concerned about the genocidal killing that continues in Darfur, in the western area of Sudan. The US government has joined many others in the UN in calling for an end to the killing – so far, to little effect.

Nat Hentoff of The Village Voice now reports (based on earlier reporting by the Los Angeles Times) that "the CIA, with the blessings of the Bush administration, is closely connected to the horrifying government of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, the head perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Darfur." So while the White House offers humanitarian aid, it has not supported stronger action against the Sudanese government because it is working in partnership with Bashir to gain more intelligence information in its "war on terror."

The Sudan Advocacy Action Forum (SAAF) announces the launch of its new Web site at www.sudanadvocacy.com

Sharing news and advocacy information on Sudan, the site is a ministry of The Sudan Advocacy Action Forum, organized as a Christian grassroots effort to advocate for a just and lasting peace in Sudan.

SAAF is comprised of dedicated individuals with complementing skills who have come together to increase advocacy efforts and outreach focused on Sudan. Rapid growth of SAAF has come through the PCUSA, Reformed Church in America, and individual congregations of other denominations and non-denominational groups. While SAAF gets administrative support from the Presbyterian Church (USA), it is an ecumenical group primarily of Christians united in the same goal to work together to achieve a just and lasting peace in Sudan.

We've received this plea from FaithfulAmerica.org -- "an online community of people of faith who want to build a more just and compassionate nation."

In Darfur, Sudan, 1,000 people are dying every day, and that number is rising. Over one million black Africans have been bombed and burnt out of their villages, and their crops and water supplies destroyed by Arab "Janjaweed" militias. The Government-backed Janjaweed surround the refugee camps and block life-giving food and medicine getting through. Anyone leaving is raped or killed.

The US Government estimates that 370,000 human beings are already dead or certain to die of starvation in these extermination camps. Up to 1 million could die within the next few months.

As people of faith and members of the human family, we cannot let this horror continue. Our government's response so far has been slow and weak. Only an immediate international humanitarian intervention to protect the people of Darfur and ensure aid gets to them will stop the slaughter. Click below to send a fax to Congress telling them to vote for the bi-partisan House and Senate Resolutions demanding the US take these actions to stop the genocide in Darfur:

http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M6462004431215247529555&iEvent=53987

We must act now. The people of Darfur need a miracle, and are praying for it. We must ask ourselves whether we are the instruments through which that miracle can happen.

Just click here to send a fax to your representative and senators.

The faith community has mobilized to address this moral outrage. Daily, peaceful protests at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington DC have echoed protest tactics used against Apartheid in South Africa. Religious leaders, celebrities and political leaders are being arrested each day in acts of civil disobedience, including Reverend Bob Edgar, Congressman Charlie Rangel, and actor Danny Glover.

Blessings,
The FaithfulAmerica.org Team

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has provided $100,000 from One Great Hour of Sharing and designated funds to help in the relief efforts.

Click here to read the latest report, and to send your own contribution.

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The U.S. can help end the genocide in Darfur

Writing in the Boston Globe, John Shattuck says that it's very late, but still not too late for the United States to act to stop the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. First we must put aside partisan differences, for many conservatives (including conservative Christians) are already acting to help in the situation, and others can join them. Second, we must push for strong international action - and the recent visit by Secretary of State Colin Powell suggests that he can be urged to exercise strong leadership, both in Washington and in the UN.

And finally, he says, " we should recognize this as an opportunity for the United States to begin to reestablish its role in the world as a defender of human rights."

John Shattuck, author of Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response, is CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

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A background report:  Ethnic cleansing in Darfur threatens peace negotiations in Sudan

Leon Spencer, in an article posted by the Presbyterian Washington Office, traces the complex roots of the current crisis in Sudan, and especially in the area of Darfur.

In one grim sentence he sums it up: "It is the classic situation of Sudan: political marginalization, a mono-cultural approach to a multi-cultural reality, insecurity, severe underdevelopment, religious persecution, and human rights abuses."

He sees some hope in growing international involvement in the situation - by the UN and the African Union - and tentative steps toward a cease-fire.