“People Need to Go Where the Silence Is."

Douglas Graves © 2009
Published in the Bethlehem [PA] Press March 4, 2009
“They raped 40 girls and their teachers,” said the Darfuri woman in the film shown at Bethlehem’s Congregation Brith Shalom Feb. 11. “They were bleeding. I saw them.”
About 40 area residents, mostly middle aged to elderly — and several teenagers, gathered to watch “One Night, One Voice,” a film that posits Sudan is using rape as a weapon of war.
The meeting was sponsored by the local chapter of the Save Darfur Coalition.
Liberty High School student Sam Newman was there with his mother, Tova Goldstein.
“I read ‘The Translator’ and it opened my eyes about Darfur,” Newman said.
The group was encouraged by the report of an arrest warrant issued that day for Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. No arrest seems imminent.
Hosted by Rabbi Allen Juda, the local premier of the film was one of 200 simultaneously seen across the United States.
Monsignor John Mraz of Emmaus’ St. Ann Parish read passages urging mercy and forbearance from the teachings of the great religions rooted in the Holy Land.
Patti Price of Moravian College said the 7,500-member African Union force is on the verge of collapse.
The 22,500 UN peacekeepers were not allowed by Khartoum to be stationed in Darfur. “Without this force, there is little or no security on the ground,” said Price. Darfur is about the size of France.
She said that while estimates vary, 400,000 people have died. Besides the violence, illness, malnutrition, and neglect, rape is widely used as a weapon of war.
The camera fixed on the burned bodies of two children, their torsos sprawled in the desolate brown dust; their youth confirmed by a delicate hand sticking out of a torn sleeve that carbonized close to the blackened torso. The child’s face was burned away. The other’s head, also black in the dirt, was charred and laying some inches away from its sunken, sooty torso.
“The Janjaweed came and burned them alive,” testified another woman. “[They were] throwing the children to the fire.”
“The children are being abused with something as dirty as this,” said Rose Laxar from Tamaqua, as she signed a “Save Darfur” petition.
Projected on the screen were eight dead infants, their heads just visible under a straw mat covered with light green brush held down by stones.
“When someone rapes a woman,” said Adrianne Fricke, an international human rights attorney speaking in the film, “they rape her entire tribe. It’s considered, in the traditional sense, the deepest affront. By raping a woman in front of her male relatives it ensures the destruction of the fabric of that family.”
“There is no justice for the women of Darfur,” said the narrator.
“There has been just one rape conviction in Sudan and that was because of a confession,” said Dr. Kelly Askin, a moderator on the telecast.
“The stigma on women gives power to the rapists,” said Dr. Askin. “We need to be taking the stigma and putting it on the rapists.”
“Help Darfur” petitions to the new president were being circulated by earnest young women.
Charlie Vaccaro and Miranda Johnson displayed a tinfoil cardboard-backed solar cooker as an example of a simple gift that will give employment to Darfuri women while reducing their need to risk attack and rape while foraging for firewood.
Jim Powers of Allentown, a retired airline pilot, spoke quietly with several people after the film. “I work for Air Serv International,” he said, “We fly aid workers all over Darfur. The roads are dangerous.”
“People need to go where the silence is,” said Maria Bella, an actor from Pennsylvania and member of the televised discussion panel. Another panelist quoted Ellie Wiesel: “What hurts the victim the most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.”
April is Genocide Prevention Month. Go to www.savedarfur.org. Call 1-800-GENOCIDE to leave a message for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Call 888-473-7885, Extension 1 to record a message that will be broadcast to the women in Darfur. Contact Rabbi Juda at 610-866-8990 for more information.