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| May 1, 2008 |
I was absolutely thrilled to MEET Bernard-Henry Levi, as I have admired him for a long time. When PEN offered the opportunity for us to give a talk together, I jumped at the chance. Over lunch we drafted the following statement which we read together following the talk last evening.
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Joint Declaration
Bernard Henri Levi
Mia Farrow
Given the paralysis of the international community in the face of mass atrocities ongoing in the Darfur region of Sudan for more than five years;
Given the egregious impunity of the Khartoum regime and its allies on the Security Council -- which have rendered toothless all resolutions to protect the people of Darfur and end the killing;
Given the most current ploy of Khartoum to place every possible obstacle in the path of an effective deployment of peacekeepers, including the perverse twisting of the words and the intentions of last July's UN resolution, which stated that the UN protection force should be "predominantly" of African origin, not "exclusively," as Khartoum would have it;
Finally, given the fact that the African countries providing the protection battalions lack, by their own admission, the technical and logistical capacity to ensure the success of their mission to protect the defenseless civilians of Darfur;
In the face of all this, we implore our governments - that is, the current French and American administrations -- to act without delay and to partner with those African battalions needing assistance and to provide them with the essential training, the logistical support, the trucks, helicopters, weapons, etc., without which their mission will only be a terrible farce.
We call on our respective governments to hear this appeal and take responsibility without, once again, hiding behind the mysteries and bureaucratic inertia of the UN.
This is possibly the last chance to put and end to the bloodshed in Darfur.