Mr. Chair, I rise impressed by the participation of members in this debate. I think it indicates that Canadians and our parliamentarians are seized of the urgency of the crisis, what I would personally call a genocide, in Darfur.
I know that bureaucrats, diplomats and countries at the UN are arguing over the application of the term genocide. In this instance it is self-evident. As the member for Mount Royal reminds us, we gathered in front of this place to mark the Yom Hashoah last week. Last week we also had a Prime Minister with the courage to join Canada's voice with those of certain other countries in recognizing the historical reality of the first genocide of the last century, the Armenian genocide.
In all these moments, in all these historic commemorations we always hear the repeated cry “never again”. Every time we hear that, we invite cynicism and skepticism. We invite a kind of total political cynicism because, as my colleague from Mount Royal points out, we have let genocide happen again and again in the past century. This is why this is a matter of moral and political urgency.
Speaking for myself and as a representative of my constituents, I will join with the voices of others here tonight to encourage the Government of Canada to take a leadership role internationally and, because of the prestige of Canada's name, to do all that can be done.
There is a debate about what can be done, in what sequence and with what speed. Let me remind us of the moral obligation here. We talk about numbers, about something like 215,000 Darfurians murdered, about another 200,000 dying from disease and malnutrition, the indirect consequences of these genocidal acts. Every one of those numbers represents individual human persons with an inviolable dignity, who have been either murdered or had their fundamental dignity unspeakably violated. For instance, UN reports indicate:
Between 5 and 7 March 2004, Sudanese military intelligence and armed forces officers accompanied by members of the armed militia, the Janjaweed, arrested at least 135 people in some 10 villages in Wadi Saleh province, in Western Darfur state... At least 135 men were then blindfolded and taken in groups of about 40, on army trucks to an area behind a hill near...village. They were then told to lie on the ground and shot by a force of about 45 members of the military intelligence and the Janjaweed.
I should mention, Mr. Chair, that I am splitting my time with the member for Kildonan—St. Paul.
In another instance in February 2004 there was an attack in Al-Fasher in north Darfur. In one case at least 41 school girls and female teachers were raped in the local school. Some of them were gang raped by at least 14 Janjaweed members, according to the testimony of survivors.
Some were abducted. Amnesty International met one of the survivors of this attack who said:
I was living with my family...and going to school when one day the Janjaweed entered the town and attacked the school. We tried to leave the school but we heard noises of bombing in the town and started running in all directions. All the girls were scared. The Janjaweed entered the school and caught some girls and raped them in the class rooms. I was raped by four men inside the school. When they left they told us they would take care of all of us black people and clean Darfur for good.
That is the reality with which we are dealing. It is not a garden variety political crisis. It is a genocide.
To quote the Hon. David Kilgour, who more than any Canadian has pressed our national conscience on this issue, in his speech yesterday in Toronto he quoted a scholar, Gamal Adam, who said:
Since the 1990s, (Khartoum’s) policy has aimed at relocating the indigeneous ethnic groups of Darfur from their home regions and settling Arabs in their areas in order to accelerate ‘Arabization’…It sent the Janjaweed to relocate the indigenous population and when individuals from (that) population organized themselves to defend…, the government (in Khartoum) response was the adoption of genocide because it was looking for a pretext for the destruction of the indigenous population of Darfur
Another African professor who visited Darfur recently noted that, “The Khartoum regime does not consider African Darfurians to be human beings”. It is that kind of evil that lays at the heart of the matter with which we are dealing. I agree with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Government of Canada that we must do everything possible to encourage and facilitate the peace talks currently underway with respect to the status of Darfur.
However, it is reasonable for all of us to suspect the long established pattern of Khartoum to ignore its legal obligations and political undertakings. For that reason, I hope that we will find a national consensus for Canada to lead an international consensus to do what is necessary and what is responsible in the near future to stop this slaughter before it becomes uncontrollable.