Allan Gale, Associate Director of the Jewish Community Council, wrote "Confronting the Bloody Stain," which appeared in the Detroit Jewish News back on June 18, 2004.

There is a humanitarian crisis in Africa, in the Sudan that, in the memory of the fate of Europe's Jews in World War II, demands the attention of the Jewish community.

The Darfur region, located in the northwest part of the country; is home to a large population of black farmers. This region has been the site of a year long ethnic cleansing effort by Sudanese Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed. These groups have been uprooting farmers and destroying villages through the systematic use of rape, murder, razing of structures and crops and forced displacement.

One million people have been displaced. And there are reports that approximately 1,000 individuals are- being killed each week, many by forced starvation (a result of the deliberate denial of access to relief organizations. An immense, internally displaced population has been created. This violence, many observers believe, is primarily motivated by race; but there are economic and political considerations as-well. The attackers are attempting to "Arabize" the area by eliminating the presence of all black Africans.

The Janjaweed operate with the support of the Sudanese government which claims that it is acting to suppress an insurrection in the region. This situation has become even more urgent now because of the onset of the rainy season (June/September). If intervention does not take place immediately, seasonal conditions will make it impossible to truck in relief or aid workers for several months it is estimated that close to half a million people may perish as a result.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and President Bush must act. Both must show leadership on this issue. President Bush needs to clearly and publicly state that the violence in the Darfur region is ethnic cleansing. Such a declaration will solidify national and international support for an intervention to stop the violence and send in human rights investigators. In the Sudan Peace Act of 2002, Congress declared that the Sudanese government had committed acts of genocide. The U.S Commission on International Religious Freedom found evidence of genocidal atrocities against civilian populations there.

Let us act together quickly, so that this new century does not carry the bloody stains of the previous one.