Rep. Ellison on Apr. 27 before his arrest for civil disobedience (SaveDarfur.org)

Getting arrested for civil disobedience is “unbecoming” the office of U.S. Representative, said outgoing Minnesota GOP chair Ron Carey of Rep. Keith Ellison, who along with four other House Democrats was hauled off during a protest at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C., on Monday. But is it?

Ellison and seven others were arrested for crossing a police line Monday in protest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s decision to expel 16 international aid agencies from the country. In Sudan’s Darfur region, some 450,000 people have been killed since civil war began there six years ago. Ellison was arrested along with civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.); Donna Edwards (D-Md.); and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), as well as local activists.

“While we respect his advocacy for the cause of stopping genocide, members of Congress are offered no shortage of platforms to advocate for their passions that don’t involve crossing police lines and getting arrested,” said Carey in a statement. “This is a publicity stunt that is unbecoming of the office he holds and the responsibility he bears as a representative of Minnesota.”

But Jack Nelson Pallmeyer, an assistant professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas, disagrees: he thinks it’s well within Ellison’s role as legislator and that it fits the wishes of many in Ellison’s 5th Congressional District. Further, he thinks Ellison’s a patriot.

“That the Republican party would challenge one’s patriotism based on a creative act of civil disobedience shows a great ignorance of history,” he said. “The history of civil disobedience goes back to before the founding of the country. That’s what the Boston Tea Party was.”

“For me this is an extension of why we elected him,” he added. “I’m thrilled he would represent us in that way,”

Plus, many others have taken the same route — some at the same location, for the same cause. On Apr. 28, 2006, five Democratic legislators were arrested in front of the Sudan embassy in Washington, the same one where Ellison was arrested. The late Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the first Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, was arrested along with Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Jim Moran (D-Virg.), John Olver (D-Mass.), and Jim McGovern, who was arrested in Monday’s protest with Ellison.

“We have been calling on the civilized world to stand up and to say, ‘Enough,’ ” Lantos said at the time. “The slaughter of the people of Darfur must end.”

That was three years ago today — and five months before Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations excoriated world leaders for “shameful passivity” on Darfur.

The GOP’s Carey says the likes of Ellison have myriad “platforms to advocate for their passion.” Five years ago this summer, members of Ellison’s body had full access to one of them. In a “never again” moment, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution calling the killing in Darfur “by its rightful name: ‘genocide.’”

Given this history, it’s no surprise Ellison and his fellow congressional protesters are tired of waiting for more “becoming” ways of bringing relief to Darfur.

UPDATE: Ellison released a statement about the protest. Here’s part of it: “We encourage Khartoum to deliver on its promises to implement policy actions to end the deteriorating humanitarian crisis. We implore all countries to demand that the Government of Sudan respect and protect human rights and put an end to the acts of atrocities and crimes against humanity in Darfur.”

You can now do that from the comfort of your home, thanks to a new, interactive hot line. The Genocide Intervention Network launched the hot line in February.

When you dial 1-800-Genocide, a sophisticated computer system asks you to enter your ZIP code, then gives you the option to talk to congressional members, or your governor and local authorities.
That’s just the beginning. The system also provides the most up-to-date “talking points” on the genocide in Darfur.

“It’s revolutionary,” said Mark Hanis, executive director of the Washington-based network. “You can use the hot line to urge your elected officials to do something about Darfur with accurate statements.”

Minnesota is one of the network’s “key chapters,” said Hanis. More than 600 volunteers have made it possible for Minnesota to become one of 20 states that have enacted Sudan divestment legislation.

“We’ve a pretty robust network,” said Ellen Kennedy, the Minnesota coordinator.

Putting pressure on elected officials has paid off. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act by a near unanimous vote of 418-1. The bill is now in the Senate, where Kennedy says it has “significant support.”

Hanis said a big achievement for the Minnesota chapter is that it helped U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., improve his rating with the group. The group uses letter grades to evaluate elected officials’ engagement level to stopping the Darfur genocide.

Ramstad “used to have a C, he has a B now, but is on his way to an A,” said Hanis. That’s a “big victory from the productive engagement end.”

Resources:

On the web: http://www.mngin.org…

Upcoming events: Dr. Sam Totten, whose vast interviews in Darfur resulted in the U.S. decision to characterize the conflict as a “genocide,” will be speaking at the University of Minnesota on Oct. 11 and at Congregation Shir Tikvah on Oct. 12.

Democrats, he said, “want to get us out of Iraq but they can’t wait to get us into Darfur.”

What he said next, however, was brazenly out of context. “There are two reasons. What color is the skin of the people in Darfur? It’s black. And who do the Democrats really need to keep voting for them? If they lose a significant percentage of this voting block, they’re in trouble.”

“The black population,” said a caller, to which Limbaugh replied, “Right.”

Story continues…
In case you’re a little rusty on global issues, Darfur is a region in western Sudan where government-sponsored Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, is accused of massacring the non-Arab but Muslim tribes. The United Nations estimates that since 2003, more than a quarter million people perished in the conflict while some 2 million were forced out of their homes.

Unlike Iraq, where our unilateralism has run amok, the conflict in Darfur is a multilateral concern for the global community.

At a time when the United States desperately needs to reshape its disfigured image in the world, engaging in Darfur is a golden opportunity to atone for its gaffes in Iraq and regain its standing in the world.

That effort shouldn’t be partisan or color-coded; Black or not, the massacre in Darfur is an international disgrace to humanity.

But unbeknown to Limbaugh, the nation’s best-known conservative radio host, is that the U.S. government, under President Bush, described the conflict as “genocide,” a loaded legal term that forces the U.S. government to act.

It was almost four years ago when former Secretary of State Colin Powell led the administration’s drumbeat to “stop the genocide,” but the war in Iraq, which has since gone south, consumed the resources of the Bush team.

The inaction in Washington touched off an array of actions at the local level. In May, Minnesota became the 13th state to pass a Sudan divestment legislation aimed at choking Khartoum to halt the bloodletting in Darfur.

The point is that the Darfur issue has not only been bipartisan in nature, but global in spirit…, well, at least not counting Limbaugh.

But even if we take Limbaugh’s na

Years later, as a high school teacher, Walz took on a “gratifying and terrifying” project with his five classes: using data about economic, ethnic and environmental contexts around the world, they tried to predict where the next genocide would occur in hopes of preventing it. Four out of five classes determined that Rwanda was the most likely site of another genocide. Three years later, in 1994, as ethnic Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers were being executed — more than 500,000 would eventually die — his students called him up and asked, “Why didn’t anyone do anything? Why didn’t this government step in?”

On Sunday, Walz, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Keith Ellison and Dr. Michael Barnett gathered with more than 500 grassroots activists at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis to ask why a modern-day genocide continues in Sudan with little outrage

Former U.S. Senator Rudy Boschwitz laments that just 7,000 African Union troops are confronting the monumental task of averting genocide in a region of Sudan “about the size of Iraq… or Texas.” Meeting with the Minnesota Interfaith Darfur Coalition last week, the current UN Human Rights ambassador said, “We despair at what can be done.”

Politicians across the political spectrum–from Sen. Sam Brownback to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and even George W. Bush–have called the systematic killing, rapes, and destruction in Darfur “genocide,” a crime under international law that United Nations members have sworn to prevent.

So why, almost four years into the current conflict and 400,000 deaths later, are attacks backed by Sudan’s government continuing in Darfur? And what can be done to stop them?

A deeper understanding of Darfur’s precarious position shows a complicated confluence of interests and histories–and underscores how elusive hope for stability in the near future is. But as members of the interfaith committee meeting weekly at Minneapolis’ Temple Israel or activists at global organizations like the Genocide Intervention Network are finding, there are firm steps that can be taken in 2007. Whether they, if enacted, will make a difference is another matter.

Part 2 of a multipart series on Minnesota’s response to the Darfur crisis. Read Part I.

more in Darfur insideDarfur 101

Darfur, a region on the westernmost edge of the north African country of Sudan, is wedged between conflicting factions–racial, religious, economic. The government, based in the north central city of Khartoum, is controlled by Arabs, who comprise around 40 percent of the population. Southern Sudan, home to most of the country’s oil fields, is 60 percent African. Ever since Sudan gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1956, the south has sought greater autonomy and control of its resources and has mounted nearly continuous rebellions against the wealthy Khartoum government of the north.

A civil war, ended through pressure by the U.S. and U.N. in 2005, raged for 25 years over allocation of these oil resources, not to mention the tensions arising from nomadic north Sudanese whose camel-grazing needs bumped up against the established farms of the southern part of the country. Further, northern Sudanese are largely Muslim, while southern residents are predominantly Christians and animists.

To complicate matters further, says Dr. Ellen Kennedy, a sociologist and founder of the University of St. Thomas’ chapter of the Genocide Intervention Network, an anticipated secession by the south in 2011 puts the Khartoum government on edge. “The north is trying to get as much money out of those oil wells when the getting-out of those oil wells is good,

This week the UN’s departing humanitarian chief said Darfur is in “free fall” and outgoing UN head Kofi Annan decried the “shameful passivity” of world governments who have all but ignored this “new Rwanda.”

So: is American bipartisanship real in a legislative sense?

According to the Darfur Scorecard, run by the nonpartisan Genocide Intervention Network, the answer is a definitive “no.” It ranked every member of the House and Senate based on factors including votes on bills that could affect change in Darfur, from the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act to measures seeking to increase humanitarian aid. In both houses, those with the highest scores were overwhelmingly Democrats and those with the worst were Republicans.Eight of 10 members who received F scores were Republican, and congressional members receiving failing grades, D through F, included 164 Republicans and only 14 Democrats. On the other hand, politicians with scores of A and A+ were also mostly Democrats: 120 Democrats versus 19 Republicans (independents Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders are also in this group).

In Minnesota, however, Senators Norm Coleman and Mark Dayton both scored As. In the House, Republicans Gil Gutknecht and John Kline bottomed the rankings with Ds. Topping the list were Betty McCollum with an A+ and Oberstar with an A.

Partisanship, of course, isn’t the issue: change for the civilians suffering in Darfur is. It’s been more than two years since George W. Bush announced that “The world cannot ignore the suffering of more than one million people” in Darfur.

As more than 1000 faith communities across the country are now observing a prayer weekend for Darfur, plan to check back here for Darfur news and analysis on whether the 110th Congress and its majority Democrats can do what the Republican House and Senate didn’t–bring relief to civilians in Darfur.

[Image via the American Refugee Committee's Darfur Project.]