End the Genocide in Sudan, Now

New York, August 2, 2004 —Following the reported genocide currently going on in the southern Sudan by the militia supported by the government, Freedom and Justice International, Inc. together with Africans In America, Inc. are calling on the global community to swiftly send troops in and take other measures to end the killings, immediately.

We wish to remind the international community that even though the Europeans and American government abolished slavery in their soil in the 19 th and 20 th centuries, most African countries, as of today, have no laws in their legal statute prohibiting slavery and human trafficking.

When the Americans and Europeans governments abolished slave trade, African slave merchants were still capturing slaves and convincing the Americans and Europeans merchants to buy.

We wish to remind the global community that it took the intervention of British and French Foreign Regions who went into the hinterland of Africa to stop Africans from supplying ‘commodities’ during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Even though Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was abolished on the surface, various forms of slavery including but not limited to apartheid, Sudanese slave trade, inter-tribal conquest and human trafficking, just to name a few, continued.

We wish to state that, this very fact informs the lukewarm attitude of most African countries in addressing the issue of slavery and human trafficking, because, most of them are guilty of these practices, as of today.

We urge the global community to discard the so-called African solution proposed by some leaders, because, that will amount to whitewash and cover-up.

We believe that the forces, resources, and methods used by the Western world to stop Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Africa in the 20 th century should be applied today.

What is happening in Sudan should not be subjected to the delays of international or regional politics and diplomacy; it should be treated with utmost urgency, which genocide deserves.

Freedom and Justice International, Inc. is human rights, pro-democracy, anti-corruption, social and economic justice organization based in New York. Our mission is to engage in generating awareness, resources and coordinating activities to promote freedom, address injustice, and exploitation of people of continental Africa and Africans in Diaspora.

Africans In America, Inc. is dedicated to providing social services, self-empowerment and community awareness to the underserved and economically disadvantaged African communities in the New York metropolitan area. One of our primary purposes is to end the abuse of survivors of trafficking, especially women and girl children from Africa living in the United States.