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May 15, 2006 Norton Being Arrested at Sudan Embassy on Tuesday

May 16, 2006

Norton to Repeat Her Leadership in South Africa Embassy Arrests by
Being Arrested at Sudan Embassy on Tuesday
May 15, 2006

Washington, DC—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who was a leader with three others in the Free South Africa movement and arrests that got Ronald Reagan to sign the sanctions bill, will be arrested tomorrow (Tuesday, May 16, 2006) with a delegation of Congressional Black Caucus and other civil rights leaders in front of the Sudanese Embassy (2210 Massachusetts Avenue, NW) at 10 am. Norton said arrests now are every bit as important as they were to the South Africa movement, considering that “announcements of progress on Darfur have yielded only further setbacks as the genocide has proceeded.” She cited the delay in getting either an African Union or a NATO peace keeping force; the Sudan government resistance to any new developments; and peace agreements that have no hope of bringing peace, including the most recent agreement signed by the government that had only one of the three rebel factions willing to sign and not even the largest of the three. Rations are so scarce that the World Food Program has cut in half individual rations from 2,100 calories a day to 1,050 calories.

Norton said, “After Rwanda, we said ‘never again’ but the genocide and rapes have not diminished and never again has come and gone. We have no less an obligation here than we had in South Africa to do much more to heighten awareness. If anything, the continuation of unabated genocide and unthinkable abuse of women and children creates an even greater urgency.”