62 Nobel Laureates Urge President Bush, Other World Leaders to Push for UN Peacekeeping Force to Implement Darfur Peace Accord

62 Nobel Laureates Urge President Bush, Other World Leaders to Push for UN Peacekeeping Force to Implement Darfur Peace Accord

 Also Urge Bush to Appoint “Presidential Envoy for Peace in Sudan”

New York – Sixty-two Nobel Prize winners have signed letters to President George W. Bush, leaders of the African and European Unions, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the UN Security Council Ambassadors of China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom calling for the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force to Darfur under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Chapter VII empowers the UN Security Council to take extraordinary measures that “restore international peace and security.”

“In Darfur, humankind’s center of suffering today, men, women and children are uprooted, starved, tortured, mutilated, humiliated, and massacred,” said Professor Elie Wiesel who established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity shortly after winning the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, which released the text of the letter. “Not to offer our help, not to urge our governments to intervene would place us on the wrong side. That thought is intolerable to us all.”

While commending the Darfur Peace Agreement signed on May 5 in Abuja, Nigeria, the Nobel Laureates noted that “Much more needs to be done to create conditions for meaningful implementation of the accord,” calling for a force “large enough to serve as an effective deterrent” and with “the tools to do the job.”

The Nobel Laureates urged the international community to stay involved in Darfur lest the accord unravel and conflict further intensify. They called on President Bush to designate a “Presidential Envoy for Peace in Sudan” to work with the Government of Sudan and Darfur’s rebel factions to ensure the full implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement and continuation of the Darfur peace process.

In addition, the Nobel Laureates called on donors, including Persian Gulf States, to provide additional funds for humanitarian, resettlement, and development assistance. Finally, they urged the UN Security Council and International Criminal Court to hold perpetrators of atrocities accountable.

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