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By Rebecca Smith ’99
 In December 2004, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy ’80, founding member
of Saints Francis & Therese Catholic Worker in Worcester, traveled
to the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan as part of a four-member Catholic
Worker Peace Team.
Considered by the United Nations as the world’s worst current
humanitarian crisis prior to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake , the
tragedy in Darfur has resulted in an estimated 70,000 people dead and
1.8 million forced into refugee camps.
The peace team was comprised of Holy Cross alumna Brenna Cussen ’00,
member of the St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker, South Bend, Ind.; alumnus
Christopher Allen-Doucot ’89, c-founder of the St. Martin de Porres
Catholic Worker, Hartford, Conn.; and Grace Ritter, member of the Ithaca,
N.Y., Catholic Worker.
Home to Africa’s longest-running conflict, Sudan was ravaged
by 20 years of civil war between Arabs in the north and ethnic Africans
in the south. The country ’s Islamic government in Khartoum had
been accused of withholding wealth and autonomy from—as well as
discriminating against— Christian and animist Sudanese of African
origin. H ope for an end to the violence was restored when the two sides
signed peace accords in January.
However, in the western region of Darfur , ethnic Africans continue
to rebel against their government. Khartoum authorities have responded
by mobilizing militia groups, although they deny accusations of backing
the Janjaweed, an Arab militia group responsible for widespread abuses
against the black African population, including murder, rape and forced
slavery. The United States has accused the Janjaweed of committing genocide.
In an effort to garner more attention to and nonviolent intervention
in Darfur, the Catholic Worker Peace Team embarked on a mission to Sudan.
With $18,000 in the form of bread, clothes, blankets and peanuts, the
group distributed goods to appreciative residents of numerous camps
around the South Darfur town of Nyala .
According to Schaeffer-Duffy, small amounts of money were also distributed
to approximately 40 families, and donations were given to a Catholic
church, the Sudan Catholic Bishops Conference, and the Sudan Council
of Churches: “excellent groups doing terrific service work as
well as work for justice.”
After experiencing life in Darfur firsthand, Schaeffer-Duffy describes
the government in Khartoum as “quite repressive and in a very
real way totalitarian.”
In light of suppressive government restrictions, his team was able
to meet with various peace activists. Through these gatherings, the
peace team was advised that although a protest in Khartoum would be
squelched immediately, one held at the Sudanese embassy in Washington
, D.C. , would exert real pressure on the Sudanese government to end
its support of the Janjaweed and its campaign of genocide against
Africans in Darfur .
As a result, Schaeffer-Duffy’s group held a protest in Washington
, D.C. , in February.
The members of the team were particularly encouraged by a meeting
they had with activists from the grassroots peace-building group, Ayya
(Arabic for mother), which strives to bring African tribal chiefs and
Arab sheiks together for dialogue.
“The leaders at Ayya are eager to work with internationals,
and we hope to connect future delegations of peace activists with them,” Schaeffer-Duffy
explains, “We may also return next year ourselves to do more peace
work at the grassroots level.”
Looking ahead, the team is eager to give public slide presentations
on its trip with the hope of encouraging people to help those in Darfur’s
camps and to increase pressure on the government of Sudan to stop the
violence in that region.
Schaeffer-Duffy has an extensive background in nonviolent social activism.
With his wife, Claire, he is co-founder of Worcester’s Saints
Francis & Therese Catholic Worker, a community whose mission is
to t ry to identify Christ in the poor, downtrodden, oppressed and the
enemy. They provide food and shelter to the homeless and work to
promote peace and justice. Previously, Schaeffer-Duffy has participated
in or led peace campaigns in Nicaragua, Bosnia, India, Iraq and Israel-Palestine.
“All four of us in the Catholic Worker Peace Team were
heartbroken at the scope of the humanitarian disaster in Darfur,” he
says, “but simultaneously enamored of the beautiful people we
met there … In spite of their horrific poverty and vulnerability,
they smiled readily and had a terrific amount of dignity.”
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