850 Students from 46 States Urge Congress to End Genocide in Darfur
Genocide Intervention Network
More than 850 Students from 46 States Urge Congress to End Genocide in Darfur, Sudan
Demand Emergency Funding of Peacekeepers and NATO Support
?Americans Have the Will to Stop Genocide, and Congress Has the Means’
April 28, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — Several hundred college and high school students are meeting here today, pledging to continue their leading role in the anti-genocide movement and meeting with their elected officials to demand they take real action on stopping the genocide in Darfur.
The day represents the beginning of the largest anti-genocide effort in history, and culminates with a national march in dozens of cities across the county. It is being sponsored by two national anti-genocide organizations, the Genocide Intervention Network and Students Taking Action Now: Darfur.
“Americans have the will to stop genocide, and Congress has the means,” says Erin Mazursky, executive director of STAND.
Students are pressing their representatives and senators on the responsibility of the United States to protect civilians from genocide when a government – in this case the genocidal government of Sudan – is unwilling to do so. Noting that this past Tuesday was Holocaust Remembrance Day, students urged political leaders to make their convictions concrete.
“America must follow through on its promise of ?never again,’” says GI-Net Chief Executive Mark Hanis, the grandson of Holocaust survivors. “Congress has already declared the violence in Darfur to be genocide, now it must decide whether it wants to do anything about it.”
Prior to meeting with their elected officials, students were trained by Rob Gustafson, a former congressional chief of staff, and John Prendergast, senior advisor at the International Crisis Group.
In a speech to kick off the day, GI-Net Student Coordinator Bryan Collinsworth said the movement was “absolutely unprecedented.”
“Never before, in the face of mass atrocities, have we heard such a forceful and immediate outcry from everyday students,” he said. “If we’ve been inching the world closer to stopping genocide, we come here this weekend to give it the biggest shove it’s ever had. … You’ll tell [representatives and senators] that the time for complacency, for gradualism, for foot dragging, for anything but immediate and overwhelming action is over.”
In a poll from March, Zogby revealed that seven in ten Americans back a no-fly zone to prevent the government of Sudan from assisting genocidal militias from the air, and believe the United States should be more active on protecting civilians.
The events will continue on Saturday, April 29, as Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard professor Samantha Power will begin a day of training in organizing local anti-genocide groups. On Sunday, the students will join tens of thousands of others for the Rally to Stop Genocide on the National Mall.
Contact:
– Ivan Boothe,
Director of Communications
– e-mail: [email protected]
– Phone: 202.481.8220