Darfur Week begins next Monday

For a crisis involving accusations of genocide, the conflict in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region… For a crisis involving accusations of genocide, the conflict in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region has gotten little attention from the media and the general public in the United States, according to one group of student-activists.

By the end of next week, Students Taking Action Now in Darfur hopes to have helped change that.

Darfur Awareness Week – a five-day campaign sponsored by Pitt’s newly formed chapter of STAND, with help from student groups Hillel and Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment and Amnesty – will take place on campus from March 27-31.

“We’re trying to spread to the CMU campus, but for the most part it’s taking place at Pitt,” STAND member Doug Placais said.

Darfur, a region in northwestern Sudan, has been devastated by civil war since 2003, when movements in the country attacked Sudan’s Arab-dominated government because of government policies felt by many non-Arabs to be discriminatory.

The Sudanese government responded by sponsoring armed Arab militias to quell the rebellions, an action that has led to mass genocide carried out throughout Darfur by the militias, including the deaths of 400,000.

Outside actions to stop the fighting have been limited thus far, with just 7,000 African Union troops and monitors attempting to aid with a cease-fire.

Besides raising general public awareness about Darfur, another prerogative of Darfur Awareness Week is to help spur public support for pressuring President George W. Bush to take more decisive action regarding Darfur.

“President Bush has done a minimal amount [on the Darfur crisis],” said Emily Haimowitz, the chairperson for STAND. “For a very long time he didn’t do anything. He has started to acknowledge the Darfur crisis recently, but he hasn’t done enough. He could do a lot more.”

One ongoing awareness campaign that STAND is promoting is part of a national drive called “Million Voices for Darfur.”

It aims to get 1 million postcards (already addressed to President Bush) signed. Every postcard has a message on it urging Bush to support sending a stronger multinational force to help end the conflict in Darfur.

“We try to get some actual attention and pressure put on the president,” Placais said.

Another effort to get people thinking about Darfur is using the color green as a symbolic color for Darfur Awareness Week. To this end, STAND has distributed green T-shirts that display information on Darfur and Darfur Awareness Week.

“The color green itself isn’t a reference to anything in particular,” Placais said. “We decided on this one color so that it will bring attention to us by association.”

Each day of Darfur Awareness Week will be marked by a different activity geared toward raising public awareness.

Monday will be STAND’s “call-in day.” From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., STAND will host tables with telephones in the Litchfield Towers lobby to encourage passersby to use their phones to call local representatives about Darfur issues. Phone numbers of representatives and basic information on Darfur will be provided.

Tuesday is the day for everyone who has bought one of STAND’s green T-shirts to wear them wherever they go throughout the day.

At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, retired Marine Captain-turned-Darfur activist Brian Steidle will be giving a lecture in the William Pitt Union’s Kurtzman Room on his firsthand experiences from Darfur.

The lecture is one stop in Steidle’s nationwide speaking tour of 22 cities in 11 states.

Steidle will supplement his lecture with rare photographs of the Darfur conflict taken by Steidle himself. The lecture is free and open to the public.

On Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., there will be a project organized by the Pitt student activist group FORGE, in which participants will dab their hands in green paint and cover the bridge over Forbes Avenue near David Lawrence Hall with lots of green handprints. Kleenex wipes will be provided.

For Friday, STAND is hosting “die-ins.” They are tentatively planned to take place in the Cathedral of Learning. At the “die-ins,” some participants will feign death to attract attention while others will talk to people about genocide in Darfur.

Outside of Darfur Awareness Week, STAND is also planning to get people to participate in the “Rally to Stop Genocide” on April 30 in front of the U.S. Capitol.

The rally is organized nationwide by the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 100 humanitarian and human rights groups.

STAND is also beginning a series of teach-ins in various classes at Pitt, which started earlier this week and will continue on through the remainder of the semester.

“At each teach-in, a STAND member will come and deliver basic information to educate people about the situation in Darfur,” Haimowitz said. “We’re scheduled for close to 10 teach-ins a week for the rest of the semester.”

STAND is one of Pitt’s newest student activist groups, with a current active membership of around 40 students.

“We just got certified around the beginning of February,” Haimowitz said. “So STAND just started this semester, and everything is new.”