Three USM students are concerned about genocide in Darfur.
Well, perhaps there are more than three, but in a year when involved students seem to be less involved than usual, and facing a lack of general knowledge about what’s happening in Darfur, three are trying to reenergize a student group dedicated to the issue.
The USM chapter of STAND (Students Taking Action Now Darfur), whose members include Alexandra Petropoulos, Aaron White and Joe Cerny, is trying to build up some recognition on campus and in the community to get more people engaged.
They’re optimistic that their group and a string of events they have scheduled over the next few weeks will get students thinking about Darfur, the western-most region of the northeast African country of Sudan.
With aid from the government of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the Arab militia, Janjaweed, has conducted a scorched-earth campaign against non-Arabs, using rape, starvation and mass murder across the country.
While the U.N. doesn’t call the Darfur conflict a genocide, saying in 2005 that “genocidal intent appears to be missing,” the Coalition for International Justice says that more than 400,000 have been killed and 2.5 million displaced.
Last week, STAND screened The Devil Came on Horseback on the Gorham campus. The film is about a photojournalist who spent over a year in the Darfur area.
This Tuesday, April 15, the Portland campus will welcome two Darfur refugees as guest speakers following a short STAND presentation on the issues.
The event, “Darfur: The Facts,” will be a chance for students and community members to hear from the refugees, who live in Portland and have experienced the genocide first hand.
“It’s kind of amazing how much people still don’t know about Darfur,” says Petropoulos. The three students hope that after hearing the stories of the two refugees, people won’t be able to ignore the problem anymore.
STAND will also be acting as USM representatives to a human rights rally on April 19 in Monument Square.
While the group has been concentrating on educating others in their on-campus events, the rally is where the real action begins.
Although the USM chapter is concentrating only on Darfur, the national movement is also pushing for action in Burma, Congo and other conflicts around the world.
In the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (officially called Myanmar), a Buddhist-majority nation, the regime in power is using its military to control and disrupt the lives of civilians. The Burmese Monks have been pushing for help and independence from the regime for years.
In the central African nation Congo, local armed militia groups are fighting attacks from the Congolese government. The conflict resembles what happened in Rwanda in the 1990’s between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples, is deeply rooted in the history of the country and has so far claimed roughly 4.5 million lives according to the International Rescue Committee.
While it’s going to take more than three USMers to enact change, STAND hopes their upcoming events will be a start.
Spreading the word about their group to other groups and departments on campus, they’re trying to spread their message and get their peers involved.
“We hope that people are responsive to it,” says Petropoulos, “and that they realize they really should know more — and do more.”