The last three weeks have been jam packed for the UMass Save Darfur Campaign, especially the last few Wednesdays, which is why this little blog hasn't been updated in awhile. This update will tell you all about these last few weeks and all about what's coming up.
News Updates:
The most recent news is that Omar al Bashir declared a ceasefire in Darfur earlier this week. This appears to be in response to the international criticism on behalf of the International Criminal Court and other foreign governments (see, all that petitioning DOES make a difference!). It is not the first ceasefire, by any means, and it was negotiated soley by al Bashir's government, without the imput of any rebel groups, but it's still a somewhat positive sign.
Meanwhile, the international community is starting to pay a good deal of attention to the ongoing violence in the Congo, in large part because of the involvement of Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi refugees in the conflict, and because of the attention paid by the United Nations. This is good, but it isn't enough. In the next month or so our group will be paying quite a bit of attention to the Congo (more on why later), so expect some updates on the situation there as well as the situation in Darfur for awhile.
For more information on both of these issues, head to the BBC at bbc.com.
What We've Been Doing These Last Few Weeks:
Earlier this month was our Pain By Numbers exhibit, which had "homemade" bodybags strewn across the campus Library Lawn representing the dead and dying in Darfur. It was a hugely successful event that got quite a bit of media attention, thirty dollars and something like three hundred petition signatures (bringing the total on our petitions to the presidential candidates to about 500 by the time we mailed them. We now have a new petition specifically for President Elect Barack Obama). All in all it was a very successful first event.
The next week was the week of the Election, and while the Save Darfur campaign didn't have any specific events that week, we are a part of MassPIRG, so many of our members were helping get people to polls, calling people to remind them to vote, and telling people where their polling places were. It was a very interesting experience, and we had a huge student vote turnout in the Amherst area, so that was also fairly successful.
Last weekend, six of our members went down to DC to attend a national conference and network with other STAND Chapters. STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Network is our other parent organization (in addition to MassPIRG - I don't know which is the mother or the father; let's say they're gender nuetral parents :D), and they hosted the conference, and a protest in Washington DC. Those who attended all say it was a very positive experience and we're excited about the connections that came out of that weekend.
Since then we've been planning our upcoming event, Beat the Genocide Out of Darfur, a benefit concert with eight artists including Kolot, the Dynamics and other musical acts. It should be a really fun time, this Thursday night, November 20th, from 7 to 9 pm in the Commonwealth Room of the Student Union at UMass. Admission and coffee are free; we will be selling baked goods and collecting petition signatures and donations for the Genocide Intervention Network. All the funds will go to easing the situation on the ground in Darfur and in Burma.
This weekend, tonight, specifically, we'll be travelling yet again - to Boston this time, where Harvard's STAND chapter will be holding a fundraiser dance. Event details are on Facebook but it's from 10 pm to 2 am tonight if you're interested in attending.
What's Coming Up:
STANDFast is on December 3rd. This is our biggest and most signficant event of the semester. Those of you who've been at UMass for a few years now might remember Darfur Fast, which happened last year. Well this year, it's been renamed STAND Fast because we're standing fast against genocide in places other than Darfur - Burma and the Congo, for example. The idea behind STAND Fast is that we encourage people to give up a luxury item for a day - that fourth cup of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, even a candy bar - and donate the money to the Genocide Intervention Network instead.
It might not seem like you're making a big difference, donating your $4.75 that you would have spent on that latte or dessert, but even $3 makes a huge difference in Darfur. That's because $3 is the amount of money it takes to fund one peacekeeper for one year to protect one woman. That means that your $3 will be saving one woman from being raped, beaten and horrifically abused for a whole year.
Larger donations go towards helping improve communications between Burmese towns, so that when one town has been attacked, the people in the next town recieve warning, and to helping in Darfuri camps in other ways, buying solar cookers, for example, that don't require firewood, so that no one has to leave the camps and risk murder or rape.
Like I said, this is really our final stand of the semester (pardon the bad pun there). We'll be hosting a series of small events culminating in the December 3rd event.
Which brings me to JOHN PRENDERGAST, and how he's COMING TO UMASS.
Prendergast is very well respected in the human rights activism community; he co-wrote Not On Our Watch with Don Cheadle and co-founded the ENOUGH project, in addition to working for the Clinton administration in the 90s.
AND HE'S COMING TO UMASS.
ON DECEMBER THIRD.
TO TALK ABOUT THE CONGO.
More details as they come, but mark your calendars now, because this is an amazing opportunity to get yourself informed about the ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
And Your Action:
Sign a Day One Petition. There are a number out there on the web, as well as some that MassPIRG has put together, so stop by the MassPIRG office if you have trouble finding one on the web. We need to let Barack Obama know that we heard him when he said he was making Darfur a priority. We need to let him know we read his words in the forward to Not On Our Watch.
We need to let him know we're still watching and listening and waiting for a real end to this genocide.
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