Being a college student could have more of an effect on politics than one might think. While most leading politicians and journalists have remained silent on the issue of genocide, students and universities across the country are voicing their concerns about the issue.
In the absence of strong political leadership against genocide within the last year, students have launched highly successful and revolutionary initiatives to organize events, raise funds and build awareness.
At Brown, the student-run Darfur Action Network launched a lobbying campaign this week to persuade Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75, R-R.I., an important member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, to support the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. The act calls for sanctions against Sudan and a no-fly zone.
The Darfur Action Network is urging students to contact a specific Chafee staffer by e-mail, according to Lis Meyers'06, a leader of the group. "We have a powerful opportunity here, in lobbying Senator Chafee, to really make an impact on the Darfur situation," Meyers said.
Along with the lobbying campaign, Brown's Darfur Action Network is also petitioning the University to divest from companies that invest or do business in Sudan, according to Scott Warren '09, one of the group's members. "If Brown divested, it would set a powerful example for other universities and organizations. We have a chance to make a difference," he said.
These advocacy groups can be very effective and should be encouraged, said Professor of History Omer Bartov. "If they can make the public understand that by their silence, whether they like it or not, they are condoning this action (genocide), these groups are on the right track," he said.
One such student group, Genocide Intervention Net (formerly known as the Genocide Intervention Fund) was founded by Swarthmore College students and is now an official non-profit organization that has relocated to Washington, D.C.
GI Net is the first permanent anti-genocide organization to lobby public officials in the United States in a strategically effective way, according to Chief Executive Mark Hanis, who graduated from Swarthmore last year. "Before GI Net, there was no way for Americans to mobilize and put pressure on public officials to stop genocide," he said.
Hanis and his friends originally founded the group to raise funds for the African Union, a peace-keeping force in Sudan.
"GI Net is unique because it gives directly to a peace-keeping unit and, in doing so, we highlight the issue of civilian protection in this conflict, which is an issue that can be overlooked," he said.
Another anti-genocide group that has gone national but remains more student-focused is Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, founded by Georgetown University students last September. STAND now has about 180 active members at Georgetown and about 200 chapters in the United States and Canada, according to STAND leader and Georgetown senior Patrick Schmitt.
The success of student groups like GI Net and STAND often comes from the symbolic nature of their actions, Schmitt said. "Members from GI Net and STAND have attracted so much attention because they can ask politicians, 'I am doing this as a 20-year-old. Why are you doing nothing?'" he said.
In the past year, STAND and leaders of GI Net have joined forces with mtvU to spread awareness of the genocide in Darfur. The station aired a documentary last April about three students who visited Sudan and has provided organizational and fund-raising support for these student groups. In fact, mtvU has given more coverage of the Darfur conflict in the past year than CNN, Schmitt said.
Brown's Darfur Action Network, which is affiliated with STAND, was founded last spring by a group of students who organized a panel of scholars and politicians to speak about genocide in late April, according to one of the group's founders, Gabriel Corens '06.5. "We noticed the absence of a group on campus specifically dealing with Darfur genocide and decided to get some students together on that issue," he said.
Although the Darfur Action Network does not yet have official status as a student group, the group has worked this fall to publicize itsself and raise general awareness of the genocide in Darfur. "We want to get the word out that genocide isn't over and in fact it's getting worse," Corens said.
After two and a half years of conflict in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, which President Bush officially termed "genocide," the United Nations, the United States and other capable peace-keeping forces have yet to launch a coherent response to the problem. Over 180,000 have died in Darfur, according to UN estimates, and more than 1.8 million people have been displaced from their homes.
