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Join in Solidarity with Darfur Activists from Across the Country
Global Days for Darfur
To call attention to the escalating violence and the continued failure of the international community to adequately respond to the Darfur genocide, activists across the world have come together to plan “Global Days for Darfur.” This week of rallies, marches and vigils will run from April 23–30 and will highlight that “time is running out” for the people of Darfur.
Rally participants will come together to call on world leaders to adopt — and enforce — tough sanctions on Sudan until it allows the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to Darfur. Already, Darfur activists have planned 195 events across the country!
A New Way to Fundraise
Help raise money for GI-Net's civilian protection project by building a lens (web page) on Squidoo.com. It's free, easy to build and take only 10 minutes! You can create a lens on any topic, and the more traffic it has the more donations go to Darfur.
Get started building your lens!
Invite others:
www.GenocideIntervention.net/Squidoo
If there are currently no activities planned in your community, we hope you will consider starting your own event during this important week.
You can be part of a “human chain” in Duluth, attend a concert and rally in San Francisco, go to a panel discussion at Auburn University in Alabama, or participate in a “die-in” rally and march in Boston. In addition to these activities in the United States, similar events will be held around the world.
STAND's National Lobby Days: It's High Time for Higher Grades!
Now more than ever, it's important that our members of Congress know that we expect them to stop this genocide.
Lobby one of your elected officials in a face-to-face meeting at his/her in-district office or use the anti-genocide hotline — 1-800-GENOCIDE — to tell your elected officials that their voters want to see them make the grade on stopping genocide.
Register online and STAND will send you all the resources you need to make your appointment, get connected with other community groups, prepare for your meeting, and follow up afterwards to hold your member of Congress accountable.
Activist Successes
Iowa Divests
On April 5, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver signed a targeted divestment bill (PDF) requiring the state to divest from companies that support the government of Sudan. The bill passed the state House with overwhelming support and passed the state Senate with unanimous consent late last month.
"Genocide should never be tolerated and the state of Iowa should not directly or indirectly be supporting the deadly campaign in Darfur," said state Rep. Dawn Pettengill of Mt. Auburn, who sponsored and managed the bill in the Iowa House.
Iowa is the first state to pass divestment legislation in 2007, and the eighth state to divest overall. Eighteen other states are currently considering a targeted Sudan divestment model.
Genocide Accountability Act
On March 29, the US Senate unanimously passed the Genocide Accountability Act. If subsequently passed by the House, this legislation will close a legal loophole that currently prevents the US Justice Department from prosecuting people in the United States who have committed genocide in other countries.
Other Genocide-Related News
April 24 marks the 92nd Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. GI-Net recently joined the Armenian National Committee of America to advocate for the passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (PDF), which calls on the President to officially acknowledge that the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War One was, indeed, genocide.
Denial is often termed “the last stage of genocide.” If we do not have the moral courage to recognize genocides of the past, we cannot expect to break their brutal cycle in the future.
Participate in the campaign to ensure the passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution.
(Anonymous)
Genocide and Corporate America
Unfortunately genocide often has international supporters wanting the profits of genocide, or who agree with the State's policy that the victims are "primitives" or "sub-human" who should be eliminated for the benefit of others. The world media calls Papuans "primitives".
All Americans should be keenly aware of their largest mine, a combine gold & copper mine in West Papua designed & built by Bechtel and operated by Freeport McMoRan. The gold & copper was discovered in 1936 by Mobil & Chevron, their geologist called it "Ertsberg" (Mountain of Ore), but it was not until 1959 when the Dutch colony discovered there was gold flowing into the Arafura Sea and began searching for the mountain source, that Rockefeller's Freeport Sulphur suddenly decided it was time to mine West Papua.
Inside the White House, McGeorge Bundy & Robert Komer told Kennedy that the US could only save itself from communism by forcing the Netherlands to sign the New York Agreement selling West Papua to Indonesian control in 1962. After General Suharto came to power by killing a half million Javanese potential opponents in 1966, Freeport Sulphur in 1967 got its first 30 year license from Indonesia to mine the Pacific nation of West Papua.
In 2004 the Yale University Law School published its report:
"Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua:
Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control"
http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/we
In 2005 the US Congressmen wrote Section 1115 asking questions about West Papua & Indonesia's claim of sovereignty. In late 2005 Bechtel & Freeport & Exxon used their lobby the "US Indonesia Society" to petition the US Senate to remove the entire Section 1115.
Genocide is about denial, the US Congress was not even allowed to ask questions about West Papua. 40 years of genocide (according to Yale Law School) and colonial mining courtesy of the Indonesian military. GW Bush has allowed Indonesia to keep Jihadist training camps OPEN, he also lifted Clinton's bans on the TNI, and even commenced U.S. funding & Aid to the Indonesian military which still works with Laskar Jihad and other al Qaeda networks. Why ? Gold & money ?
Will the people of America and the world forget their fear long enough to say no to colonization and genocide?