The tragedy in the Darfur region of Sudan and how Americans can help will be the topic tonight as Brian Steidle visits Bloomington for two days of talks and visuals on the subject. A former Marine captain and U.S. representative to the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Steidle brings his witnessed accounts of rape, torture and violence all in an effort to raise further awareness to the Darfuri cause. Currently on a 21,000-mile, 22-city tour of the United States raising awareness for what the national Save Darfur Coalition calls, "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," Steidle has testified in front of Congress about the gruesome details he witnessed on the ground in Sudan from 2004 to 2005. In 2004, Congress officially declared the situation in Darfur as genocide, and since then, an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced from their homes into refugee camps.
"This tour is designed to educate the American people about the Darfur\ngenocide and to motivate them to turn up the heat on the Bush administration to take the many other steps necessary to end the suffering for millions of men, women and children in Darfur," Steidle said in a press release. Steidle's tour is part of the Save Darfur Coalition's "A Million Voices for Darfur" campaign, an effort to generate 1 million postcards sent to President Bush asking him to pledge support for a stronger multinational force to protect Darfur citizens. Steidle's tour will culminate in Washington, D.C. next month at a rally to stop the genocide, where the postcards will be delivered. Because of the issue has been gaining steam nationwide, Save Darfur Bloomington, a community activist group, decided to bring Steidle to town.
"People in general are talking more about Darfur and are asking more\nquestions," said Save Darfur Bloomington member Margaret Hansen. "Raising awareness is a huge goal of ours."
And the awareness continues to grow. Until a couple of weeks ago, the group didn't have enough funding to pay for the event. Throughout the last few weeks though, numerous sponsors on the campus and in the community have come forward - from the IU Student Association, the Hillel Center and Amnesty International to IU's local chapter of Students Taking Action Now Darfur. Professor Jack Bielasiak, who teaches about genocide in the political science department, was also instrumental in securing six departmental sponsors: Jewish studies, sociology, political science, gender studies, international studies and African studies, in addition to the Office of International Programs. Hansen hopes this heightened awareness will keep building after Steidle's visit.
"I feel like the momentum in general is building for some sort of\nintervention and a large part of that is from all the awareness," she said. Getting students further involved with advocating for peace and stability in Darfur is something STAND president and freshman Rebecca Burns has been trying to do since she arrived on campus in the fall fall. Having worked with Amnesty International in her native Boston, Burns is now coordinating a divestment campaign at IU. Similar to what was done to end apartheid in South Africa, the goal of divestment is for University endowment funds to withdraw their investments - directly or indirectly - from businesses operating in Sudan. Advocates of Sudanese divestment argue the money being poured into Sudan from international firms continues to fund the genocide. Still in its infancy at IU, divestment campaigns have been successfully launched at Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth and, most recently, the University of California school system, the largest and first public university to\ndivest from Sudan. Burns hopes Steidle's visit will get more students\ninvolved.
"The divestment campaign offers students a way to get involved that connects to the University directly," Burns said. "On a lot of campuses, divestment has united a lot of student groups. That hasn't happened yet at IU. But I'm hoping his visit leads to that."
As for what students and the community can expect to hear, Hansen expects Steidle's talk to be powerful.
"I think he'll really humanize the issue with people by putting faces and families with the numbers," she said. "I also think he will give specific ways to help. Most people are always like 'what do I do?' I'm hoping he will hook these people up with ways to help"
