Bay State leads crusade against Sudan genocide

Bay State activists at the forefront of the struggle to keep the Sudan genocide in the public eye are ramping up for a summer of rallies and fund-raisers.

"The violence is at its all-time highest. Camps are still being attacked. Civilians are still being attacked by the government," said Jirair Ratevosian, co-chair of Massachusetts Dream for Darfur and director of event planning at Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur. "So everyone has to do everything they can."

An estimated 400,000 have been killed in the crisis, according to the United Nations, and 2.5 million are crammed into squalid refugee camps.

Activists have long urged divestment by states and companies supporting the Sudanese government. This summer, attention is focused on Olympics host China, which sells arms to the Sudanese government and is a major investor in Sudanese oil. Activists hope to use sponsors to urge China to exert pressure on the Sudanese government.

"The window of opportunity for pressure on China is limited. We've got less than two months," Ratevosian said, urging the public to "pressure corporate sponsors to be on the right side of history and not stand idly by. They've got unique leverage."

Activists are urging people to write such Olympics sponsors as GE, Coca-Cola, Volkswagen and Framingham-based Staples to pressure China to advocate for peace.

On Friday, the Mass Coalition held a demonstration outside a Volkswagen dealership in Allston to raise awareness.

Among other actions planned:

The Dine for Darfur Program next month. "It's a fund-raiser in which restaurants would donate parts of their proceeds to the Genocide Intervention Network on any given night," said Emily Cunningham, 17, of Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton, who last year founded her high school chapter of STAND, a student anti-genocide coalition.

The third annual Darfur Benefit Concert is planned for July 13 from 2 to 8 p.m. at Bernie King Pavilion Bandstand at Nantasket Beach in Hull. "We're asking for a suggested donation of $10 per person, but it's also just as much about awareness," said Cunningham. Proceeds go to UNICEF's work in Darfur.

The Tents of Hope project, in which local communities erect and decorate tents to raise awareness of the Darfur genocide.

"The people of Darfur don't really have a voice of their own," said Benjamin T. Swartout, 19, Amnesty International student leader at Lafayette College in Easton. "So we have to shout for them. If we shout loud enough, someday we'll be able to say that when when people weren't listening, we made them."

Massachusetts long has led the nation in raising awareness and advocating for state and federal Darfur-related policy change, activists say.

"I'm very proud of the contribution that Massachusetts has made to this adovcacy movement," said the Rev. Dr. Gloria E. White-Hammond, a Bay State native and chair of the Coalition to Save Darfur, the umbrella organization that oversees nationwide Sudan activism.

"If I'm the chair of the coalition, then Massachusetts is the chair of the coalition," said White-Hammond, co-pastor of Bethel AME Church in Boston and a pediatrician at South End Community Health Center. "Wherever I go, I take Massachusetts with me."

A divestment campaign led by activists at Brandeis University called on mutual-fund companies, including Fidelity in Boston, to disinvest from businesses with holdings in Sudan. Relentless campaigning on the issue hit home in 2006, with state and federal legislators passing a series of bills requiring that mutual funds and the state pension fund be pulled from companies doing business in Sudan.

"I wish the federal government did not have to be coaxed along. I was very passionate and I was proud to have Massachusetts be one of the first states, if not the first state, to voice the (Sudan) divestment issue," said Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli (D-Lenox), a supporter of the measure.

Harvard was the first university nationwide to divest, said White-Hammond. "That has really been exemplary in the way it has been organized." Some 60 colleges and universities have followed suit.

Panther Alier, 32, a Dinka refugee from southern Sudan living in Newton, is among local activists.
"Everything started from Massachusetts," Alier said. "It has been a great legacy for me to be part of this. This developed in the state that has become my home. The activism in this state is really something I'm proud of."

These Web sites and hotlines offer further information on Darfur: www.savedarfur.org; www.standnow.org; www.mskeeper.org; www.1800genocide.com; 1-800-Genocide; www.genocideintervention.net; www.savedarfurma.googlepages.com