Written by Lauryn King

On April 4th, Omekongo Dibinga came to speak at the Allen D. Nease High School Chapter of STAND. He shared with us many of his touching poems that captured the audience’s attention quickly. Once he had their attention, he explained in words that we could understand what exactly was happening in Eastern Congo with rebel groups and conflict minerals, a very complicated situation which can become tedious and hard to understand. He even included a question and answer portion where many students asked further questions about the topic. It was amazing to see how many people Omekongo had touched with his poems and his presentation. The best part was that the presentation was not depressing, it was motivating. People were certainly shaken but Omekongo motivated them to go out and create effective change, doing everything they could. The assembly was in no way about guilt or depression, but empathy and motivation. It was a truly inspiring event.

 Written by SmithSTAND

Omékongo Dibinga performed on February 26, 2011 at Smith College. Omékongo is a slam poet/hip-hop artist. There was a large audience consisting of mainly students.  This performance was the last event in SmithSTAND’s Congo Week to inform Smith students, faculty, and staff about the conflict-free campus initiative. Omékongo started his performance with a poem about the portrayal of Africa as one country consumed by poverty, HIV/AIDS and underdevelopment which is not the case for all of Africa.

Immediately, with this poem, the audience could feel the immense energy and passion behind his words.  There was also this collaboration between Omékongo and the audience that helped to create the intense atmosphere strengthening his poetry.  One poem after another Omékongo kept touching on our emotions and inspired the audience to want to take action. Like he said at one point during the event, his performance wasn’t meant to depress people and make them feel hopeless about the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  His performance was to inspire hope for change and show that everybody can do something to help.

After his performance, Omékongo opened the event up for questions.  There were great questions about how someone can help, what resources are available, what organizations to trust, and Omékongo’s personal connection to the Congo.  The audience left the auditorium feeling inspired rather than heartbroken.  There was a great deal of interest in what SmithSTAND is working on and what we do as an organization.  It was a great event that brought awareness of many prominent issues in the Congo and how we can help stop them.

To learn more about what you can do for the Congo, check out STAND’s Conflict Free Mineral’s Campaign.

 Posted on MTV’s website!

Stephanie Figgins is a 21-year-old senior at George Washington University. After learning about the atrocities happening in Darfur, she started a STAND chapter at her high school with a few friends, and went on to serve for two years as its Washington, D.C., college outreach coordinator. She continues to advocate and lobby for genocide prevention, most recently from her phone.

Last week, I picked up a call from an unknown number; to my surprise, it was my newly elected congressman from Arizona’s Fifth District, David Schweikert.

The day before, I had called Schweikert’s office via 1-800-GENOCIDE, a hotline developed to make lobbying your elected officials on Sudan and genocide prevention a less intimidating experience. I left a message about my opposition to across-the-board cuts to the foreign aid budget (already less than 1 percent of our national budget)–including slashes to funding for disaster assistance, migration and refugee assistance, and crises. I hadn’t expected a call back.

I told him I understood the need to scale back the budget, but that attacking foreign aid funding was not the way to do it. Schweikert said that while he was not on the committee that proposed the cuts, he was researching them, and really appreciated my call. He later sent a handwritten note to thank me for our conversation.

I hope David Schweikert heeds the call that I (and many others) are making to maintain funding for the international affairs budget, especially because drastic cuts would harm Sudan at a critical time. In a January 2011 referendum, the historically marginalized people of southern Sudan voted for independence from the north; it’s a great step forward, but preparations for the July 9 split are behind schedule, and civilians are at risk of escalating violence and war. The two sides must still agree on the border and divide Sudan’s oil wealth, while nearly 3 million civilians are living in camps in Darfur, facing violence, rape and resource shortages and Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges.

What I love about the hotline is that you don’t have to be a super-activist in order to make a huge difference in terms of influencing our elected officials–you just need a phone and a couple of minutes.

http://act.mtv.com/posts/lobby-for-genocide-prevention-influence-your-reps-with-one-phone-call/

Written by Brad Calloway

Headlines have recently focused on the topic of extradition, ranging from France’s expulsion of Rwandan rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana to Germany’s excellent record on prosecuting Nazi war criminals. While many European Union (EU) countries have stepped up war criminal extradition, many reports suggest that the United Kingdom has lagged behind. The United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) reported that Great Britain has become a haven for suspects of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, and acts of genocide. Out of the 495 suspects against which the UKBA has recommended action in the past five years, 383 remain living unpunished within the borders of the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom, along with all Member States of the EU, is a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Upon request of extradition, the United Kingdom is required by the Rome Statute to return suspects to their country of origin or to the ICC. Otherwise, it is up to British laws to investigate and prosecute suspects of such crimes. Jack Straw, a Member of Parliament from the center-left Labour Party, recently passed an act through the House of Commons allowing for the prosecution of British nationals accused of international war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide dating back to 1991. The previous law had only permitted British courts to place suspects on trial for such crimes dating back to 2001. Despite Straw’s efforts, not a single investigation into war criminal suspects has taken place since the law was enacted in 2010.

“The biggest problem,” Member of Parliament Michael McCann states, “is the lack of resources dedicated to investigating these serious cases, and that we often don’t know where these individuals are. It means that if an arrest warrant is issued there is little likelihood it can be served.” The United Kingdom has only seen two successful trials on war crimes since the end of the World War II.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/feb/04/britain-home-to-400-war-criminals

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/07/war-crimes-legal-powers-straw

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/585-90?OpenDocument

Having El Fadel Arbab come speak at our school was an amazing experience, and undoubtedly the best thing our STAND chapter has done this year thus far. I became aware of El Fadel, a Darfur genocide survivor, after a message that STAND sent out listing guest speakers. After emailing him I found out that he would be available to speak the day before our February break- perfect because many teachers did not have a new lesson planned. He was already in New Haven at the time, so our chapter didn’t have to do any fundraising to have him speak.

The next step was alerting teachers that he would be coming. My adviser, Mr. Cehovksy, and I sent out a mass email to all faculty detailing when El Fadel would come, what periods he would be available, his bio and his past speaking experiences. Around eight classes over the span of two class periods (forty minutes each) signed up to attend.

I also got in contact with our local paper, the Fairfield Minuteman. They expressed interest in El Fadel speaking and arranged a phone interview with me. A reporter also came the day of the event to conduct an interview with El Fadel himself. The piece is compellingly written and can be found here: http://www.minutemannewscenter.com/articles/2011/02/23/fairfield/news/doc4d6535f28f08f619770458.txt

When the day of the event came, I had major butterflies. I was afraid I would get lost picking El Fadel up, classes wouldn’t show up to see him, or the projector wouldn’t work. Of course, all of this was out of my hands. In the end, I had nothing to worry about. Aside from some minor technical difficulty, everything went perfectly. Some parents and faculty even came to listen. El Fadel spoke emotionally while providing a wealth of information, and even put in some extremely kind words for STAND. By the end of the presentations our chapter had two new, dedicated members.

Our goal for having a guest speaker was to inform people about the genocide in Darfur. Many, before hearing El Fadel, had no idea it was still going on. The attendees were genuinely interested, many staying after to have their personal questions answered. El Fadel sparked an interest in people to follow genocide worldwide more avidly that day. In turn, he helped further STAND’s mission to eradicate genocide.

Written by Jillian Richardson, Fairfield STAND President 

What began as peaceful protests demanding that human rights lawyer Fathi Turbel be released from prison on February 15 is now a full-fledged revolution. While a ban on foreign journalists in Libya makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the events on the ground, one thing is certain: the Libyan government is using violence to control protestors and shows no fear of continuing to do so.  Human rights organizations estimate that 600-2000 people have been killed, including civilians attacked by government air strikes, since the protests began.  Gaddafi maintains control of the capital Tripoli in the west, but protestors have essentially claimed the eastern half of the country, including the large city Benghazi.  Numerous high-level Libyan officials and significant portions of the army have defected, reportedly because of Gaddafi’s commands to attack civilians.

 Written by Queens College STAND member, Tiffany. 

 On February 18, 2011, four member of Queens College STAND; Jenn, Xavier, Kaseem and myself (Tiffany) had a meeting with Queens College President Muyskens about using conflict- free technology .At first, I was really nervous because I had no idea what to say since I still have more to learn about conflict free technology. The second thing was that I have never met the President before, and I didn’t know how he would be like. It also didn’t help that a certain someone (Jenn) said that he was “alarmingly tall”. 

President Muyskens was actually really nice, and he was really tall. The office was really impressive. When we entered the office, we introduced ourselves to President Muyskens and got right to business. Xavier asked President Muyskens how much he knew about the DRC and informed him of what was going on in the Congo, Kaseem informed the President about the stats and the options that were available, I  asked him for  advice on how to make QC’s technology conflict- free, and Jenn had a lot to say. For something that was serious, everyone ended up laughing and having a good time. President Muyskens was attentive and eager to help. Even though he said that he would like to help, QC’s technology is purchased by City University of New York (CUNY), so President Muyskens gave us an outline on how to go about making the change towards conflict free technology. Now all we have to do is wait for President Muyskens’ statement, raise awareness about conflict free technology on the campus among students, meet the person in charge of the technology department at QC and make sure that with the right amount of poking CUNY can become conflict free.

So in a word the meeting with President Muyskens was a HUGE success!! I was really happy because this was the first time that I have ever done something like this, and I’m sure Xavier and Kaseem were really proud of themselves too. Jenn was happiest of us all. She practically went nuts on the elevator—that is until we got to the ninth floor and other people got on. I suggested that Jenn contain herself; she did somewhat.  

This was a great experience. I keep thinking to myself, if I haven’t stopped by the quad on my first week at QC to ask about the tents, I don’t think I would have ever gotten to meet President Muyskens or any of the awesome people again.

More info about conflict free technology can be found at these sites
http://bit.ly/caSbw
http://bit.ly/fHYeeg
http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/sites/default/files/Enough%20Conflict-Free%20Campus%20Toolkit.pdf
http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/content/conflict-minerals-company-rankings
http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/getting-conflict-free

 25 Years of Genocide Prevention in the United States