By Midwest Regional Organizer Jack Spicer (Yes, that’s me with the antennas)

Monday of STAND Camp marked the last day at Pearlstone Retreat for STAND Campers. To some, this meant it was the last day to spend with the new friends they made before parting ways, and to others it meant a trek to DC for the night to prepare for Lobby Day.

The day began with breakfast and cluttered luggage, instilling a bittersweet feeling that lasted throughout the remainder of the day. STAND Campers checked out of their rooms early and brought everything they had along with them to the day’s sessions. The constant presence of everyone’s luggage was a sure reminder of an end to new friendships as we had known them and the beginning of the curious paths these friendships would take in the near future.  

For the first session on Monday, STAND campers were able to bond over skits of bad lobbying and impressions of Harry Potter characters. Small groups had to create and perform a skit that’s only requirements were to include demonstrations of bad lobbying practices and Harry Potter. The group with the best skit was awarded the chance to throw water balloons at the MC member of their choice—they chose Michael (better known as Mickey) Jackson, our Student Director.

After a good laugh, we moved our attention to a run-through of the not-yet-up but coming STAND website given by Matthew Heck, STAND’s Online Strategies Coordinator.  After seeing the website in its development stage, small groups were formed to brainstorm ideas of what they would like the website to include and look like.

Soon after, Mickey presented and took feedback on the campaigns that STAND will be initiating Fall Semester. The first was an educational campaign with the objective of educating STAND members on the current situation in Sudan so they can accurately speak about and educate others on the complex situation. The second was a campaign focused around the upcoming presidential elections aimed at protecting the foreign aid budget. The last campaign Mickey presented was an essay contest to encourage thought leadership on human rights and mass atrocities.

After the upcoming campaigns were discussed, Matthew and Daniel presented STAND’s theory of change, while sharing their own stories of how they became involved with the organization. Afterwards, STAND campers made their ways outside to spend the remaining time at Pearlstone Retreat throwing Frisbee and socializing. As the shuttles arrived and pictures were being taken, STAND campers posed for a group picture and suddenly unleashed a sneak water balloon attack on Mickey, bringing STAND Camp 2012 at Pearlstone Retreat to an awesome conclusion.

On Monday, Mickey Jackson, STAND’s Student Director, and I will join President Obama’s top foreign policy advisors to discuss the administration’s strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa and the role that human rights advocates can play moving forward. We will discuss how, together, we can craft a more responsible, innovative, and progressive foreign policy in the region.

In early June, the Obama administration released its U.S. policy strategy for sub-Saharan Africa. The strategy document outlines potential avenues for U.S. support for democratization, security, economic development, and counterterrorism in sub-Saharan Africa. While policy contradictions persist, the administration’s effort represents a valuable opportunity for human rights advocates to engage in the policy strategy’s future development.

Join us this weekend as we take your questions, concerns, and ideas. We will be closely monitoring our Twitter feed and Facebook page for questions from you. Just tweet us @standnow, use the hashtag #USAfricaPolicy, or post on our wall, and we’ll be sure to include your ideas in the roundtable discussion!

We look forward to reading your questions and representing the STAND community at this meeting.

This is the fourth in a series of four posts recapping Imagining the Unimaginable: Ending Genocide in the 21st Century, a symposium held yesterday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The event featured a keynote address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, two panels, and a presentation of the results of a poll on public perceptions of mass atrocity prevention. This post summarizes Mark Penn’s presentation of the poll findings.

During this morning’s Holocaust Museum event, Mark Penn, Bill Clinton’s lead pollster, presented recent findings on U.S. popular perceptions of genocide. The polling, which resulted from a Holocaust Museum/PBS partnership, assessed a broad base of political considerations related to genocide and mass atrocities, preventive priorities, genocide education, and military intervention. The headline, for Penn and Mike Abramowitz, the director of the Museum’s atrocities prevention program, is straightforward: Americans overwhelmingly prioritize genocide and mass atrocities within a national security framework, and view the U.S. government as a lead driver of preventive response and crisis mitigation. Americans, especially the youth (55 percent), have a relatively strong handle on the concept of genocide, viewing state-sponsored mass killing as a primary threat to global civilian populations (63 percent). A hefty majority (78 percent), notably, view military intervention as a feasible, worthy, or responsible policy approach toward genocide.

Of course, that’s only half the headline–the substance, as a recent, related YouGov poll by Benjamin Valentino indicates, offers a more complicated perspective. When asked to consider their perspectives on mass atrocities in Syria, 42 percent of Americans would not support military intervention to stop the crisis, regardless of its human consequences for the U.S. military. And, revealingly: if you downgrade "genocide" to "mass killings," popular support for U.S. military intervention–either multilateral or unilateral–appears to decrease by 18 percent. Still a sizeable majority, to be sure, but enough to indicate that, in spite of increasingly widespread comprehension of "genocide," popular discourse has yet to catch up to academic and policy debates on the utility of the term, its political impact, and its moral consequences.

From the Holocaust Museum’s findings, we might conclude that popular U.S. consensus favors an urgent, consistent, and decisive response to mass atrocities. Or, on the other hand, we might not. More than three-fourths of Americans are unfamiliar with the "responsibility to protect" doctrine; we talk a big game about broad, international unanimity surrounding Francis Deng’s "sovereignty as responsibility" framework, but the concept remains abstract for most, with the possible exception of last-resort, external military intervention. However, heightened comprehension among younger American communities may create an avenue for future progress, in a sustained generation of committed, informed constituencies for atrocities prevention.

This is the third in a series of four posts recapping Imagining the Unimaginable: Ending Genocide in the 21st Century, a symposium held yesterday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The event featured a keynote address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, two panels, and a presentation of the results of a poll on public perceptions of mass atrocity prevention. This post summarizes the second panel, Innovative Solutions in Responding to Future Challenges.

The number of silences, rounds of applause, and frantically tweeting fingers during the second panel was unparalleled in any of the other sessions. Leading a diverse group of speakers, Wolf Blitzer moderated the discussion much like he runs the Situation Room.

Off the bat, he brought up the question of how social media informs and shapes mass atrocities while they’re occurring. Fresh from reporting in Beirut, Arwa Damon, a fellow CNN reporter, jumped on the question, describing social media as the “lifeblood of the opposition.” Strive Masiyiwa, the Founder of EcoNet Wireless, seconded Damon’s positive view of social media by suggesting that the telecommunications revolution in Africa was a key recent event and questioning whether the genocide in Rwanda would have occurred with modern day social media. Sarah Sewall, Public Policy Lecturer at Harvard University, cautioned against overstating the importance of social media. Interestingly, while Masiyiwa and Damon were particularly interested in the role of social media as an organizing tool, Sewall focused more on how it informs activists elsewhere.

Much of the remainder of the panel after these initial questions was dominated by Richard Williamson, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution. Specifically fixated on Syria and Sudan, Williamson supported toppling Bashir’s regime with a “coalition of the willing.” Referring continually to Assad and Bashir as “bad guys,” he tended toward a view of mass atrocity prevention as an “us against them” battle while dismissing other explanatory factors such as history, economics, or ecological crises.

After being prompted by Blitzer, the panel briefly discussed the possibility of assassinating the perpetrators of mass atrocities. Williamson was in favor of such an action while Sewall and Masiyiwa focused instead on the importance of international law and process. Sewall specifically emphasized the importance of a trial and “rule of law” to the victims of such atrocities, while Masiyiwa focused more on the need to retain moral high ground when dealing with aggressors.

Overall, the panel was indicative of the broad divergence of views about how best to respond to mass atrocities. Ranging from disagreements over social media, to assassinations, to even the question of where the anti-atrocities movement is now, the takeaway is that the movement is far from achieving consensus on, well, anything.

Jessica Pham, STAND’s Media Coordinator, attended Sunday’s "We Choose Peace" rally in Washington, D.C. The rally was a chance for Sudanese, South Sudanese, and advocates to come together to celebrate the independence of South Sudan and to reaffirm a commitment to choosing peace in Sudan and South Sudan.

The event featured dancing, singing, live music, speeches, and a vote. With two large ballot boxes on the stage, attendees were able to vote for either “War” or “Peace.” Can you guess which one won? Read on to find out in STAND’s first ever Storify!

"We Choose Peace" Reflections

Scores of people turned out to the "We Choose Peace" rally that demanded the governments of Sudan and South Sudan to establish peace for their citizens.

Storified by · Wed, Jul 11 2012 07:52:03

As July 9, the first anniversary of South Sudan’s hard-fought independence approaches, there is cause for celebration, but also for somber reflection. Since independence, a number of issues have not yet been confronted by the Sudans, including the demarcation of the border, the status of each other’s citizens in the other’s country, and the sharing of oil revenues.

In northern Sudan, civilian populations in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states—states that aligned with the south during the civil war—are once again being targeted by the central government in Khartoum. As has been the norm with the regime, opposition leaders have been arbitrarily detained, beaten, and, in some circumstances, killed. Bombings have left towns and villages destroyed, further disempowering populations with little access to basic resources.

South Kordofan, the home of the Nuba Mountains, was the site of genocidal assaults by the Khartoum government in the 1990s. Now, again, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) are asserting control over the oil in the state. Clashes have broken out between the SAF and the Southern People’s Liberation Army in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan. Human Rights Watch reports house-to-house searches and set up checkpoints, where civilians have been killed while trying to flee violence. Humanitarian assistance has been blocked, and the Kauda airstrip—whose only value is the transport of medical supplies and food rations—has been bombed relentlessly by Khartoum. As the New York Times reported last week, Sudan is experiencing a new wave of ‘Lost Boys’—and girls—orphaned and displaced from bombing and fighting.

Blue Nile, which borders South Sudan and Ethiopia, has also been the target of Khartoum’s bombs and troops. Khartoum has blocked journalists, peacekeeping, and humanitarian organizations from the region, although refugees in South Sudan and Ethiopia have been interviewed. 100,000 people are reported internally displaced, and 100,000 more have fled the country.

It should also be noted that the government of South Sudan is also far from innocent. Recently, President Salva Kiir admitted that the country’s political leadership has stolen $4 billion in funds that should have been used for infrastructure. For more on South Sudan’s leadership issues, see Howard French’s recent article and Human Rights Watch’s assessment.

Right now, the world is watching as Sudan revolts. The events in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, and the civilian protection crisis that they have engendered, must also not be ignored.

By Mac Hamilton (mhamilton@standnow.org)

Stefani Jones is a rising junior at Duke University, where Sanjay Kishore is also a rising senior. Stefani and Sanjay have spearheaded Duke’s Conflict-Free Campus Initiative. This post is a reflection on their experiences in Juba, South Sudan earlier last month.

We all know that the Fourth of July is a sacred day in America. It’s is our time to reflect on a revolutionary moment in history, when a group of individuals came together to dream of a nation founded upon the radical ideas of equality and freedom from persecution and oppression—a dream that actually changed the world. As we offer a tribute to the courage and idealism of our forefathers on our nation’s 236th birthday though, it’s important to recognize this quest for liberty isn’t just some romantic remnant of history. The themes underlying America’s historic struggle for freedom can be found in a series of contemporary movements for self-governance—and one need not look any further than the world’s newest nation on earth, South Sudan, for a striking example.

While we read about fighting for freedom in history textbooks, we rarely get a glimpse of what those struggles actually look like. After following South Sudan’s inspiring journey towards national sovereignty from afar though, the two of us set out to visit Juba earlier this summer. As a duo with diverse interests—one (Sanjay) an aspiring public health nerd, the other (Stefani) a politics wonk and human rights advocate—we wanted to engage with the revolutionary moment we never got a chance to live through in our own country. We were tired of being “armchair activists,” and we wanted to actually experience life in the country that we were advocating on behalf of.

Even before stepping foot in the country, we each independently "prioritized" South Sudan’s challenges according to our own worldview. One of us believed South Sudan needed to first address rising political tensions with the North over oil and ethnic violence in areas like the Jonglei state before other reforms could take place. For the other, addressing major discrepancies in access to quality healthcare and education through the creation of strong systems seemed the most important key to development.

After arriving in Juba, we were inspired by the energy of those facing monumental challenges with dogged persistence. We saw the hope of a nation reflected in all kinds of people—from the eldest of government officials to the youngest of elementary students, from the foreigner delivering aid to the entrepreneur catalyzing economic growth. But, as amazed as we were by those pushing for progress, we also quickly realized that these agents of change could only succeed in an environment positioned for success. South Sudan is still recovering from a long and tortuous history of violence. The prospect of conflict or suffering reappearing in the near future jeopardizes any chance of substantive progress.

Dr. Moses Ongom, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director of Health Systems in South Sudan, hammered that point home to us. In an interview with him, he broke down the strategy and methods that were necessary in addressing health disparities. He explained to us that with time, due diligence, and resources, the South Sudanese people can and will develop the capacity to effectively deliver health services across the nation. But, right now, they are overwhelmed with trying to heal preventable illnesses—malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, malnutrition, and others—that have festered because of decades of instability and war. Dr. Ongom said that there’s no way South Sudan has a shot at solving its health crises under the threat of renewed conflict. South Sudan needs stability and peace first so that it can move on to address other (equally pressing) problems.

Though we entered Juba as two students with different "lenses" through which we viewed the world, we left with the same conclusion that thousands have reached: we want peace. We were drawing a false dichotomy in development—that the public welfare of South Sudan could be addressed independent of conflict resolution. But the reality is that peace and prosperity are, and probably always be, intertwined. This is a revolutionary moment for South Sudan, just like it was for our country over two centuries ago. The country has already taken a major step through independence, allowing its people to dream of a better life and better world full of opportunity and justice. And now, the first step towards sustaining this change is clear: we not only choose peace, we need it.

On January 9, 2011, in a referendum provided for by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the people of southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly to secede from the north. The new nation of South Sudan attained its official independence on July 9 of that year. Unfortunately, violence in both countries has continued. In particular, the two countries’ militaries have clashed over disputed border regions, and fighting between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile has displaced thousands of civilians and caused a major humanitarian crisis. Although representatives of the two governments resumed negotiations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in April 2012, little progress has been made thus far.

In light of ongoing threats to civilian security, South Sudanese musician and former child soldier Emmanuel Jal is organizing events around the world to mark the anniversary of his country’s independence with a simple but unambiguous message: "We Choose Peace.”

Together with We Want Peace 2012, United to End Genocide, Amnesty International, the Enough Project, Girifna, The South Sudanese Community, Darfur People’s Association of New York, and other diaspora community groups, STAND will respond to Emmanuel’s call by co-sponsoring a rally in Washington, DC on July 8. Members of the Sudanese and South Sudanese diaspora communities, and our own anti-genocide advocates, will come together in solidarity with those victimized by the violence. Along with participants in rallies in other cities around the world, we will show that the people of both Sudans want peace, not war. We will demand an end to all fighting in the region, as well as the lifting of all restrictions on humanitarian aid agencies’ access to conflict-affected areas.

If you are in DC in July 8, join us at Lafayette Park at 4 p.m. Can’t make it in person? Join us virtually! Simply go to www.wechoosepeace.org and follow the instructions to upload a picture of yourself holding a sign saying, “I choose peace in Sudan and South Sudan.” Thousands of people throughout the world will be doing the same between now and July 8, sending a powerful message to our governments that we, their constituents, expect them to do everything in their power to facilitate a peaceful solution to the crisis in Sudan.

In addition, over the next two weeks, watch this space for a series of posts discussing various aspects of the current civilian protection situation in Sudan and South Sudan in greater detail. In the next post, we’ll cover the ongoing anti-government protests in Khartoum, and the government’s violent response. Subsequent posts will focus on the latest news from Darfur, the clashes in the border states, perspectives from two Duke University students who recently returned from South Sudan, and a follow-up report from the event in DC. Feel free to send any questions or suggested topics for posts to Mac Hamilton, our new Education Coordinator, at education@standnow.org.

We like to take ourselves seriously. Really seriously. We like to wear suits and suitpants, write letters to our congressmembers, use acronyms like GenPrev or R2P, and write legislation that divests our government from black-listed oil companies.

But we can have fun too.

Get a peak into our fun side at our new tumblr: #WhatShouldSTANDCallMe. Feel free to ask us any questions there and even submit your own posts or ideas. We’d love to hear from you and feature your ideas!

A quick sample:

When people tell me the STAND MC has #Swag

On the outside, I’m like:

But, on the inside I’m like duhh

Over the next couple of months, you’re going to see some big changes around STAND. So, stay tuned for more STAND swag and don’t forget to apply for our leadership team!

Only moments after STAND’s Student Director Daniel Solomon spoke earlier today, George Clooney, UEG President Tom Andrews, Enough Project’s John Prendergast, NAACP President Ben Jealous, and U.S. Repesentative McGovern (D-MA) were arrested for crossing a police line outside of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C.

This coalition joined together for a National Day of Action to protest an impending humanitarian disaster in Sudan. Clooney and others broke the police line to symbolize the need for the United States government and the international community to break the blockade that Sudan has placed on humanitarian aid to the country.

Speaking shortly before his arrest, Clooney said, "Immediately, we need humanitarian aid to be allowed into the Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world."

Only hours later, Twitter and Facebook have exploded with news of the arrest. Both George Clooney and #freeclooney are trending topics on Twitter.

Today, we made some noise for Sudan. Help us amplify Clooney’s message and make some more noise.

UPDATE: Visit our Facebook page to see a video of George and his father being arrested and join in the conversation.