Darfur supported at rally
Marc Larocque
Issue date: 5/9/07 Section: News
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On Sunday, April 29, Northeastern students dressed in white boarded the MBTA Green Line on their way to a protest at the Boston Common.
There, people from around New England - and some from as far as Colorado - converged to call attention to the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It was the finale in a week-long series of events held around the world called Global Days for Darfur that recognized attacks - deemed genocide by the White House - on non-Muslim villagers, by militias reportedly armed by the nation's Arab-led regime.
"Darfurian women are raped and the men are castrated by the janjaweed militia, paid for by the Sudanese government," said Amanda Kelly, a middler nursing major who participated in the event.
Event organizers ushered students from the Boylston T stop to the gazebo area of the park. Guitar sounds came from the bandstand, and tables set up by groups, like Physicians for Human Rights and the Massachusetts Coalition for Darfur, circled the crowd of about 2,000 and offered pamphlets full of facts.
The genocide in Darfur has been occurring since 2003 and has killed an estimated 450,000 civilians and left 2.5 million citizens displaced, according to a national Student Anti-Genocide Coalition called STAND press release. STAND is an umbrella organization of more than 700 chapters in high schools and colleges in and outside the US.
The group claims they can contribute to a solution by pushing investors to sever ties with companies, like PetroChina, that "contribute significant revenue to the Sudanese government," according to the release.
Representative James McGovern, D-Mass., told the crowd about when he was arrested for protesting the genocide outside the Sudanese embassy and how he thinks the United States should boycott the upcoming Olympics held in China. Sudan is China's largest overseas oil project, according to a report published in The Washington Post in late 2004.
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