Field Report 5: From America with Love

Hello friends y familia:We’re getting ready to go back to the Chad-Darfur border and visit the refugee camps. Since being there this past January, the situation in Darfur and Chad and now the Central African Republic has not improved. It has gotten worse. Aid agencies have been under attack, forcing some of them to leave the people and when and where they most need the help.I have been going around the United States, almost non-stop, joining in action with communities that feel compelled to stand up and do all in their power to stop this genocide. When visiting the refugee camps and some of the same people I have seen twice before, I will be able to share with them what regular people–just like them–have told me: they will not stand by, until there is protection in Darfur, and the survivors are able to return home to peace.For this trip, Stacey will not be able to go with. After connecting with the beautiful children and families in the refugee camps, she came home and is now expanding her own immediate family. She and Rene are expecting a baby girl! Stacey will be doing i-ACT support here in the US. So, on this trip I will have the company of my sister Connie, and Yuen Lin, our tech guru and now very much a brother. It’s all about family, expanding our own definition of family to include the people of Darfur.We depart on July 7, and the first day of i-ACT, from the field, will be July 10. Please tell everyone you know to join us on this journey, and interact with the very real people of Darfur.Paz,
Gabriel

Field Report 4: UC Berkeley, California

Dear Friends and Familia:

Do enough people care about the fate of Darfur? It is so much more comfortable to look the other way and pretend it is not there. Why worry about people that are so far? It does not affect us.

It is so easy to be cynic, after years of working on the Darfur cause. I keep asking myself, can we make enough people care? The truth is, people do care, if they allow themselves the uncomfortableness of knowing.

So many young people do not only want to know, but they are also embracing the responsibility to act. Camp Darfur visited Berkeley to be a part of the STAND Western Regional Conference. The cynic gets knocked out of me, when hanging out with so many Upstanders.

Millions of lives in danger is more than enough of a reason to act. As the young people of STAND are doing, and they are all across the nation, please join us in finding creative and effective ways of sharing what is happening in Darfur with more and more people. Once they know, they will want to act.

Please call your representatives in Congress and ask them to do a lot more for Darfur. Call 1 800 GENOCIDE to connect with your representatives. Please post here any ideas on how to get people to connect with the very real people that are suffering and dying every day in Darfur and Chad.

Paz,

Gabriel

Field Report 3: Camp Darfur and Save Darfur rally in Boca Raton, Florida

Hello Friends & Familia:

There is not a specific date that marks the start of the genocide in Darfur. The Government of Sudan has been so effective at maintaining almost continuous campaigns of terror in one or more areas of their country that it is hard to pinpoint when one conflict ends and another begins.

It is known, though, that there was a major escalation of systematic violence against civilians in Darfur in February of 2003. So, February, 2007 (give or take) marks the 4th year anniversary of what is a another shameful example of a world of, in effect, bystanders.

What is sad and so hard to accept is that so many of us do care, but we have not been able to convince our leaders to care and act. The people that we just met in Boca Raton, FL definitely care, and they are acting.

At the event the Save Darfur Coalition of South Palm Beach, FL organized, we met so many beautiful people that are committed to action. We need many others across the country to join in making NOISE, until our leaders cannot continue to pretend they care while doing what amounts to nothing.

Please check out the video field report from the Florida Camp Darfur and rally. After you do that, take just a few minutes to call the offices of your Senators and Representative in Congress. Go to http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/, enter you address, and this will give you the number to your Representative and Senators. Make one call, or make three!

Tell them to make Darfur a priority. Tell them to go beyond words. Tell them that the lives of millions that are now in grave danger are worth as much as any other life. The people of Darfur need immediate protection from a robust international peacekeeping force. The US and the world should not standby as genocide is taking place. We should not be willing to trade lives for intelligence or other diplomatic considerations. Genocide is not negotiable.

See you soon.
Paz,
Gabriel

Field Report 2: LA area High School students host Camp Darfur and create action to stop the genocide in Darfur.

Dear Friends:

It is not very pleasant to be focusing on genocide every day. It is exciting, though, and it gives me so much energy and hope, to be able to work next to some amazing young people who are truly giving of themselves to help others halfway around the world.

Members of the Human Rights Watch Student Task Force hosted and completely ran Camp Darfur at their high school. They did research on Darfur and on past genocides, and they guided their entire student body through the camp.

They read real testimony of the victims of the Darfur genocide, and they showed how anyone could get involved and make a difference. During each group’s tour of Camp Darfur, some of the student leaders would interrupt, and, with a microphone for all to hear, they would use their cell phone to call President Bush, asking him to do a better job in providing immediate protection for the innocent civilians of Darfur.

These young men and women (because they definitely do not act like children) are not old enough to deserve blame or feel guilty about not acting during the Rwandan genocide, not to mention the others from the past century. But, they somehow found it within themselves to embrace responsibility.

Where the international community, individual countries, and our leaders have not taken Responsibility to Protect as a concept or philosophy that needs to be followed in action, not just in words, young people are embracing Responsibility to Protect at the person-to-person level and acting on it.

Please watch the video and follow the example set by our young leaders. Call President Bush and ask him to go beyond words and do all that he can to push for immediate protection for the innocent civilians of Darfur. Genocide is not negotiable.

White House: (202) 456-1111

Peace,
Gabriel

Field Report 1: I Stand With Darfur on MLK Day

Video Summary

People gather outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, DC to show their support for those from Darfur who continue to be denied safe return to their homes. A symbolic refugee camp tent was erected on the compound. Speeches were delivered throughout the day and at night, images from the refugee camps were projected onto the external walls of the embassy.