Darfur must be a priority for the next president! Anti-genocide activists from around the country joined with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, actor Mia Farrow and genocide scholar Samantha Power to ask Democratic candidates in tonight's debate: Will you divest from Sudan to stop the genocide?
ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
Ask the Candidates is an initiative of the Genocide Intervention Network enabling anti-genocide activists to press all presidential candidates to take specific policy positions on Darfur — beyond rhetoric alone.
The first of these commitments it to divest from companies that help fund the genocide in Darfur.
Since 2003, the crisis in Darfur has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 civilians and displaced at least two million people, according to the United Nations. President Bush and the US Congress unanimously declared the situation genocide in 2004, finding the government of Sudan culpable in the attacks.
The new anti-genocide campaign is designed to allow Americans to directly engage with presidential candidates on the subject of Darfur, by visiting AskTheCandidates.org and sending messages to all campaigns asking the candidates to make a series of commitments to help end the genocide. A December 2006 poll by the Genocide Intervention Network showed 62 percent of Americans believe ending genocide should be a high or the top priority.
Heeding the call of citizens and policymakers, four candidates — Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Barack Obama of Illinois, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — have committed to divesting their personal investments from Sudan.
“The first step in taking a strong position against genocide is to halt any indirect profiting from the atrocities,” Genocide Intervention Network Executive Director Mark Hanis says. “We commend the four candidates who have recognized this moral obligation, and hope the other presidential contenders will go beyond empty rhetoric and ensure they are not helping to fund the Darfur genocide.”