Protests in Speakers Circle
Published April 27, 2007
Two activist groups took over Speaker's Circle this week to raise awareness about atrocities happening on the other side of the world.
STAND Mizzou sponsored a die-in protest on Tuesday and Wednesday at Speaker's Circle to raise awareness about genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, located in the northeast part of Africa.
Some protesters at Tuesday and Wednesday's die-in lay down on Speaker's Circle and held signs with slogans such as "Darfur is Dying" and "Genocide is happening now" while others asked passersby to sign a petition to the UM system Board of Curators.
STAND Mizzou Divestment Chairman Daniel Dorsey said one of the organization's goals is to convince the UM system to divest its investments.
Dorsey hopes to deliver the petition to the Board of Curators within the next week.
"We have stock in companies in Sudan who are helping fund the genocide," he said. "We want to stop that. Putting economic pressure (on a government) historically has been effective in getting the government to change."
Another aim of the die-in demonstration was to promote an upcoming concert to benefit the Genocide Intervention Network. The benefit concert is scheduled for Friday evening at the courthouse square. STAND Mizzou played host to a similar concert in January that Dorsey said raised nearly $500 for the Genocide Intervention Network.
STAND Mizzou is the student-led division of the Genocide Intervention Network.
Dorsey said STAND Mizzou members are encouraged to write letters to legislators to ask them to support Darfur-related legislation.
STAND Mizzou's President-elect Nadege Uwase said STAND Mizzou has faced little opposition on its goals.
"It's about genocide," Uwase said. "It's about ethnic cleansing. There's no room for argument."
The MU chapter of STAND was founded in August 2006 and is one of more than 600 high school and college chapters, according to the national Web site.
Also present at Speaker's Circle on Tuesday were volunteers for Invisible Children. Invisible Children, a non-profit organization, aims to raise awareness about displaced children of Uganda.
Sophomore John Grotts volunteered at the Invisible Children table in Speaker's Circle on Tuesday. He passed out information regarding Displace Me, an upcoming event in which participants stay overnight in cardboard shelters to raise awareness about the situation in Uganda.
Invisible Children will play host to Displace Me on Saturday in 15 locations across the United States, including Kansas City, Kan. Grotts said a Displace Me event was considered for Columbia but holding the event in another city was more representative of the experiences of those displaced in Uganda.
"In Uganda, they didn't have a choice to where they could go," Grotts said. "They had 48 hours to get to where they were told to go."
Grotts said Invisible Children will send a bus through several locations, including Columbia, to transport participants to Kansas City.
He said participants will be asked to write letters and make phone calls to legislators to inform them about the situation and to call for talks to end the conflict in Uganda. Invisible Children will send letters to participants of Displace Me that detail the results of the event, Gotts said.