Dear brothers and sisters,

I am writing to you today because the integrity of our family has been threatened by a grave humanitarian crisis.

Our brethren in the Darfur region of Sudan have been made victims of a genocide by their own government, and they urgently need our help.

The Arab government of Sudan has conducted a scorched earth campaign of terror against black Africans who live in Darfur, a Texas-sized region in the western part of the country.

Since 2003, according to a U.N. report on Darfur released in January, the Sudanese Army and government sponsored militias have committed a horrific list of atrocities, including "killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement, throughout Darfur."

The victims of the atrocities have been Muslims and Christians, farmers and craftsmen, fathers and wives. They have also ranged in age from infant to elder.

One year-old Mihad Hamid was wrapped in a blanket around her mother's waist when helicopter gunships and militiamen on horses attacked her village of Alliet in October 2004.

While her mother ran to escape the onslaught, a bullet ripped through the cloth carrying Mihad and punctured Mihad's tiny lungs.

Brian Steidle, a former U.S. Marine working with African Union monitors at the time, came upon Mihad as she was bleeding and struggling desperately to breath. Unable to resuscitate her, he could only tell her story.

After a visit to a refugee camp for Internally Displaced Persons in Darfur, Irene Khan of Amnesty International, shared the story of a rape survivor only 15 years old.

Afraid to share her name and too ashamed to face her confidant, the young girl told Irene of a time when she left her camp with three other girls to collect firewood.

Away from the camp, the girl and her group were attacked by five militiamen. Though the other girls managed to run away, the victim was caught by two men who then took turns raping her.

Haunted by nightmares of her attackers, the girl was also terrified by the thought of her husband finding out. Recently married, their union had not been consummated because her husband was in southern Sudan. She feared that he would leave her when he learned that the rape had impregnated her.

Unfortunately, stories like these do not describe isolated incidents in Darfur.

Stories like Mihad Hamid's and the young refugee's represent a systematic pattern of death, destruction and devastation forced upon the people of Darfur by their own government in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.

Since 2003, it is estimated that between 70,000 and 300,000 people have been killed by violence, forced starvation or other unnatural causes perpetrated by the Sudanese Army and Arabic government militias.

During that time, millions of villagers in Darfur have been displaced from their homes, with around 200,000 moving to refugee camps just outside the Sudanese border in neighboring Chad, and over 1.2 million remaining internally displaced in Darfur.

The United States and the international community have done little to stop the killing in Darfur, little to provide adequate humanitarian aid to survivors, little to bring justice to the perpetrators of the genocide and little to ensure the safe return of refugees to their homes.

If you have a conscience, you should care.

Unfortunately, the limp response to the atrocities in Darfur can largely be blamed on the lack of popular support for decisive action, which can be blamed on the lack of awareness about Darfur among the general population.

This lack of awareness is understandable given that world press has either ignored Darfur altogether or buried stories about Darfur in back pages. Television media have given Darfur even less attention.

We have a responsibility as members of the human family to strive for individuals in every corner of the globe to have ensured universal human rights.

The privileged class of American college students especially has a duty to reach out with words, actions and resources to those less fortunate.

In order to fulfill this humanitarian responsibility effectively, however, we must be informed.

So what can we do to stop the genocide in Darfur?

First of all, we can bring stories about Darfur to the attention of media and, thus, society.

By grabbing attention with events like demonstrations in high-traffic areas, we force journalists who may have formerly been uninformed about Darfur to find out the root of the ruckus. Subsequently, when they publish a portion of their research along with the story about the demonstration, more people become informed.

Second, we can register to vote.

If you care about the plight of the people of Darfur, you can defend them with the ultimate weapon of democracy -- your vote.

The election year of 2006 presents an ideal opportunity to let candidates know that your vote depends on their attention to the crisis in Darfur.

Third, we can be involved in the legislative process.

Write letters to your representatives in state and federal government.

Former Illinois Sen. Paul Simon said after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 100 days, "If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different."

So we should all write our representatives about Darfur.

Finally, we can talk to people one-on-one.

Encourage those who do not know about Darfur to seek information.

Talk to your friends about solutions for the humanitarian crisis.

And schedule meetings with campus, state and national leaders to let them know that the suffering in Darfur is on your conscience.

Humanity failed the Jews of Europe during the Nazi Holocaust.

And humanity failed the Tutsis of Rwanda in 1994.

If we hope to amend our initial failure in Darfur, every member of this family must act now.

I implore you to help save Darfur.

-- Carlo Romero is a letters senior. He can be reached at dailyopinion@ou.edu.
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