Kevin Stearns/University Photography

From left, astronomy graduate student David Rothstein, an organizer of the Ride Against Genocide, associate professor of history John Weiss and alumnus Elvir Camdzic '00 gear up for the Ride Against Genocide.

Last July the U.S. government officially declared that genocide was occurring in the Darfur region of western Sudan. This July 12 a group of Cornell University students will begin a Ride Against Genocide, a 600-mile bike ride to help rally the world to halt the genocide.

Their ultimate destination is the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. Joined by several professors, an alumnus and area residents on their trek, they will ask the Canadian government to add its leverage to other nations in the international community and prod NATO to take speedy action to stop the atrocities in Darfur. Canada is home to numerous refugees from Darfur and other parts of Sudan.

"Darfur has become a cause celebre among college students across the country," said Andrew Garib, Arts and Sciences '06, who will join the group in Ottawa. A member of the Cornell Darfur Action Group, which is coordinating the trip, he made contacts with other Darfur-related groups across the United States, who also are taking part.

Nearly 400,000 innocent civilians in Darfur have been killed or starved to death since the conflict began in February 2003, according to the Coalition for International Justice, Garib said. Rape of women and girls is common, and some boys have been castrated or had their eyes gouged out, The New York Times reported recently. Most of the villages in the region, which is about the size of Texas, have been destroyed by fire and bombs dropped from government helicopters, and 2.4 million people have been displaced, U.N. reports indicate. Those not in hiding are living in extremely vulnerable conditions in government-controlled camps inside Darfur or in refugee camps across the border in Chad, Garib said.

The perpetrators are known as Janjaweed, militia groups recruited from sectors of the Arab community who fight in alliance with troops and aircraft sent by the National Islamic Front government in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, in a campaign to rid the region of its non-Arab residents, said Ithacan Deborah Hyams. Hyams is a research assistant to associate professor of history John Weiss and a member of the Darfur Action Group. A handful of U.N.-authorized African Union forces also are in Darfur, but their U.N. mandate does not permit them to take military action to protect civilians, she explained.

"The Ride Against Genocide is a statement to the public on both sides of the border on the importance of international involvement," Garib said. "The current Bush administration and others give the genocide in Darfur second priority to the war on terror and geopolitical strategy. Part of our project is to remind the world of our moral obligation to stop humanity's worst crime."

Carol Wu, Arts and Sciences '08, who is coordinating the Rochester leg of the trip, got involved with the Darfur Action Group after attending a lecture given by Weiss on the situation in Darfur. "At first I thought that it would be useless for me to join the cry against genocide because I was just one person," Wu said. "However, it truly doesn't matter if it is just one person or two or three or a few hundred, as long as there is still someone out there to get the word out, to get others to care."

Departing from Ithaca, the Cornell group plans to reach Canada's capital via a 600-mile journey around Lake Ontario that will include stops in 25 towns and cities, including Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Hamilton, Ont., and Toronto, to rally support for their cause. To call attention to the urgency of the situation, they chose a departure date that follows the 10th anniversary on July 11 of a massacre in another part of the globe, Srebrenica, Bosnia. Co-leading the bike ride are Weiss and alumnus Elvir Camdzic '00, now executive director of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Center of San Francisco, who both witnessed elements of the massacre. A send-off gathering and vigil marking the massacre's anniversary takes place Monday, July 11, at 5 p.m. on the Ithaca Commons.

Other faculty members who have spoken out publicly against the situation in Darfur, noted Weiss, include professor of law Muna Ndulo, director of the Institute for African Development, and Salah Hassan, chair of the Department of History of Art and associate professor and director of the Africana Studies and Research Center.

The riders expect to arrive Aug. 8 in Ottawa, where they will be welcomed by a public reception led by Canadian Member of Parliament David Kilgour, the county's leading advocate for strong action in Darfur. They then will present a petition, along with a banner of signed handprints, to the Canadian Parliament asking the government to use its position in NATO and the United Nations to secure a change in the mandate of the African Union mission in Darfur to include protection of Darfurian civilians and all aid workers; increase the number of African Union troops in Darfur from 2,500 to at least ten 25,000; and provide those troops with speedy, continuous NATO support, including funding, planning, communications, supplies, transportation and equipment.

Other participating groups are the Genocide Intervention Fund, which originated at Swarthmore College, and the San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition, an alliance of student, faith-based and activist groups led by Camdzic. Participants plan to hold public presentations in communities along the route to raise awareness about the ongoing human rights violations in Darfur, raise money for the Genocide Intervention Fund to support African Union forces in Darfur and circulate petitions and encourage letters and other advocacy efforts directed at the Canadian and U.S. governments.

Marielle Macher, Arts and Sciences '08, is organizing food and sleeping arrangements for the Cornell bikers and is the chief planner for speaking events at each stop along the trip. "Sometimes it has been a little challenging, but I've been really amazed by the amount of compassion and charity so many people have shown," she said. "Hopefully [the Ride Against Genocide] will make a real difference."

For more information about the route and schedule of the ride or to get involved, see http://www.weaversofthewind.org or contact Weiss, jhw4@cornell.edu, (607) 277-6744, or Hyams, diburiya@yahoo.com, (607) 257-3168.