"Ask the Candidates" Launches Campaign to Make Darfur a Priority in Presidential Campaign

A recent press release, reprinted by Globe for Darfur...

ENOUGH, the Genocide Intervention Network, the Save Darfur Coalition, and STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition [have] launched, "Ask the Candidates," an interactive nationwide campaign to make ending the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, a priority for all of the 2008 presidential candidates.

Running trainings and supporting grassroots efforts in early caucus and primary states, "Ask the Candidates" is educating local activists about the current situation in Darfur, and empowering them with the tools [that] they need to ask the candidates for specific commitments to end the genocide.  To help activists address the most-critical issues of the conflict, "Ask the Candidates" has developed specific policy questions that citizens can use when attending campaign events.

"Ending the genocide in Darfur has always been a priority for me," Iowa activist and caucus-goer, Julie Hays, [says]. "Now that I know what to ask, I feel confident speaking up at campaign events, and will caucus for the candidate with the best policy on this issue."

"Ask the Candidates" began as a campaign asking the presidential candidates to divest their personal investments from companies providing financial support to the Sudanese government. By publicly divesting their own financial holdings from the highest-offending companies operating in Sudan, each candidate can prove their personal commitment to ending the genocide in Darfur.

Since 2003, the crisis in Darfur has claimed the lives of as many as 400,000 civilians and [has] displaced at least two million people, according to the United Nations. President Bush and the US Congress declared the situation [to be] genocide in 2004, finding the government of Sudan culpable in the attacks.

"It is up to citizens in these early primary states to determine the agenda of the presidential candidates," New York Times journalist, Nick Kristof, said at an event at Drake University in Des Moines [...]. "Iowans, specifically, can use their voice during the caucuses to bring Darfur to the attention of the presidential candidates."

By visiting AskTheCandidates.org, Americans can sign a petition asking the candidates to divest personal holdings in Sudan that are funding the genocide, learn the most-important [questions] to ask the candidates and how to ask them, see the [candidates'] answers to questions on Darfur, and find out where events are taking place.

"Ask the Candidates" is calling on all presidential candidates to make specific pledges to end the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Stopping genocide in Darfur must be an important political priority for the next president, and concerned Americans want to know [that] the next president is willing and able to meet this moral challenge.