Dallaire compares Darfur to Rwanda

Student activists from Hillel, STAND (Students Take Action Now for Darfur), and War Child Canada took to the stage at Ramsden Park in downtown Toronto for a Global Day for Darfur.

The rally marked the first anniversary of U.N. signing the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, which urges the international community to take collective action to protect their populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Calling the Darfur crisis “a carbon copy of the Rwanda genocide,” retired Gen. Romeo Dallaire, one of the keynote speakers, urged Canadian youth to “be prepared to support the efforts in Darfur.” Dallaire said Canadian youth must move human rights beyond our borders and set the “yardsticks beyond our own personal needs.”

Dallaire insisted that “as citizens of the world” we must take action against the bellicose Sudanese government. The event closed with music from Bedouin Soundclash. Thirty-two other cities including New York, Kigali, Paris, and Copenhagen also held demonstrations to bring an end to the Darfur crisis.

-Hayley Morrison

What’s making headlines on other Canadian campuses

Student union may face impeachment

Computers have been confiscated at Simon Frasier University in an investigation that may become the next big scandal in Canadian campus politics. The fracas involves the elected directors of the Simon Fraser Students Society (SFSS), who may be impeached in coming weeks.

Controversy was sparked last month when the SFSS suspended six members and fired one who had been employed loyally for nearly 25 years. Rallying behind the fired employee, SFU students launched a movement, called Students for a Democratic Society (SDU), which aims to impeach all seven elected SFSS board members.

In an interview, SDU spokesperson Bryan Jones noted that “the board has raised $15,000 dollars to support its legal council”. Recently, directors of the SFSS board “were seen confiscating computers,” which Jones speculated was part of a legal battle to “save their positions on the board.”

The SDU has been vigorously posting signs across campus to stoke student discontent. In a statement last week, the SDU said it has gathered 2,500 signatures, enough to enable them to call for a special meeting of the SFSS within 30 days.

Hostilities have now erupted, and a source speaking to The Varsity under condition of anonymity claimed to have spotted SFSS members tearing down signs across campus. Signs have also been posted slandering SDU members, but their author is not yet known. Copies of The Peak-a campus newspaper that has been covering the situation-have also been torn down.

Impeachment proceedings are rare and have only occurred once at SFU, in 1996, when the an SFSS director got impeached in a pornography scandal.

-William Walker