Bicyclists riding against Darfur genocide cross Monroe today
Matthew Daneman
Staff writer
(July 19, 2005) — Elvir Camdzic has seen the ugly side of humanity close up\
Growing up in Bosnia, he witnessed aspects of the genocide in that war-torn European nation -- which helps explain why the Cornell University grad, now living in San Francisco, today is pedaling his way through western New York on his way to Canada, gathering petition signatures along the route to try to get people interested and governments motivated to do something to stop genocide going on now in the African nation of Sudan.
Ride Against Genocide, a 600-mile bicycle trek from Ithaca, Tompkins County, to Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian government, made its way through western Monroe County today. Cornell students organized the trip.
"There's been unprecedented outrage about the situation in Darfur," Camdzic said. "Yet despite of all this international outrage, today the genocide continues. We find this inaction ... to be unacceptable."
The petition, to be presented to both the U.S. and Canadian governments, asks that they monitor NATO support given to African peacekeeping troops being sent to the Darfur region of Sudan, and that they give troops deployed there the ability to protect civilians and aid workers.
According to United Nations estimates, as many as 10,000 people are dying each month in the Texas-sized Darfur region as part of the two-year revolt against the Sudanese government in Khartoum.
The ride began July 11, on the 10th anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia.
"We're linking the two genocides," said Camdzic, 28, as he and a small cluster of bicyclers stood at the corner of Broad Street and Exchange Boulevard this morning, preparing to head off, continuing today's leg of the ride. "We're hoping to use that to get people to learn the lessons of Bosnia, not make the same mistakes in Darfur," he said.
Then with a left-hand turn onto Broad Street, the bicyclists headed west and were gone.
[email protected]