Welcome to Georgetown STAND!

[Daniel Solomon]

Hello All!

For those of you new to STAND, welcome--it was a pleasure meeting each of you at SAC Fair earlier today. For those veterans on this email list, we hope you'll take this opportunity to reinvigorate your participation with STAND over the coming year. 

We'll use this email list over the course of the upcoming year as a critical vessel for Georgetown STAND's educational and advocacy opportunities. Always feel free to contact the STAND leadership with questions, concerns, or comments about the content of our weekly emails, or the organization in general.

In this email, you will find:

• Our annual beginning-of-the-year trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, on this Saturday, September 10.
• An excellent event on mineral extraction and violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, featuring John Prendergast and Robin Wright (Penn), on Wednesday, September 14.
• Our first lobbying opportunity of the year, on civilian protection in Syria. 
• A couple of interesting articles about emerging civilian protection crises and STAND's areas of concern.

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

• This Saturday, September 10, we'll be heading over to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, for our annual tour of the museum's main exhibition and, time permitting, the museum's exhibit on grassroots mobilization for genocide and mass atrocities prevention. We'll meet at the front gates at 11:00 am, and head over on the Metro. Please contact st...@georgetown.edu to RSVP for the event.

JP and Princess Buttercup Do Conflict Minerals

• Next Wednesday, September 14, John Prendergast and Robin Wright, of Princess Bride fame, will be speaking about conflict minerals, violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Robin's recent trip to eastern DRC. The event dovetails with STAND's recent efforts to mobilize university leverage surrounding the conflict resolution process in the DRC. The talk will take place from 7:00-8:30 pm, in the MSFS Conference Room on the 7th floor of the ICC. Contact st...@georgetown.edu for more information about the event, and opportunities to get involved in conflict minerals issues.

Lobbying for Civilian Protection in Syria

• During the week of September 26, STAND will be lobbying on civilian protection in Syria, in support of energy sanctions against the Assad regime. We'll provide you with the talking points, lobby training, and meeting scheduling. Click here to sign up to lobby--no experience necessary! 

Interesting Articles

This summer has been filled with plenty of excitement in the genocide-and-mass-atrocities-prevention sector. Here are a couple of articles and subjects to get the conversation started for the new school year:

• The expedited decline of Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime in Libya has raised a robust blogosphere debate on the ethics of mass atrocity response, the future of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine, and the effectiveness of NATO's intervention in Libya. Anne-Marie Slaughter initiated the conversation, with support from Allyson Neville-Morgan and Zack Beauchamp, and rebuffs from Joshua Foust and Dan Trombly.
• David Aronson's report from the ground in eastern Congo raised a number of questions about US attempts to restrict the Great Lakes conflict minerals trade. Laura Seay aggregated a number of responses to the conflict minerals controversy.

Let us know what you think about the Libya, R2P, and Congo discussions. Email st...@georgetown.edu with your thoughts.

We're looking forward to an exciting year. As always, let us know if you're interested in getting involved in lobbying, planning events, or participating in our leadership. Talk to you all soon!

All the best,

Georgetown STAND

---------------------
Daniel Solomon
STAND: The Student-led Division of United to End Genocide

National Student Director
Georgetown SFS '13
Cell: (917) 587-9921

Email: dire...@standnow.org

Twitter: @danatgu
http://standnow.org/