Student activism at Stanford suffers from crisis fatigue. Subscribers to the service4all e-mail list receive at least five messages daily revealing misfortune and offering ways to ameliorate it. As a result, several members of this list delete these messages while muttering expletives about spam. Stanford and the Bay Area community know about the Darfur genocide. However, the reaction to the genocide occasionally parallels the reaction to our service4all list. Many of us agree with the purpose while avoiding the opportunities to affect change. I appeal to The Daily’s readers to resist this temptation and to participate in this Thursday’s DarfurFast.

For every Stanford student who signs up to fast, The Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Fund has agreed to send $5 to Doctors Without Borders and the World Food Program?s Darfur relief efforts. In addition, up until this Thursday, the Omidyar Fund will match 1:1 all donations made by Stanford students, their family, and their friends to Doctors Without Borders and WFP. To sign up to fast and/or make a pledge, just email stanfordstand@gmail.com.

When you fast, you stand with the over 3.5 million Darfuris who would die without medical and food aid daily. You stand with parents whose daughters have been gang-raped. You stand with the sisters whose brothers have been bound, beaten, and castrated. You stand with and remember the countless civilians who heard as they were shot down: “We will kill all blacks — this is not your homeland.”

When you fast on Thursday, you demand that the United Nations Security Council realize its commitment to genocide prevention and civilian protection. Although the UN authorized peacekeepers for Darfur, these peacekeepers will not deploy without the Sudanese government’s consent. Naturally, during a time when they have stepped up their bombing campaign against innocent Darfuris, Khartoum’s leaders will not comply.

Three years into the genocide, with no great power rising to confront President Al-Bashir, the burden of crisis-containment continues to be with the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS). AMIS does not have a mandate to protect civilians, and its force is demoralized, outgunned and outmanned. Currently, if deployed throughout Darfur, each AMIS monitor would have to patrol a patch of land the size of Manhattan. More astonishingly, the Sudanese government can impose curfews on the force and determine the fuel supply of AMIS’ few helicopters. In essence, AMIS can defend only with the aggressor’s consent.

The people of Darfur need effective multinational protection. When you fast on Thursday, you demand that NATO intervene in Darfur immediately. The NATO Response Force can deploy its forces anywhere in the word within five days, and its troops can survive without additional supplies for another 30 days. Furthermore, NATO has held training exercises in Western Sudan, familiarizing it with Darfur’s terrain. Taking these facts into account and understanding the recent organizational success of the NATO mission to Afghanistan, it becomes evident that the mission could not fail.

I appeal to The Daily’s readers to understand that this situation does not have a diplomatic resolution. Khartoum continues to violate the conditions of the recent peace accords. President Al-Bashir grows bolder while the international community verbalizes aimlessly with out action. Recall Kosovo and remember that although expensive, NATO intervention saved thousands from death and millions from displacement. Recall the grainy black and white print of liberated Holocaust survivors and remember that intervention can be a force for good.

Fast for Darfur on Thursday. Send an e-mail to stanfordstand@gmail.com declaring your resolution against the genocide in Darfur. This time, instead of muttering under your breaths and deleting that sixth e-mail, raise your voice for justice and the victims of genocide.

James Vaughan is a sophomore majoring in Sociology and Political Science. He is the Political Advocacy co-coordinator for Stanford STAND.