Mar 2, 2007 -- Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times, shared an insider’s perspective when he spoke at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law to a packed moot court room on the “First Genocide of the 21 Century: Report from Darfur.” Using his signature style, he told stories of people that he met, portraying them with dignity and respect for their suffering, while reminding us of our moral imperative to help those with no voice. “Kristof is responsible for raising our awareness of the events in Sudan with dogged determination and persistence, as he shows us over and over again why these issues are important,” Dean David Rudenstine said. Mr. Kristof noted that although there are many other humanitarian crises raging, “Darfur seems different to me. I’ve seen a lot of nasty things in my career, but nothing quite adds up to seeing a government-sanctioned policy to kill an ethnic group. Darfur has become a land of utter evil—it is obligatory that we stand up to this genocide.” Describing a revelatory moment on an early trip to Sudan, the journalist said he encountered a group of about 30,000 Darfuris, who had fled an attack on their village and were gathered at an oasis. As Mr. Kristof went from tree to tree interviewing people, one man told of being shot in the face and climbing out from under a massive pile of bodies, and a woman explained how attackers had poisoned her village’s well with dead bodies. Under another tree, he found a four-year-old looking after his two-year-old sibling; moving to a fourth tree, a young woman told him how her two children and husband had been killed, and she and her sister were left naked in the desert after being gang raped. Mr. Kristof said he looked around at all the other trees and saw the thousands of people sitting in their shade with similar stories to tell, and was hit with the magnitude of the tragedy. Mr. Kristof said that sending in US ground troops is not a solution and that aid programs for refugees have been good but utterly inadequate. He advocated raising international pressure on the Sudanese government, as the US government did successfully several years ago, pushing the country to expel Osama bin Laden when he took refuge there. Additionally, he suggested that organizations such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court publish reports and graphic photographs of the atrocities—making them visceral so people react. And, he said, we as citizens should keep the issue in front of our elected officials as their priorities are shaped by constituent concerns. Cardozo’s Program in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies sponsored the talk.