By Elizabeth Alfano and Chris Falcone
As many as 300,000 people have died. More than two million have been forced from their homes.
It’s not the devastation of the tsunami. Nor do numbers reflect the death toll of the World Trade Center Attacks. (128,715 and 2,749, respectively, according to the Associated Press.) Not even close.
It’s not “genocide,” at least not technically, according to the U.N. International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur. (The janjaweed militia killing of African farmers appears to lack the element of genocidal intent.)
It’s evil thriving in the Sudan and the world is allowing history to repeat itself. It’s happening while good men bicker over technicalities and look out for their best interests.
Rewind to 1994. As many as 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis are massacred over a period of 100 days by the Hutu militia, the Interahamwe, after the president’s plane is shot down. The United States and other major powers close their eyes and turn their backs.
Fast forward 10 years past one of the most efficient genocides in history. U.S. and U.N. leaders recognize they cannot say “never again” when a comparable atrocity may be taking place in Sudan.
Pause at the present. Today, at this very hour – this very second – the same mayhem that occurred in Rwanda may not be occurring in Sudan. It is occurring. The government-armed Arab militia, the janjaweed, continues to attack the Darfurian population. The Arab militia murder civilians, destroy villages and drive them from their homes. Each day, women and girls are raped. Those who become pregnant are shunned and beaten. Children and donkeys are thrown into wells to poison water supplies.
And what is being done?
The world’s major powers display minimal cooperation with the United Nations Security Council.
During the last week in March, the Security Council passed resolutions to strengthen sanctions on the Sudanese. Russia and China blocked sanctions against Sudan. Russia sold them arms. China purchased more of the nation’s oil.
The Council also provided provisions to allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute those Sudanese accused of war crimes. The United States has refused to ratify the treaty because it is opposed in principle to the ICC. Only after the United Nations agreed to check the ICC from trying nationals from outside Sudan for genocide, did the United States ratify the resolution. (The United States refuses to subject itself to the court’s authority, arguing U.S. soldiers could become victims of political prosecution.)
This is one year after the United Nations unequivocally said it would not stand silent to such atrocities again when it held a day of remembrance in New York City for the victims of Rwanda. Speaking on April 7, 2004, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told the world: “We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least eight hundred thousand defenseless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda 10 years ago.”
Yet this very entity continues to fail to make good on its pledge. Members bicker over technicalities and look out for their best interests.
And never again is again.
That was the message Paul Rusesabagina delivered to the packed Playhouse April 12 during the University’s Genocide Awareness Week: what took place in Rwanda in 1994 is still taking place in the world today.
He attributed Rwanda’s problem to Belgium’s colonization of the country. Belgium aligned themselves with the Tutsis, but when they left Rwanda they turned power over to the Hutus. In other words, it was an explosion waiting to happen. A large number of Hutus were desperate for a catalyst to rid the Tutsis and the assassination of the Hutu president was their call to arms – or rather, machetes.
“The Congo has been abandoned for the last nine years. Burundi too – a country media doesn’t talk about at all. In the Sudan, the exact situation is occurring,” he said.
“Rwanda – you can draw a lot of parallels to what is going on in the Sudan,” he added.
At the climax of the Rwandan crisis, the U.N. Security Council voted to reduce its Rwandan peacekeeping force from 2,500 to just a few hundred at the United States’ insistence. Rwanda was becoming just too dangerous.
Rusesabagina’s courageous story inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda.” During the Hutu’s massacre of the Tutsis, he repeatedly put his life on the line by turning the hotel he worked at into a refugee camp. Thanks to him, over 1,200 people were able to take refuge in the Milles Collines Hotel in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali. Rusesabagina was then a manager at the hotel.
He urged students to take action. “Raise awareness, because in the West, leadership belongs to the people. Africa is burning. You can change a lot,” he said.
Some valiant steps have been taken to bring the Darfur crisis into the global spotlight. According to the Save Darfur Organization, the formation of a Save Darfur Coalition an alliance of over 100 faith-based humanitarian and human rights organizations as well as numerous student-run groups are now supporting this mission. Events have been held throughout the United States that aim to raise awareness and spark change, including a “Hotel Darfur” campaign.
At the beginning of the year, volunteers handed out flyers to moviegoers leaving showings of Hotel Rwanda. Web sites like www.darfurgenocide.org, www.savedarfur.org and www.genocideinterventionfund.org offer support and provide information on ways to help stop the gruesome situation in the Sudan.
Still, Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as 300,000 people have died in the Sudan. That’s more than double the number that perished in the tsunami. So why is there not more support?
With devastation in Sudan reaching incalculable totals, Benjamin Talton, assistant professor of African Studies at the University, looks to America’s long history of anti-interventionism, which he believes is the defining political philosophy of our country.
“The United States, as a nation and as a people, really doesn’t pay attention to events around the world unless it has something to do with us,” he said. “I think it’s something about our culture, but we seem to be very inward looking.”
That doesn’t mean that the power to make change is not still there. Students, in particular, have an enormous capability to influence policy. If anything is going to move events, it would be college campuses, Martin Melkonian, professor of economics, said.
“Darfur is a very critical situation and I think students could play an important role in it,” said Melkonian, who also serves as an advisor for Students Against Injustice (SAI). He believes the action of students helped bring the Vietnam War to a close.
However, since the days of Vietnam, Melkonian feels the majority of students have become diverted from the issues that really matter. For that, he places blame solely on media.
“The media is focused on sensational issues such as Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart and steroids. And to push out of the news all the other things being neglected while these events take place is a gross dereliction of the duty of the press,” Melkonian said.
He pleads that we hold the media accountable when they fill our airwaves with diversion instead of information.
Has so little been done because of apathy, or because media is failing in its duty to inform?
With devastation reaching incalculable totals, Benjamin Talton, assistant professor of African Studies, relates the destruction in the region of Darfur to an area closer to home.
“Imagine if everyone in Brooklyn was left homeless and destitute,” Talton said. “That is basically the enormity of it.”
Vanessa Cudabac, a member of SAI and the coordinator of the recent campaign against Coca-Cola, thinks Americans fail to see the enormity of the conflict, because they don’t think the Sudan affects them.
“Peoplein this country have so much power and so much privilege that all they have to do is wake up and demand change, but they don’t,” said Cudabac.
But Anita Ellis used her power as director of Student Activities to demand change. After watching Rwanda’s story on television, she decided she had to bring Rusesbagina to raise awareness about genocide on campus.
Ellis, along with interested members from SGA, campus fraternities and sororities and Student Activities, formed a committee that helped orchestrate Genocide Awareness Week on campus. In conjunction with the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Long Island Teachers for Human Rights (LITHR), they put together a series of presentations to raise awareness of the tragedy and horror of genocide. Events included a dinner and viewing of “Hotel Rwanda,” a genocide poster exhibit documentary, as well as numerous speakers.
One of the event’s organizers, senior Matt Anderson, worked primarily on the photo exhibit, which comprised 13 posters illustrating genocide that has occurred across the world. Displayed in front of the Student Center bookstore, the exhibit was visible to all passersby. Anderson proudly notes that the student-run committee raised 70 percent of the money used to bring the event to fruition and to bring the “Hotel Rwanda” hero to campus.
“Anytime you make people aware, it leads to discourse and all the better,” Anderson said.
As Rusesabagina reminded students, we cannot stand idly by when people need to go to school, need medical care and need psychological care. The end of genocide does not mean the end of disaster. He provoked the question as to how the world can stand idle “never again” in Rwanda is again in the Sudan.
Now that we’re aware, will we be apathetic?
“‘Hotel Rwanda’ is a message,” he said. “And you are the messengers.”
(Map Design by www.worldatlas.com; Ruben Zaldana/The Chronicle)
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan speaking to the General Assembly in Geneva, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. (Photo courtesy www.un.org)
Darfurian refugees have been pushed out of their homes by the janjaweed militia, which was armed by the Sudanese government. (Photo courtesy www.lutheranworld.com)