Policy experts can help students finish their homework

Student activists are busy. Student activists who want to be effective don't have time to do their homework or pass classes. Just ask our parents, the friends we never see, or look for the computer attached to our hips.

The student movement, however, is finding an increasing amount of support from policy experts. In spring 2006, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition merged with the Genocide Intervention Network, and now students, with the guidance of policy experts and resources in Washington, D.C., can focus on implementation, bringing a more unified policy ask to the grassroots student contituency.

Today, ENOUGH: the project to abolish genocide + mass atrocities, with GI-NET and STAND, hosted its first activist conference call featuring ENOUGH Policy Advisor Colin Thomas-Jensen, Advocacy Director Cory Smith, and GI-NET Membership Associate Colin Christensen. Moderated by Lisa Rogoff, the call provided information for student activists about the current situation on the ground in Darfur, an advocacy update, and guidance for activist campaigning.

These calls can support students, who must balance school with Darfur activism and policy research.

The ENOUGH website will soon post a summary and record of the call. Why are these calls such an important tool? This is information we, the public, are deprived of, with the exception of the occasional blurb from the press. It's the information students and activists are seeking in their quest to decide how best to turn action into effective, educated action.

Can/should streamlined information help to focus and unify the Darfur movement?

Divided movement or the ingredients of a peace deal?

On Wednesday, May 30, activist John Prendergast and academic Alex de Waal came together at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to debate the question of: What To Do About Darfur?

While many expected sparks to fly between two differing viewpoints, only one question seemed to remain unanswered: to what extent must we use military action to impose cost on the Sudanese government and thus end the genocide in Darfur?

For Martha's evaluation and notes, see Lives in the Balance. The transcript of the debate will soon be posted on the Committee on Conscience analysis page.

Real action from President Bush

Yesterday, President Bush announced that he is taking action to stop the genocide in Darfur. He announced three steps the US will take to curb the violence.

1.) The Department of Treasury will tighten and enforce all existing economic sanctions against Sudan.
2.) The US will place sanctions on individuals playing key roles in the genocide. The sanctions will restrict their ability to do business with US citizens or companies.
3.) Secretary of State Rice will meet with the leaders of the United Kingdom and other US allies to discuss a new UN Security Council Resolution featuring sanctions on the Sudanese government and individuals perpetrating the genocide or obstructing the peace process.

Previously, Bush has condemned the atrocities in Darfur and spoken of America's responsibility to protect but has not yet taken tangible action to end the genocide. I think we have to give this a try and, in the meantime, keep divesting.

Finally Fidelity...Now Who?

Well, Fidelity finally decided to divest out of dealings with Sudan. I must extend to them my applause as it is a great first step for the major investment company. Hopefully, other major companies will take a page out of Fidelity's book and divest more from companies who have their hands in Darfur. Now that we have gotten Fidelity to divest, who should we focus our attention on now? It has recently come to my attention that the University of Chicago is refusing to divest out of PetroChina, citing "the protection of academic freedom". Aside from pressuring the US government itself, perhaps we should focus on universities. The University of Chicago is an elite university, and what sort of example does that set for the rest of the academic world if they don't divest? Universities hold just as many dealings as big companies do, so let's raise our voices to them. Many students are involved in the Darfur issue and urging their university to take their dealings out of any company that funds the genocidal government of Sudan is certainly something many students would rally behind. So, in conclusion, be a conscience citizen or student and urge your local university to divest.

Potential Progress

Word on the street is that President Bush may be taking solid action to impose new sanctions against Sudan in the next few days and that he is directing Condoleezza Rice to draft a resolution asking the UN to adopt the same actions.

According to Bloomberg,

"Bush also will identify three individuals targeted for sanctions, the first time the U.S. has done so unilaterally, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters last night. He said two of three are senior Sudanese government officials linked to the area's militia forces, known as the Janjaweed, and the third is a top rebel leader.

The announcement of the penalties is a follow up to a warning Bush gave last month in a speech at the United State Holocaust Museum in Washington. He said at the time that the world has a ``moral obligation'' to halt the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of western Sudan."

Read more...

Minesota divested. Have you?

On May 23, Minnesota, where I go to school, became the thirteenth state to divest, or "un-invest," from Sudan so I think it is time for an update on the targeted divestment movement. Recently, Fidelity Investments cut some, though not all, of its ties to PetroChina, due to advocacy from Fidelity Out of Sudan! activists. PetroChina is one of the Chinese oil companies targeted for divestment from the Sudan Divestment Task Force. Some of the 2008 presidential candidates--Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Sam Brownback, specifically--have also taken steps to divest their personal investments from Sudan.

Divestment can be a daunting subject at first, so I want to clarify something important. The question I hear most often is, "Won't divestment hurt the Sudanese?" The answer is no. People think of South Africa when they think of divestment. Blanket divestment was used to fight apartheid, and ultimately ended it, but did impoverish ordinary South Africans. Targeted divestment only removes money from companies that are directly funding the genocide without having a corporate governance policy against it and that do not help Sudanese civilians. It will not hurt the states or other institutions that divest and it will not hurt the Sudanese civilians. Furthermore, the Sudan Divestment Authorization Act (S. 831), a bill in the Senate, will protect states and institutions that divest from Sudan once it passes.

As Sandy Pappas, a Minnesota state senator, said, "This is not just a symbolic gesture. Targeted divestment from Sudan is the most effective tool we have to stop the first genocide of the 21st Century."

To find out if your state has divested or has divestment legislation pending, click here.
To find out how you can become involved, click here.
Visit DarfurScores to find out if your Senators support S. 831. If they do not, write them a letter explaining that you think they should vote for/co-sponsor the legislation.

Big News From Burundi - "To Set Up War Crimes Court"

The article is so short that it pretty much speaks for itself. Sorry I've been rather lax with my blogging but the end of the year was crazy with exams and being Assistant Stage Manager of a show, plus I'm getting ready to go to France for a month of study in less than a week.

Self-Defense in the Ghettos of Today?

Two days ago was the sixty-fourth anniversary of the end of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Led by Mordechai Anielewicz, a small group of Jews armed themselves and resisted the deportation to Treblinka of the ghetto’s remaining Jews. They were surprisingly successful against overwhelming odds and held out for almost a full month of fighting before their inevitable defeat.

In just a few days, I will walk the streets of Warsaw and visit what is left of the ghetto. I will pay my respects to Anielewicz’s memorial and the Ghetto Heroes Memorial. Anielewicz’s last letter before his death ended thus:

The dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self-defense in the ghetto will have been a reality. Jewish armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to the magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish men in battle.

This is one of the most inspiring incidents of the Holocaust, when a few Jews learned of their fate and decided to die with honour by striking back at their exterminators when nobody else in the world would save them. They died as fighters rather than victims.

It makes me wonder if self-defense could be a reality for today’s victims in Darfur. World governments and the UN constantly call for peace between the rebels in Darfur and their Janjaweed and Government enemies. The rebels must not be asked to lay down their arms until others come to defend their people in the IDP camps that have become today’s ghettos. The world should end its moral ambiguity, take sides and aid the rebels if they aren’t willing to fight for them.

If we could go back in time and help the Jews of Warsaw in their fight against Nazi Germany, wouldn’t we? Is today really any different?

Please post your comments and thoughts on the possibility of enabling self-defense for the victims of genocide.

is protest dead?

a few weeks ago some friends and i quickly organized a protest and boycott-- not in response to the ocean-qway human rights violations we're usually protesting-- but because of a bread-and-butter scandal affecting our university that's gotten lots of coverage in our local press.

the day before, most of the people we handed fliers to in the breezeway were familiar with the issue.

this was a welcome change from darfur activism. it felt empowering to be part of a movement that had palpable potential to cause change. and this change could, for once, be immediate. no UN resolutions necessary.

but then...no one came to the protest, aside from the core organizers and our friends. There were more press than people, their cameras' clicks sometimes louder than our improvised chants. In stead of participating, my fellow students at my commuter school gawked at us in the hallway, framing cell phone photos, and edging by us to slip coins into the vending machines we told them them to boycott.

needless to say, this poorly attended press-spectacle was a bit of an embarassment fo me, one of its organizers. i replayed the past few days in my head looking for mistakes, but could find none: we had publicized efficiently and thoroughly; we had sent mass e-mails and made masses of photocopies; we had garnered the attention of every press outlet in the area.

and yet somehow our protest had alienated the people we had hoped most to inspire: the students of our school.

this led me to question the very nature of protests in general. Do they alienate people who aren't activists, people not used to yelling at causes?



the rebellious romantic in me mourns this. sure phonecalls can be effective but they aren't as adrenaline-rush-inspiring as picketing and marching and sitting-in. In my mind, if activism were a big university, protesting would be its football-- the thing everyone celebrates and cheers at and contests.

(no offense to any sports fans here,) but, like football, is protesting just a big fun spectacle or does it actually get stuff done? And the even more unnerving question i keep asking myself is if we are just alienating potential activists by being so..."in your face" about causes? or would we be defiling the nature and legacy of activism if we got out of everyone's face?

in short, is protest dead?

Encouraging the media to face up to genocide

We learn from Jerry Fowler's November 2006 interview with Ann Curry:

"Ann also highlights the importance of public response, noting that the more emails and feedback a story receives and the more the public cares about a story such as Darfur, the more likely the outlet is to continue covering the region."

Tonight, ABC News released two Darfur news stories: "Darfur: Trying to Save the Capital" and "How You Can Help Save Darfur."

So, click on the Comments and Suggestions page at ABCnews.com and let ABC news know you appreciate Darfur coverage. The human rights community must not let genocide go unnoticed, and our ability to spread the word rests largely on the media.

The failures of international organizations: the case of Zimbabwe

This week Zimbabwe, the country with the world's largest inflation rate, was elected to lead the Commission on Sustainable Economic Development (CSD) at the United Nations. This represents the failure of the international community on a number of levels.

First, giving a leadership position at the United Nations to a dictatorial, repressive, floundering government only gives international legitimacy to that government, and says the world doesn't care if governments harm their own people - they're still fit to help lead the rest of the world on an incredibly important issue.

Second, the CSD is the body charged with ensuring global "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs," according to its own mission statement. When Zimbabwe currently "has the world's fastest shrinking economy outside a war zone... inflation is running at 2,200 percent...and the nation, once a regional breadbasket, faces acute shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline and most basic goods" (IHT) promoting Zimbabwe to head a sustainable development institution just makes no sense. It says that the international community doesn't really care about sustainable development, it just wants to pour a bunch of money into an office and some programs to pretend it does.

Why did this happen?
"It seems developing countries voted for Zimbabwe in a direct show of defiance against developed ones... Many observers believe the result was an overwhelming snub to the US and the EU by developing nations, especially those in South America, who respected both the African block's decision and their refusal to be pushed around by former colonial masters."

When countries like Zimbabwe are elected to chair the CSD, and Sudan sat on the old Human Rights Commission despite the North-South civil war and Darfur, how can we expect the UN to act effectively to protect people around the world?

Distorting Darfur

Here's an anonymous letter from the New York Times Magazine's column "The Ethicist":

My brother, an eighth grader in a school where I am a junior, gave a speech about the genocide in Darfur to his English class. His teacher and classmates chose him to present it to the entire grade. School administrators would not let him speak unless he removed a sentence containing the word "rape," finding it inappropriate for 13-year-olds. Is this censorship, or does the school have a valid point?

Randy Cohen, The Ethicist, responds that it is right for schools to think about what content is appropriate for students to hear but argues that "A discussion of the ghastly events in Darfur must mention rape, lest the audience be significantly misinformed." I agree. Kids younger than eighth grade are exposed to misogyny and violence on television.

As my father says, we cannot sanitize the human experience. The tragedy of Darfur is that thousands of women and girls, many even younger than eighth grade, have been raped. To eliminate the word "rape" from a speech about Darfur does not deny that rape has been and is occurring there, but is does distort the truth. To distort what is happening in Darfur insults the memory and dignity of the victims of Darfur. As activists, my fellow board member Elizabeth Milligan wrote in an earlier post, we have the responsibility to educate others about Darfur in order to combat misinformation. Telling the truth about Darfur is our moral obligation.

What I’m Reading V - Darfur Investigation

The genocide in Darfur is old enough that books are starting to be published about it. The best one that I’ve seen so far is “Genocide in Darfur: Investigating the Atrocities in the Sudan,” (2006) edited by Samuel Totten and Eric Markusen. By far the largest and most scholarly volume published on the subject to date, the contributors are a who’s who of big names in the genocide prevention community. Even the COC’s own Jerry Fowler lends a chapter.

Totten and Markusen include a bit of historical information on Sudan and the crisis in Darfur, but they committed most of the book to the history and process of the Darfur Atrocities Documentation Team that interviewed refugees in Chad and whose information gathered led Colin Powell to make the historic accusation of genocide against Sudan in September 2004.

A lot of space is given to analyzing why the United Nations and other groups have not made similar findings, as well as what the significance of the US findings are. This book is absolutely required reading for anyone who wants to understand the genocide in Darfur, how it was discovered, the world’s reaction to it, and its implications for future genocides.

Transcending realism with hope

Holocaust expert speaks on relationship between politics and genocide - News

See the above article about Jerry Fowler in the Oregon Daily Emerald, or just contemplate his quote:

"We may never have a world without genocide, but that doesn't absolve us of the responsibility as witnesses to speak out and have the hope and the imagination that lives could be saved because of what we do."

STAND high school students have such a vision. They'll be taking part in a media advocacy event called "Picture a World Without Genocide." To learn more, click on www.standnow.org/picture_a_world.

Tanzania's Unannounced Expulsion of Refugees

Going on a year now the government of Tanzania has expelled persons of Rwandan and Burundian descent according to an article from Reuters news service. The article reports that in the process upwards of 15,000 people (a vast majority of whom are from Rwanda) have been forced to leave. What is most shocking about this is not that those being expelled are refugees (though that would certainly be shocking enough) but that even some who have lived in Tanzania all their lives, having been born to parents from Rwanda or Burundi, are also being targeted.



Thanks to Human Rights Watch the president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete (pictured), has heard word that the world will not stand idly by and watch this flagrant abuse of the mandates governing the protection of refugees. Since it is not party to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees but since it is a member-state of the United Nations I am not sure what legal implications would apply here but what Tanzania is doing is certainly unsettling.



Article 1 (full-text of the Convention to be found here) requires that, "The Contracting States... apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin." That's strike one. As for subsequent strikes, look to Article 32, which states that refugees cannot be expelled unless it's for reasons of national security, one must have been given "due process" before being expelled, and that one must be given sufficient opportunity to seek refuge in another state.



As I said I don't know what the legal ramifications would be in this case since Tanzania is not party to the Convention. However, according to the article Allison des Forges of HRW seems to think that what Tanzania is doing is "in serious violation of international law." At the very least I think that what Tanzania is doing is morally reprehensible and it should be made to think twice about removing the welcome mat for these people who have gone through so much.

Keeping the Heat on this Summer

For most of us, the school year is winding down or already over and summer’s starting. For me, graduation time is here and I’m done with university. Just because summer vacation is here doesn’t mean that it’s time to take a break from advocacy. There are still a few people around campus and everyone counts, so make sure to get the message about Darfur to them.

Better yet, this is a great opportunity to make yourself a better advocate. Let your summer reading enrich your knowledge of Darfur and genocide in general. Learn new techniques for spreading the word and networking with other advocates.

Keep the pressure on Sudan, the companies that invest there, and your own government representatives.

Remember, genocidaires don’t take a break and mass atrocities aren’t seasonal. The people committing them shouldn’t get the summer off from opposition just because we do.

2 new books on Darfur

For academic reasons and personal interest I have recently finished reading two new books on Darfur. One focuses on what happened on the ground, the other on US citizen responses. They are both incredibly important additions to our understanding of the Darfur crisis.

The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle and Gretchen Steidle Wallace is the story of Captain Steidle's year as an observer with the African Union Mission in Darfur. The book is an earnest account of attacks Steidle witnessed and investigated, and the photographs section is particularly powerful. It's a must-read to understand what life on the ground for Darfuri civilians was like during some of the worst of the genocide in 2004.

Sample quote:
"It is one thing to attack people in their village; it is another thing entirely to attack an IDP camp. THese people had already been driven out of their homes violently and had established a camp of last resort - and act of desperation as they sought to meet their basic needs and find safety. But even that was to be denied them by the GOS and the Janjaweed militias. I was convinced: This was systematic ethnic cleansing. This was genocide." (p. 79)

Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast is a book that does two things - it chronicles the work of activists and advocates to start what is now a true citizens movement for Darfur, and it lays out ways that individuals can help end genocide. The book is also peppered with the thoughts and commentary of the authors, which provides an often amusing insight into what makes two of Darfur's greatest champions tick. (For more of my thoughts on the book see here). Also, portions of the proceeds go to the new camapaign ENOUGH).

Sample quote:
"We can use the Six Strategies for Effective Change: Raise Awareness, Raise Funds, Write a Letter, Call for Divestment Join an Organization, and Lobby the Government. With these tools, we can build the network, increase pressure on the United States and other governments to act quickly and appropriately, and ensure that the political costs for inaction will always be too great." (p. 223)

Photo: student board members Sara Weisman and Martha Heinemann Bixby with Not on Our Watch co-author Don Cheadle