Glimpses of Genocide

An article ran in the New York Times on Thursday, March 22. It was called "Ann Curry's Ambition: To Witness the Suffering." While the article focused on Ann Curry herself and her motivation for reporting from Darfur and various other conflict-torn places, it also highlighted the importance of the media and its role in increasing advocacy.

[Jim] Bell [the "Today" show's executive producer] said he was encouraged that the networks research showed viewers did not appear to be changing the channel during Ms. Curry's Darfur reports, some of them graphic interviews with people who had been badly scarred or lost whole families.

"I would be hard-pressed to say, let's do that again," he said, if viewers were tuning out.

On a more personal note: In January there was a reading of the play In Darfur by Winter Miller at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, where I attend school. The Minneapolis newspaper, the Star Tribune, ran an editorial about the play and ticket sales zoomed from about 200 to 600.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a clip of Ann Curry's reporting to embed into the blog but they are available at her website.

Bring Justice to the Women of Darfur

This past weekend I attended the reading of a play called In Darfur by Winter Miller. The play focuses on the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Darfur. In particular, it calls attention to the dangers Darfuri women face every day. The main character of the play is Hawa, a woman whose husband and son were killed with the rest of her family by the Janjaweed. Hawa was gang-raped and became pregnant. She does not know if the child belongs to her husband or to one of her rapists. Even after she reaches the IDP camp, she is not safe. On at least two occasions in the camp, she is beaten by soldiers inside the camp.

Rape has long been used as a tool of war because it is a demonstration of power and robs its victims of dignity. Often, a woman who has been raped is ostracized. The Janjaweed rapes black African women, hoping to impregnate them with Arab babies. Thus, rape in Darfur is not only demonstrates the oppressors' power in the region, but an attempt to eliminate the Africans living in Darfur. When the Janjaweed attacks a village, they kill, often after castrating, the men, and rape the women. Often, when women leave IDP camps to collect firewood or grass for their livestock, they are raped by Janjaweed soldiers lurking nearby. It is not only Janjaweed, however, who attack women. Soldiers in the rebel groups (such as the Sudanese Liberation Army) and the police protecting the camps are guilty as well. It is not possible to know exactly how many women have been raped, but one BBC reporter wrote last October that she had spoken with 21 women living in an IDP camp who had been raped in a period of two weeks. Other forms of violence against women include abduction and forced displacement. So far, the government in Khartoum is doing nothing to bring these rapists to justice. Write to President Omar al-Bashir and ask him to end the violence against women. Mail letters to this address:
His Excellency Lieutenant-General
Omr Hassan al-Bashir
President of the Republic of Sudan
President's Palace
PO Box 281
Khartoum
Sudan
For more extensive information on the condition of women in Darfur, visit www.amnestyusa.org/women/darfur.