I joined a young Duke student July 4, 2004, on a tour of London’s famous Imperial War Museum. Our visit, one in a long number of tourist stops around the city that day, was typical of any study-abroad experience. We traveled via subway to the museum. We photographed massive naval guns outside the entrance and stood beside a portion of the Berlin Wall. We took brochures and placed them in backpacks already stuffed with literature.
Yet on the top floor of the museum is an exhibit totally atypical. “Crimes Against Humanity: An Exploration of Genocide and Ethnic Violence” is a 30-minute film detailing with horrific clarity similarities between mass murders from the Nazi death camps to Bosnia and Rwanda. Genocide is not just something from World War II; it has been occurring in hotspots around the globe since then — in places like Rwanda, China, East Timor and Bosnia. I had been to Dachau and seen the camps, but somehow the visuals had a new, powerful impact. Torn, burnt, beaten and raped bodies lay in piles along dirt roads as hordes of young men danced with machine guns. Mothers screamed out in agony holding infants with bullet holes in their heads. Groups of men, women and children were rounded up and summarily shot as their lifeless bodies fell into pits of rotting, bloody flesh.
“Genocide” — a term we read from the comfort and distance of history books and newspapers — took on a form of reality.
But genocide and reality have never gone hand in hand. This month marks the 11-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, in which more than 800,000 died in only 100 days. Majority Hutus slaughtered minority Tutsis, with the government going so far as to use radio broadcasts to direct Hutu mobs armed with machetes. The Clinton administration did little or nothing, failing even to formally recognize the mass murder as “genocide.” Why? Such a designation would have required the Clinton administration, under international law, to take action. Only years later did President Clinton admit his mistake.
Reality, genocide and Africa have once again collided in Darfur. Since early 2003, Janjaweed militias backed by the Sudanese government have engaged in a massive campaign of violence and ethnic cleansing. They have employed helicopters and coordinated assaults to displace 2 million and kill another 300,000. Much like Rwanda in the ’90s or Poland in the ’40s, armed groups are systematically killing a minority. Men and boys are slaughtered. Women and girls are gang-raped. Burnt bodies are left in torched villages to rot. Children’s corpses are thrown into wells in an effort to poison scarce water resources.
Although former Secretary of State Colin Powell accurately called this “genocide” and the United States has given millions in humanitarian aid relief, we have yet to take a proactive approach to ending the atrocities. One week ago, the Senate passed the Darfur Accountability Act as part of a supplemental appropriations bill. The legislation, sponsored by Senators Corzine and Brownback, calls for an expanded mandate for African Union and U.N. troops to protect civilians, an extended arms embargo over the Sudanese government, a military no-fly zone over Darfur, a new U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions and sanctions against those responsible for the genocide. All of these steps are long overdue.
However, one must wonder if this is enough. President Bush has failed to come out in strong support of the Darfur Accountability Act, deciding instead to issue repeated statements calling for an end to the violence. But the Sudanese government has ignored such calls — even in the form of U.N. resolutions — repeatedly. As one White House statement put it, “It is clear that only outside action can stop the killing.”
Thus, we are left in a situation that is both real and not real. We recognize a genocide. We see that resolutions do not work. We know that humanitarian aid is not enough to stop the dying. We know that action is required. But that action dare not speak its name, and we do no more.
Fortunately, UW students have an option to voice their concerns and take positive action. Action in Sudan, a UW student group organized by UW seniors Emily Fischer, Sonya Larson, Megan Slaughter, Vivian Intermont and Rachel Belkob, held a successful letter-writing campaign on the Darfur Accountability Act. Their 6 p.m. meeting tonight at 1101 Humanities will feature a lecture from UW professor Scott Straus on Darfur and Rwanda.
Memorializing those slaughtered in genocides requires not just a visit, a statement or a resolution. A real memorial must live in the actions of those who can prevent genocides from happening again. This administration, which prides itself on proactively spreading peace, democracy and liberty throughout the world, must take its own rhetoric seriously and end this tragedy by force. Only then will an end to the Sudanese genocide become a reality. Only then will we live up to the great principles laid down on that July day 228 years before my visit to the Imperial War Museum.
Paul Temple ([email protected]) is a 2004 UW-Madison graduate in political science and philosophy. He is the former editorial page editor of the Badger Herald and currently resides in Madison.
