C.U. Reflects on Darfur Crisis
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This article is part one in a series investigating the genocide occuring in Darfur and the role that Cornell chooses to play in the crisis.
Imagine all of Cornell’s students, numbering over 20,000. Now imagine a number 25 times larger — around 500,000 — and not of people, but bodies.
Understanding the on-going genocide in Darfur is no easy task, and the numbers vary with different perspectives.
President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has said only 10,000 have died in fighting, and only seven of the 22 counties in the Darfur region have actually been affected, insisting, “The rest of the areas are very safe, and the people live normal lives.”
President George W. Bush has warned that Sudan must move to resolve the “Darfur issue,” and has called the atrocities in Sudan “genocide.”
“What the State Department or the U.N. never mention,” said Prof. John Weiss, law “is that this regime is multiply genocidal … 10 times as many people — and this has been validated by leading criminal attorneys and law experts — have been murdered than were by Hitler.”
Prof. Muna Ndulo, law, director for the Institute for African Development said, “Well over 500,000 people have been killed; 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes and 4 million people depend on the outside world for survival. The campaign against Darfur consists of the use of deprivation of food, murder, rape and extrajudicial executions to terrorize the people.”
According to Ndulo, the genocide in Darfur began in 2003, when the Sudanese forces and government-backed Arab militias, or Janjaweed, tried to crush two rebel groups. The group was fighting the Arab-dominated government to protest Khartoum’s marginalization of the region’s black Africans. The Sudanese government has denied responsibility and has placed the blame on rebel groups, such as the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice Equality movement. Bashir has also blamed the conflict on outside influences.
“The cause of the crisis is the interference from external powers,” he added, “mainly the United States.”
“Even if one were to accept the Sudanese government version of what is happening in Darfur,” Ndulo said, “it represents a monumental failure on the part of the Sudanese government in its duty to protect its people.”
The University, as indicated by President David J. Skorton, has an obligation of its own regarding the crisis in the Sudan.
During his inauguration speech in September, Skorton emphasized the need to bring “the expertise and heart of Cornell [to] the inner cities of our country and in Darfur.”
It was these sentiments that led to Cornell’s divestment from the Sudan in August.
“It is impossible for us to stand by idly and tolerate the complicity of the Sudanese government in this human tragedy,” Skorton said in a press release at the time. The University also barred investments of its endowment assets in oil companies currently operating in Sudan and in obligations of the Sudanese government. According to the administration, more than half of the Sudanese government’s revenues are derived from oil.
Steve Golding, executive vice president for finance and administration, explained the process that resulted in the divestment. According to Golding, Peter Meinig ’71, chairman of the Board of Trustees, requested a hard look at the University’s investments with regard to Sudan. The result was a report of the University’s assets invested in the Sudan, which included how other institutions were dealing with the crisis. Promptly after his arrival, Skorton, upon reading this report, made a recommendation to the trustees, who voted for divestment.
Golding described the initiative as consisting of two strategies, one is concerned with the investment aspect, and the other aims to explore collaboration with faculty across the university regarding “other initiatives in Sudan and Africa more broadly.”
The investment office then “made a decision to hire a firm which tracks stockholdings, that now provides the office with an ongoing up to date list of companies that are providing royalties to the Sudanese governments,” Golding said. “We sold four companies. …The evaluation was a little more than 20 million dollars in terms of direct holdings.”
He added, “While we cannot tell [our mutual fund companies] to divest because we are only one of a number of investors, we have asked them to look at this issue and talk to other investors.”
“Divestment is not enough,” Skorton said in his inauguration address. “ Provost Martin and I are pursuing other avenues. … We will seek the good counsel of our faculty, staff and students as to ways by which the Cornell community can effectively educate itself about this and other areas of Africa.”
“My office, under the provost’s leadership, works to strengthen the University’s international programs and activities,” explained Prof. David Wippman, law, who is vice provost for international relations. “Once the President indicated a desire to do something positive beyond divestment, the provost asked me to work with her and others to identify options.”
He has since worked with Ndulo, Prof. Salah Hassan, director of the Africana Studies and Research Center, and Nicholas van de Walle, director of the Einaudi Center, as well as a number of other faculty.
“I have also consulted representatives of human rights organizations, the U.N. and the U.S. government. With these various sources of input, I developed a list of options for discussion with the president and provost,” Wippman said.
He also described future actions for the University, mentioning support of various public awareness efforts and academic research related to the Sudan, the potential joining of the Scholars at Risk network, the hosting of various writers and scholars from the region who cannot continue their work at home due to the conflict, and the collaboration of a number of faculty to put together a strategy workshop on preparing for peace in Sudan.
The issue of understanding the genocide in Darfur is especially timely for Cornell with an upcoming, student-organized Darfur Week at the end of this month.
According to Ray Bai ’07, president of Students for Tolerance, Awareness, and Remembering Survivors, Cornell’s genocide and Holocaust awareness and prevention group, the week is going to be co-sponsored by 13 student groups on campus.
“We have been working to bring in as many students as possible from all different backgrounds because we believe that this issue demands everyone's attention regardless of their individual traits or beliefs,” Bai said.
Bai expressed approval at Cornell’s divestment from oil companies in the Sudan.
“Hopefully, we can work with the Cornell administration to come up with other effective ways to end the genocide in Darfur in whatever capacity we can,” he said.
Various members of the Cornell community expressed mixed feelings toward the University’s actions.
“I am colossally disappointed,” Weiss said in regard to Cornell’s progress in further action, “They get into a moral position where anything they do is a misguided, uninformed, ignorant, cynical gesture … simply to get an appearance of good will for Cornell University, at the expense of the Darfurians.”
Ndulo said that although “some might see [divestment] as highly symbolic, it is important. It sends a message that Cornell cares about the people of Darfur. In a crisis like this, every measure that contributes is commendable. As Martin Luther King said, in moral crisis like this one neutrality amounts to taking sides.”
Part two of this series will focus on student activism and perspective, while part three will focus on Cornell’s international policies as compared to peer institutions.
The Myth of the African Solution to Darfur’s Genocide
The Myth of the African Solution to Darfur’s Genocide
By Justin Laku
founder of Canadian Friends of Sudan
The failure of the African Union (AU) based on the facts Dr. Kwame Nkrumah underestimated the degree of suspicion, and animosity which his crusading passion had created among a substantial number of his fellow heads of state. Also, too many of African leaders had a vested interest in keeping Africa divided, because most of them had put their interest before the interest of the African nations.
The AU is a comfort club for African dictators where they meet to pat each other on the back, and compare notes on suppressing their citizenry. In order to be relevant today, the AU must change its dubious dealings from a "Dictators’ Only Club" to a people-based organization. The heart of the AU’s impotence is its principle of non-interference, and non-intervention which simply meant that member states turned a blind eye to their neighbours. Thus this explains why the Darfur’s Genocide will continue as long as the AU remains in charge in Darfur.
What is happening in Darfur today is exactly what happened in Rwanda, which left many choking and drowning on their own blood from April to July of 1994. Darfur is Rwanda in slow motion; the only different is the number of death: so far 300,000 people have died in Darfur while 800,000 deaths in Rwanda. This is a hidden holocaust which is unfolding before our very eyes.
The lack of good leadership, governance, clear vision, and high level of corruption in Africa are the problems that have contributed to the poverty, and underdevelopment of the continent. Good governance is the key to development in Africa, and leadership is the most powerful lever to good governance as well as clear vision. The founders of the OAU, and later the AU had bigger vision for Africa, and willing to build a nation of Africa from nothing. Clear vision gives people direction, where they want to be years down the road. Through good leadership, governance, and absent of corruptions, Africa has the potential to be able to move forward, and extricate itself from the cesspool of underdevelopment, and poverty that has plagued, and bedevil the continent since independence.
African dictators are well known for their high level of corruption. They have sticky fingers that have been implicated in the disappearance of public funds, and development money which more often than not ended up in their private accounts in banks overseas. To combat, corruption in Africa it is very important that Western governments pass law that will prohibits transfer of money from Africa to western banks without proper transparency; also the law must forced, and persecute the international banks or bankers who fail to disclose any private accounts from Africa, and specially if the account is related to statesmen. Failure of the Western governments to act means that the West is encouraging, and abetting the endemic corruption in Africa.
The Rwandan Genocide could have been prevented if there was good leadership, governance, and clear vision for Africa. If each member state of the AU had provided the Canadian hero, General Romeo Dallaire, with 50 troops, Gen. Dallaire could have stopped the killers from their genocidal operation. By sending African troops to assist Gen. Dallaire in his mission in Rwanda in 1994, it would have sent a different message to the international community that Africa is now responsible, and in charge of its destiny. This would have lent credence to the AU regarding the offering of uniquely African solutions to African problems. Unfortunately that did not happen from the AU. Therefore; why should the west believe, and trust the corrupted dictators of Africa that they will solve Darfur’s Genocide?
No one African leader or statesman raised their voice against Khartoum’s regime regarding the Genocide in South Sudan, Nuba Mountains, and Darfur. The AU turned a blind eye to the South Sudan’s Genocide; it never gives any consideration at the now defunct the OAU in its many summits. In fact, "T he OAU will not even allow our story South Sudan to be heard in its council," according to General Joseph Lagu, Chairman of Anya Nya I, in 1971. The reason is that most of the AU leaders are involved in corruption, jailing, and suppressing their oppositions such as in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Chad, Burundi, Liberia, Congo, and overthrowing elected governments in Africa . For example how could Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian president, point fingers at Omer Basher, the Sudanese president, about the situation in Darfur, and label it as genocide that requires UN intervention while giving Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, safe haven in Nigeria?
Most African countries depend on financial aid, and loans from the West. How can the AU support its troops in Darfur if it can not bankroll its army? In addition to that, the international community is fully aware that the AU lacks experience, training, logistics, and the AU has no history of dealing with crisis. For example to this date, the status of Western Sahara remains unresolved. Furthermore, the crises in Somalia , Ethiopia, Eritrea, Burundi, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone , Chad, Uganda, Angola, and Zimbabwe remain unresolved. Since its inception in May 26th, 1963, the OAU (the forerunner of present-day AU) has not solved one single crisis in Africa. On the contrary, the failure of the international community consist of allowing Darfur’s Genocide to continue by leaving the Right to Protect (R2P) to the weak hands of the AU, which lacks a clear, and strong mandate to fight back, arrest, and detain the janajweed militia, backed up by the Khartoum’s regime, which terrorizes unarmed men, children, rapping innocent women and girls. Which begs the question; Can the weak protect the weak?
African oil is the property of Africans, however, the African leaders view oil money as their personal assets, and most of time they revenues from oil to enrichment themselves often time with the support of foreign companies as well as foreign governments. When it comes to wars in Africa, Western leaders say, "It is Africa’s problems". However, when it comes to exploitations of the African resources, and fuelling the wars in Africa, the West, including Canada, has always maintained its presence in Africa in order to protect its interests. Western greed, therefore, contributes, and fuels the persistent poverty, and underdevelopment in Africa.
Revenues from oil generate billions of dollars. If used wisely, these oil revenues can be used to improve healthcare, education, reduce crime, alleviate poverty, build infrastructures; and it can even be used to fund the AU mission in Darfur. Instead, the West is dishing out more money to the AU which fosters corruption due to a lack of transparency, and accountability. Eventual the war in Africa will be viewed as channels of generating funds to the African dictators’ private accounts. There are some many NGOs worldwide especially in Canada, and US collecting money to support the AU mission in Darfur, but we have not seen any statement from the headquarter of the AU in Addis Ababa detailing how much donations the AU mission have received, and how it was spent.
I believe that time has come for the AU to take responsibility of funding its troops in Darfur since it has the money from the oil or at least pay half of the cost in order to learn how to be responsible, and functionally proactive in preventing wars from happening. The proposed reasoning is that a member state which creates a problem must pay for the cost of the solution. If you get married, you’re responsible to look after your family, not your neighbor, otherwise stays away from marriage business - South Sudanese proverbs. It is unreasonable, and unintelligent for the West to foot the bill for the AU when the continent abounds in oil money.
The West is equally responsible for accepting the myth of African solution to African problems. Africans have to take full responsibility for how they are spending the billions of dollars that their governments are getting from the oil productions. Africans should fund the AU mission in Darfur. On the other hand, the AU, in partnership with the West, must come up with clear future plans, proposed solutions to all wars, crisis, and legal systems to persecute the law breakers (janajweeds) in Africa to bring about solutions to the myriad crises that bedevil the continent.
"The proposed extinction of an entire race should now be considered an override clause to the rule of national sovereignty. Rwanda is over and everybody mourns it comfortably. We ought not to wait until Darfur is over to start saying never again yet again" Mr. Rusesabagina
All's not well with SPLA/M
It has been more than a year since the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) became a political party and assumed power in Southern Sudan. However, the government of south Sudan (GOSS) has failed to deliver services to the returnees, displaced people, and the heroes who resisted the Khartoum regime's policy of Islamisation and Arabisation of the southern Sudanese.
The enemy of southern Sudan was able to kill the dream of a New Sudan, and a referendum in south Sudan by killing Dr. John Garang. The death of Dr. Garang was a great loss to Sudan as whole, and the south in particular, because some northern Sudanese were looking at Garang as their champion. The enemy of south Sudan succeeded in that because Africans by nature never any pass knowledge to the next generation. Dr. Garang happened to be one of those who failed to transfer knowledge to younger, more visionary Sudanese to carry on his ideology and mission just in case something happened to him.
The current leadership of GOSS, instead of focusing on the future of the southern Sudan by preparing the people for independence in 2011, is involved in creating more internal division among them and therefore allowing the enemy to suppress the citizens through certain groups.
High-level corruption, nepotism, and scandals have continued to dog south Sudan since SPLA/M assumed power in 2005. The failure of good governance, lack of good leadership, lack of power sharing and equal representation for all southern Sudanese within the GOSS, are indicators that will lead the people not to trust SPLA/M.
GOSS should bring back the south Sudan's displaced people around Khartoum, and other parts of northern Sudan. In my last visit to Khartoum, Darfur, and the south, at every internally displaced persons' (IDPs) meeting that I attended, there was no group that failed to mention the word repatriation to the south. The southern universities' teaching staff and the students have repeatedly advocated the transfer of Juba University to where it belongs. What has the GOSS done regarding this issue?
The people of southern Sudan need better health care services, education, and empowerment of local businesses, real development on the ground, rule of law, security, and bringing the killers who committed the 1992 genocide in Juba to justice.
GOSS must learn from the experience of the Polisario movement in Western Sahara for self-determination. The leadership must quickly refocus its attention on the goals of its movement. Likewise, we expect the south Sudan's leadership to remind us why southern Sudanese took up arms against Khartoum in 1947, 1956, and 1983.
While south Sudan is pressing for self-determination, the political thought of the Khartoum regime is similar to that of Morocco: to deny self determination for the south. For more than half a century, the regime has used intrigues to check the south's political aspirations. Uprooting, displacing, and dislocating indigenous southern Sudanese and resettlement of northern Arabs, and Egyptians in their place are used to change the political demography of the south.
From my experience during 2005 Iraqi general election, I believe that GOSS must ensure the south becomes a nation. GOSS must create an independent electoral commission as soon as possible, and not to wait until the last minute because anti-referendum groups are not sleeping.
In addition, the GOSS should be mindful of Khartoum's continued intransigence in connection with the implementation of the referendum. Also, GOSS should request assistance from countries like Canada, Australia, Holland and USA to help the electoral commission with training as well as setting up offices. The southern Sudanese in the Diaspora have a role to play in this venture.
Justin Laku
Ottawa ONTARIO
Afro-Canadian MPs and African Diplomats Have a Disappointing Rec
Afro-Canadian MPs and African Diplomats Have a Disappointing Record on Darfur
If the Afro-Canadian Members of Parliament do not care about the genocide in Darfur, why should the Canadian government care about Darfur? Canada sent 1,400 troops to Bosnia because Canadians of European decent play a big role in Canadian government and politics today. Today, Africans do have a voice in Canada's Parliament, but most have chosen to be quiet on issues affecting Africa. Bloc Quebecois MP Maka Kotto, a Canadian-African of Cameroonian decent, has chosen to keep quiet instead of supporting Independent MP David Kilgour in the fight against the genocide in Darfur, in Congo, and hunger in Niger, Mali and Ethiopia.
Why is Maka Kotto so silent on Africans' problems? Why are Senator Donald Oliver, MPs Jean Augustine, Hedy Fry, Marlene Jennings, Rahim Jaffer and Deepak Obhrai silent in the issue of Darfur? Thanks to Gurmant Grewal and Bhupinder S. Liddar for their continued support of Africans: you are true sons of Africa, may God bless you. It is a shame on our African MPs.
Additionally and most important is the silence of the African diplomatic corps (with exception of some embassies). I think when Europeans come to Africa as diplomats they are very vocal in the press in the countryside, with the people, but our OWN African diplomats as a unit are very silent except for photo opportunities during Independence Day celebrations and parties; leaving their children in Canada when their term has ended. Therefore, I'd like to see the Dean and the African Heads of Missions in Canada form a coalition to ensure that the government of Canada plays its part in peacekeeping in Darfur and to push their weight collectively to answer all of Africa's concerns.
In 2003, I wrote a letter to Jean Augustine in reference to rape victims in the Sudan and asking how she could assist. I received no formal reply from her office until now. How many times has Ms. Augustine written to the prime minister about the suffering women of Darfur? Not a single letter, that I know of. Last May I wrote an open letter to all MPs regarding genocide in Darfur. I received no responses from any of the Afro-Canadian MPs. So why should the world care about Africans and the Caribbean if black senators and MPs are not concerned about Africa?
It's too early to know how much the newly appointed governor general will do for the victims of the rape in Darfur, peace in the South Sudan, genocide in Congo, and hunger in Niger, Mali and Ethiopia. I do hope she will not turn her back on Africa and Caribbean. Can she make injustice visible?
Justin Laku
Founder of the group Canadian Friends of Sudan
Ottawa,On