STUDENTS RAISE DARFUR AWARENESS
by: Stacy Lee
New University, CA
UC, Irvine
June 5 2006
Students simulated a refugee camp on Ring Road in coordination with
“Climb for Darfur” event in Lake Forrest.
The Darfur Action Committee gave a new meaning to “on-campus housing”
last Tuesday and Wednesday when members of the club slept in a crowded
tent on Ring Road for two days to simulate the conditions of refugee
camps in Darfur, a region in eastern Sudan where, according to the
Coalition for International Justice, 400,000 people have been killed
in a genocide.
The event coincided with a “Climb for Darfur” rock-climbing fundraiser
held on Sunday at Solid Rock Gym in Lake Forest. Camp Darfur was
developed by Gabriel Stauring, a co-founder of Stop Genocide Now,
an organization dedicated to educating the public about the genocide
and finding means to stop it. Stauring and others organized the
first Camp Darfur event back in April, held for five days in Lennox,
Calif. next to LAX. Any interested parties were invited to sleep in
tents to experience the life of Darfur refugees.
Co-chairs second-year political science and history double-major
Sevana Sammis and second-year political science major Yvette Shirinian
attended the event and quickly took steps to organize another campout
at UC Irvine.
“We had to write a proposal to the dean of students to prove why it
was a worthy cause,” Sammis said. “We had to outline every single
detail. Fortunately, we were sponsored by the School of Social
Sciences and got support from the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs
Manuel Gomez.”
After a month and a half of seeking permission, 10 students were
allowed to sleep in the small, drafty tent for two nights.
“It was a great experience for all the DAC members to get to know each
other while making a statement at the same time to the rest of the
students that there’s a genocide going on, [which is] important enough
for us to spend two nights on Ring Road despite the uncomfortable
conditions,” Shirinian said.
On Tuesday night, guest speaker Vazken Movsesian, who had returned from
a trip to Rwanda a decade after its own genocide, presented a slide
show to a crowd of approximately 30 students during a candlelight
vigil. In several frames, he explained that the concrete slab he was
standing under was a mass grave of more than 2,600 bodies, with four
to 60 victims per casket. Another picture showed a woman with a scar
across her right cheek, a survivor of the Rwanda genocide.
“She showed me that ‘machete,’ is not a noun. It’s a verb,” Movsesian
said. “You can’t cut through with a single blow. You have to machete
a person over and over to cut off a head, to kill.”
Students saw images of the Ntarama Church where over 5,000 died after
a priest betrayed a whole community to the rebels. The church was
left as a shrine with shelves of skulls and separate rows reserved
for those of babies.
“Why did they kill the children? Because they knew that one day they
would grow up to become the enemy,” Movsesian said.
But Movsesian also showed images of hope, children playing soccer
with a ball made from scraps, orphans of the genocide building homes
for families and widows working to make a future for themselves and
their children.
“When I saw these women, I saw my grandmother [surviving through the
Armenian genocide]. For a moment I saw beyond color. It didn’t matter,”
Movsesian said. “We need to remember that we are all people.
We are all together.”
On the following night, DAC presented a screening of “Invisible
Children,” a documentary about children in Uganda who were abducted
and forced to become soldiers. About 60 to 70 students attended and
also saw a clip from former Marine Brian Steidle, who witnessed the
Darfur genocide firsthand.
With both Camp Darfur and the fundraising event over, the DAC plans
to continue to work to end the genocide, even as the school year
comes to a close.
“Camp Darfur has definitely been a success. Now a lot more people know
about the genocide,” Sammis said. “Obviously there’s a lot more we can
do, but at least our first agenda [the UC divestment of UC funds from
the region] was passed. Now we’re waiting on statewide divestment.”
The club also plans to organize activist kits for students interested
in becoming involved over the summer. For more information, contact
[email protected].