Students Meet with Waxman on Darfur

A coalition of local high school and college students involved with the Human Rights Watch Student Task Force met with Congressman Henry Waxman in his local district office last Wednesday. In a passionate one-hour meeting, they advocated for U.S. support to stop the genocide in Darfur, Africa. Palisadian Pam Bruns, coordinator of the Student Task Force, led the group of 10, half of which were Palisades Charter High School students. They asked Waxman for his leadership in passing the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act (DPAA) and restoring $50 million in funding to the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which is trying to stop escalating violence in the region. Waxman, who has co-sponsored the DPAA and signed a letter to President Bush asking that the administration request the $50 million, saluted the students for meeting with him to discuss the situation in Darfur, which he said “for the most part, the world is not paying much attention to.” The humanitarian crisis began in February 2003 when the Sudanese government initiated attacks against civilians in Darfur after rebels in the region rose up to demand a greater role in Sudan’s leadership. Almost three years later, the Sudanese government-sponsored Janjaweed militia has killed more than 300,000 people, and displaced about 2.5 million who are living in refugee camps in Darfur and Chad, which borders Darfur to the west. Since September 2004, Congress has allocated $145 million to the AMIS and in July, President Bush authorized another $6 million; with these contributions, the African Union was able to double the number of personnel in Darfur, which is roughly the size of Texas. However, the AU requires immediate additional funding and international support to increase the personnel on the ground and better protect civilians. Sarah Bessell, a student at Mount St. Mary’s College and Student Task Force intern at PaliHi, told Waxman that “we’ve been doing mostly awareness raising [of the Darfur crisis]” and that she’s “getting increasingly worried and concerned” about the situation. She named Sudan’s support of the Janjaweed militia as an eminent concern and emphasized that as many as 1 million civilians could die from lack of food and from disease within the coming months. Waxman told the students that the “U.S. government wanted to give $50 million to the AU” but, despite U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s late appeal to Congress to provide the money to AU troops, it was not included in the Defense Appropriations Conference Report. Adam Sterling, a UCLA student working with the Pali Student Task Force, asked that the congressman not only help restore the funding but also support strengthening the AU mandate to protect civilians in Darfur (as requested by the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act). “We don’t feel that Congress and our government have taken sufficient action to back up a vote [for the DPAA],” said Sterling, who helped start his school’s Darfur Action Committee last year. Recently, he has been writing to Waxman about endorsing a divestment campaign led by the UC Sudan Divestment Task Force which urges University of California schools to divest themselves of investments in companies with holdings in Sudan. Waxman agreed that divestments are an important part of raising awareness to stop the Darfur genocide. He reminded the students that in the 1980s, the United States imposed sanctions on South Africa to put pressure on the government’s apartheid policy. “We adopted a boycott on South Africa and it did have an impact,” he said. Then he refocused the discussion on Sudan, saying “We need to boycott them economically.” Pali student Austin Pick, an editor of the school’s Tideline newspaper, presented artwork the students had created to express their feelings about the Darfur crisis. Another Pali STF representative, Lidia Tilahun, described the group’s efforts to make the Darfur issue as personal as possible by connecting with people like activist Gabriel Stauring, who visited the school two months ago. He showed the students “peace tiles” made by children of war in Uganda for refugee children in Darfur, which he personally delivered in November. The Pali students closely followed Stauring’s journey and have developed a more personal connection to the people of Darfur through his awareness project, i-ACT (Interactive Activism). They were able to view Stauring’s video footage of 21 days in the camps, which was posted on his Web site, and communicate with Stauring while he was there. “I think lots of high school students aren’t sure what they can do,” Pick told Waxman. Tom Laiches, a Crossroads teacher and STF advisor, said, “We’ve had students call in to Washington offices.” Then he asked, “Where or in which institution could we best put our efforts?” Waxman said he hoped they would form a coalition with other humanitarian groups and activists who have been meeting with him about Darfur, such as Jewish World Watch, a project of a coalition of synagogues working together to combat genocide and other human rights violations around the world, starting with Darfur. Referring to the UN’s plan to hold the first-ever session to commemorate the Holocaust, Waxman said, “It took 60 years for the UN to recognize the Holocaust; and here we’ve got a genocide underway that we can try to prevent.” Waxman told the students that “I think it’s important to try to figure out strategies” and pointed to blogging (posting comments or starting a dialogue by putting an individual’s story on the Internet) to make the situation more personal and accessible. He also suggested organizing a demonstration that would attract media attention to Darfur. “I haven’t seen a lot in the press except on the back pages of the newspaper.” Then he told the students, “You’ve helped me focus on it [the Darfur crisis]. There are a lot of terrible things going on. You’ve reinvigorated me on this issue.” He assured them he would take action specifically by identifying opposition to the DPAA and sending a letter to his colleagues about the importance of restoring the $50 million in AU funding. “We have to” get the money to the AU by the spring, Waxman said. “You may not realize how important your actions are’to come here today,” he told them, “but there is a ripple effect.” The passionate group felt inspired by the congressman’s pledge to continue pressuring his colleagues on the issue and agreed that meeting with him was a more direct, effective approach to their activism. “I like how he said it focuses him,” Pick said after the meeting. “It kind of focuses us, too.” “I think he really felt moved by students coming and talking to him about the issue,” said Palisades resident Sean Meisler, a Crossroads student and Student Task Force member.