Lecturer speaks of genocide crisis

Author: Alina Levina

On Friday Sept. 30, Middlebury's International Studies Colloquium lunchtime lecture hosted guest speaker Bill Berkeley, a former New York Times editorial writer and international affairs reporter for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine and the Washington Post.

Berkeley is also the author of "The Graves Are Not Yet Full - Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa." A multitude of reasons drew the audience of faculty, staff, students and parents to listen to Berkeley speak in the Robert A. Jones '59 conference room.

Kevin Buckland '06 said he went to the lecture because "it's a subject I do not know much about, and I feel obligated to inform myself." Emily Molitor '08 said, "I read Bill Berkeley's book and I thought it was the most interesting book that I read in my African politics class. It was a very personal perspective so I wanted to hear him speak."

Berkeley opened the lecture in a soft-spoken voice, drawing a link between Sept. 11 and the importance of Africa today. He reflected on incidents of genocide around the world and emphasized only one solution - "Do no harm."

Genocide around the world has faced a lack of response, Berkeley thematically suggested, particularly from the American government. Berkeley recognized recent acknowledgements made by President George W. Bush regarding the current genocide in the region of Sudan, emphasizing the failure on the part of the Clinton administration to do so.

Berkeley also denounced the limited involvement of the Bush administration in the case of Sudan, which according to him, has abided by the conviction that "only calling it by its name is a substitute for action." The Bush administration's policy of involvement in this political predicament has consisted of blocking a resolution that would have obliged the neighboring countries of Sudan to confront the problem. Berkeley also criticized America's policy of endorsing leaders under which thousands died.

In 1988, Sudan's democratic government was endorsed by Washington D.C. This was a government under which 200,000 Sudanese starved to death. After revealing that fact, Berkeley said, "Sudan has now been at war for 14 out of 18 decades." He went on to denounce then-Sudanese President Sadiq al-Mahdi for his preoccupation with politics, which prevented him from facing "the two million dead Sudanese and the five million displaced Sudanese citizens."

Unfortunately, as Berkeley pointed out, genocide is not a new concept in the world. He proceeded to illustrate this point with contempary examples. Ten thousand people die weekly in Darfur, he said, and two million have been displaced. In Rwanda in 1994 alone, 800,000 people were murdered. In the Congo, two and a half million people died in a genocide. Berkeley explained that genocide includes the systematic gang rape as a tactic of insurgency.

Berkeley is currently working on a book about the Iran hostage crisis. He used the lecture as an opportunity to speak about some of the similarities between Africa and Iran that he found in his research, noting the U.S. government's corrupting tendency to support questionable foreign leaders, a practice which tends to perpetuate suffering.

Berkeley stated, "I am a journalist, not a problem solver." However, he noted that based on his experience, humanitarian relief alone is not enough. He said that "moral leadership is needed." He also mentioned that the leaders who perpetuated the suffering of their people should be brought to justice.

Some members of the audience felt that they were left hanging for solutions to the multitude of problems that Berkeley presented. Peter Lyon, father of Baker Lyon '06 and Makely Lyon '07 said, "I did not hear the answers to the problem, just the questions. I would have liked to at least have heard his ideas on how to solve the problem. In particular the ethnic problems when you get a clash between different ethnicities."

Berkeley's speech inspired a range of opinions. "I think he elaborated well on the role of the United States in the African conflict, for there are a lot of arguments on the subject," said David Tswamuno '06.

Prospect Research Analyst Nat Caldwell, from the College Advancement office, said, "He could have explained the difference between genocide and warfare; they blend a little, and it helps to understand the difference."