Fighting for Darfur

On Tuesday, February 1^st, Rebecca Hamilton discussed her newly released book, Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide, with UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide Juan E. Méndez and moderator Andrés Martinez.  Hamilton is a Bernard L. Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation and this book is the culmination of five years of in depth investigation. 

Hamilton explained how one cannot understand advocacy for Darfur without first understanding advocacy for Rwanda.  According to Hamilton, the strategy for Darfur suffered greatly from an over-commitment to the lessons learned from the 1994 Rwanda genocide.  Many parallels were drawn between Rwanda and Darfur and this had its benefits.  For instance, Rwanda provided a recognizable narrative that the media could tap into, an angle that made Darfur accessible to the public.  However, this overlay of Rwanda and Darfur also worked to the detriment of the movement because, in reality, the geopolitical climate of 2004 was quite different from that of 1994.  Particularly because of 9/11 and the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hamilton believes that the U.S. did not have the same leverage around the world, the same stick in hand.  Hamilton explained that citizens in the United States are most successful at pressuring representatives in the U.S. but, in this case, the movement needed much more than the recognition of the U.S. Both Hamilton and Méndez agreed that the Darfur movement did not realize that, in order to be truly effective, they needed the influence of all the Security Council actors, not just the United States.

Hamilton, Méndez, and Martinez also discussed the significance of Colin Powell’s identification of what was occurring in Darfur as genocide in September 2004.  Mendez quipped that the United States went from not using “the G word,” in Rwanda, lest we it have to do something about it, to using the G word in Darfur but still not doing anything about it.  Mendez lamented that the international community spent so much time debating this technicality—regardless of whether or not it was genocide, Méndez firmly believes we were morally bound to do something about the crimes occurring in Darfur.

Participants

Discussants
Rebecca Hamilton
Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation
Author, Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide

Juan E Méndez
UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide (2004-2007)
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Visiting Professor, Washington College of Law

Moderator
Andrés Martinez
Director, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program
New America Foundation