The student response to the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region helped pressure Congress into action, but members of the international community need to increase involvement there, State Department Sudan Programs Group Press Officer Joan Mower said during a panel discussion on the Darfur crisis Thursday night.
Sudanese Ambassador to the United States John Ukec Lueth Ukec was scheduled to appear on the panel but cancelled at the last minute, according to Carl LeVan, co-chair of AU's Council on African Studies and the panel moderator.
After hearing that he cancelled, LeVan called the embassy to ensure that the ambassador would have his voice heard, but he got no response from the embassy, LeVan said.
It is unfortunate Ukec didn't come, said Dana Fleitman, president of AU's Darfur Action club.
"I think it shows cowardice," she said.
The panel would have been more diplomatic had there been a Sudanese representative, LeVan said in an e-mail.
The panel emphasized the effects of activism among young people. Student involvement caused important people on Capitol Hill to pay attention and take action to address the crisis, Mower said.
The activism against the genocide in Sudan may become one of the defining movements of this generation, said Sam Bell, advocacy director for the Genocide Intervention Group.
Bell said that despite widespread misconceptions, student activism is not a fad.
"You're missing the whole boat if you think this whole thing is about T-shirts and wristbands," he said.
Fleitman said it can be disheartening to see "Save Darfur" shirts that likely originated from a sweatshop.
"I think there is a concern among some people about this Darfur chic thing," she said.
No matter how people express it, activism of any type has an effect in getting Congress to pass legislation that will aid Darfur, Fleitman said.
"If caring about the world is something we see as valuable, that is a trend I want to see," she said.
Kelley Bostwick, the co-president at AU's chapter of Amnesty International said that people tend to be more conscious of Darfur and other conflicts.
"Awareness is so much better than it used to be," Bostwick said.
However, the youth movement has not been enough to fix the conflict in Darfur, according to Mahmoud Bechir, ambassador from Chad to the United States. The genocide in Darfur is volatile and dangerous, he said.
"What is happening in Darfur, if you are not careful, it will become a second Rwanda," Bechir said.
Members of the international community need to be aware and involved in Darfur's struggle, he said.
Juan E. Mendez, former adviser on genocide prevention to former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said there is currently a lack of a common international initiative on Darfur.
Governments need to be pressured into acting against the genocide, Bostwick said.
When the panel asked for questions from the audience, one member of the audience identified himself as a representative of the Sudanese embassy and disputed several points made about Darfur earlier in the evening - specifically the ones concerning charges that the situation is genocide and that the Sudanese government is supposedly apathetic about the situation. However, the audience member was not able to complete his comments due to time restrictions in the program.
The audience member said he was frustrated the audience was hearing only one side of the debate and that the moderators were not allowing him to say all he needed to say.
"We were all surprised when the representative from the [Sudanese] embassy introduced himself," LeVan said in an e-mail. "We agreed that we would have preferred to designate some time for him."
The School of Public Affairs Leadership Program and the Kennedy Political Union sponsored the discussion.
