Human rights activist John Prendergast brought a solemn message to Erskine College and Seminary on Tuesday, sharing with students, faculty and staff the atrocities of the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan, on the southeastern border of Egypt.
Prendergast was the guest speaker for the 22nd annual Stukes Lecture presented by the Department of History and Politics.
Since the conflict began in February 2003, as many as 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed and about 2.5 million people have been displaced.
Prendergast spoke about a woman he met at the Sudan border with Chad. She had been forced from her village along with her four children. Her 7-year-old son was tossed into a burning hut by a militiaman, leaving her to decide whether to try to rescue him or protect her other three children. She chose the latter and 100 yards later, another militiaman shot and killed her 5-year-old son.
When Prendergast met her, the woman was living under a tree with her two remaining children, awaiting admittance into a refugee camp.
“She looked at me with fire in her eyes and said, ?Now that you know something, you should go do something,’” Prendergast said.
Prendergast is doing something, helping to spearhead a campaign involving the NBA and Participant Productions to widen awareness on Darfur. He also has been involved in the making of two recent documentaries, “Darfur Now” and “Sand and Sorrow.”
Prendergast is co-chairman of the ENOUGH Project (http://www.enoughproject.org), which aims to answer questions about what is happening and offers a path to sustainable solutions. ENOUGH started in early 2007, setting out to establish a new paradigm for action, according to the organization’s Web site.
He said the situations in Africa somewhat resemble those in the history of Western Europe and the United States itself, when people were fighting for their independence.
The government in Sudan was willing to do anything, including genocide, to stay in power, and the non-Arab people in western Sudan staged an uprising, Prendergast said. The government responded by contracting with a “racist Arab militia” to fight on its behalf.
The militia used the “oldest war strategy in the book,” according to Prendergast -- “draining the water to catch the fish,” designed to “wipe certain groups of people off the face of the Earth.”
Prendergast said about 1,500 villages have been burned to the ground in Darfur. “Why haven’t we been able to do anything about it?” he asked.
The activist said there have been a number of obstacles in the way, including the attention and resources dedicated to the war in Iraq and the global war on terror, plus China’s support of and reliance on Sudan as its exclusive supplier of oil.
“Those are pretty big obstacles,” Prendergast said.
Prendergast also said people should contact their elected officials about the issue, even to the point of calling the White House directly, and write to local newspapers and television affiliates about their thoughts on the issue.
“You have the capacity to be part of the solution to bring about an end to the genocide in Darfur,” he said.
The Joseph T. Stukes Lecture Series brings a distinguished lecturer in history to Erskine College each year. The fund was established by students and colleagues of Stukes, who served as professor of history (1966-74) and vice president for academic affairs (1966-71) at Erskine College.
