Most Americans who pay even cursory attention to the news have probably heard of Darfur. But the name remains largely an abstraction, its people collective victims rather than individuals. Jen Marlowe has been striving for three years to introduce the people of Darfur to the world, and her efforts continue tonight in Lakeland with a screening of the documentary “Darfur Diaries: Message From Home” at Harrison Arts Center.

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Angelo Manger Maker, a Sudanese
orphan, speaks at Ashburn Library
June 14 about his experiences in
Sudan. [Times-Mirror Staff Photo/
AJ Maclean]

About 40 10-year-olds lined up behind a podium to read their poems about the genocide in Darfur at Ashburn Library June 14. As their words began to flow, the line ratcheted forward in front of a projector, and the profile of each student’s face was cast upon a screen, upon which read, “A voice of hope for Sudan’s future.”

The silhouettes of the boys and girls were in stark contrast to the savage topic of genocide. The innocent voices that projected words such as “hope,” “fear,” “death” and “courage,” reaffirmed the seemingly contradictory image.

The students were reading their poems, which have been published in a book of poetry, “We Hear You: American Kids’ Reflections on Darfur.” The reading was one of three events the library hosted to inform local citizens about Darfur. The poetry was so compelling it drew the ear of poet Maya Angelou, who wrote the forward for the book.

“The courageous person knows that all children are our children as we belong to the world and the world belongs to us,” Angelou wrote.

Altogether there are 149 poems in the book, one written by each fifth-grader at Mill Run Elementary School in Ashburn.

The students had been learning various forms of poetry and began thinking about Darfur after reading “Number the Stars,” a book by Lois Lowry about the Holocaust.

The language arts teachers at Mill Run – Logan Williams, Rebecca Williams and Ann Rovang-Wolff – asked the kids if they thought something like the Holocaust could happen today.

“The kids said, ‘No, there’s no way this could ever happen in modern times – the reason it happened in the past was because people didn’t know about it,’” Logan Williams said, recounting the students’ answer.

The teachers tactfully told them about how the Sudanese government sponsored militias to raid villages, burn houses and kill innocent people.

“They were absolutely shocked when I told them what was going on in present day,” Williams said.

Several students who were planning to read their poems to the graduating class discussed their thoughts on the book and the situation in Darfur.

“I was surprised it was still going on,” Kyle Albers said, and the group agreed.

Since learning about Darfur, Jordyn Gates said he realized he doesn’t need things such as toys or video games.

Adam Lewis said he hears about crime and poverty in the United States but didn’t know what was happening in other nations. “It doesn’t just happen here,” he said. “Bad stuff happens all over.”

“I found it really hard to imagine,” Emily O’Brien said. “I didn’t know that something like this was happening; I just found it scary.”

The thoughts running through the children’s minds have occurred to many people familiar with the crisis in Darfur. The kids, however, wanted to do something about it and unlike many, they actually did.

“I wanted to do anything I could to help them,” Malik Piersol said. “It’s very upsetting that people don’t have the time to raise money to help build houses and things.”

“They really wanted to do more,” said Williams, who recently was inspired to help Darfurians after reading “Darfur Diaries,” by Aisha Bain, Jen Marlowe and Adam Shapiro.

Williams said, “In ‘Darfur Diaries,’ [the authors] asked one of the little boys, ‘What would you say to American kids if you could tell them anything?’ and the little boy said, ‘If you help us now, then I’ll help you when we’re liberated’ – so I was really moved by a lot of the stories that were in ‘Darfur Diaries.’”

What had started in a few classrooms at the Ashburn school eventually swelled to a school-wide effort.

“The poetry started first and then the kids were the ones that really wanted to raise extra money and get other kids in the school involved,” Logan said.

Large glass jars labeled “Darfur Education Fund” began appearing around the school and were filled up with pocket change and an occasional bill. Williams said the school has raised more than $2,500 through bake sales and the jars.

“The biggest thing to me,” Logan said, “is that even when everything is finished and done with in Darfur – and hopefully it will end soon – some of these kids have missed three years of school and they will have no say in the future government if all these kids are illiterate.”

That is why proceeds from the book will go to the Darfur Peace and Development Organization Darfur Schools Project.

“I really felt that the poetry should be shared with other people,” Logan said. “The kids were so passionate about it that I really wanted their poems to be published. I got some interest from some publishing companies, but I really wanted it published before they left the elementary school.”

The kids’ passion, Logan said, drove her to empty her savings account, start Open Doors Publishing and print the book of poems.

And so, “Number the Stars” prompted discussion, “Darfur Diaries” sparked action, and it is the wish of the authors of “We Hear You: American Kids’ Reflections on Darfur” that their book will spawn something greater still – hope.

Angelo Maker Manger, a Sudanese orphan who also spoke at the Ashburn Library June 14, said, “If the world could see what the kids did today, it would be a major step. Thank you will not be enough to you,” he told the teachers.

“I never cry since I lost my mother, but today, I almost cried.”

For more information on the students’ book, visit opendoorspublishing.com.

Independent filmmaker Jen Marlowe visited the campus of UNC-Greensboro, Tuesday night, to talk to students about her experiences in the war torn Darfur region of Sudan. Marlowe was here as part of a statewide tour coordinated through the STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) national leadership.

Marlowe and two other independent filmmakers—Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro—snuck across the border between Chad and Sudan in mid October 2004. At the time, the conflict in Darfur had been ensuing for more a year.

According to SaveDarfur.org, since 2003 there has been an ongoing conflict between the Sudanese government-backed militia known as the Janjaweed, and the two rebel groups of Darfur; Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

At least 400,000 people have been killed, and more than 2 million have been displaced. Many find themselves in displaced persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad. These atrocities against civilians carried out by mostly the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese government has been referred to by many nations, including the United States, as “genocide.”

“We went over there very simply to try to bring back the stories that no one else was telling,” said Marlowe to a classroom of about 60 students.

Marlowe expressed that the team of filmmakers wanted to create a film where the voices of the Darfurians themselves were heard directly. Interviews were conducted with Darfurian refugees, rebel leaders and international aid workers. They created “Darfur Diaries: Message From Home” so that those who have survived the ongoing conflict could tell their story.

Katie Mariategui, a senior sociology major at UNCG and founder of the university’s STAND chapter, said that it is very important that the humanity of those individuals displaced within Darfur and those in the refugee camps in Chad be conveyed.

“She’s (Marlowe) been to Darfur. She’s heard these stories firsthand and she doesn’t just report on them, she carries the stories and their voices and their faces with her. And so, I think it’s very important for people to see that. Like she said, when people think of Darfur they think of suffering refugees or victims of these crises but they don’t see the entire person. They don’t see people singing to Bob Marley or children playing together. She makes the situation more human and I think that’s what a lot of people are missing when they think of Darfur.”

After presenting some of the background concerning her experiences in Darfur and how the film got started, Marlowe talked about Darfur in a broader context.

“I think that when we’re looking at such a gross human rights violation that is happening in Darfur, to me, these things never happen in isolation.”

She played a spoken word piece written by Suheir Hammad, a poet and activist born in Jordan to Palestinian refugee parents and raised in Brooklyn, NY. The poem was written after 9/11 and called “First Writing Since.”

She also spoke of the story of Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death at the age of 23 by a bulldozer on March 16, 2003 while working with others trying to protect a Palestinian home from demolition in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Palestine.

At 5 p.m. Marlowe had a book signing at Borders bookstore on High Point Rd. for the book “Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival,” a companion to the film. A screening of the film and discussion was held at 7 p.m. at 2 Art Chicks Gallery in downtown Greensboro to a crowd of more than 90 people.

“This was such an amazing event,” said UNCG freshman Brad Rooand.

“This is definitely the biggest event we’ve had,” Mariategui said. “I think it really depicts the growing amount of awareness and activism that’s present in our community but also around the country.”

Reel Progress: Please describe the situation in Darfur and whether you think it deserves to be called a “genocide.”

Gayle Smith: There is a legal term for genocide that was deliberately coined, both for the reason of highlighting genocide when it occurs, and also to prevent misuse of the term. By that standard, genocide is an intent to wipe out a people in whole or in part, based on their ethnicity, their religion, or some other definition. I think what we are seeing in Darfur is clearly genocide. At the same time, there is a part of me that wonders whether we really need to spend a whole lot of time debating whether it’s genocide. When you have millions of people displaced, when you have hundreds of thousands dead, where you clearly have a government in league with the militia on the ground in Darfur, attacking civilians including young kids, whether or not it’s genocide shouldn’t really matter. The fact of the matter is that a huge number of civilians are under attack by a government that should, in fact, be protecting them.

Reel Progress: Currently there is strong grassroots support and much media attention behind the movement to end the genocide in Darfur. How is the nature of this activism different from activism on other international issues and cases of mass atrocity? How can organizations best capitalize on people’s concern to make a real difference in Darfur?

Gayle Smith: Well I think the activism is extraordinary. It’s smart; it’s been sustained. I think the leadership has really been from two communities—the faith-based community and young people and students. I haven’t seen anything like it since the days of the anti-apartheid movement. I think everyone who’s out there trying to do something is really to be credited, whether it’s traditional advocacy that focuses on the politics or a sort of cultural advocacy, like the women who made the film Darfur Diaries. You’ve got musicians and bands doing things, writers and poets contributing, artists from across the spectrum helping to inform the public and motivating people to standup and say this matters. That’s really what’s important. The conventional wisdom is that, particularly in Africa, the American people really don’t care enough for a politician to take a risk or spend any resources, capital or otherwise, on stopping something like a genocide in Darfur. I think the message that politicians are getting from across the country is that actually Americans do care, and we feel very strongly that our principles and our values demand that we be in the forefront of trying to stop the genocide in Darfur. So I think the activism is a great thing. In terms of building on it, I think there are a few things we need to do. One of the things we hope will contribute is a campaign that the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group are going to be launching called ENOUGH, which is an attempt to go deeper on some of the advocacy and bring in a little more field information. Part of what we need to do is build the case for a United States that is in the forefront of preventing mass atrocities in the future. So how, while at the same time advocating an end to the genocide in Darfur, do we build a constituency that, next time we see one of these crisis, and tragically we will, says, “Let’s get out ahead of the curve; let’s prevent it rather than what we’re doing now which is responding late.”

Reel Progress: You touched a little bit on the activism movement and how one of their goals is to influence Congress. What has been done in Congress already and why hasn’t there been a lot of action on Darfur? What does the Congress need to do as far as making policy changes?

Gayle Smith: Well, interestingly, there has been a fair amount of action out of Congress. This is one issue where, at a time when there’s tremendous partisanship on every issue, both domestic and international, there is alignment between Republicans and Democrats. Congress has been leading on this issue rather than the executive branch, the office of the president. The president has been outspoken on Darfur; he’s condemned it and used some tough language, but we have not yet seen the administration put the kind of pressure on Khartoum that would send the message that there is a price to be paid for committing genocide. Right now Khartoum’s calculation is that, frankly, they can do this and get away with it. The worst repercussion that Khartoum has experienced is harsh statements. When they refused, for example, to accept a UN peace-keeping force, the international community basically said, “Well, ok.” If you think that through, what that means is that we are asking the perpetrators of genocide for permission to go in and protect their people, and when they say “No,” we say “Ok.” There is something really upside-down about that. Congress has been pressing the case. I think we’ll see the new Congress press the case even more, but importantly, I think we’ll see both parties demanding that the United States do more and that we use our capital and our leverage to see that other countries work with us.

Reel Progress: Why haven’t some of the other atrocities currently being committed in places like the Congo, Northern Uganda, and the Central African Republic garnered as much media attention or inspired as much public activism as Darfur?

Gayle Smith: That’s a really good question and I think there are a couple of answers. One is that the crisis in Darfur is so dramatic—the image of the Janjaweed militia on horseback and thousands of civilians fleeing across the borders is one that really sticks in people’s minds and one that the media directs its attention toward. The crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been going on for years now, and in northern Uganda, have not garnered the same kind of media attention. As well, I think the advocacy community is focusing on a key issue because, quite frankly, it’s easier to get action under such a scenario. When you’ve got a key issue and a key question, you can mobilize people fairly simply. It’s harder when you start adding other issues to the equation. Now that’s one of the things we want to do with ENOUGH, in part because there are real atrocities unfolding in those countries today. We also don’t want to be in a position that every three or four years we stand up to another advocacy movement to demand that we do more to stop atrocities in the next country and the next country and the next country, but that we move the movement toward prevention. The last thing that I would say about this is to underscore the media part of the equation. Unless and until we have regular coverage of these kinds of issues, we’re not going to be able to sustain or even spark the interest of the American people. If you don’t know about it, you’re not really going to do anything about it. And while we’ve had some coverage—there have been some good reporters that have gone in northern Uganda; CNN did a big piece on the Democratic Republic of the Congo—so long as those are one-offs, you can watch it, you can be moved and appalled, you might do something, you might think about doing something, but you’re going to move on to the next issue the next day. So part of what we need is more coverage, but particularly regular coverage.

Reel Progress: So one of the elements of prevention is exposure to these mass atrocities?

Gayle Smith: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Reel Progress: This goes hand in hand with what we are trying to do over at Reel Progress, giving exposure to issues such as the genocide in Darfur through films like Darfur Diaries. Do you think films can also be a good way of galvanizing a movement to prevent mass atrocities?

Gayle Smith: I think it’s a really, really important way. For those of us who live and work in Washington, we can very easily fall into the wonky, boring, policy language and analysis that people go by around here. And if you are outside Washington or if politics and policy is not your full-time business, which is true of most people, having the point of entry being something that is very policy-bound or Washington-bound is sometimes difficult, not very accessible, and frankly, not all that interesting. I think that film allows for a number of things. It allows for people to see the people involved in the conflict and understand their stories. If you look at Darfur Diaries, if you look at Dave Eggers new book about Valentino Achak Deng, What is the What, these kind of works turn victims and statistics and numbers into real people. I think that is enormously important, because if we are going to be effective, we’ve got to find multiple ways to make this story accessible to as many people as possible. I think films are absolutely critical to that and I think we’ve already seen from Reel Progress. We tend to get a different audience, one that is moved and that includes some people that say, “Hey, I’ve really need to do my bit.” I think it’s a great thing.

Reel Progress: As a final question, what can people do who have seen the news reports or movies like Darfur Diaries and are interested in getting involved in this movement. What can they do themselves to really make a change?

Gayle Smith: Well, I think there are a number of things, and one of the key things is to stay informed. Unfortunately there are going to be more crises like this over time, and the more we know and the earlier we know it, the better position we’ll be in to prevent or stop it. There are a number of good groups out there. We have worked very closely with the Genocide Intervention Network, for example. There is a tremendous divestment effort underway with the Divestment Taskforce that is looking at targeting the financial resources of the perpetrators of genocide in Darfur and ensuring that investments aren’t indirectly supporting these people. All of these are important. Again, we will be launching ENOUGH very soon, and one of the things we will be offering to people is a way to get at these issues at multiple levels. There are many ways to influence the outcome. There are the direct ways of calling on the President and the Congress to do more on Darfur. There are the budgetary ways. There are lots of ways we spend money that affect whether or not we do the right thing in Darfur. There are ways to call on our media to do more. If the media hears from its viewers that they are interested in this, just like politicians, they will be influenced to devote more attention to this issue. So, I think what’s important is keeping ourselves informed and maintaining a level of activism. No amount of activism is too small. You don’t have to be a fulltime activist to make a difference. I firmly believe that only if we make clear to the powers that be, whether in political office or in the media, that we are serious, we are here for the long-term, we’re smart, we know where the bodies are buried and we’re not going to let go until we are the leaders of prevention rather than some of the last to respond, will we meet success. So just stay engaged, and don’t ever think that a small bit of activism is not enough. Every bit counts in a really big way.

Activists Aisha Bain, Adam Shapiro,
and Jen Marlowe documented the
crisis in Sudan.

In the spring of 2004, three young activists embarked on a mission to a part of the world they’d scarcely heard of before: Darfur, a region in western Sudan. They wanted to make a film from the perspective of Darfurians who’d fled attacks by Sudanese government- supported militias. The resulting film, Darfur Diaries, and a book of the same title, are meant to draw more international attention to the crisis in Sudan, which the United Nations says has displaced nearly two million people, and left 200,000 dead.

“Those who died, died over there,” an old woman matter-of-factly tells the camera in Darfur Diaries. “Some of our people were killed there. Some ran away. We took our kids by the hand to come here. We ran away. We carried nothing with us. We left everything there,” she says, “our cows, our animals. We ran by ourselves.”

It’s one of many affecting scenes in the hour-long documentary by three young Americans about the ongoing violence in Sudan. The project began in 2003, when Aisha Bain was an intern at a now-defunct non-profit, the Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Firsthand reports of terrible violence against the people of Darfur, in western Sudan, had begun to stream in. Bain tried to get news agencies to cover the story, but without success.

“Nobody was listening, nobody was paying attention,” Bain recalled in a recent interview. “And very few non-governmental organizations were talking about it, so nothing was really happening. And so my friend Adam and I decided, ‘Well, we’ll go, we’ll take a camera, and we’ll shoot whatever we can, and we’ll bring the information out.’ ”

Joined by another friend, Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro traveled to Chad in the fall of 2004. Sudanese rebels helped them sneak back and forth across the border to meet people in refugee camps and film burned-out villages. Their film shows the conflict through the eyes of ordinary Darfurians, including children. The opening scenes, in fact, are animations based on children’s drawings of peaceful villages torn apart by air bombing raids and sword-wielding militias on horseback. Terrified villagers flee on foot, carrying their babies in their arms, as their huts burn behind them.

The animation yields to videotaped interviews of people in refugee camps, and some of the child artists. “Tell me what happened in this picture,” an interviewer asks Ibrahim, a boy of ten, of a page in his book of colored pencil drawings. “The plane is bombing the village,” he replies. He says his father was killed. His mother is here with him, living in the camp.

It is a common story. Another boy, whose brother was killed in front of him, cannot sleep at night. Many of the children and adults appear to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the filmmakers say. Yet even living in camps with few possessions, they’ve established schools for their children. The classes are mostly lectures held in the open; there are almost no books or school supplies.

Displaced Darfurian says the violence,
including systematic rape, continues
unabated.

Sudanese include hundreds of ethnic groups, self-identified as both African and Arab, who’ve intermarried for centuries. Darfurians are Muslim, and almost all speak Arabic. But the film says that with increasing desertification in Darfur, local conflicts over land and resources grew, beginning at least 20 years ago. Government-supported Arab militias, called Janjaweed, began attacking black Darfurian villagers with increasing frequency. And when a Darfurian rebel movement sprang up in 2003, the government of Omar Bashir began its own bombing raids against civilians.

Bashir’s attempt to hold onto power is key, according to the filmmakers, who say that the conflict in Darfur should not be seen in simple racial or ethnic terms. For example, Jen Marlowe says, the largest Arab tribe in Darfur has refused to participate in the government-backed militias. To some Darfurians, too, the militias are merely instruments of Omar Bashir’s government. As one man says in the film, “You use a gun to kill something. The government uses Arabs like a gun, to kill — us.”

The film is sympathetic to the Darfurian rebels, showing them taking up arms only in self-defense. Many are still children. Yet Darfur Diaries also has a message of reconciliation. The same man who spoke about guns observes that many Arabs are suffering now, too. “Many are killed in battles. Some of them are suffering like we are suffering. Because of this, if I meet Arab, I [would] say to him: [this] is the wrong policy for the government to use in Darfur. I want the equality of all the people, not Arab, not African, all the same: the same citizens of the Sudan.”

But the number of displaced Darfurians keeps growing, while the violence, including systematic rape, continues unabated. A young refugee woman says that even small girls and old women are victimized. And despite a peace agreement signed last spring, filmmakers Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro note that the latest news from Sudan is very bleak. They say that makes it even more urgent for people in other countries to do whatever they can to help.

“It does trickle back to Darfurians when there is a rally here and thousands and thousands of people show up,” Marlowe says. “That news trickles back to the refugee camps, and to people in the internally-displaced people camp, and at least people know that they are not entirely alone and not entirely abandoned, that even if governments haven’t been doing all they should, there are people in the world that are standing with them.”

Darfur Diaries is now also a book, interweaving Darfurians’ stories with the experiences of the three filmmakers in Sudan and Chad, and with political and historical accounts of the conflict. As with the film, some of the proceeds from the book, published by Nation Books, will go to assist schools for Darfur’s children.

The United Nations said in a report last week that there were indications that Sudan’s military participated in the attacks. It said witnesses identified the 300 to 500 attackers as Arabs riding on horseback, wearing green camouflage military uniforms and armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

More than 200,000 people have been killed – and 2.5 million displaced – in fighting between rebels and government-backed militias since early 2003. A 7,000-strong African Union contingent is conducting a peacekeeping mission in the region with logistic support from NATO. The U.N. Security Council voted in August to send over 20,000 peacekeepers to Darfur to replace the African Union force — but Sudan has rejected the decision.

Our guests today traveled to the refugee camps in eastern Chad and the Zaghawa tribal region of northern Darfur in October 2004. They snuck across the border between Chad and Sudan and remained behind rebel lines. They interviewed refugees living in camps in the harshest of conditions and produced the documentary “Darfur Diaries: Message from Home.” We plan excerpt and speak with the filmmakers.

• Darfur Diaries – excerpt of documentary.
• Jen Marlowe, filmmaker of “Darfur Diaries.” Marlowe also facilitates a youth peace-building project in Mostar, Bosnia-Hercegovina.
• Aisha Bain, filmmaker of “Darfur Diaries.” Bain is the Asia Program Associate at Global Rights: Partners for Justice, where she works on women’s rights in India and environmental rights in Mongolia.
• Adam Shapiro, filmmaker of “Darfur Diaries.” Shapiro is an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement. He has spent extensive time in Palestine. After the US invasion of Iraq began, he traveled to Baghdad to film a documentary called “About Baghdad.”

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests today traveled to the refugee camps in eastern Chad and in Darfur in October of 2004. They snuck across the border between Chad and Sudan and remained behind rebel lines. They interviewed refugees living in camps in the harshest conditions and produced the documentary, Darfur Diaries: Message from Home. In this clip from the film, a young boy is speaking inside a refugee camp.

MUBARAK: I can’t sleep all night long. I also can’t eat. I have bad nights. I’m always thinking about back home.

REFUGEE GIRL: All the kids dream at night and cry. You ask why, and they say, “The planes come.” Some of them wake up and run. When you stop them and ask them why, they say, “because the soldiers are coming to beat me!”

MUBARAK: When the Antonovs dropped bombs on us, we ran to hide under the trees. The ones who were not killed ran away. Antonovs killed my father. I saw many people killed. I saw it with my eyes. Many people were killed with him. The bombs severed people’s arms and legs, and the people fell. We were forced to leave by army, Janjaweed and Antonovs. Three days later, we came back and buried the dead. After the bombing, we came and dug many graves. We used tools and cut wood from the trees to dig the graves. After we buried the people, we left. Even after we left, the Janjaweed and army came and killed people.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of Darfur Diaries: Message from Home, the film produced and directed by Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain, who join me in New York; Adam Shapiro, on the phone with us in Washington, D.C. In addition to their documentary film, Jen, Aisha and Adam co-authored the book, Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Can you tell us more about this boy, Aisha?

AISHA BAIN: Sure. He’s from an area not far from one of the villages that we went to outside of [inaudible] called Hangala. And he was just so striking in the way — and his composure of telling these stories about how he was attacked, how they dug graves with sticks, how the Janjaweed came and attacked them, even after they had dug the graves, and how he has been effected since his father was killed and he is in this camp.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did you decide to do this?

AISHA BAIN: I had been working at a small NGO, starting in my first year as a Master’s student. This is 2003 in the fall, before it had even been picked up by the media. And we started hearing reports. I started calling Darfur, after I had found all these different numbers of people who were giving me reports, alarming reports of what was happening: people being killed, villages being bombed, villages being burned.

And we started a media campaign here, calling everyone — CNN, ABC, New York Times, Washington Post. And the message that we got was basically, if it wasn’t already being picked up by the media, it wasn’t an important enough story. And that really spurred me to continue to try and make someone aware of what was happening. And Adam Shapiro was a friend of mine. We kept talking about the issue. My small NGO closed down. We kept talking. We kept working, and he finally said, “You know, I think we should go there.” And I said, “You’re right.”

AMY GOODMAN: Adam Shapiro, you’re well-known as being an activist on the West Bank. We just did a segment just now on Gaza. What caused you to go from talking about human rights in the Occupied Territories to going to Darfur?

ADAM SHAPIRO: Well, as Aisha mentioned, she had started talking to me about what was happening in Darfur, and I just really felt compelled to do something. And just looking around and seeing what I had been doing in the Occupied Territories, the recent film I had done in Iraq, I realized that if nobody else was going to do it, then it’s incumbent upon us as individuals to try to do whatever we could. And I thought we could take this opportunity, put some funds together and get out there. And bringing cameras and shooting a film seemed to me to be one of the first things that we could do as a way to shed more light on the subject.

AMY GOODMAN: Jen Marlowe, how did you get involved? And talk about the journey.

JEN MARLOWE: I actually was having lunch with Adam, and he was telling me about the fact that he and Aisha were raising money and trying to make a plan to go to Darfur to make this film. And I guess he saw a blank look on my face, because I had never until that moment even heard the word “Darfur” before. And as he began to tell me what was going on, I was horrified and shocked, both at what he was telling me and the fact that I didn’t know, especially because this was right during the time of the ten-year anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. So any time I was watching the news, I was seeing dignitaries from the UN or ambassadors talking about what had happened in Rwanda or what hadn’t happened in terms of meaningful international intervention. But no one was talking about Darfur.

And very soon after that, I wrote an email to Adam, and I asked him, “Are you looking for a third person on your team? Because I’d really like to be a part of telling this story.” So, we started our journey in eastern Chad — well, started in the capital of Chad, in N’Djamena, made our way out to eastern Chad to the refugee camps, talking to the refugees there. We didn’t have a visa from the Sudanese government to go into Sudan, so we had to make contact with rebel groups along the border area between Chad and Sudan, and they took us across the border, and we stayed behind rebel lines. And we spent about a month in the area, total, some of that in the refugee camps in eastern Chad and some of that inside Darfur.

AMY GOODMAN: You spent a lot of time talking to rebel leaders. Tell us who they are.

JEN MARLOWE: We talked to some of the leaders and some of the founders of the Sudan Liberation Army, which is one of the main groups that’s resisting the Sudanese government and resisting the Janjaweed. And one of the main people that we talked to, Suleiman Jamous, was the humanitarian coordinator for the SLA, and he was responsible for trying to protect and get care and aid for all the civilians that were displaced inside the rebel-held territories.

AMY GOODMAN: Aisha, can you talk about being in the refugee camps? For our radio listeners, you can go to our website to see some of the images, where — bringing people on the TV show from Darfur Diaries, that is now just being shown. But can you talk about getting in?

AISHA BAIN: Sure, we really have to thank UNHCR for their help in assisting us to get into the camps. They are managing what is one of the most difficult situations that they’ve really had to in one of the most barren areas in the world. And we were just really lucky that the people that we met were so welcoming and open. And I think when we set out to do this project and this film, we really wanted to represent their voices, because the media had largely — they had been absent completely actually — and it had been internationals speaking on behalf of Darfurians. And so we wanted to give them a voice.

But what we found, beyond anything we imagined, was just their dignity and their strength and their courage, that they had just come with nothing, that some local Chadians had helped them when they first arrived before UNHCR did. And then they had just, to the best of their ability, they were building their own schools from mud, from whatever they could put together. They were educating their children without any assistance first, before UNICEF came in and provided some help.

And even so, you talked to them about prospects for their future, and you could not possibly imagine their faces when you said, “Well, what will you do if you have to stay here longer?” To them, it was not a possibility. They were going home tomorrow; they were going home in a week. And they couldn’t fathom that now, three years, almost four years after the conflict, they’re still trapped.

AMY GOODMAN: Jen, the latest news headlines out of Darfur?

JEN MARLOWE: The latest news continue to grow more and more grim. I actually spoke just before coming to the studio to Suleiman Jamous, and he told me there was an attack today in the area of West Darfur, a little bit north of El Geneina, which is the capital of West Darfur. He doesn’t know how many people were killed, but the attack was a ground attack with government troops and Janjaweed. So it’s pretty clear that there was loss of civilian life.

And this is happening everyday now. On a daily basis, the violence is rampaging. People’s access to aid is getting less and less, especially in the rebel-held territories. There’s 600,000 people that, within a few weeks, are going to face conditions of starvation if aid doesn’t get in there.

AMY GOODMAN: A Norwegian aid agency is closing down its operations in Darfur, citing government interference in its work. It’s the Norwegian Refugee Council, saying aiding some 300,000 people who have fled their homes, they are not going to be able to do it. They have suspended their operations five times. What do you feel needs to happen right now?

JEN MARLOWE: The thing, I think, that needs to happen, first of all, people need to have protection. And there’s been a lot of talk about needing to have peacekeeping troops on the ground, and certainly that’s an important thing to happen for people to be protected. But if the political process is not reinvigorated, then it will be sending troops into a quagmire, essentially.

There has been very little focus on the reason why the current crisis is where it is right now, and that’s because of the failure of the peace process that was going on in Abuja, Nigeria. On May 5th this past spring, there was a peace agreement that was signed by the government and the leader of one of the rebel factions, happened to be the most abusive of the rebel leaders. No one else signed the agreement, both because they didn’t feel like the agreement sufficiently addressed their concerns and then also it became known as a peace between two criminals, because of the two signatories that did sign.

Since then, the political process has been all but ignored. And it’s only really in the last couple weeks that the African Union has really put some emphasis on trying to reinvigorate this process and those talks. There isn’t a military solution to what’s going on, either on the government side or on the international side. We have to get people around the table, not just the guys with guns, but the other community leaders, elders, stakeholders, displaced people, refugees, and support a political process.

AMY GOODMAN: Adam Shapiro, what does the Sudanese government gain by these attacks?

ADAM SHAPIRO: Well, I think the Sudanese government at this point is, to some extent, perhaps even on its last legs. The agreement between the North, between the government and the SPLM, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or army, which was heralded a couple of years ago, indicated, I think, one, a sense of weakness by the government. It was forced by a lot of pressure from, especially the United States, but other countries in Africa to make peace.

And I think the government started realizing that it couldn’t maintain all this fighting with the South. And just when that was happening is exactly when, in Darfur, we started to see greater violence by the government, perhaps as a way of sort of lashing out and trying to send the message to other areas of the country, to let people know that this peace agreement between the North and the South shouldn’t be seen as the model for others, that it shouldn’t be seen that the government would be sharing power, which I think is a sign of weakness, that the only thing it has left to try to impose its will and authority on the people of Sudan is the military.

And I think increasingly we’re seeing people reject that, both in terms of raising arms against the government, but also more and more civil society groups and other groups inside the country are rejecting the government of Sudan. And we’re seeing a different kind of political leaders emerge, and even older political leaders like Hassan al-Turabi, who has formerly been known as a hard-line Islamist politician, is starting to come back with a different message this time, a much more moderate message and a message that seeks to unify Sudan rather than fragment it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Aisha, rape as a tool of war?

AISHA BAIN: It’s used often in war, and here it’s really been systematic to destroy the society and the culture, that the Janjaweed have been really empowered to go and have these gang rapes, sex slaves, in front of the men, in front of their whole entire families, children as young as five, even younger. It hasn’t all been documented, because of the shame involved.

Yet, it has been thousands and thousands of women. In the last few weeks, one area of North Darfur, from one camp, 21 women were raped. And that is just in the span of two weeks, and that was two weeks ago. It has been increasing. The war has spilled over into Chad. There are 63 internally displaced now in Chad. And the numbers continue to grow in Darfur. Women have been affected. It’s completely breaking down the society and the family structure.

AMY GOODMAN: Jen Marlowe, you are showing this film tonight in New York and releasing the book?

JEN MARLOWE: Actually, we’re going to be showing a clip of the film, but we’re having — the book has just been published, Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival. And we’re having our book launch event in New York this evening at 7 p.m. at the Pomegranate Art Gallery, which is in Soho, 133 Greene Street. So we’d love if people could join us.

AMY GOODMAN: Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro, thanks so much for being with us and bringing us the documentary, Darfur Diaries, and the book, as well.

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In February 2005, two Human Rights Watch researchers traveled to the troubled region of Darfur, Sudan, to gather information about the ongoing genocide. To keep the children occupied while interviewing their parents, the researchers gave the kids paper and crayons. But instead of flowers and smiley faces, the children drew violent scenes of their villages under the attack of Janjaweed gunfire and government air strikes–scenes to which they had become accustomed.

To give children like them and other persecuted Darfurians a voice, filmmakers Aisha Bain, Jen Marlowe and Adam Shapiro (About Baghdad) have recently finished Darfur Diaries: Message from Home, an independent documentary about the genocide in Darfur. They allege that the Sudanese government is sponsoring the killing under a smokescreen of ethnic tensions between Africans and Arabs. Since the violence plateaued in February 2003, the conflict has caused between 200,000 and 400,000 deaths and has displaced 2 million people from their homes.

Before June 2004, when the United States declared the Darfur situation a genocide, there was practically no media coverage of the atrocities.

Jen Marlowe, speaking by phone from Olympia, Wash., where she is working on a companion book to the documentary, describes why they decided to make the film. “Ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, dignitaries were making speeches about what they’d do differently if they were confronted with a similar situation again. Meanwhile, there were people being killed in Darfur, and nobody was talking about it or acting on it,” she says.

Now more people are talking about it. Darfur Diaries has screened for the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and the United Nations Security Council. Difficulties with such a project of course abound. The filmmakers had a hard time enticing potential donors to give money to fund a project about a problem they’d never heard of before. There was a language barrier and the difficulty of sand-clogged equipment. Electricity is an unreliable commodity in the Sudan. But one of the toughest problems was the emotional one.

“What we’re trying to do, which is galvanize the world to care, is something that would ultimately be more useful than a humanitarian band-aid,” Marlowe says. “However, when you’re confronted by such overwhelming need in the moment, you struggle with the feeling of inadequacy that you’re there with just your cameras.”

But the cameras came in handy, even for addressing immediate problems. There’s one moment in the film where we meet Ibrahim, a former farmer who now fights with the Sudan Liberation Army in Darfur, and who hasn’t seen his wife, mother or children, all living in a refugee camp in nearby Chad, for 11 months. The filmmakers record a message from him to his family, whom they amazingly locate among the 24,000 people living in a Kariare refugee camp. From the midst of the chaotic, dusty camp, the family watches Ibrahim on the tiny camera screen, and as his mother reaches out to touch his image, you can feel the sense of relief they feel, finding out that he’s OK.

This humanity is just one of the things that differentiates this film from so much other media coverage about the genocide. “One of our goals was to show three-dimensional people,” Marlowe says. “Mainstream media dehumanizes these people by showing “Victims” with a capital V or “Refugees” with a capital R, but we wanted to show human beings who cast a shadow . . . not as just suffering masses in Africa.”

Thursday night, students packed into Williams 301 to view S.T.A.N.D’s (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) presentation of “Darfur Diaries: Message from Home.”

The viewing began with one of the three filmmakers, Jen Marlowe, making a presentation about the background and motivation of the piece. Marlowe spoke of the importance of this film as activism.

Making the film was difficult due to the fact that they were filming in Sudan, a country that was then, as it is now, war stricken. But, Marlowe noted, the film “had to be done.”

The mission was to cover a genocide that no one knew was happening.

Marlowe expressed frustration with how the media has presented the genocide that is taking place in Darfur. The media “simplifies” the story, which is often called “ethnic conflict.”

In reality, the Sudanese government is killing its own people, using an ethnic group, the “Arabs” as their weapon.

Simplification comes also in the form of numbers. While shocking numbers exist around the conflicts in the region – there are 200,000 refugees in Chad, and 400,000 have been murdered in Darfur – Marlowe stressed that “numbers don’t tell a story; have pain or dignity.”

The film team traveled to eastern Chad and snuck over the border into Darfur, Sudan in October of 2004. They left one month later with 45 hours of footage.

Much of what makes up the film are the testimonials made by people who have been displaced by the conflict.

As the film opens one hears the clapping and singing of young children and childish drawings are animated across the screen. In the drawings are colorful scenes of happy, playing children.

Then comes the sounds of airplanes and exploding bombs. Gunshots and screams take over ones auditory senses and the childish drawings literally burn in flames.

This scene expresses the horror of what the people of Darfur have and currently are experiencing. While the media has claimed that conflict began in 2003, in reality it has been going on for much longer.

The government of Sudan has long been oppressing its people. There are two major groups of people in Sudan, the “Africans” and the “Arabs.”

In 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Army, frustrated with the injustices placed on Africans, militarized and began to fight back.

In retaliation, the Sudanese government created militias of Arabs, called “Janjaweeds.” These militias then began the mass murder, burglary, separation of families, destruction of villages, and mass raping of the people in Darfur.

The result is 400,000 killed since 2003, and over 2 million displaced in Chad and also within Darfur. Many of the people surviving have suffered mentally as a result of the violence.

Children suffer especially, for many have lost parents and siblings. As the children were interviewed they spoke of not being able to eat or sleep because of nightmares.

In addition, their teachers were captured and tortured, leaving the children without schools or a chance for education.

As the movie ends, a Sudanese Liberation Army soldier speaks of the three things that he wants. First is freedom, second is authority and third is freedom only.

This film is part of a month long series of events to raise awareness about genocide in Sudan. Meetings are on Monday nights at 8pm in Lafayette Room 207.