Lecture to contront genocide, inform public

Speakers from New York and Philadelphia will bring genocide issues out of the textbooks and into the College Center, integrating public proceedings and closed faculty development workshops examining different facets of genocide.

JMU’s first "Confronting Genocide" conference, sponsored by the Center for Liberal and Applied Social Sciences, will take place Tuesday and Wednesday.

"[Genocide] is an ongoing problem and one that the U.S. and international community have had a hard time facing up to," said Glen Hastedt, director of the JMU Center for Liberal and Applied Social Sciences.

According to International Affairs, in the Darfur region of Sudan, tens of thousands of people have become victims of genocide. The International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur recently concluded both that "there is no doubt that the objective elements of genocide materialized in Darfur" and that "the Government of Sudan has not pursued the policy of genocide in Darfur," according to Media Relations.

"What constitutes genocide is the subject of often agonizing debate and no little confusion," said J. Peter Pham, justice studies assistant professor.

Junior Kimberly McCray, JMU Amnesty International president, said, "As the brutal destruction of an entire group of people, [genocide] is probably the worst human rights violation that exists."

Hastedt said the conference was held for several reasons, and the idea was originally developed between several professors involved in the justice studies major.

"One is the importance of the topic," Hastedt said. "Second, we wanted a conference that would help introduce the justice studies major to the campus, and, third, we wanted a conference that was heavily focused on teaching."

On April 5, The New York Sun bureau chief Dina Temple-Raston will present "The Search for Accountability After Genocide and Mass Violence" at 7 p.m. in the College Center Grand Ballroom A. She was the first foreign journalist to enter rebel camps in Sudan’s Darfur region, and also is the author of "Justice on the Grass: Three Rwandan Journalists, Their Trial for War Crimes and a Nation’s Quest for Redemption," a book published in March that examines the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath.

Following her presentation, Nairobi, Kenya-based British producer Nick Hughes will screen his feature film "100 Days," shot on location in Rwanda. The film tells a story of love and violence in the midst of the genocide in Rwanda.

April 6 events will be open only to JMU faculty. Four guest presenters will show the documentary film "La France Divisee," which explores the two sides of France during World War II.

Afterwards, Eileen M. Angelini, co-director and producer of "From Spoken Word to Genocide: The Power of Language" will introduce her film.

Scott Straus, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will follow with "The Dynamics of Genocide in Rwanda: Patterns and Perpetrators" and "Should the Violence in Darfur Be Called ‘Genocide’? An Overview of the Issues."

A discussion with Michele Wagner, a former specialist on human rights and genocide for international governmental and non-governmental organizations who monitored situations in Rwanda and Burundi before, during and after the genocide, will host a discussion.

"This genocide conference gives the JMU community a great opportunity to learn and discuss past genocides like the Holocaust and Rwanda, as well as to evaluate the present-day situation in Darfur and take action to work towards peace in Sudan," McCray said.