The Peak

Who is worth saving?

By Meesa Chungfat

What kind of people are worth saving or fighting for? Everyone may come up with a different answer. But for people in power who get to address these questions, the answers can be fatal.

Most of us are asked, at least several times in our lives, that vague and sometimes irritating question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Nowadays, many university graduates and people 10 years into their careers still don’t know what they want to do with their lives.

Many children around the world, as young as 10 years old, know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. Children from a variety of geographical and cultural backgrounds consistently say they want to be a teacher or doctor. In North America, a lot of people would find it impressive if a kid says they are determined to be a doctor to help people in their community.

Many of these answers, however, are often the result of children’s profound empathy and solidarity for people, brought on by the unspeakable horrors they themselves have endured in their short existence on this planet. A 10-year-old boy named Mohammed, caught in the genocide in Darfur once said, “I want to become a teacher. I like the teachers here and I want to help all the small children who can’t go to school.”

That need for human contact and a sense of security remains with people throughout their lives. When people are driven from their homes, isolated from their families, or face brutal attacks, they have no choice but to flee to any area of refuge they can find while trying to remain out of horror’s way. It is easy to become numb and distance ourselves from these issues, especially when it is ‘not our problem.’ Hurricane Katrina shows that you can lose your home and family when you least expect it.

Iraqi refugees

Many victims around the world tell their stories of horror to humanitarians and journalists in hopes that someone will help them. For many people, however, there are risks involved if they decide to share their story. CBC’s Nahlah Ayed traveled to Iraq to get stories and had a woman say to her, “Sorry. I can’t do this interview. We still have family in Iraq. I have to protect my children.”

Some people do take risks to have their stories heard. Mohammed’s family told their story of the hardships they faced in Iraq. He practices a minority religion in his area and believes his shop was attacked because of his religion. Worse things followed. Their daughter was kidnapped by three men and the family received a call two days later asking them to pay $11,000 U.S. in ransom. They did everything they could to get their daughter back.

Several years later, the family received a call demanding that they convert to Islam if they wanted to see their daughter again, and needed a decision in a matter of hours. After his family left for Baghdad, the wife’s uncle called them to tell them that their 20-year-old daughter was in a morgue. The grandmother said, “In Iraq, the human being is nothing. There is no value to human life.”

UNHCR 101

The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created by the UN General Assembly in 1950 for the states who were still recovering from World War II to ensure they had a strong and effective organization to look after the interests of refugees in the countries where they sought asylum. The original mandate was limited to a three-year program to help remaining World War II refugees. However, the need for aid for displaced people was a worldwide problem.

People who flee their homes because of war, persecution, discrimination, or other grounds are all victims of some kind. Most people are familiar with the term refugee, but there are several ways that victims are categorized by the UNHCR according to the 1951 Refugee Convention, that include:

Refugee: People who are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence, and have a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.

Internally displaced person (IDP): Someone forced to move from his or her home because of conflict, persecution, or because of a natural disaster or some other unusual circumstance of this type. Unlike refugees, however, IDPs remain inside their own country.

Stateless person: Someone who is not considered as a national by any state or someone who does not enjoy fundamental rights enjoyed by other nationals in their home state and have no rights at all.

Many people have a love-hate, or mainly hate relationship with the UN. The organization has been and continues to be criticized for the usual: abuse of power, corruption, self-interested politics, and ineffective bureaucracy.

In the film Shake Hands with the Devil, based on Romeo Dallaire’s unsuccessful mission in Rwanda in 1994, one of the most powerful scenes was when a woman screamed at Dallaire, “What is the point of the UN being here if you can’t do anything? You cannot use your weapons to protect us?”

There are pros and certainly many cons of the UN, and the continued genocide in Darfur illustrates many of the UN’s weaknesses.

Neglected refugees in Darfur

Stephen Lewis, world-renowned for his advocacy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, listed the most urgent crises at the recent UBC Student Leadership Conference ’08. Interestingly, he listed HIV/AIDS as the fourth most urgent crisis facing the world today, and Darfur as the most urgent.

While the current genocide in Darfur began in 2003, the conflict dates back to the beginning of the mid-1980s when increasing land and water scarcity led to tensions between the two socioeconomic groups. Those tensions were manipulated by Sudanese, Libyan, and Chadian politicians that resulted in the creation of Arab militias who began attacking non-Arab communities.

Government-backed militias attacked non-Arab farmers in Darfur throughout the 1990s. Those attacks eventually led to the formation of non-Arab rebel groups called the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) who accused the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum of discriminating against and marginalizing non-Arabs in Darfur. The rebel groups attacked the government in 2003 in retaliation for neglecting Darfur, which only intensified the conflict. The government responded with a campaign to destroy non-Arab communities in Darfur in an effort to undermine the rebel groups; but the government-backed militia have been killing innocent people indiscriminately caught in the middle of the rebel groups and government.

These militias, known as Janjaweed, raid villages on horseback, commit horrendous atrocities against civilians, and use air strikes to bomb villages. There are many debates about the death toll, but many NGOs estimate at least 400,000 while the UN estimates 300,000. The Sudanese government claims “only” 9,000 have died since the conflict broke out. Over two million people have fled their destroyed villages.

Far too many children in Darfur have witnessed violence and their family members being brutally murdered. Human Rights Watch researchers gave children books and crayons to keep them occupied while they spoke to their parents. Without guidance, children drew scenes from their experience of the war in Darfur, including shootings, burning of entire villages, and flight to Chad. This was their daily reality and all they knew.

Powerful nations have repeatedly gone to intervene in areas of strategic self-interest. In Rwanda or Darfur there is no strategic benefit for nations to intervene. Romeo Dallaire noted that during the Rwandan genocide, then president Bill Clinton said in the General Assembly that through, “Proposition 25 that Americans would go only if it was in their self-interest.”

Stephen Lewis also commented that “one of the things that worries me is that there is still some kind of subterranean racism at work when I try to describe Rwanda, when 800,000 people get killed in a genocide, and then, a few years later, comes Darfur.” Powerful nations preached ‘never again’ with hollow words, and yet it is happening again in Darfur.

Engage with refugee issues

Simon Fraser University has two student groups that bring the seemingly distant issues of refugees and international crisis much closer to home. Canadian Students for Darfur advocates on behalf of the victims in Darfur and to raise money for humanitarian efforts. The group now has chapters across Canada, and has brought humanitarian aid workers who have been to Darfur to tell the horrific stories about the victims in the region.

World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a national international development organization with 50 post-secondary institutions that sponsor refugees every year through the Student Refugee Program (SRP). SFU has been sponsoring former refugees every year since 1980; the latest sponsored students are Abdiwali Ali from Somalia and Joselyne John from Burundi. This is the first semester of their degrees, and they have shared parts of their stories as former refugees.

Joselyne John was born in Burundi in 1987 when the country was recovering from the 1972 genocide. Continued fighting led her family to flee to several countries over the years. In 1993, the Burundian government urged citizens to forgive each other for the killings of the genocide and return home. The same year, President Melchoir Ndadaye, who led the Hutu-dominated Front for Democracy was killed by a Tutsi in 1993 and sparked increased conflict between Hutus and Tutsis.

John was fortunate to escape death several times. At one point, John’s family was hiding from soldiers thinking they were going to die. She heard the shot of a gun for the first time, at such a young age. Luckily, the soldiers passed the house and did not get to the family. They had to flee several times to avoid such circumstances.

The family reached a refugee camp in Tanzania and found out that their extended family was already in the camp run by UNHCR. They depended on the UNHCR for basic necessities and were there for five years. Her father decided to leave Tanzania for Malawi when the Tutsi began organizing secret trips to the camp and killing its inhabitants.

John learned about WUSC through a friend. “WUSC opened up opportunities that I would not have had,” said John. “I appreciate what I have been given, especially when I think about the students around the world who have no access to a further education.”

Ali was originally from Somalia and came to Kenya when he was five years old. Civil war broke out in 1991 and as a result of political and ethnic rivalry he was forced to seek refuge in Kenya. Foreign occupation exacerbated the situation in Somalia and after 17 years since the war broke out, it is still in ruins now.

“WUSC was the only hope and opportunity that refugee students always thought of. Only three out of 500 students successfully got the opportunity to pursue post-secondary studies,” Ali said. He is currently very focused on and grateful for his education at SFU. “I am optimistic about my current and future achievements — in all angles of my life.”

“The SRP is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and like a dream come true for someone to get a higher education that would otherwise be completely out of his or her reach,” said Chris Breedyk from SFU International. Melanie Crudgington from SFU International added, “I’m proud of the nurturing and supportive environment created by Local Committee for our students, and especially impressed by our students’ dedication, discipline, and commitment towards their personal as well as academic goals.”

So who is worth saving? European refugees? Countries with strategic value? The answers to these questions can determine the fate of millions of people around the world. Regardless of who you think is worth saving, it is more important how you make your case. People are waiting in desperation for your answer.