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Co-pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston as well as a pediatrician at Boston South End Community Health Center, Gloria White-Hammond returns to Voices on Genocide Prevention. Having recently returned from Southern Sudan, she discusses the fragile humanitarian situation in the South as well as some of her new initiatives for Darfur such as “Judgment on Genocide”, a citizen tribunal that put Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on trial, a Global Day for Darfur and a conference of Sudanese women.
TRANSCRIPT:
JERRY FOWLER: I am joined again today by Gloria White-Hammond. She is the co-pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston as well as a pediatrician at Boston South End Community Health Center. She was also the National Chairwoman of the Million Voices for Darfur Campaign. Gloria spoke to us last February in the middle of the Million Voices Campaign, and now she joins us again. Gloria, welcome back to the program.
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: Thank you; it is great to be back.
JERRY FOWLER: Gloria, first can you just close the loop for us on the Million Voices Campaign. How did that end up?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: It ended up very well. We certainly collected well over a million postcards and actually had our final event in D.C. in June where we had the last two—sort of last two—cards signed by Senator Frist and Senator Clinton. People can continue to go online and send their message to President Bush, but we have officially ended that campaign.
JERRY FOWLER: You also had the opportunity to present a token number of the postcards directly to the President.
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: We did, and we let him know that we, as Americans we were representing the million or so other Americans who were holding him accountable around doing all that he could to stop the genocide, and it was wonderful to read some of those cards to him; in particular one from Texas from a mother who let him know that her twelve-year-old was adopted from Africa and she in particular was concerned about his acting in an accountable way to stop that genocide in Sudan, in Africa.
JERRY FOWLER: In part, because of your efforts as head of the Million Voices Campaign and the efforts of the more than a million Americans who contributed, Darfur has gotten a tremendous amount of publicity, and it has gotten the attention of the government, up to the President and Congressional leaders like Senator Frist and Senator Clinton, but we are still seeing difficult times on the ground in Darfur.
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: We are, Jerry, and it continues to be frustrating that despite all of our efforts, things seem to be worse today than they were even when we talked in February. Nevertheless, we are not dissuaded; we continue to believe that if we press on that we will get the results that we want. What we also appreciate is that it really does require an international effort, so that not only are we putting pressure on President Bush as a representative of the American government, but that effort is now being extended internationally and it involves a number of countries in Europe, who are likewise putting pressure on their leadership. We are also involving countries in Africa to put pressure on the leadership of the African Union to work collectively to see that true security comes to the people in Darfur.
JERRY FOWLER: In your view, what needs to be done that is not being done?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: I certainly continue to believe that there needs to be a force to actually protect the people of Darfur, and as you know, that currently, the thinking is that we will augment the African Union, and that certainly is one approach, but we have learned over the past couple years that that will not be sufficient, so that not only do we need to have more bodies, but also more equipment on the ground to actually protect people. People have also begun to talk about the International Criminal Court actually doing what they said they were going to do and bringing indictments on those individuals who have been identified as perpetrators of the crimes in Darfur. There needs to be ongoing support for the peace talks, for a ceasefire, at least initially, but actually to move forward with the political solution which is to bring all of those parties to the table and really move forward with the peace agreement; and not just the leadership of the rebel forces, but also to find a way of engaging the people on the ground. We also know that that concept has now extended beyond Darfur, into Chad, and actually into Central African Republic as well, so again, there needs to be some dialogue that will lead to peace in Darfur, but also in Chad and the Central African Republic.
JERRY FOWLER: You mentioned the International Criminal Court, which was asked to investigate Darfur by the United Nations Security Council last year, and as you have said, the Prosecutor has recently said that he is preparing to submit cases to the Court that could result in arrest warrants, but you were also involved in a citizen tribunal called “Judgment on Genocide” that was held last month in New York. Can you tell us about that?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: Sure; that was on November 13th and we held that in the building that was actually right across from the United Nations, and it involved an indictment that was directed primarily at the President of Sudan, General Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, and we charged him with crimes against humanity, genocide and violations of the laws and customs of foreign people. People can go online, look under www.judgmentongenocide.org, and see that indictment. What we recognized was that he did not necessarily himself, with his own hands, rape anyone or burn any one village down, but because he is the Commander in Chief, he has command and control over those forces that are involved. We had a diverse panel; there were five of us; four of us were of African descent.
JERRY FOWLER: Panel of judges?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: That is right; a panel of judges, and the judge was Wole Soyinka who of course is the noted Nobel Laureate for literature; as well as a Sudanese lawyer, who has practiced in Sudan, and who now is working here in the United States. We also had a prominent group of witnesses that included four individuals from Sudan, three of those individuals had experienced directly the assault in their villages; and then there was one gentleman from North Sudan who had been a victim of torture in one of the ghost houses in Khartoum and has been here in the United States and has asylum here; as well as some expert panels. We had a woman from Physicians for Human Rights, which early on had documented the abuse of women in Darfur. We had a good panel of judges and expert witnesses, as well as a prosecuting attorney and a defense attorney that did a credible job of defending Omar Bashir.
JERRY FOWLER: What was the defense?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: The defense was that he was not directly responsible. For example, instead of this conflict being driven by the Janjaweed, which he would have responsibility for, that they were a bunch of rogues, that it was primarily a conflict between the tribes themselves, and these are long standing conflicts, and that nobody can reign those individuals in, but the witnesses gave evidence that suggested that, in fact, Omar Bashir as the Chief of State and the head of the military forces had direct evidence that he could have in fact reigned in these rebel forces if he really wanted to; moreover that this was not just the experience of people in Darfur, that historically in Southern Sudan and then in the Nuba Mountains, he likewise has been responsible for perpetrating genocide there as well.
JERRY FOWLER: There is a bit of a pattern.
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: Absolutely; Darfur does not represent an aberration in his behavior. This is in fact, the way business has been conducted in Sudan since he came to power seventeen years ago.
JERRY FOWLER: You are involved in a couple of other initiatives including one involving a broad group of Sudanese women who are organizing a conference to discuss the situation in Sudan. Can you fill us in on that?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: Absolutely; this for me is one of the most exciting projects that I have been involved with. I am supporting a couple of women from Sudan who are looking to bring together women representing different areas in Sudan. What they recognize is that historically they have been divided against one another, again with Bashir following a divide and conquer philosophy, and that they are now looking to bring women together. What they say is that women have a real facility for nurturing peace as opposed to engendering conflict and that they will capitalize on that tendency, bring all of the women together to advocate on behalf of Darfur, but then to see that justice comes to all of Sudan. They are looking to organize a conference this spring, initially here in the United States and then eventually they would like to include women from Sudan who are in the Diaspora. The women have also looked to work with Muslim women from Sudan to reach out to other Muslim women, Arab Muslim women or Muslim women worldwide to advocate for the stopping of genocide in Darfur. For me, that is one of the most exciting projects that I have been involved with. I am also looking to reach out to African American women who have a unique bridging role here because not only are we connected to women in America, but we are also connected to women in Africa, and to see how we can join our efforts, again on behalf of the women, not only in Darfur, but throughout Sudan. I am so excited about the implications for this, and one of the things that has been important to me as I have been working in this effort is to create a foundation that will not only address the issue in Darfur, not only address the issue of genocide worldwide, but also to equip us to address other thorny issues that affect all of us who are members of the planet Earth. I am very excited about the possibilities here.
JERRY FOWLER: Speaking of planet Earth, this weekend, December 9th and 10th, are important anniversaries in the area of human rights and genocide. December 9th is the anniversary of the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948. December 10th is the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted the day after the Genocide Convention in 1948. It is being marked as a Global Day for Darfur. What are you going to be doing for that day?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: I am going to be speaking at three churches on that day, three African American churches that have committed to having what they call a Darfur Sunday. We will be raising an offering in support of humanitarian efforts in Sudan, and my fourth speaking event on that day is at a candlelight vigil here in Boston where we will be honoring the women in particular who have lost their lives or have been abused as a result of this war. In doing so, we will be joining vigils all over the world; literally, of individuals who are coming together to make it clear that we are deeply disturbed at what is happening in Darfur and unwilling to in our silence be complicit. It will be very exciting to know that we are not alone, even as we gather here in Boston on Sunday.
JERRY FOWLER: A busy day for you.
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: It will be a busy day.
JERRY FOWLER: One point that you have often made, perhaps more eloquently than almost anyone is that Darfur is not an isolated problem in Sudan, and you referred to this a little bit ago, talking about President Bashir’s history in the South and in the Nuba Mountains. This fits into a national problem regarding identity and sharing wealth and sharing power. You recently took yet another trip to Southern Sudan, where there is a peace agreement that was signed in the early part of last year that still seems to be holding, although there has been some violence. What did you see on this trip?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: I went into Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, which is the northern part of Southern Sudan and is on the border of South Darfur.
JERRY FOWLER: It is just south of the Darfur region?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: That is right, and it has now become a refuge for a number of Darfuris, some of whom are again, actually Darfuris who have sought refuge in Southern Sudan, and then some of them are Southern Sudanese who went to Darfur in the wake of the North-South civil war. They are coming back now into this region, and unfortunately there is virtually no humanitarian support for them. The commissioner of the area that we visited said that they have documented some 45,000 refugees at this point. They anticipate that there will be as many as 100,000 once they go into the dry season in the January, February area. Our effort there was especially to document the medical needs. I am a physician first; that is my first source of bread and butter, and so my heart has always been around health needs of the refugees. We identified so many individuals who had problems that are actually very basic so that if they were addressed even with some of the products that we can buy in our local drug store, that they would have been easily remedied, but because there is nothing there for them, these problems have gotten worse. I met with a woman who had an eight-day-old baby who was dehydrated; it probably had a newborn infection, and I have never seen a baby so dehydrated. We traveled about an hour by car, and then another hour by boat and by foot to an infirmary that was wonderfully able to provide this child with an IV infusion, so this child was able to live; but had we not been there, he would have died, and if it had been an NGO in the area, a humanitarian group, they would have easily prevented the dehydration that we saw. That was really what our effort was, and it was just interesting to see how many Darfuris were there. What they said was that the reason that they have now started coming southward is because there is so much instability in the camps in Darfur and in Chad that they have now come into the South, and even though they do not have food or water that they can drink or medicines, they have the security because the Janjaweed are not chasing them into the South. We are now looking to do what we can to mobilize humanitarian support for those individuals.
JERRY FOWLER: Are there obstacles to providing humanitarian support beyond just the remoteness of the area and the logistical challenges?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: Not so much, at least none that I have been able to identify as I have talked to people, and in fact, one of the advantages is that this area is under the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping forces, so they are already in place, and unlike in Darfur where we are needing to ask for permission to have a few soldiers in place to protect people, in Southern Sudan they are already mandated to be there. What we anticipate is that this group that we met with is the first wave of others who will come that direction, and it will end up being safer not only for them, but also for the humanitarian groups. As you know, many of them are on lockdown or are working with skeleton groups because of the insecurity. There have been humanitarian workers who have been killed, so at least on the face of it, it seems like there would be much to their advantage also to set up camp in this particular area.
JERRY FOWLER: What about the United Nations presence in the South? As you have said, despite all of the hullabaloo about the Sudanese government rejecting any United Nations presence in Darfur, they have accepted a United Nations presence in the South. Has that gotten pretty well established?
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: I will say that we went through Juba which is of course the capital of Southern Sudan now, and you certainly did see the United Nations peacekeepers there. They seemed to be there comfortably, and I assume they were doing a job while they were there, nevertheless; and there was the news, as you have noted, in the Western upper Nile region of Sudan of a recent conflict between the government of Sudan soldiers and one of the rebel force that had been involved with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, so there things have been quiet for the most part, and our hope is that that will continue to be the case.
JERRY FOWLER: Gloria White-Hammond is the co-pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and one of the leading Sudan and Darfur activists in the United States. Gloria, it is always a pleasure to have you on.
GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: Thank you, and it is just a pleasure for me to be here, and I am so delighted that there are so many people who are tuning into this Podcast. This is wonderfully important and wonderfully executed. Thank you so much.
JERRY FOWLER: Take care.
