DARFUR TALK Today, 7:30 p.m. UCLA Extension
Lindbrook Center 10934 Lindbrook Ave.
In a lecture titled “The Crisis in Darfur: A Concise
History,” history Professor Edward Alpers plans to discuss
the historical reasons behind the current situation in the Darfur
region of Sudan tonight.
As part of a weekly lecture series put on by UCLA Extension,
Alpers said he will put the conflict ““ which the United
States has called genocide ““ in a historical context and
hopes to shed light on the roots of the problem.
Darfur, a region in western Sudan, has been home to fighting and
bloodshed for more than three years. Since the beginning of the
conflict hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and
many more displaced. The Sudanese government has been accused of
supporting the killings in their resistance to various rebel
groups.
Alpers said he will focus on historical reasons behind the
crisis, which include the struggle for control over crucial
resources such as oil and water and the current Sudanese
government’s desire to maintain power.
“The control of oil resources is critically important in
Sudan right now,” he said.
People often attribute the conflict in Darfur to racial and
religious tensions, but Alpers said that though these problems do
exist, there are deeper and more important reasons for the
conflict.
While conflict throughout Sudan has often been linked to
religion, the root of the conflict in the Darfur region “is
different because everyone in Darfur is a Muslim,” he
said.
“It’s not about religion at all,” he said.
The lecture series, called “Behind the Headlines,”
focuses on an array of current issues by featuring speakers with
extensive knowledge on the subject.
“My goal is to present speakers that are doing the most
cutting edge research of current events and contemporary
issues,” said Regina Lark, director of the humanities program
at UCLA Extension.
Past lecture topics have included global governance, same-sex
marriage rights and nuclear proliferation.
The Darfur conflict has made headlines as the United Nations
continues to negotiate with the Sudanese government over
peacekeeping forces in the region.
Locally, students have become involved with the issue by
advocating for various institutions to divest financial holdings
with the Sudanese government. So far, the University of California
and the state of California have implemented divestment plans, and
students are currently pushing the city of Los Angeles to
divest.
The Sudan Divestment Taskforce was created by UC students to
encourage the UC to divest from its holdings in Sudan. The
divestment model it created was used as a framework for other
divestment plans such as the one for the California state pension
funds.
Darfur Action Committee (DAC), a student-run activist group that
Alpers advises, is currently advocating for the Los Angeles City
Employees’ Retirement System to divest its holdings from the
Sudanese government.
Karina Garcia, a member of the steering committee of DAC, noted
the importance of educational awareness events such as this
lecture.
“In order to take effective action and advocacy, people
need to be informed,” she said.
Alpers said he hopes the knowledge he provides through the
lectures will inspire people to take action.
“If I add anything to their understanding and they decide
to take any actions because of that, that’s a little help for
the situation,” he said.