Darfur documentary to screen on campus

An advanced screening of “Darfur Now,” a documentary about people trying to stop genocide in the region, will be held tonight, followed by a panel discussion about the movie and the conflict in the region.

“I hope this event makes people feel connected to the problems in Darfur and excites people to try to make a difference. Hopefully, “˜Darfur Now’ makes the conflict real to students and gives them a sense of urgency to make a change,” said Azadeh Ghafari, co-director of the Mighty Mic Human Rights Awareness Concert, one of 14 sponsors of the event.

“The film clears up misconceptions of Darfur. It is more than a religious issue; it’s not black and white,” Ghafari said.

The Sudanese government has been accused of funding attacks on ethnic minorities, causing over an estimated 200,000 deaths since 2003, but the government denies this.

The documentary focuses on six people trying to bring humanitarian relief to the people in Darfur. They include: UCLA graduate Adam Sterling, who helped get a state bill passed in favor of divestment, stopping any money from going to Sudan; Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court; and actor Don Cheadle, the star of the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”

“The film shows that divestment is one of the strongest responses to genocide; it’s a moral response,” said Chris Ah San, a member of the Darfur Action Committee and a second-year economics and music performance student.

“It’s exciting because this course of action started at UCLA. Adam was the head of the national divestment task force, as well as the UCLA chapter. He helped bring the issue to Gov. Schwarzenegger and is now working on making divestment a federal law,” Ah San said.

Ayla Dillard, a program assistant at the Burkle Center for International Relations, the main sponsor of the event, said she hopes the film will give people a deeper understanding of the conflict in Darfur.

“A lot of people know the name Darfur but do not know details about the issue. We hope through the film and panel discussion we raise awareness of the problems in Darfur,” she said.

The Burkle Center uses many mediums, including lectures, films and discussions, to provoke students to begin thinking critically about global issues.

The panel will be moderated by Melody Barnes, executive vice president for policy for the Center for American Progress. Panelists include Sterling, Edward A. Alpers, professor and chair of the UCLA Department of History, and Stephen Rapp, former chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Rapp will also lecture at 3 p.m. today at the UCLA School of Law on the Sierra Leone civil war and the trial of Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia.

Ghafari said the point of the film screening is to start a dialogue about the conflict in Darfur. The film screening is one of a series of events the Mighty Mic Human Rights Awareness Concert is sponsoring because their theme this year is Darfur.

Connie Lo, a fourth-year biochemistry student and president of the UNICEF chapter at UCLA, said the film will show people that issues in Darfur have not changed.

“I hear people saying that Darfur is not an actionable topic. They think because it has been receiving less media attention, there is not a big problem anymore,” she said. “But that is not true. I hope the film urges people to get involved and do their part as citizens of the world.”

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