>BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT
Video Monitoring Services of America, Inc.
| Date: | | July 21, 2005 |
| Time: | | 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM |
| Station: | | MSNBC National |
| Location: | | Network |
| Program: | | Connected: Coast to Coast |
RON REAGAN, anchor:
We turn now, though, to Sudan, where for years people have
been terrorized with a different kind of violence:
brutality from their own leaders. Today on a very small
scale, some western reporters got a first-hand example of
just how restrictive and dangerous this society in Sudan
can be.
There was a scuffle as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
met with Sudanese President Omar El Bashir in Khartoum.
NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Andrea
Mitchell was among those being manhandled by Sudanese
security forces, after she tried to ask the Sudanese
president about genocide in Africa's Darfur region. Not
long after, Andrea Mitchell described the scuffle on "Imus
in the Morning" here on MSNBC.
Mr. DON IMUS (Show Host): You were told before you go
into this press opportunity what the hell it was, that
you're not supposed to ask any questions.
Unidentified Man (Reporter): (clip of press event)
This is a free press, sir, (unintelligible).
Ms. ANDREA MITCHELL (NBC News reporter): I was trying to
ask the president of Sudan why any of his leaders promises,
since he's promised before to stop the murders and the
killing and the genocide, and he's still supporting the
militias; his government supports the militias that are
doing the killing.
IMUS: Yeah.
Ms. MITCHELL: He physically grabbed me from behind,
yanked one of my arms out--
IMUS: Andrea, what did they say to you? They grabbed you,
they dragged you out of there, and when they got you
outside, apparently the room, did anybody then say anything
to you?
Ms. MITCHELL: One of the top officials turned to those
guys from the newspapers and said, "That woman, she must
be drunk," meaning me.
REAGAN: Andrea Mitchell has now blogged about the incident
earlier today on the daily nightly blog she writes, that
things were not going well from the minute Secretary Rice
arrived in the Sudanese capitol. She writes, "The Sudanese
had already apologized twice for the incident involving
her, for their misconduct." In her blog post, Andrea says,
"When officials called with a third apology after the
incident, it made everyone in the American delegation think
that these apologies weren't worth all that much."
So there is a lot of attention now being focused on Sudan.
Tonight in several cities around the world, from Nairobi to
San Francisco to Washington, Darfur Freedom vigils are
being held to try to raise public awareness about the
situation in Sudan. And we have two people with us now to
help as well. David Rubenstein is the coordinator for the
Save Darfur Coalition: it's an alliance of 130 diverse
faith-based humanitarian and human rights organizations
which aims to raise public awareness of the atrocities in
Darfur. He joins us from Washington, D.C.; and Swarthmore
College student Stephanie Nyombayire is a founder of the
Genocide Intervention Fund. She has visited some of the
200,000 Darfurian refugees who fled to Chad. Stephanie is
here with us from Philadelphia; and welcome to you both.
David, let me start with you. You know the Sudanese
government has been promising for quite some time to clean
up its act, as it were, in Darfur, and yet nothing
happens: the slaughter continues, people are continually
being driven from--villages burned out. Are these people
that we can deal with, the government of Sudan?
Mr. DAVID RUBENSTEIN (Save Darfur.org Spokesman): Well I
think it's clear that these are people that we cannot deal
with. It's been wonderful to see that the peace agreement
in the north-south conflict has been reached, and that's
been very important to the Bush Administration and to all
of us for seeing some part of the people in the Sudan safe.
On the other hand, we've known for well over a year that
the Sudanese government has been inspiring and supporting
the slaughter of its own people, the mutilation and the
torture and the rape of its own people. We've known about
this and it's--I don't think it should be a surprise to
anybody that the people who are responsible for this can't
be trusted.
REAGAN: Stephanie, you've been in that part of the world.
What's the condition in Darfur right now?
Ms. STEPHANIE NYOMBAYIRE (Swarthmore College Student and
Genocide Intervention Fund Spokesperson): The conditions
in Darfur are just worsening. From the time I've been
there to the reports that I've been reading today and the
past couple of days, it's just getting worse; and the
people are now internally displaced and no security is
being provided, or not enough security is being provided,
and humanitarian aid is decreasing as well. So you have
2.5 million people who have lost their homes and find
themselves in a situation where they're just trying to
survive day-by-day, while being attacked by the Janjaweed
on a daily basis.
REAGAN: David, you know, every time these sorts of things
happen--we saw it in Rwanda and all sorts of other places--
we always say never again: we're never going to let this
sort of thing happen again, and yet it happens again and
again. There is now a Dafur Accountability Act in
congress. Are you encouraged by that? Is that going to
do some good?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN: Well I don't think the legislation by
itself is going to be sufficient. I think it's important
that the American people, through its representatives in
congress, tell the world that these things are very
important to us. As you know, the congress and the senate
just declared this past weekend a national weekend of
prayer and reflection for Darfur. But legislation isn't
enough: what has to happen is our administration has to
support a mandate at the United Nations to protect
civilians.
We just today, the Save Darfur Coalition in the US, teamed
up with the equivalent Protect Darfur coalition, and the
equivalent in Great Britain and France. We released the
statement demanding that our government--our three
governments, who are permanent members of the UN Security
Council, declare a need for civilian protection and put a
resolution on the table for the Security Council to
mandate--to get permission for the African Union to protect
the civilians in Darfur.
As we've seen, the Sudanese government, which claims
responsibility for doing that, hasn't done that either,
hasn't been able to do it. We don't think it's been
willing to do that. Certainly the civilians have been
treated very poorly, to put it as lightly as possible.
This--these people need protection. They need it from the
United Nations and the US, which ought to be a global
leader and has been a global leader in so many other ways,
including in providing peace in the south of Sudan--has to
be a leader in this situation as well.
REAGAN: Stephanie, let me ask you to, as briefly as you
reasonably can, take us through the sequence of events
that led us to this unfortunate situation.
Ms. NYOMBAYIRE: There was a rebel group that in Darfur
that was asking for representation, and as soon as they
picked up arms, the Sudanese government decided that they
were going to fight back by targeting civilians, not just
targeting the rebel group that had taken up arms. So now
they're targeting civilians and trying to exterminate,
specifically exterminate the African tribes, ethni--the
only difference is ethnicity between the African tribes and
the Janjaweed, so their goal is to either displace them and
chase them out of their fertile land or kill them off to
eliminate a population that is--they believe that is
against them or inferior to them.
REAGAN: Well that is a pretty good encapsulation,
Stephanie. David, Condi Rice has been quoted as saying,
and I'm quoting here, that she's "unwilling to accept
representations," unquote, of the Sudanese government
regarding the events down there. Where does that leave us?
If we can't talk to these people, we can't trust them--
they're clearly not going to back off down there; what do
we do?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN: Well I think the answer is a pretty
straight-forward answer: the answer is that we need to use
the United Nations, which was set up for situations like
this. When people were not being protected by their
governments, the world has a responsibility to protect.
The African Union has said it is willing to protect these
people with a mandate from the United Nations, and I hate
to say that that's the only way to do it.
There are lots of other parts to this that should be put
into place, but the simple, straight-forward important
necessary aspect is for the United Nations Security Council
to give a mandate to the African Union to let African
troops from African nations go in to protect these people.
This is not an African problem: this is a worldwide
problem. When we have genocide, when we have human beings
dying, we have a responsibility to stop the violence and to
protect the people. That is done through the United
Nations: we have a mechanism, a willing group that is
capable of doing this. We need to provide funding for the
African Union. But most important: to give them the
legal right to go in and protect these people.
REAGAN: Stephanie, how do other Africans, people in other
African nations now, see what is going on in Darfur? How
do they regard it?
Ms. NYOMBAYIRE: As you have seen, there's a lot of
countries like Rwanda, Senegal, Gambia, who are--South
Africa as well--who are sending in troops, because they
have volunteered their troops to send--to be peace keepers
and provide security. The Rwandan president at the
beginning of the genocide declared that this is a problem
that should be put on a priority and he would not stand by
and watch another genocide happen as the one that happened
11 years ago, so they're very adamant about putting an end
to this genocide.
The only problem is they don't have the means, they don't
enough infrastructure, enough logistics, enough money to
put their will into--and translate that will into action.
So I would say they have been very adamant about taking
action. It's just they haven't had enough means to get to
that point.
REAGAN: The question arises, of course, as to whether US
military forces should be involved. David, Stephanie, stay
with us. We're going to continue our conversation of the
problems in Sudan in just a moment. And a reminder: go to
our Web site at connected.masnbc.com to join in the
discussion. Stick around, we're coming right back.
(Commercial Break)
REAGAN: Let's get back to our guests now discussing the
Sudan, David Rubenstein and Stephanie Nyombayire. David,
you know, we've been talking about possible military
intervention of some sort in the Sudan. We've seen the UN
go into Rwanda before, and it was remarkably ineffective
at stopping the slaughter. What makes us think that they
would be any more effective now in the Sudan?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN: One of the key reasons that the UN was
ineffective in Rwanda when it certainly had the capacity to
prevent that violence where 800,000 people were killed in
100 days, they were taken away from that mission by the
UN, by the US, as a matter of fact--was instrumental in
telling them not to act and to withdraw the troops from
Rwanda and to have them stand down.
That is a shame, a stain that will be on all of humanity
forever, for all time. But particularly the United States,
which considers itself a leader in so many ways--really
allowed the people of Rwanda to die in horrible gruesome
deaths. And what's astonishing is that we knew that at the
time, but that happened in a period of 100 days. This has
been called Rwanda in slow motion. This has been happening
over along period of time.
The call is not to send in UN troops, but to send in
African Union troops. This is clearly a tool that can be
used by the world community. The African Union has said
that they're willing to go in to protect civilians. A lot
of the killing has been done because these villages have
been emptied. There's been what everybody's acknowledged
as ethnic cleansing. The United States has recognized it
as genocide. The killing has been done, for the most part.
There's still violence going on in Darfur, there's still
violence going on even to the people living in the camps.
The way to protect them is for the United States to say
we've watched this go on. For two years, we've known about
it. Last year, it's been crucial--it was a year ago
we--congress declared a genocide. In September of last
year, the secretary of state declared a genocide. The
president recently called it a genocide, reiterated by
Secretary Rice. We know it's genocide: what we don't know
is that the American people care enough about this to stop
it.
And what's really important is that Americans let our
elected officials know that they want an end to this
violence and they want to protect people who are living
these lives in danger and misery.
REAGAN: David, you've raised an interesting question about
the American people caring about this, but I want to take
care of one practical problem here first. All right, so
most of the villages down there in the Darfur region have
been cleared out, people are in the refugee camps;
presumably they are going to want to go home. Now if they
come back into that region, the Sudan government is still
in place; this is a government that has helicopters and
things; they're not, you know, a sophisticated military,
perhaps, but they have hardware. Are there African forces
available that are going to be up to job of essentially
doing battle with the Sudanese government?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN: Well so far, the battle would not have to
be with the Sudanese government, and I don't think it would
ever come to a battle with the Sudanese government.
REAGAN: Well through their proxies, the Janjaweed.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN: That's right. And the Janjaweed are
20,000 men and boys on camels and horses. This is not a
sophisticated fighting force. They--for the most part, the
government sent in bombers and helicopter gunships to
terrorize the villages, and then the Janjaweed came in to
burn the village, to clear it out, to kill the men and
boys, and to loot the property that was there, mostly
livestock.
But this is not a sophisticated fighting force. The UN
will need some--excuse me, not the UN but the African
Union will need some support. It will need some logistics,
it will need commications, it will need some support that
we in the West can give it, but they're fully capable with
that support of keeping people safe from the Janjaweed.
REAGAN: All right. Stephanie, now David did raise a
rather sticky question here, and that's the level to which
we care about what goes on in Africa. We've seen in
Bosnia, where we went in, you know, relatively quickly and
put forces on the ground to stop genocide that was going on
there. Why don't you think we care so much about what goes
on in Africa, and let me just ask you point-blank: is it a
black-white sort of issue, is it a racial issue?
Ms. NYOMBAYIRE: I don't believe that it's a racial issue.
I believe it's a question of how much people relate to the
issue. I think if people were shown images of Africa and
understood--that these people have the general assumption
that Africa is in a constant time of crisis and a constant
time of hunger, HIV/AIDS, and just everything going wrong,
so if they are shown that these people who they see on TV
every day suffering, every day, are people, it could happen
to anyone in their community and nearby, they would
understand that these people need help, whether or not they
can see it happening to people close by to them.
So it's not a black-and-white problem, it's more of a, "Can
I relate to this person?" Because if you see a lot of
people who care in this country, they're--they're not--one,
they're--they wouldn't understand the concept of genocide,
wouldn't understand the concept of people being killed just
because of their ethnicity. They do want to take action,
they do not look at race or whether--whether it's important
to them in the immediate vicinity.
So, for example, the Genocide Prevention Fund has--the
organization I work for--has been able to mobilize
thousands and thousands of people just by explaining to
them and getting that information to them, because
information is also a second part of it. A lot of people
don't even know that there's a genocide going on. A lot of
people don't see it on the media telling them that there is
a genocide going on for the past two years. A lot of
people don't even know where Sudan is, so it's a question
of information, a question of explaining to the public
exactly what is going on and how much they can do to put an
end to it.
REAGAN: David, Stephanie is very gracious there. Do you
have the same take on that? Again, if this was happening
somewhere in Europe, do you think we'd be a little bit more
concerned?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN: Well I think there are two parts to it.
The first, I agree completely with Stephanie, that it's
very hard for Americans to picture themselves in those
situations, hard for Americans to picture their own
children being taken from their arms and thrown into fires.
I hate to be so graphic and gruesome, but this is the
reality of what's happening on the ground there. We don't
consider that likely to be a problem. Now we've heard so
much news today about the bombings in London. Well here
where I'm at in Washington, D.C., we have an underground
subway system like the one in London. We see these images
on television; we think that could happen on the subway I
ride, that could happen on the bus where I ride, and it
brings it home much moreso.
The second part to it is that we are a nation of people who
care about things that we see that we relate to that's like
us. And when things are not like us--it's happening a
world away, happening in a region of the world that has
been suffering in so many ways--it's hard for us to grasp
this and think that we can solve the problem. This is a
problem that we can solve. This is a problem that I
believe has the easiest relationship between the resources
we would need to solve it and the benefit that would occur
from our taking action.
REAGAN: Stephanie Nyombayire and David Rubenstein, perhaps
by coming on this program, we've helped to raise a little
bit of awareness.
Ms. NYOMBAYIRE: Hopefully.
REAGAN: Thank you both for coming by.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN: Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Ms. NYOMBAYIRE: Thank you for having us. Thank you.
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