Mock camp mirrors suffering

Students walking through South Campus passed what resembled a
refugee camp on their way to class Monday.

The mock camp was set up by the Darfur Action Committee, a
coalition of UCLA student groups committed to ending the
humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The refugee camp is one of the events that the committee is
holding this week as part of “Crisis in Darfur: A Week of
Awareness, A Call to Action.”

The display featured makeshift tents composed of tarps and
pieces of cardboard held up by branches strung together with
twine.

Its slipshod construction mirrored that of the Chadian refugee
camps to which more than 213,000 Sudanese have fled as a result of
the ongoing violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The conflict between rebel groups and government-backed militias
in Sudan has claimed more than 70,000 lives and forced the
displacement of more than 2 million people, according to the United
Nations. President Bush has called the conflict genocide, and the
United Nations, though it has not recognized the conflict as
genocide, has called it the “worst humanitarian crisis in the
world today.”

The Darfur Action Committee’s display, set up in the Court
of Sciences outside Young Hall, was supplemented by photographs of
real refugee camps in Chad ““ the location of most of the
camps harboring Sudanese refugees. The pictures of malnourished
infants, deserted villages and dead bodies left laying unburied in
the sun served as grim reminders of the aftermath of the
violence.

“This isn’t meant to offend people,” said
Bridget Smith, a fourth-year international development studies
student and committee member. Its purpose, she said, is to educate
the UCLA community about the plight of those living in Chadian
refugee camps, which are overcrowded and inadequately equipped to
accommodate the millions of traumatized Sudanese seeking
refuge.

Smith and other members of the Darfur Action Committee ““
some of them wearing green headbands and bracelets ““ urged
passersby to sign letters to legislators, passed out fliers, and
sought to recruit volunteers.

“The whole movement has been represented in green,”
said Matt Sablove, a fourth-year international development studies
student and committee member.

The committee is selling bracelets for a $2 donation. The money
raised through this and other fund-raisers taking place this week
will go to the Genocide Intervention Fund, a private organization
that directs donations to the African Union peacekeeping
troops.

The African Union peacekeepers seek to protect Sudanese citizens
from the violence of the militias and rebel groups, offering
protection rather than aid. Other relief organizations, such as
Oxfam and USAID, focus on humanitarian relief.

Donations to humanitarian organizations, while also needed, are
less effective, Sablove said.

“The humanitarian aid isn’t getting delivered to the
(refugee) camps because of security issues,” he said.

The Sudanese government has been accused of diverting aid away
from its intended causes, which is just “another component of
the genocidal tactics,” said Sarah Novick, a fourth-year
sociology student and member of the committee.

While humanitarian aid addresses the symptoms of the conflict,
supporting the African Union peacekeeping troops creates a
possibility for peace because it offers a solution to the conflict,
according to the fund’s Web site.

The committee said they chose to hold the event in South Campus
because of its relative underexposure to advocacy events.

“It was definitely a conscious decision,” Novick
said.

“This part of campus isn’t incorporated into these
kinds of events,” said Kristen Thompson, a fourth-year
international development studies student and one of the
display’s organizers.

Overall, the committee was pleased with the response it
received.

“People seem to be taking notice,” Thompson
said.

The mock refugee camp will move to Dickson Plaza today, where it
will be on display through Thursday.