Anti-Slavery Advocates Protest Annan’s Inaction

As United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s voice echoes over Tercentenary Theater during today’s Commencement address, protesters hope that many in the audience will sport bright green ribbons to show their displeasure at his humanitarian record.

In a demonstration yesterday afternoon at Cambridge Common, nearly 150 people—including several who appeared to be alums or Harvard-affiliated—turned out to protest what they called Annan’s failure to take action against slavery and genocide in Sudan.

Esterina Bilal, a Sudanese refugee, echoed the sentiments of many protesters at the event.

“He has already turned a deaf ear to the Sudanese people,” Bilal said during the protest. “Where is the U.N.? What are they doing?”

During 22 years of civil war between the government in the predominantly-Arab north and the Africans in the Christian south, anti-slavery advocates say that state-backed militias and paramilitary groups routinely raided opposing towns, murdering the men before raping and enslaving the women and others left behind.

Though a recent ceasefire brokered between the two sides was intended to put an end to the genocide and other atrocities, watchdogs claim that not only have the attacks in the south continued, but they have spread to include similar acts of aggression against Black Muslims in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Advocacy groups are particularly frustrated by the United Nations’ silence on the issue after its promises to do more in response to African crises in the wake of the Rwandan genocide.

Yesterday’s spirited protest, organized by the American Anti-Slavery Group, featured nine speakers and dozens of protesters who waved signs reading, “Kofi, go to Sudan, not to Harvard,” “Kofi’s choice: silence or genocide” and “400,000 will die unless the U.N. acts now.”

Their efforts continue today, as demonstrators spotlight their cause by targeting those attending the Commencement exercises.

Joanne Moore, a local artist whose husband was a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society this year, handed out green ribbons yesterday that she said she hoped attendees would wear to Commencement.

Moore became teary-eyed as she told a small crowd that the Sudanese cause was her passion.

“It’s a visible sign [for Annan] to know people are aware of Sudan,” Moore said. “The national press focuses on Harvard graduation.”

Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 sent an e-mail Tuesday to an unofficial list of seniors that he compiled from thefacebook.com, urging soon-to-be graduates and their families to familiarize themselves with the situation in Sudan and attend yesterday’s protest.

He wrote that Harvard students have a responsibility to “take this small action to help stop a terrible crime against humanity.”

Tommy R. Calvert, chief of external operations for the American Anti-Slavery Group, said before the protest yesterday that though an estimated 27 million people are currently enslaved worldwide, his organization has been focusing much of its energy on the Sudan campaign.

“We have been demanding investigations and interventions in Sudan,” he said “We’re very upset that Kofi Annan has not used his political leadership to move member states of the United Nations to act.”

Darfur Peace and Development Organization President Suliman Giddo showed the crowd vivid color photographs of scarred Sudanese babies and other victims of abuse.

The Rev. Gloria White Hammond, co-founder of My Sister’s Keeper, an organization that aims to raise awareness and funds to combat the slave trade in Sudan, introduced the speakers.

“I have been to Sudan. I have heard stories of women who have been brutally raped,” she said, standing on a makeshift stage. “We are here to say no more...tonight we say to Kofi Annan, ‘The buck stops with you, Kofi. No more rape. No more pillage. No more genocide.’”

Francis Bok, one of the speakers and a former slave who escaped after 10 years in captivity, now travels America galvanizing support for the abolitionist movement.

“[Annan] is the man who let my people down,” Bok said.

—Staff writer Hana R. Alberts can be reached at alberts@fas.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.