“Human Rights 101” Kicks Off

“The genocide in Darfur is half the situation in northern Uganda and one wonders why the world does not know about it,” said a doctor who has worked in Uganda during the first of a new series of human rights events.

Julian J. Atim, a native of northern Uganda who is a student at the School of Public Health, spoke last night at a screening of “Uganda Rising,” a documentary about the humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda. The screening kicked off the first “Human Rights 101” class, sponsored by the Harvard Human Rights Advocates (HHRA).

A general practitioner, Atim called for “long term intervention” by restructuring health, education, and the economy in Uganda.

The 21-year civil war between the established government and a rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, has displaced 1.7 million people, according to Human Rights Watch. The conflict is blamed for the abduction of children, an increase in sexual violence, and consequently the spread of AIDS.

“The conflict in northern Uganda is the biggest forgotten, neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today,” Jan Egeland, the United Nation’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said in 2003.

HHRA and the Harvard College Coalition for Ugandan Peace (HCCUP) held last night’s class to show students “what has been done, what can be done, and what students can do,” said Adriana L. Benedict ’09, HHRA’s vice president of local advocacy.

The classes, to be held regularly over the semester, represent a new effort to galvanize students to involve themselves in humanitarian causes in different regions of the world.

Activists say their main task is to urge international policy makers to acknowledge the crisis in Uganda.

“Society triages situations, and this crisis has been going on for so long that it got put on the back burner,” said HCCUP President Robert J. Ross ’09, who organized the screening. “It is seen more as a national issue, a small rebel movement that Uganda can deal with on its own,” said Ross, who is also HHRA’s director of advocacy for Africa.

Alison Lawton, who produced the film, said that Sudan’s wealth of petroleum resources has made its humanitarian crisis a priority over that of northern Uganda, where there is little economic interest.

“Yet, we’re talking about people instead of economics. From a social justice perspective, it’s shocking and unacceptable,” she said.

Atim said she hopes to increase awareness of Uganda’s plight.

“There is no value attached to helping to fix the Ugandan crisis,” she said. “I believe that Harvard students have the capacities and backgrounds to bring about group strength that can really help the current situation in Uganda.”