KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS PANEL DISCUSSION NUREMBERG TRIAL FORUM FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2005 PAGE 1

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1 PAGE 1 JOHN SHATTUCK: Good afternoon, everyone. We have such a wonderful, lively crowd and a day that is making up for all that's going on outside. Again, thank you all for being here, and for staying. I understand that all Boston schools have declared today a snow day. No, just kidding. [laughter] No, only that you get extra credit by being here at the Kennedy Library. But I have to say, I haven t really yet negotiated that with your teachers, so we better be careful what we say. But thank you again for returning and we want to thank Justice Arbour again, who did such a superb job this morning, and Martha Minow. And we will now move on to the afternoon s panel. I m John Shattuck, for those of you who were not here at the very beginning of the program when I spoke earlier. I m the CEO of the Kennedy Library Foundation and one of the sponsors of today s event. I m also the former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from 1993 to 98; and then U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic. So I have in my past experience in government on human rights issues and share some of the very frustrations and also aspirations that you ve heard so eloquently from Louise Arbour this morning, with whom I had the privilege of working when she was the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It s my great privilege to chair and moderate this afternoon s panel discussion, and it s very hard to do real justice to the extraordinary panel that we have assembled here today and the individuals who I will introduce in a moment. Each of them is a witness and a survivor to genocide, and each of them is a tribute to not only

2 PAGE 2 themselves, but to all those who they represent, and certainly it is an honor to have all of them here today. Let me just say a few words by way of introduction before introducing the panel and starting a discussion, which I hope we can keep relatively informal. And over the next hour we will have this discussion and then we will open the floor for questions as we did this morning, so you can begin to think about those. As Louise Arbour told us so eloquently, the right to life, the right to life, just think about it, is the most fundamental of all human rights. It is the most basic element without which everything else is eliminated. And what is the right to life in the context of genocide? And you will hear very personally from our panelists on this. It is certainly the right not to be killed because of your religion or your race or your ethnicity or your politics or your education or your sexual orientation or your gender. To be, in short, not to be killed because of who you are as a person, the integrity that you have as a person. And I think the panelists know more powerfully than anyone what it means to have that right violated. And over the last century the world has witnessed at least six genocides: the Armenian genocide of 1915 which was conducted during the Ottoman Turkish Empire and by the Ottoman Turkish government. The Holocaust, of course, that was carried out by the Nazi government of Germany during World War II. The Cambodia genocide, which was committed by the Pol Pot regime in the late 1970s. The Rwanda genocide that was organized by

3 PAGE 3 extremists who were close to the Rwandan government at the time in And the genocide that was instigated in the former Yugoslavia by cynical leaders like Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, who used genocide, who used this terrible criminal conduct to expand their own power, or tried to. And then finally and most importantly today, the genocide against the people of Darfur that's being carried out by Arab militia and other forces as we speak, as we heard this morning, and as you all have the action items, and we will certainly be returning to those during the course of the day. And I think a major lesson of each of these genocides is that when the world does nothing to stop them and nothing to hold accountable those who commit them, they are bound to happen again. And I think we saw that, I quoted this morning from Adolf Hitler s famous quote as he was planning the Holocaust, he made a comment to his staff, he said, Who today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians? Of course, nothing had been done to stop the annihilation of the Armenians and Hitler thought that was going to give him a way forward with what his horrible plan was. Before introducing the panel, I would like to just invite all of us to observe a moment of silence and a moment of remembrance for all of those worldwide and certainly from the peoples that are represented here on this panel who have lost their lives in genocide. Please. [moment of silence]

4 PAGE 4 MR. SHATTUCK: Well, let me start by introducing our panelists. Sonia Weitz who is seated immediately to my left is a Holocaust survivor. She is a poet, she is an educator and a human rights activist, and she s been widely recognized with numerous international awards. Sonia is a Presidential appointee to the United States Holocaust Museum Council, and she s the author of a very moving memoir, I Promised I Would Tell. Seated next to Sonia is Mardi Seng. Mardi is a survivor of the Cambodian genocide who came to the United States in He now works in the financial sector here in Boston, and he raises funds in the United States to help Cambodians, and particularly those who were the victims of the genocide. Next to Mardi is Richard Nsanzabaganwa, who is a survivor of the Rwanda genocide and who worked heroically for the Rwandan Association for Human Rights, warning about that genocide before it happened. Early warning, we heard about that this morning. And then afterwards, traveling across his country, the devastated country, to document the terrible suffering of both Tutsis and Hutus. And Richard now lives in Canada and practices immigration law. Jasmina Cesic, who is next to Richard, is a survivor of the genocide in Bosnia. Jasmina fled from Sarajevo in 1993 and now lives with her family in Revere here in Massachusetts. And in 2003, Jasmina published a moving memoir of her own

5 PAGE 5 of her life in Bosnia entitled The River Runs Salt, Runs Sweet, and I think we have copies that are available outside, a few. Our final panelist is Mohamed Yahya, a survivor of the ongoing genocide in Darfur and an organizer of the Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy, which for more than a decade has been trying to get the international community to help stop the violence in his country. And to start our discussion, I thought I would just really ask each of our panelists very briefly, in about three to four minutes, thinking of themselves as one of you, particularly our students who are here today. And if you were a student, what should you be told, what should you hear for about what's happened to you? And if I could put it in a very specific question, what was the single most devastating event or thought you ve had about what happened to you and your country? So very briefly, and I really urge each of you to keep this to no more than a few minutes. And I ll ask Sonia, if you could start, what should we know? SONIA WEITZ: Actually, I'm only going to take three and a quarter minutes. MR. SHATTUCK: You get special credit. [laughter] MS. WEITZ: Oh yes, I time it. And what I would like to do is share with you a brief poem. It is about the children who perished. I believe that we begin to comprehend the enormity of genocide when we consider what else was lost.

6 PAGE 6 What else was lost? Countless, countless children and their children s children. Unthinkable numbers. But what hurts the most is the haunting thought of what else was lost and how do we ever begin to mourn the generations never to be born? A leader, a hero, an heir to a nation, a builder, an artist, a healer, a clown. The cures undiscovered, the music unwritten. All the dreams undreamt, or shattered, or broken, unimagined treasures, the losses unmeasured, unwept for, unspoken. I too was a child when the Nazis invaded Poland in My six years of darkness included the Krakow ghetto, Plaszow, Auschwitz, death march, cattle cars, Bergen-Belsen, Venusberg, and finally Mauthausen. For me the devastation was complete. My mother was killed in Berlitz, my father in Mauthausen. Out of a family of eighty-four, only my sister Blanca and I survived. During my three years in displaced persons camps, I was, of course, aware of the Nuremburg Trials. The trials did not bring us any comfort and only minimal justice. But the trials did set a precedent: someone to speak for the victims. There is nothing worse for a victim than to be alone and abandoned. I know; I was in Auschwitz when the allies bombed the factories but not the railroad tracks. One final thought. There was a time when I would proclaim with great conviction, Never again. Well, I don t do that anymore. Looking at this panel of witnesses to genocide, I am sad and I am sorry. I am deeply sorry. We should have done better. We should have done better. [applause]

7 MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you so much, Sonia. Mardi Seng? KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS PAGE 7 MARDI SENG: It was December, early December, in I was 12 years old. My two brothers and I, we were riding water buffalo coming home in the evening. It was a warm day. My family, my aunts and uncles and mother, they were crying, they were weeping, they were wailing, actually. And they came up to us and they said, We are going tonight. The world stopped then, that instant, and my youngest brother, my younger brother, the third one, he jumped off his water buffalo and he cried, I don t want to die! I don't want to die! He ran up to my great-grandmother who was 82 years old then and my great-grandmother could do nothing for him, or for us. That evening, my brother ran away and four or five hours later we found him crying himself to sleep. That night, the soldiers took my family, my three brothers, me, my sister and my mom to prison for no reason at all. And we did not expect to see daylight the next day. Two or three months later, in prison, hundreds of people, hundreds of prisoners came into the prison and they never left. And in hopelessness, I turned to my mom and I asked her, What does it feel like to die? And I complained, I said, I'm too young, I m 13 years old. I m too young to die. And my mom, by that time, she lost her mind and she turned around and she said, Don t worry, Mardi, your uncle in the United States will come and rescue you. He was a helicopter pilot. He will come and land his helicopter behind the prison and rescue you. I didn't

8 PAGE 8 realize that my mom lost her mind, but at the same time that gave me a sense of hope. But can you imagine a 13 year old boy, knowing that he and his family will die and will not see the next day? My mom was killed two or three months later. Going back In 1994, I went to Germany, I went to Munich and just right south of Munich, outside of Munich, there was a concentration camp, Dachau, and I went to the museum and I watched the film. And at the end of the film, the narrator stated that, It will never happen again. The survivors will never let that happen again. After the movie I sat there in the theater, and that promise, that statement, rang in my head. If that was true, my mom would be here right now with me. Thank you. MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you, Mardi. [applause] Richard? RICHARD NSANZABAGANWA: I should say that it is not easy when you hear the other survivors testifying and yourself having to follow. I personally should have a lot to share with you now, but in three minutes I prefer to just say the following. The only thing that comes in my mind, especially when John asked us to do that in that way, I just said the only thing I hated was to have to lie about my identity. And I did for several occasions between April and July. And probably the most devastating in those lies was some time when I found myself among a group of

9 PAGE 9 people who had killed my grandfather s family and my father was hiding at that place. And in fact they were saying how they killed my father, but they could not know me because I did not grow up on that ground. And I had again to hide the fact that the person they were talking about was my father, because I did not want to be killed because I was trying to survive. Up to today, I tried to say sorry. And in fact, that's the meaning for genocide, when you have to hide about your identity because they are looking for your identity for what you are. MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you, Richard. [applause] Jasmina? JASMINA CESIC: Hi, I come from a small town called Visegrad, which lies on the border with Serbia. In Visegrad, 70 percent of the people were Muslims, but after the Serbs nationals came to my city with their agenda to kill non-arab population, there were no Muslims left. Some were killed, and one of them was my brother, who was only 15. The Serbs threw him off the bridge into the river and shot him as he was falling down. Some were forced to leave the city, and that was my mother and the rest of my family. And some were forced into concentration camps, one of them was my father who spent three years there. And some were burned alive in their own houses, like my grandmother. That was my city, but Sarajevo, capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, wasn t any better. That s where my two brothers, my husband and I were. It was a surrounded city by the Serbs holding their position on the hills around the city and shelling the city constantly. So one morning on my way to work to the hospital, where I thought I

10 PAGE 10 should help and start working, a grenade fell next to my husband and me. My husband was instantly killed, blown in half, and I was badly wounded. I lost my right arm in the war. Came here in My country now, the war is over. Economically, it s still in bad situation, but it s not hopeless. I mean, I personally came into my own physically, emotionally. I married again, I have a kid, I'm expecting another one. And my brother and I are also starting a company to boost Bosnian economy by introducing Bosnian products into United States markets. However, there are still problems like Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, war criminals are still at large. A man named Milan Lukic, who killed my brother and probably 1,000 other people in my city with his own hands, was recently arrested in Argentina but has not been transferred to The Hague yet. So to prevent further crimes, we need to punish a crime regardless of its religion, race or color. [applause] MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you, Jasmina. Mohamed, please? MOHAMED YAHYA: Thank you first of all for all of you to come share with us our tragedy. Thank you for those who sponsored this wonderful event. Thank you for the students for being very active and working on behalf of my people in Darfur. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Mohamed Yahya, I am a Muslim, I was born in Darfur. My village is a very small village, only inhabited by 450 people. It was

11 PAGE 11 totally destroyed among 50 other villages in only one day. I received this information when I used to be a student in Egypt at Al-Azhar University in Cairo in And I learned that 17 of my relatives, 17 of my family, died. My parents I learned lived after two weeks, they survived and they were able to flee. But up to now, I don't know where are they. I only know two of my family members, my junior brother who was able to flee to Egypt, and my sister who was able to flee to Libya with her husband. I don't know where the rest of my family, six members, including my parents are now. But this is not the issue. The issue is millions of Darfurians who are dying every day. Millions flee out of Darfur. From that time, I feel that I have responsibility to do everything possible to stop this genocide and I start to mobilize my students, colleagues from Darfur and we start to do something very urgent to alert the international community about the crisis in Darfur. That was 1993, ladies and gentlemen. It is over 13 years. Ladies and gentlemen, it is so painful when you don t know where is the rest of your family. It is so painful when you see in front of your eyes people dying every day. Up to now about 500 people get killed in Darfur every day by bullets, by starving, by diseases. And forget about those who get raped, five year old girls get raped. Even animals couldn t dare to do it. This was happening by people who named Arabs and Muslims. And I studied Islam for most of my life at one of the top universities of religions around the world. It is hard to believe. I didn't get that from Islam, to kill innocent people by the name of Islam, to declare jihad on

12 PAGE 12 Muslims and non-muslims, destroy them just because they are blacks, they are Africans, they are not Arabs. It is hard to believe when first I came here just three years ago, and I get the most passionate people and the most generous and kind people, you especially the Jewish and the Christian, those who would identify us and we have been indicated as your top enemies. I get them here, our best friends. I have nothing to say; I see everything in front of my eyes. When we didn't get any help from our brother Muslims, you are helping us. When we didn't get any help from other black Arabs and instead they are killing us, you are saving the life of my people. You are raising awareness, you are highlighting our issue. You are paying money. You even take advantage to go to Chad, to go inside Darfur, to free and save the life of my people. Ladies and gentlemen, I have so much to say. We really learn that never again like what's happened in Holocaust, millions of people get burned, but unfortunately it s happened in Rwanda. Nearly a million or 800 people get killed in only three months. Nothing done for them. Right now, it is happening in Darfur, and before that it s happened everywhere, where those survivors live. That's why I feel very pessimistic. Are you very frustrated that nothing is going to happen to change the life of my people and to stop the genocide over there? And I feel like I am going, and all of you go to witness the elimination and eradication of Darfurians forever if this situation is still going on this way. It is shameful, it is immoral. Only the hope I have when I join people like you here, it gives me hope. But when I have to turn

13 PAGE 13 back, I feel I am lonely, I have no one. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Thank you so much ladies and gentlemen. [applause] MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you, Mohamed. Well, I think you can see that the moral strength and courage of all five of these people who are seated to my left is such that one almost thinks alone it should be able to move the world, and that of course has been the terrible challenge in moving the world in so many of these catastrophic events. I think if I could, I d just like to have you reflect a little bit more and maybe reflect on each other, what you ve each said, on the question of what happened in your country and to you personally might have been prevented. And I think, Jasmina, you made a very specific comment about that, which is to work to stop discrimination and there are ways of doing that through laws, and there are ways of doing that through laws and through enforcement. And Richard, I think in his way, in the earliest stages before this Rwanda genocide got under way, was involved in trying to warn about it, which is another mechanism of prevention. And certainly Mohamed has been involved for now 13 years, 12 years, in warning and then continuing to warn. And each of you, I think, has spoken about this issue of how to prevent. And maybe you could just say a little bit more about what your expectation was, and Richard I'm going to turn to you on this because you were so active in Rwanda before the genocide. And as you move to try to raise the awareness in the world and people in Rwanda, what did you think might be done to head off the horrible, catastrophic events that took place?

14 PAGE 14 MR. NSANZABAGANWA: Well, at the time, the expectation was that people could understand and take action. Now the question becomes what kind of action can be taken? Same question you're asking. When people are warning that they have plans to kill systematically other people, of course now it depends on structures, possibilities, who and what, but first of all, we know international communities organized through the United Nations. The minimum thing is the United Nations could intervene and in the specific case of Rwanda, we had the enemy forces which were United Nations forces sent to Rwanda to help the implementation of this accord that was signed between Belgiums. Now, on the ground, they re saying that killings, genocide is being prepared. You have international forces on the ground. I mean, ordinary people should be expecting that those forces will take action, you investigate to confirm facts and act. To act how? Stop, disarm, and warn and if possible, in fact, preemptively establish a kind of international tribunal to prosecute those planners for genocide. They are still planners before the plan has not been implemented. Now, they are now, in fact, trying to bring justice back after the crime was committed. I mean, at the time, that was my expectation. But now, I realize that it is not so easy, not so simple, because people seem to be convinced that in fact what is going on is in fact a genocide. What happened in Darfur, people are being killed. We need a kind of clarity and something clearly defined that those people are being killed, those cadavers, those corpses, they belong to the genocide definition. But how many

15 PAGE 15 people need to die so that we can be calling that a genocide, so that the international community can be forced to intervene? This will take time, and later on if this is to be confirmed, then genocide will have been ended already. There is no possibility to save lives now. MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you, Richard. And I want to turn to Jasmina who made another comment that was quite specific regarding the issue of prevention. Could you just say a little more about that in the context of Yugoslavia as it was, and of course the tremendous interethnic and interreligious aspect of Yugoslavia earlier? MS. CESIC: In the case of Bosnia, with Dayton peace agreement in 1995, which was a good thing at that time, it stopped the killing but it wasn't the best thing for the country. I mean, the Dayton peace agreement, the Serbs got to keep what they gained through ethnic cleansing. So they still have severance They have control over severance that was proclaimed saved zone by the United Nations. Well, half the city, just left are Muslims, all are there without any weapons because they took the weapons before them and just left the city to the Serbs. And within three days, 9,000 people were killed. So I agree with Richard, the world waited for a big genocide to react, and these war criminals, the worst war criminals indicted by international tribunal in The Hague are still at large, and as I said, we need to punish the crime to prevent

16 PAGE 16 further crimes. And, for example, Sudan is happening now because we as human beings are not stopping the crime when it needs to be stopped. I mean, ten years after the Dayton peace agreement, we are still talking about the same subject. MR. SHATTUCK: So in some senses we don t learn even the lesson after the genocide and each situation needs to be addressed certainly differently. But also there are those general principles: no discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or religion or race. MS. CESIC: Yeah, that's on my personal Personally, it hurts me a lot that some crime is punished right away and some crime takes years and years to be punished. MR. SHATTUCK: Well, I think often the issue of discrimination is looked at as something that's important, but it s not necessarily related to the genocide crisis, and I'm glad to have you to be able to bring that out for us today. I want to return to Mohamed in a moment and speak more about Darfur, but for the moment now I d like to turn to Mardi and Sonia to help us understand. We ve talked about justice this morning and the Nuremberg Tribunals and Louise Arbour s very eloquent address to us about the broadening of the right to life and all that it relates to. But I want to, if you ll allow me because all five panelists have been so personal about this, I d like you to be personal about the issue of justice. What does justice mean to you in the context of the Holocaust and the context of the

17 PAGE 17 Cambodian genocide? What would justice be and what should it be to you personally? And then how should it be reflected in a broader context? MS. WEITZ: Well, I'm thinking that this is harder than I expected. MR. SHATTUCK: I don t want to make it too hard for you. MS. WEITZ: This is really, really I ve never been on a panel with other survivors, and it s really hard. And I think it was pretty wise of me in the very beginning to say how sorry I am. Because when you mention the fact that you went to Dachau and some of the presentations allude to the fact that we decided never again, and of course it s happening again and again. And it s like we take And I ve been at it now for 26 years doing this kind of human rights work. You know, you take two steps forward, one back, and most of the time it s the other way around. What I want to say is about human rights violations is that the ultimate human right violation, I believe, is the right to live. And if you deny the right to live to any group, it is the beginning of genocide. And so I don't know how--i know that this group is very well informed on what's going on today--but I don't know how we re ever going to stop at the very beginning. This is what you ve been talking about, stopping it before it becomes. I was at the museum in Washington one day, decided that Darfur was genocide. I was very proud of that, of just passing that much of a statement. But couldn t we have done this five years ago before it

18 PAGE 18 became a bloody mess? Is there any way that we can really step in during the danger signals, the 1933 (inaudible). Of course, I wasn t even No, I was around, I was very tiny. Now you all know how old I am. I tried to keep it away from you. [laughter] MR. SHATTUCK: Wouldn t believe it. [laughter] MS. WEITZ: Especially Tom, where is he? In any case, by the time I was six or seven years old, there were danger signals and people knew the Jewish people were in trouble. Now, this is what's happening to the other people around us, and I don't know how you can recognize it, prevent it before it becomes as serious as it is today. MR. SHATTUCK: Mardi, would you like to reflect? MR. SENG: Yes, please. Before I came here, I looked up the word justice because sometimes we talk about justice in a conceptual sense. It s, bring the Khmer Rouge to justice, bring this person to justice, but what does it mean? Because each of us has a different definition of justice. And just the word justice, or the word just, it means fairness. I think my two small children sometimes teach me best what it means to be fair. Because, you know, they always scream, That's not fair, that s not fair!

19 PAGE 19 But let me just, instead of answering your question, let me just paint a picture, the situation in Cambodia right now. The elected prime minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, is, was, a regional military commander under the Khmer Rouge during genocide. The foreign minister, now Namhong, he was the prison camp director during the Khmer Rouge. He is the current foreign minister. The vice president of the National Assembly in Cambodia was a regional commander who was responsible for executions of thousands and thousands of people. In 1997, Hun Sen, the prime minister, agreed that we will set up an international tribunal for the Khmer Rouge leader. But since then he changed his mind. And with the blessing of the United States, France, Japan, and China, right now they're working on negotiating a mixed tribunal, a mixed tribunal where three judges are Cambodian judges, two international judges. So the Cambodians have the majority. And the Khmer Rouge leader, the Pol Pot, the brother number one, he died in old age in 1997; Nuon Chea, the brother number two who is the mastermind, who masterminded the whole genocide, he s living freely in Cambodia under the protections of the Cambodian government. Ieng Sary, the foreign minister during the Khmer Rouge regime, he has an amnesty from the Cambodian government and the king. And the Cambodian court is not independent. The Cambodian judges have no training, have no legal expertise. All right, that's the bygone, that's the setup. Can you bring the Khmer Rouge leaders into justice? Is there a sense of fairness in that type of environment? I

20 PAGE 20 believe in my whole heart that Cambodians deserve an international tribunal, a first class, not a second class justice. And that's what I believe. And then we re talking about prevention, how do we prevent? You know, there are plenty of early warning systems, journalists bring news about Rwanda, about other genocide before it happens. But you know what? The government, the international community, especially the official government, government officials, do not have the political will to prevent it from happening. MR. SHATTUCK: Well, I think that's a very fair summary of the way in which all of these events have developed. I d like to ask Mohamed a very specific question, if I could, and we could speak, and we will, more generally about what to do in Darfur. But is there a way of deterring by indicating that there now is an investigation for genocide and will be prosecutions if that investigation goes where it should, deterring the top leadership who is unleashing so much of what's gone on? And I m speaking specifically of the International Criminal Court, which of course is conducting now an investigation in Darfur. But you don't have to answer that in a way that I'm posing it, you could answer more personally about what justice could mean and whether that could be one element of stopping what is going on now in Darfur. MR. YAHYA: Thank you for this question. I believe in my own opinion that simply, according to my simple knowledge about justice, justice should be something to treat the people equally as human beings or as civilians or even as

21 PAGE 21 individuals living in a certain place. They have to be treated equally, even if they have a high position from the top of the government or top of the president until that junior one. They have to treat them equally to have their rights and to share everything according to the resolution of the country, to be equal. To treat just criminals, to punish them according to their commitment, and those who really are doing the good deed, they have to be rewarded and they have to be respected. I believe especially Like the simple example given by one of our colleagues here; he said he is going to learn from his kids. They say, This is not fair, this is not fair. This is very good example. But what is happening right now in Sudan or in so many places in this world? There is a double standard in dealing with any issue related to human beings. In the issue of Darfur, specifically because I am from there, I believe this problem is going to be solved immediately, it doesn t take any time. If the international community and before the international community, there is a commitment and responsibility of the United Nations. United Nations is a combination of over 130-something countries who are responsible according to the law to solve any problem or to deal with any kind of conflict in this world. But unfortunately that is not happening. Because just simply, they don t want to do it. Right now in the United Nations, we get the Security Council. The Security Council was dominated by five or six countries who have a veto, like China, like France, like United States, like Russia and others. Unfortunately, those who have to decide whether the problem was identified as genocide, they re supposed to act. And the issue in Darfur is genocide. Bush Administration last year in September,

22 PAGE 22 Mr. Colin Powell, he said it was genocide in the hearing of the Senate, he said genocide and we have to say it. The United Nations, they don t want to say genocide because when you say genocide, they have to act. They don t want to say it, they jump up and down. Until just recently, Kofi Annan, he said, Yes, that is genocide. And the United States said genocide. What are you doing? If that is genocide, why you don t have to act to save some lives, all those speakers who are patient every day, every minute, every hour? I believe if the world, if the United Nations not address all the world, the rest of the world, they have to act. United States of America always have wonderful initiatives to free the people in this part of the world, like Iraq. When they attacked Kuwait in early 1990s, they freed Kuwait from Iraq in only two weeks! Right now, we have troops over there, they are suffering. But this is not an exclusion. United Nations ran a... (inaudible) initiative, I know British are going to follow United States and other countries going to follow United States because only United States take initiative, but unfortunately right now, the United States for so many reasons, and also that's not exclusions, they don t want to act, and Bush Administration is so reluctant to address the issue of Darfur and send the troops. If you don t want to send the troops to stop this genocide in Darfur, you can make it with others. So the international community, so the United Nations, everything is available and everything is possible. But unfortunately, because those five

23 PAGE 23 members who have the veto in the United Nations, they will not allow any kind of action to be taken immediately to stop the genocide in Darfur simply because they have interests, because they get benefits, because they have investments in the oil of Sudan, they have some other investments inside Sudan and they're trying to protect that investment, trying to protect their friends, those who are perpetuating the genocide in Sudan, the killers who are ruling the government in Sudan right now. And that's why the human issues are not considered. Only to get benefits, only to invest in, only to make business that is very interesting and that's more important than the life of human beings. Unfortunately, if those who have a capacity, they want to do it, they will do it right now. But nobody want to do it. I know you are very concerned, and you have all your emotions focused on the issue of Darfur. You want to try to do it, to stop it. I know if you have a power, you will do it. But unfortunately those who have this motivation and have ambitions and are very patient to do something like this, they don t have that power. And those who have the power and have the capacity, unfortunately they don t have conscience to start to do something to stop the genocide from happening. And we will never be surprised if that happens again in somewhere in this world, it s going to happen because we will never punish those who are responsible and to account them to be charged at the international committee, to be a study to let others to learn not to try to think about every single access to kill others or to do something against the human beings. But whenever we understand and we look at it by a... (inaudible) eye, everything possible, and that's going to happen and we ll never stop it. Thank you so much. [applause]

24 PAGE 24 MR. SHATTUCK: Well, I think if there were any way to get this audience more focused, you have found it, Mohamed, and I think the focus on the current crisis in Darfur which I believe all of your colleagues on this panel would recognize as the crisis of the day which reflects all the lessons that they have brought to us in this very painful moment. I have the painful task of informing you that we have an ice storm. This is less serious than everything going on up here, but unfortunately, the federal government has made a decision that, at least by 2:30, this forum will have to end and everyone should go off because the storm is apparently worsening and the conditions of the road are bad and we want to make sure you get home safely. Now, I hope this doesn t immediately cause you to flee to the exits. What I do want to do is invite you to come to the microphone if you have questions for our panel. This is about the time I was going to do that, in any event, but we ll have to limit the questions to probably no more than several, and they can be addressed to anyone here. So let me, without further ado, turn to our questioners. And keep your questions very brief, bearing in mind everyone else s need to speak and moving along. Please? LOUISE RUHR: My name is Louise Ruhr, and I'm with the American Refugee Committee in Minneapolis. And first of all, I wanted to thank all of you for being on the panel and for sharing so honestly and forthrightly your personal stories with

25 PAGE 25 this large group of strangers. It was really kind of overwhelming to listen to you. I have a lot of questions I d like to ask you, but tying back to the presentation that we heard this morning and Louise Arbour s articulation of a broader definition of human rights to encompass things like access to healthcare, clean water, elimination of poverty, that type of thing, to what extent do you think that applying and observing that broader definition of human rights might have a chance of neutralizing some of the forces that have led to genocide in your countries, or in other places throughout the world? Thank you. MR. SHATTUCK: Anyone? Mardi, please. I think we ll not have each member of the panel answer, but Mardi, we appreciate your answer. MR. SENG: Sure. The definition of human rights this morning, expounded by the Human Rights Commissioner, is correct. Because right now, I want justice for my family, for my country. And how do I do that? First, a few years ago, I started a nonprofit organization in America, and I'm doing a lot in the short term, doing a lot of projects in Cambodia. Provide clean drinking water to schoolchildren. Out of 12 million population, 40 percent of the Cambodians right now are living under 50 cents a day. Fifty cents. They have no access to clean drinking water, they have no access to education, they have no access to healthcare. So my nonprofit, we're trying to bring clean drinking water, build schools, and also working with subsistence farmers and trying to increase through agriculture methods, we re trying to increase the yield.

26 PAGE 26 And secondly, we re also trying to involve in the medium term and long term, we re trying to involve the opposition political party, trying to promote democracy, build institutions so that we can bring change, reform to the government in a larger environment. MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you. Please? EUGENIA: I'm Eugenia, I'm from the March School. And my question was we always hear about the victims and it s so easy to feel like, Oh, I empathize so much, but I wanted to know what you think about the other side of the coin, how you each, or whoever will speak, understands what caused people to act against you? And the other question, just the difference between what Mardi brought up, the main leaders versus those people who actually carried it out and how you see that difference. Who is more to blame? How do you feel about that question? MR. SHATTUCK: Who would like to try that? Mardi, that's a sort of follow-up to yours. MR. SENG: Yes, actually I know exactly who killed my mother and as a child, it was very difficult. And when I went back to Cambodia in 1993 to my village, all the people who killed my Responsible for killing my family, aunts and uncles, they are still there. And a sense of justice, just The word justice, yes, is very important to bring them to justice. But also, there is another side of the coin of the word justice, is compassion, forgiveness. And as a victim you want to bring

27 PAGE 27 justice. But at the same time I don t want to live like a victim. I don't. There's a sense of hopelessness. You know, as a victim, there's a sense of hopelessness and I don't want to live like a victim. GLENN RUGA: My name is Glenn Ruga, from the Center for Balkan Development. There are six members of the panel, and five people have bared their souls to us in the most personal and respectful way, told about the most difficult moments of your life. It made me feel very embarrassed to be a member of the human race for some moments. There are people next to me who are crying. There's a sixth member of this panel, John, and I don t want you to stand aside. You're part of this conversation, and, please, you were in the halls of power during two of these genocides, and I d like to hear you talk about what it was like being on the other side when you were so close and in a position to possibly do something. [applause] MR. SHATTUCK: Very fair and very good. I also didn't want to presume on the time of our eloquent panelists. But I was. And I, on several occasions, was very disappointed in my own government in which I served. But no times more so than during the periods when I, with some others, was trying to get the United States to support the continued U.N. troop presence in the peacekeeping operation in Rwanda. And then also trying to get the United States to be much more active in Bosnia over several years.

28 PAGE 28 And I guess the lowest point for me, and I ll be very brief because I do want to get on to the other questioners, was when I forced my way into a situation where I was actually traveling to Rwanda during the genocide, and there were those in the government who tried to prevent me from doing that. But I felt as the human rights officer who had tried to prevent the vote in the United Nations that the U.S. cast to remove the peacekeepers, I had to go out to Rwanda, and I did. And I will never forget seeing the bodies in the Kagera River as I crossed that river between Tanzania and Rwanda. And I will never forget the response that I got when I called back to the Pentagon about the willingness of the countries in the region to participate in a peacekeeping operation to go in and stop at least the continuing genocide, even though there hadn't. I was told by my superiors that because of what had happened in Somalia, and because the United States didn't see any direct national security interests in Rwanda, it was not going to authorize this peacekeeping operation. On the other hand, equally low but in a way had a different result, I was the first person to go to Srebrenica from the international community in Bosnia. And I did so just after the Dayton accords were signed, and I went in there. Srebrenica, you've heard of course, was this largest single act of genocide in Europe since the Second World War and I went to Srebrenica partly to pay witness and partly to open the way for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, whose predecessor of Louise Arbour, Richard Goldstone, was trying to get in there. And I couldn t get the United States government to support my trip into Srebrenica

29 PAGE 29 because the NATO troops that had just come in, the U.S. troops didn't feel they were prepared to take on this particular task. So what did I do? I actually got the protection of the Serbs to go into Srebrenica. At that stage they wanted to prove that they were willing to be participants in the peace process, so it was a little like being protected by the Mafia in the sense that these were the very military organizations that had been involved in the Srebrenica massacre. But it was very important, and I think it did open the way and ultimately led to the fundamental change in the approach that was taken in NATO. But anyway, thank you for asking, Glen. It was obviously a period of time that was less I was not involved as a survivor in that sense, but I was certainly involved as a witness. Next question. [applause] ELY DONNIS: Hello, my name is Ely Donnis, I'm a student at Boston Latin School. And it s amazing being in the same room with these survivors. They're truly inspiring, all of you. I mean, I was sitting in the back row crying. And I see a level of wisdom that's been brought out in all of you because of what you ve gone through. And I come from a generation right now that many in society view as a confused generation, some as a lost generation. And I was wondering what you as someone who has amassed this wisdom through the hard experiences in your life, what you could tell us as a generation to focus on and to do, not only now, but as we grow and continue to grow, to keep our focus on things like this and to not sort of stray into that void of meaninglessness? And I was wondering what advice you would give us in the future to continue this trend, to build on what

30 PAGE 30 we are doing here today, on building awareness and doing things to prevent these things from happening, to stop them from happening, and to not let them happen again? MR. SHATTUCK: Who d like to answer that question? Mohamed? MR. YAHYA: Thank you so much. This is a very interesting question, and what I want you to do is as an American civilian or member of this world, it is a large world, do the right thing. Do the right thing to stop the genocide everywhere in this world and you will expect that others one day, if something happens to you, they are going to act also to stop that as not happening to you. You have to pay and one day you ll get it. I'm not saying this because I am witness of the genocide right now, but this is for the morality. This is for the humanity. This is for the sake of the god. I know you believe in the god like me, I believe in a god. When we believe in God, that means we feel good. We have so much evils in this world, they will never fear a god. We have to treat them the way that they treat with others. If we will not just stop those evils from committing crimes against humanity, we are never going to have this world to become a peaceful place to live. We all together, as Americans or even non-americans in this international community or in this world, we have to be together. We can make a difference and we can make it better. Otherwise, when we stand united, and we represent our governments, here you are considered as representatives of America. And you get the government to the power here. If that

31 PAGE 31 is not you, no one going to be a President of United States. He becomes President of the United States, George W. Bush, because you're supporting him to become over there, when he ll become over there, he has to listen to you. What do you want? If you really want to stop the genocide in Darfur and everywhere in this world, tell him, President Bush, you have to do this because we brought you into power. Otherwise, if you will never do it, we will get someone other to do it. And we have to be very fair. If you are fair in yourself, and you are fair with your family, you will be fair with others. If you are not fair with yourself, at one inside yourself, if you are not fair, don t expect others to be fair. Let us to be fair, first of all, and we can address the fairness and we address the justice and we can make this world a safer place to live, and otherwise it is going to be destroyed. Because you don t expect and you don't know those people like me who are fair to get someone to help them to stop this genocide. You will never know what they are going to turn out to be. I have something learned from my parents, I hope that they will be alive, I don't know. They taught me, Mohamed, I was just about eight years old. Maybe one day You have to study very hard. We are very poor. We don t have that money to give you, we don t have enough money to buy you even gas because we don t have the liberty. I learn, I read my books by the gas, gasoline, put it in a small lamp. We put in the lamp and we read. We don t have electricity. And this gasoline, I remember it was a bottle, is only five cents, five cents. Sometimes my parents, they don t have five cents to get me gasoline to study. In the time when

32 PAGE 32 the lamp was Sometimes I go to my friends who are a little bit better off to study with them sometimes. They said, Mohamed, you study hard. Read in the sun if we don t have gas. One day you will become a man and you will be an officer or anything, and maybe you will never stay with us because they re going to transfer you somewhere else. Or maybe you go outside of this country. Remember, if something happens to you, go to your brothers or sisters. They're going to help you. If they didn't help you, go to your friends, they help you. If they didn't help you, go to the others who are foreigners. You don t know them, but maybe you get some people very nice, they're going to help you. Exactly just like you right now. I don't know you people, but you are trying to help me. If you fail to get those strangers to ask you, Mohamed, ask your god. The god is going to help. MS. CESIC: I would like to add something very short, because there are many students here, very young people. MR. SHATTUCK: Go ahead. In fact, if I could just say because I think the Just to help us conclude with the panel, I'm unfortunately going to ask the other questioners if you wouldn t mind maybe asking your questions privately. But I think the question you asked is really one each member of the panel can answer, and I d like to conclude with that. So thank you very much. And Jasmina, please?

33 PAGE 33 MS. CESIC: I would like to answer his question, but it refers to every student in this room. That by coming here and educating yourself, I mean, education and knowledge bring us really together and help us heal this world. And ignorance and stereotyping separates us. So by coming here, educating, hearing what we have said here, and sharing that with your other friends, is exactly what you should do. And the best thing to do. That's why I wrote my book, I want to share with everyone in this world what has happened to my country and to me. That's all. [applause] MR. SHATTUCK: Thank you, Jasmina. Richard, would you like to add something to that? MR. NSANZABAGANWA: I certainly would like to add some piece of thought. Is that according to your question, I always ask the people to try to exercise their brightness on themselves. You guys already seem transformed, and you need to transform your environment. That's the way that you're going to start changing the world. And again, we are here as survivors of the most cruel crimes, genocide. But we do remember that there exists other crimes that still harm our conscience. So those crimes are part of our lives and our communities and we need to avoid them. If we are not able to avoid those, that you call small crimes on our communities, we re not going to be able to stop, prevent serious crimes in other countries. So keep safe your communities and transform yourself, transform your