An international platform

By Emily Richmond

Thursday, June 1, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

A group of advanced social studies students at Palo Verde High School set senioritis aside Wednesday for a somber discussion about an African crisis that has left hundreds of thousands dead - with no less than Sudan's highest-ranking envoy as their guest speaker.

Khidir Ahmed, head of mission for the Embassy of Sudan, told the students that American politicians hurt his country's prospects for peace by referring to bloodshed and strife in the Darfur region as genocide.

Ahmed was invited to speak with the students as part of a visit sponsored by the Las Vegas World Affairs Council. Palo Verde social studies teacher Mark Hechter works with the council's educational outreach committee and offered his Advanced Placement class as a venue.

Meeting with about 30 students in the campus library, Ahmed said once the politically charged label of genocide was attached to the western region's crisis, the rebel faction expected international intervention to quickly follow.

That made them less willing to negotiate a cease-fire with the ruling government, Ahmed said.

"It was a mistake and delayed the peace process," Ahmed said.

He echoed his remarks to the Las Vegas Sun's editorial board.

In 2003 the Sudanese government sent armed groups of Arab nomads - known as janjaweed - to attack rebel tribesmen who opposed the government. Since then an estimated 200,000 Africans in the Darfur region are believed to have been killed or died from associated malnutrition, injury and disease. Nearly 2 million others have been displaced.

"No one is in denial about the huge human tragedy," Ahmed said. "But the characterization of it as a genocide didn't do any good. It aggravated the situation."

An internationally brokered peace deal in May with the Sudanese government teeters in the balance. The leader of one rebel group has signed the agreement. Two other rebel organizations faced potential U.N. sanctions if they failed to sign by the end of the day Wednesday.

Ahmed said he welcomed the involvement of the newly formed African Union and the United Nations..

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., condemned the Las Vegas World Affairs Council's decision to invite the Sudanese representative and called Ahmed's remarks "about the most outrageous statement I have ever heard."

"It is genocide to me and genocide to every other civilized person on this planet," she said. "To call it anything less is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been murdered, savaged and raped, whose crops and villages have been burned to the ground."

Berkley said it was a mistake for Ahmed to be invited to the council's International Educator of the Year dinner Wednesday at the Four Seasons or to speak with Clark County students.

"This is like inviting Hitler to come and speak to an Advanced Placement class to explain an alternative point of view for the Holocaust," Berkley said of Ahmed. "As a Jew I do not use the example of the Holocaust lightly - I don't like when other people do it. In this case, it fits."

Hechter said he respected Berkley's "strong convictions" - and concurred with some of her sentiment - but believed it was still a valuable opportunity for his students to quiz the Sudanese envoy.

"They were appropriately respectful and at the same time asked important questions," Hechter said, who was honored Wednesday as the county's outstanding public high school educator.

Blaming the stalled peace process on American officials' use of the word genocide was "too simplistic," Hechter said.

"I don't believe the U.S. government taking this position reinforced anyone's desire to continue fighting," Hechter said.

It was appropriate for America's leaders to characterize the Darfur crisis as genocide, Hechter said.

"An entire ethnic group has been displaced and they're dying - they are subject to rape, killing, brutality," Hechter said. "How many people have to die because they're caught in an ethnic conflict before you use that word?"

Afan Tarar, a Palo Verde senior who plans to attend UNLV in the fall, grilled Ahmed with the polite intensity of a veteran international affairs correspondent, asking him to outline the blueprint for repatriating displaced residents of Darfur and what impact political instability in surrounding African nations would have on the peace process.

Sudan may be on the other side of the globe, but that doesn't mean America can turn a blind eye, Tarar said.

"If Sudan doesn't follow through with the peace plan we will regret it - like Rwanda," Tarar said. "That was back in 1991 and right now people are talking about how we all could have done more to prevent the atrocities."