and apparently sudanese air force warplanes are now buzzing the communities of the two neighboring states as well. the message being to terrify the local people. now, i would like to first of all deal with the idea that, i mean, when you listen to the diplomats and the politicians from the west, they are sort of expressing surprise that this has happened. well, they shouldn't because it was completely predictable. groups like mind waging peace and the project save darfur, human rights watch, we have all been going on and on and on about how abyei was the flashpoint. we have been going on to the point of monotony for months and months because it was always obvious that this was going to happen. this was predictable and the reason it was predictable was

that as long as you appease the architects of genocide and in a misguided way treated him as if they are going to be our partners in peace, as long as you make sure there are no consequences for bad behavior, then the signal that you send to those architects of genocide is that they can carry on. abyei is in a way a microcosm of what has been happening throughout saddam since about 1983, and as with most subjects in africa if i'm going to cover this properly i'm going to go back a few decades to explain what is happening in abyei today, back to the time of the colonial times. that is so often the story in africa. basically, sudan, in 1956 was part of the british empire. the british drew a border that was 700 different tribes together. now surely this was never going

to go terribly well. as is typical of the colonial powers, they chose one group of people, one ethnic group to do their bidding to try and control everybody else. that was the people who self-identify as arabs who live in khartoum and along the nile. since then it has been a story of the hegemony of the ethnic groups that define themselves as arab along the nile against everybody else. it is the story of marginalization. it is also a story of climate change because the sahara along here is moving south, in some places as much as 20 miles a year and other places as much as three miles a year. this is having an extraordinary domino effect and a lot of the ethnic groups who are living here, mainly self identified arab, having to move and they're moving onto land occupied by people who self identified as black african. now you are going to get bored of me saying people

self-identify but here's what i have learned. in my time working in 12 different afghan countries. does not matter the content of your blood. there is intermarriage everywhere. what matters is how you self-identify in part of the story with sudan is unfortunately the racism of some of the air of groups who consider themselves to be racially superior to the black africans who live here in the south. this is the size of texas, and here in darfur also about the size of texas. the difference is these people are muslim and these people are christian. the christians in the south basically objecting to the fact that the people in khartoum who are islamistsislamist, and i don't need islam, named clinical islam, fundamentalist as practiced by bin laden and his friends. they want to impose sharia law on the people in the south.

there is unfortunately a tremendous amount of racism involved in this. what we have had been, since independence and 56, was the marginalization of all these other groups around here who feel they have no stake and where the power is in sudan. the people in khartoum have actually been rather clever and skillful in the way that they have conducted ethnic cleansing. what they have done is typically there is a pattern to this and it has been repeated to this day, right now in abyei. they use their air force to bomb villages and what they call softening up. this has been followed not by regular soldiers but i'm malicious of local disgruntled, poor arab nomads whom they pay and they do the dirty work. this has happened since 1983 and since sudan 2 million out of 99

people who live there. there is a population of 6 million people, half of whom have now been made homeless. that is 90%. human rights watch reckons 90% of black villages in darfur have been destroyed and empty and the deaths of 300,000 people, massive displacement. now you may wonder what resonates with this. and that takes us to something else incredibly topical of course and that is colonel gadhafi. he is the man who wrote the book some decades ago explaining why all carts full -- culture in africa was arab. he is the man who ignited the ghastly racist thoughts among arabs and as you know today he is busy trying to kill his own population. the other soulmates in all of this program of ethnic cleansing is of course osama bin laden, who lived in khartoum for five

years, and i think that you know, you can define a regime by the friends it keeps. they also define their best friends as hamas, hezbollah and ahmadinejad of iran, so you are beginning to get a picture of how they interpret islam. and the majority of the world's muslims disagree with their adoption of clinical fundamentalists islam but there we are. recently, two months ago the president of saddam -- sudan based here in khartoum was asked to define islam and he said this. he said it is to kill. this is not a vision that the majority of the world would embrace, but it is one that has been used and is now being used to oppress the black african christian people of south sudan and darfur. now, this brings us up to why

abyei is happening. thanks to the incredible work of a lot of american groups, and i've been jewish, christians and muslims, they shone a light on what is happening in south sudan, the fact that from 83 onwards there has been this merciless campaign of ethnic cleansing, and they eventually got the united united states governments to focus on what was happening there. this is an example of what we can achieve when we actually put our minds to it and when there is international political will. because of america, the people in khartoum were eventually pressured into having peace talks, going into a full negotiation. it dragged on for years of course but eventually in 2005 they signed what is called the comprehensive peace agreement which was neither comprehensive nor has it leads to peace but nevermind. they decided on a notional

border around south sudan. the problem was this. the people in khartoum who ran the regime, it would be wrong to think of them as it caricature of, sort of african dictatorship. these are very shrewd people. they calibrate exactly the west's lack of ventures in africa. day so well know our lack of commitment and they also understand that we have attention deficit disorder. they get that we can't focus on one international issue more than one international issue at a time and we soon lose interest. now during these negotiations, they were taking, the people in khartoum, were taking the lease from slobodan milosevic who also perfectly understood our attention deficit disorder and the people in khartoum spun out all the negotiations, realizing frankly that our diplomats,

although with the best will of the world, want to go home. and unfortunately, so desperate were we to get sudan out of our in basket that we postpone some of the most fundamental decisions including where the border was going to be. and abyei is exactly on the border, and it is disputed because the people who live in abyei have been given a decision on whether or not they are going to be part of the south which is now voted for secession by 98% independents or whether they want to be part of the north. here is the problem. the people that are permanent residents self-identify as black africans of their farmers, however every year, the mystery it tried to our self identified as arabs, they come through and they raise their animals. they consider themselves

residents of abyei and they say they should have a vote, and here is the problem. so keen were we to just get on with the conference a peace agreement that we never actually decided who was going to be able to vote in this referendum in abyei. certainly the e-mails i'm getting this morning from people on the ground there, they are saying that this move by the sudan government to occupy abyei, it isn't just simply about oil. i should have that 75% of sudan's oil is in the south and a lot of it is concentrated in abyei so there is a lot of reason to be ingested in this area. but it is about more than now. either this is the beginning of what will be an incremental push by the sudanese regime, the north, to retake areas along the border where there is oil and they will do that, especially all the international community of offers.

and there are no consequences for their actions. you remember what i'm saying about a pattern here? there's a pattern of western appeasement in all of this, a pattern that we do not, because we are so keen to get sudan over with, that we have turned a blind eye to all the different aspects of the comprehensive peace agreement that have been broken. so either this is the beginning of an incremental problem, or it is a bargaining thing, a bargaining chip and at some point the cities are going to say you know what? we could occupy abyei like that and what we want, the price for withdrawing again, is going to be that you allow the mystery of who are they arab nomads, you allow them to vote in a referendum on blair abyei goes. the e-mails i have had this morning indicate that abyei is being repopulated as we speak by

arab nomads who are moving in and who will claim that they are permanent residents are going other one other words if there is a referendum, abyei because there will then be a majority of self defining arab ethnic groups, they will both to be part of the north, which is not with the black africans who live there who are christian want, because they do not want to be part of the north. they have since 1983 been bombed and harassed by the north and having sharia law forced on them. but there is a message here and that is that when we do decide to use their political will, as with forcing the procession, we can actually make progress in the problem is we are continually signaling our lack of seriousness to the sudanese regime just as we did with milosevic in bosnia and the consequences of that are here to be seen in abyei.

takes me to having a look at a village in darfur. after it has been alms, after the ways of arab nomads have invaded you might ask, and i know i since 2003 this has been happening. 90% of the black villages have been destroyed. they are also being repopulated by arab nomadic people from chad and as far away as not share so telling to do for you and people to go home is problematic and all kinds of ways. you may ask yourself why there hasn't been more of an international reaction. the united nations to is credited with lots of good resolution calling for sensible things like going for the money, sanctions, a no-fly zone, other sensible things like tracing all

the sort of murky business and charity connections that the architects of the genocide this genocide in khartoum have, and also really personal stuff, treating them actually like narco-criminals, really personal stuff like travel bans to stop the architects of the genocide from going to paris for shopping trips and believe me that is actually what concentrates the mind. but sadly almost none of those u.n. resolutions has been enforced, because we lack political will. we did put together a peacekeeping force, a joint u.n. african union peacekeeping force but the problem is that the soldiers don't even have enough gas to leave their debt pose and go and report on incidents that happen all the time. there has been a surge in killing in darfur. u.s. may with the secession is meant for darfur. it is meant that the world's attention has been on south sudan and in that media vacuum,

there is once more an enormous surge in the killing that is going on in darfur. bear in mind that there is a large part of darfur we have no idea what is happening because the sudanese government kept the media out and it is either kept humanitarian groups that or it has impeded their work so much or scared them so much that they don't say at thing. ..

but that's the consequence of our attention. on the secession in the south, what's the international reaction been? peritonitis is muslims killing muslims. but does have, it was muslim killing christian. what is the art world had to say about this? almost nothing. and there are three reasons. the first days of the iraq war played so completely into the hands of the sudanese regime because they were able to say to their fellow arabs and muslims, look, we told you these people hated us and wanted to destroy our culture. and here they are. it's a new colonialism. and that plays pretty well on the arab street, especially when it's coming you know, a bunch of the cases they don't want to do with the very real grievances of their own population, how much better to divert them onto

diversion of the marriage issue in this country, which is zionism. and that has been used. the other reason a lot of arab regimes have not given any support to the people of darfur were a spate don't want their turn in the spotlight and they don't like the idea of an international precedent that says that the u.n. condescended status to both killing their own citizens. and thirdly, we come to a rather troubling reason and that is of course the people who live in darfur where are the wrong part of the sun because they are black african. why then has the african community of leaders said almost not named, with the exception of rwanda and they of course get the point of what genocide means. unfortunately, this implies that quite a few african leaders don't want their turn in the

spotlight. but if you listen to talk radio anywhere in africa, african citizens are absolutely serious the black africans are being slaughtered like to. unfortunately, the tragedy of africa is in the case of quite a few liters, though disconnected from a people and do not share their peoples concerned about what is happening. cast your mind back to rwanda. there's only one african leader at the time. african political leader at the time had anything to say about rwanda. would anyone like me hasten to guess as to who that was? nelson mandela, of course it was. desmond tutu spoke of constantly and fairly on darfur were, but of course he is not a religious leader. i'm sorry, he was a religious leader rather than a political leader. he was on the nelson mandela who had anything to you about this and that is the tragedy of

africa. that is an example of what is happening right now in rba, although that photograph was taken in darfur were, which takes me to the reasons that i wrote a novel about darfur were. since i went there in 2004 to the refugee camps, i have given speeches in britain endless obstacles and i are always preaching the choir. i'm always talking to people who are already concerned. and i was quite inspired by the kite runner. here is the guy who wrote a novel about afghanistan from hundreds of thousands of people would never read brought the novel and became politicized and interested. and i thought, why not try? but i had a rather more important reason to trade to make this and that is because of the women of darfur were who actually asked me to rate it.

when i was there interviewing them. and i say to the people it is speaking to, i'm a purplish white women. how could i possibly ever understand the african experience? you know, when i was born i won the lottery. i was born white and healthy and frankly it doesn't get any luckier than not. and they said to me yes, but rebecca, your hair. so they took me through all my imperfections instead were quite busy trying to stay alive in particular children, so please go away and do your best to make our voice heard and that's what i've tried to do. the other reason i wrote this novel was that i am just so fed up with the western representations as pathetic defenseless that guns. and we do it partly deliberately in the case of some charities. you know that desperate little

child with the flies around the size? it is a manipulator to get our money or send it, but it couldn't be further than the truth in the experience of africa. the africa that i see in places like rwanda in northern uganda and darfur were as people who are incredibly resourceful and resilient. they are not people who define themselves as victims. they defined themselves as survivors. how can you not want to help someone who is rebuilding a life in a zionist advisor? these are people who even when there isn't a genocide they face the most incredible daily challenges. we live in a society where we think it actually appropriate to complain because you have such a tough time finding a parking space. these people have a rather different perspective on life. i also wanted to stress out the things we have in common with these people because too often we stress differentness, the

otherness and i definitely never understanding that this is about the human condition. genocide is not something that just happened in africa because somehow africans are different. they're not. genocide is not human condition. cast your mind back to the second world war when the leadership were at the bonsai conference in berlin to decide the final solution to the jewish question. and remember 50% of the people in the room of phd's. as a mother who was a world where reporter in the second world war used to say to me, just remember if you're looking for an easy option to pretend somehow people who commit genocide are, just remember that they went home and listen to beethoven. genocide is part of the human condition, but also for every file type to genocide, i believe there is a corresponding act of bravery and decency and courage. i think of all these remarkable

women who have seen their own children killed, but have been attacked distortions, people who have almost nothing and find it in themselves to do that when frankly an awful lot of people in our society probably wouldn't be able to cope. the other reason of course is a good reason is because of the surge in violence in darfur were that authority described. but i also wanted to tackle the fact that i think racism is one of the reasons we don't regard these less quite human enough to empathize with. bear in mind in the democratic republic of congo, where it is estimated by human rights and the international crisis group that 5 million people have died in the last 10 years cannot certainly be a vacuum. bear in mind the democratic republic of congo, every hour 48 when men are afraid. and i think about the amount of

new space they give the silly airheaded celebrities. and you see what i mean. i also wanted to tell the story of the spinning the, you know, being a woman in sudan is not a trip to the day spa in itself. the rates of illiteracy, around 80%. the highest eternal mortality, one in seven women have a one in seven chance of dying in child earth spirit that is a lifetime chance, compared with in this country a one in 44,000 chance. pat to me puts it in days. bear in mind these women that you see here because those a very traditional role in culture they would never say to you i was, certainly not on the first meeting. i was there long enough and eventually they start using

euphemisms i was beaten, attacked, assaulted in the gut to the fact that all these women survived the genocide had been systematically raped. this is what they mean by genocide being a weapon of war because of stories i heard and therefore weren't exactly like the ones i heard in bosnia, interviewing women who survived being a train when it is when we kill your name. the second genocide is when we raped you can fracture your society and your culture and family. and that their genocide certainly the case of women in rwanda was when he realized that you have hiv. this is systematic training to accompanied with racial slurs in the case of the seven-day rockhard average, which means slave.

quite a lot of them are also graphic slave. quite a lot of them are also graphic slave. quite a lot of them are also graphic is. they have no protection in these refugee camps. every time they leave the camp to go forward which is a daily necessity. the people who did this to them are waiting just a few miles outside and we do nothing. here is what the president of saddam, president bush either has to say about trained to. it does not exist in islam. we don't have it. another race, these women imagined it or their press to. we collect to a petition in darfur were, one of the people at the camp said what to do in your country when you want to do government policy, to stop the people doing this. we said these petitions, which was quite a new notion there. the very easiest way to start a

petition attribute exceeds that of the names. but because the idea of the petition didn't quite register, we actually have 60,000 stories by the time they handed in this enormous pile of paper. we submitted to the international criminal court and they accepted it as evidence of war crimes. as i said, the media has been kept out. we also collected 500 drawings by darfur were children -- of the genocide. now bear in mind that these are kids would never watch television, never looked at images or military magazines. so what you're getting here is a nonfiltered child's view of what has been happening in darfur were. incidentally it was 500 drawings and about to show you some of them. the 500 drawings were accepted by the international criminal court as evidence of war crimes. the context of war crimes. so we were able to say to these

young people, guess you are sitting here in the refugee camp, but one day god willing, you will play a role in bringing to justice people killed, your father, brother, uncle, which is quite empowering. naturally the government doesn't recognize any of this has had a name. it plays into a racist western? of things by name to start ancient ethnic hatreds, all the same as each other, moral equivalent these but denied that their tanks of their armor, as are involved in any of this. that is not with these children say. incidentally, the government of saddam since in a zionist employed by the state of israel who go around spreading these terrible rumors and i guess all these children who treat these drawings were in my hands.

how you self identify what matters. and for those advised for the uninitiated, if we went there, we would probably be able to tell the difference from someone cartoon and seven from there for her. what matters is in the eye of the beholder. that the people in darfur were perceived themselves and the people who are killing them with red skin. and that is why there is a racial element of the government of sudan keeps trying to avoid and instantly we in the west in the same thing. the beginning of the bosnian war was a genocidal intent. we did this in 1938 when hitler was invading czechoslovakia. we denied there is a genocidal intent because the minute we

admit there's genocidal intent, there's a moral imperative to do some thing and that's the last thing we want to have to do. this is important for several rescinds. that image down there dce -- i'm afraid i'm not very good at powerpoint. you see a woman cannot do it by the throat to the woman in front of her and the woman in front of her. this is 2011 this is happening here this is not an image from this way of trade. we are told from so many people there's a pattern air and i have to think it's credible. we are told that when the group nomads who go into these villages that they will select the prettiest, youngest young women, take them to the word,

distribute them among army officers to do with what they wish and they are not seen again. and that is happening right now. again, the sydney government and i agree this is happening. but you can see there is and these giants of course i really much more eloquent than i could ever be and i'm so delighted that if we've done one thing, it used to make sure that these are going to be excited did at the international criminal court. the ages of the children during these between eight and about

15. finally, the reason why to buy "when the stars fall to earth" go to help addicts in africa that are helping survivors of genocide resolve their lives. people like this guy, we have in rwanda a school for children, a new six goal, a school that teaches rwandan orphans and widows, survivors to read and write and to have a marketable skills so that they can feed and educate their children commit their fiery breaking poverty like parts of africa. we also have a school that educates orphans to speak english so they can get to the university and therefore when they have a good job because all of these are things -- remember what i said about how every one is an act of decency.

all these are things have got several orphans at home, some of whom they may not even be related to, but they are caring for her. that's what i mean about the spirit of africa and we also have a health clinic. when i was recently in rwanda, a local woman who connected me with the health clinic said to me, have you heard the news? were getting a maternity unit. i was pleased that she said our period and the reason she said our was that she did something absolutely unheard of. we actually consulted the local population before we started the projects present what do you want? they say we went to school 17,000 genocidal firms. as one young and said to, well, what's the point is scored 50% of our children are dead by the time they attend from perfectly preventable diseases? the community decided it would be a clinic and because it was

their decision, there is there for ownership. i was like a woman who doesn't connect me to the clinic suddenly realize this means my children are going to die. my daughters are going to die in child earth, which really makes it all worthwhile. is there a message in all of this while my rambling a journey of genocide have been right now and javier and finally i hope uplifting stories from rwanda. i think the lesson is that we never learn from history and as long as we appease the architects of genocide, whether it is in the form of genocide on our doorstep for the imperative that we must send our young people to fight in a war that may be of limited moral

usefulness. i don't know. if no other reason, please by "when the stars fall to earth" because the people at therefore deserve to have a voice. at least i'm trying. thank you. [applause] >> we are so lucky to have you here,/with everything going on. i'm sure there are many questions, so maybe we'll take one. >> i'm raviv. [inaudible] i am from sri lanka as well, so the issues surrounding the genocide are very near and dear

to my heart, also in looking around the world. i guess of what the white house called last week where they made a special envoy and talking about ways in which we put international pressure as it relates to the ongoing conflict. i guess my question to you that he touched on the little goodies which should we be doing currently to make sure the issues surrounding darfur were actually come to a resolution. there are a number who don't look like they are going at all. so whether it's sanctioned, increase sanctions which will directly affect the khartoum

government, it will actually motivate them. >> are there other questions? >> hi, my name is kendra. i am just wondering -- [inaudible] what does it mean to them -- [inaudible] >> i'd like to do with that one first because we actually had a team and are for the day that it was announced that bashir was being indicted. and jubilation. absolute jubilation. they knew that the sudanese government would kick out huge numbers of humanitarian and gs

has a direct consequence. but they still said that we need justice. it was an extraordinary moment for us to witness this, this clear eyed understanding that yes they would suffer in material terms. the justices that were poured sand. i think the equivalent was abused as a child was for someone to recognize that iran was done to them and it is the same if your country, if your ethnic group has undergone genocide. it's the same if your people have been enslaved. you need someone to say that some thing that was sent to you. i am a big supporter of the icc and the people of darfur were just jubilant when they heard about the indictment. her question -- i really should have mentioned this about what we can do. i should have mentioned the fact that one of the bad man aspects

of all this, the way the west reacts is that we never appreciate how much leverage we have over regimes like the sudanese and we did exactly the same in bosnia and fidelity. would never fully appreciated all the cops we had. if you look at sudan, they have something like 30 billion of debt because despite all the oil, they spent it on weapons. they desperately want access to the international money fund and the world bank and they want to be accepted into the community of nations so they can develop their economy. this is khartoum i am talking about. they really want to be taken off the united states list of state sponsors of terror. they want to be in the big woods club. they don't like being pariahs. what is so bad and better suited piecemeal approach to both darfur were in sudan has been that we never appreciated how much leverage we have and instead we continue to signal

our lack of seriousness by not implementing all of the u.n. resolutions that were passed way back in 2003, the no-fly zone, targeting the architects of the genocide that going after their bank accounts, freezing assets, almost those kinds of things that never turned the screw on that team. instead we are now in the absurd position that we actually have envoys from the u.s. going to the sudanese and saying, you know, if you continue not to kill so many people and behave yourselves, will reward you by taking you off the list of state sponsors of terror. it is a completely wrong way of looking at this. they made those commitments in khartoum when i found the comprehensive peace agreement in 2005 and we to be holding their noses to this rather than

continually reporting bad behavior. and another thing that is certainly being cost of devout anemia for this as well is that the british and americans are getting ready at the sudanese continue to supposedly behave themselves, to vote for what is called chapter 16, which means they are going to suspend president bashir's indictment for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. so yet again, we are rewording atrocious behavior rather than realizing that until july, when sudan becomes its own country, this is their window of opportunity, to absolutely turn the screws. and we have this leverage in terms of access to the world bank in the international monetary fund and joining disorder community of acceptable nations again and were not using it. it's just part of our passion of attention deficit disorder.

>> could you discuss a little bit the friendship between the sudan government and the chadian government? >> this is the really interesting one and it's quite distressing. for years, the people running chad, visit our ethnic group, which of course is one of the three ethnic groups come in the three major ethnic groups in darfur were. hit a natural them when bad things started happening in 2003, lots of people react to group was across the border. and that all went very well. he didn't go terribly well because the local chadian people were filed about having a quarter million people arrive and already desperately poor place where they didn't have enough water, let alone anything else. it didn't actually go that well,

but at least people were not being bombed and killed there. however, there has been inserted a history between khartoum and janina for decades. however recently there is any rapprochement and the consequence of that is that they are now prepared to betray the people is about what ethnic groups who are with and chad and refugee camps and to send them home. home for what? use of those pictures of what the villages i like. some of the villages being repopulated by periods. home to a? this is going to be forcible return and is not going to go at all well. you know, which is here really, really dreadful stories about the consequences of this rapprochement and where it will lead. unfortunately as either, it seems like a great idea to the diplomats who live in a higher

university try and get these two adversaries speaking to each other again and not threatening each other with water, but in real terms they are people on the ground who will suffer massively. >> perhaps i can ask a question. given the world that will take place and possibly the indictment by yet -- i would like to know if you think it actually will go forward for how you see the sessions lay now? what can we act in terms as opportunity really because who will try to provide student rights violations in the situation like that the two countries, and you know, exist, then no one will really move forward on prosecution in either countries since they are not

divided. how do you see the situation? >> absolutely stalemate. you know, there's something i realize i should've mentioned. one of the reasons for not getting any action whatsoever, you have to look at the people that compose the u.s. appear to counsel, the permanent members because that is the heart of the problem. the chinese are by 50% of sudan's oil and the supply of a million dollars worth of arms the day to the khartoum to leadership and also the chinese have a great interest in supporting state sovereignty and not having any kind of precedent this is anyone else can intervene if you're killing your people. the russians are supplying military equipment. all the planes that are today bombing iba and flying over the surrounding areas on the border are all russian and the lot of them -- the ones the worst in

darfur were, a lot of them are piloted by russians. and also because of chechnya, russia doesn't want to set a precedent on the u.n. security council of intervening in someone else's business to stop them killing of civilians, which brings us to france. you know, you could write a whole book on france's role in africa and it wouldn't be a very jolly read. but france has big oil interests in sudan and so they have been slightly disappointed on all of this, which leaves us with america. and britain and america together with norway are actually the countries that made the comprehensive peace agreement happen in great queued up to them. i was criticizing them for not having ironed out all those

little details like where the border was than who was allowed to vote in the referendum, but at least they could make it happen. but there is an underlying problem with both the american and british attitude to saddam and because to the war on terror. incredibly, field marshal bashir is not a man. he knows how to leverage his position. he said to both intelligence communities in washington and in london, i know osama bin laden really well. he lived here for five years. i can tell you what he had for breakfast. he has managed to spend cartoons close association, both ideological and in terms of friendship with al qaeda to make him a valued friend in the war on terror believe it or not at the height of the killing in april 2005.

the cia sent the check to collect the sudanese intelligence says the bandwidth, to bring him to virginia to be debriefed for a whole week. thank goodness his knowledge of al qaeda was at least 12 years out of date. but we do know that the sudanese have rather cleverly promised that they will help us by an al qaeda in both yemen and somalia. now, the fact that people actually believe this is extraordinary, given all these people are ideological bedfellows, but also the coast where racism. i'm sorry, arabic is not a monolithic language. it is different in whatever country you're in. and someone going from khartoum to gehman, pretending to be again and he would be like someone from alabama going to thailand and thinking they are

going to sit in. it's not going to happen. also i'm sorry, but they look different. not to the uninitiated, but the racism that we somehow think africacome as a country or continent? yeah, you can send someone from khartoum to somalia and the fed interest rate. here we have this absurd situation and it undermines everything. the zoo in this room who are red old doctrine of the the cold war, we cozied up to and supported less than pleasant dictatorships in our war against communism. i'm afraid we're back to the same thing now. your question, where does that leave the icc? >> icf moving forward in terms of the prosecution and also in terms of accountability. what can we expect in that region? >> a problem is if we actually

do vote for article xvi, then basically we are saying that we are giving carte blanche to anybody to do anything they want and it's really hard to know where we go forward from that if there is no accountability, if there is no justice. you begin to wonder what the point of this is. there is another thing that i hear often when i'm in africa africa and that is that a lot of ordinary africans who are participating in the radio phone in scum who disagree and are very concerned as you indict some white leaders for iraq so that at least it wouldn't seem in the dark.

it seem to be so one-sided. >> i have been caught in succession. could you speak to where you see that going? research that was a positive jazz may be in a longer-term future about god's >> i obviates event over the weekend probably changed everything because as i say, this could be the beginning of an incremental kris by northern said not unto silas the band and if we don't stand up against that, it will just happen in chunks. they will move onto the territory and what i need is the oil to be honest in which case god help us all and god help the people of sudan who have enough on their plate anyway as it is

because it's instantly going to become one of the world's poorest countries. in july when it gets independent and not the poorest country in the world. and it has massive problems, not least that most of the educated people in south sudan for either killed or fled and they now live in the west and just as in bosnia there's very little reason for them to return. there is a lack of capacity and sat to dan. if this isn't an incremental move by the khartoum government, if it is a bargaining chip, if it is all about repopulating iba, having a version and then the majority arab population joining north, where does that then make us? it leaves the house sudanese theory is an awful lot of people -- every family lost somebody in the lot were an elite's ascent to the lack of

justice and we are told -- i got an e-mail this morning saying the south sudanese leaders have been very restrained. they are not hitting that has the reading for the international community to do something about it. who knows what will happen. >> i just have one last question. i think it was interesting when he said that we really hadn't worked a lot of our mistakes give a couple of directors of genocide. how much of that do you think is a willful ignorance and how much of that is the complete site that is so incomprehensible? for example, we at the museum for the holocaust in washington and after going through that, it's really hard to think of some thing. the show is so hard to relate to something that atrocious that massive. how much of those two factors

really plan to the neglect of things happening like in darfur where? >> you know, my argument is that genocide is actually very simple and that is human condition and we are all capable of that, given the right circumstances. i think the moment to get under moral high horse and say people in my country would do something like that, you are on a slippery slope. is it willful ignorance? partly. it's also self-interest. i mean, look at the news today. is anyone talking about obviates? they're talking about problems in pakistan with militants there. you know, there's always something bigger that gets in the way. people want to avoid undercutting the genocide label on because the minute you recognize it's happening, there's a moral imperative to do something.

time and again we deny genocidal intent. we deny the scale of what is had been the way we did in germany, rwanda, darfur were, all excuses not to do anything. and then of course bk -- and all the circumstances make it tied into endless negotiations because we think the architects of the genocide will be our partners in the search for peace. so you have ludicrous situations as he did about that, were squabble off the bench and again scandals broke in so quickly that one deal he signed a 10 high-handed table this time to time because the serbs had started shelling again within two minutes, the ink still wet. it is willful, but i would drag you back to those -- to any genocide museum and genocide memorial and ask you to think of this. now, this is the human

condition. the circumstances you need -- you need hate coming in a propaganda in u.k. manipulate people because of that. i would argue it is not enough just to have racial prejudice or hate you people because they are muslims or tootsies or bosnians. i think you need fear as well and that is where you get academic masterminds coming in. they provide that extra element that convinces a man that unless he kills his neighbor, that neighbor will kill his family. so really he's just defending himself. i had a horrible experience my first trip to rwanda in 2004 and went to a prison where there were 5000 people who had committed genocide in rwanda is such a poor country but in the u.n. you get locked up if you have killed a large number of people after a mastermind. so you think of the implications

of that in the case of someone i know, every day which reaser had she looks into the eyes of the people who killed her mom and dad and raped her. they can afford to put them in prison because there's so many people who participated. i was in this present surrounded by 5000 people who were fairly hard-core genesee debt. analysts interviewing people. it was a really commonplace, bbc english voice suddenly behind me says, i say, are you the person interviewing people? i turnaround shot and wearing preaching unchained pink pajamas is a man who introduces himself, eight former possessor of english at the university went to talk about the novels of jane austen because that is the subject. this is a fairly surreal moment as you might imagine. we both agreed that the private

approach best. so i eventually get him around how are your critics is that i'm one of the masterminds of this. you don't think us have been spontaneous, do you? is that no one genocide they are people like me who provided the intellectual pretext for doing this and we say to a generation of usually unemployed from disgruntled young men, your role -- or destiny is to get greater germany, greater serbia to fulfill the promise of your people, young man arrives. he said, that is their role and to manipulate and to instill fear. naturally i was taken aback at this. i said, you know, why are you here? and rwanda because they are so poor, if you confess and savor the body is. , they will you out. is said to me, why would i want to go out when i can get food in

here and antiretrovirals because i'm hiv-positive morrison 2004 the people they had raped and infected with going without food and had no antiretrovirals. he said, while it or leave? is much better in here. i said denture regret all this? jury professor of english, one of the leading lights in your town. he said he akamai to regret it. i regret we didn't get them all, but we will next time. now, the happy aspect of that story is that the politician i was traveling with was so outraged to hear that the international community of the red cross was given no antiretrovirals to the prisoners, but not the women stay at raped and therefore when the time before they could testify, that he went home to britain's, god bless him, lord alton made such a stink that he actually believed the british government into providing money

to provide antiretrovirals for every single person in rwanda who is infected. so there was a purpose to that particular adventure into alice in wonderland for me. but there was the more important lesson in that that is something educated people to him or let ourselves off the hook if we think somehow we are needed. what we have, which is five more civilization. given the right circus dances, scraped under the surface for all capable of it. >> thank you so much. just a reminder, she is given some books away, that feature lets you make a donation to network for africa, she is accepting donations in the hope was to hear on raped.com will tell your friends and encourage them to bite as well. i think were going to stop here unless there are any pressing questions for beck is still here

and she can sign your books and take any other questions you might have. i hope you'll join me and giving her a round of applies. [applause] [applause] >> thank you all for coming. >> when the deepwater horizon exploded on april 20, 2010, 50 miles off the coast of louisiana, i was in houston with a group of oil at this who are actually activists is the wrong word, a group of people when oil impacted communities around the world. nigeria, kazakhstan, alaska,

california, texas, mississippi had all come together in houston for chevron annual shareholder meeting in the care to explain to shareholders but it means to live in a chevron impacted community, please for chevron operates. and while we were there, it had been a couple of weeks during the course of our time there, after the explosion happened, after the loss of life of 11 men, after the oil started flowing, when you realize this probably was the source of life, enormous, but it really crushing reality to people like me knows who had spent a significant amount of time that the oil industry who'd spent a significant amount of time being in places where oil operations take place, something dawned on all of us. the oil industry have absolutely no idea whatsoever what to do about it deepwater blowout, none at all.

they said they knew what to do, they said it plans to do. the reality was what they knew how to do is somewhat deal with a blowout at 400 feet. most of the times infinity and 70s,, most deepwater chilling that drilling at 400 feet below the ocean surface. this well and what deepwater chilling means now is drilling at 5000 feet love the ocean surface and that is ocean here for a 5000 people out. the wild -- the spa was another 13,500 feet below that. actually, slightly further out, not even the deepest well anymore is another well that is as far down as mount everest is up. what we found out it's even that they guarantee to us they knew what they were doing, they were trying to apply to knowledge you developed in the 1970s for

400-foot wells to a 5000-foot while and they didn't know what they were doing and they weren't able to stop the pasture. and not only that, but they had guaranteed us that were there to be a blowout and everyone knows there can be a blowout because that is what you plan for, the gulf of mexico is one of the most difficult places to drill in the world. one of the reasons why is it is very cassius. bubbles up, kicks, mixed really very difficult and everyone knows this and every plan ready for drilling in the poll says we can handle kicks coming into blowouts. lots of that increase in the gulf, have been more and more infrequently. the people on the bridge new at this rate was having a difficult time. in fact, this is the fact that she try and drill this well. a previous rig had been kicked so hard that it was picturing off of the well and had to go

home. the deepwater verizon was a replacement. it deepwater horizon was a hundred million dollars over budget. it was many, many days on schedule and the people will knew they were in trouble and they knew there could be a blowout. and the industry had promised that i could handle an oil spill were to happen of 300,000 barrels of oil per day. what we found out is likely at its worst come of this bill was 80,000 barrels a day and get a hotmail capacity what the weather to do with it. they did not have ships ready to contain the oil. they didn't have underwater vehicle is ready to address a blowout. they didn't have them to protect schooler, scanners to scan the net. he had prepared for battle in fact, even after the 1989 disaster they had been committed to come responsible for, legally obligated to invest in research

on what to do if they have an oil spill and prepare for it. they hadn't. none of them. they are using the exact same technology that they fail to clean up, were only 14% of the oil was cleaned up. today in response to this. now, to put this into scale, what happened because they did know what to do and spent three months walking around -- that's not fair. they were trying hard to decide around a table trying very hard. their engineers are hard at work. they couldn't for three long months. what have been in the course of the three long months and that is just the time in which the gusher was flowing, right clicks they finally did figure out how to put a cap on it but thank goodness. if they actually didn't -- no install secure the well was closed until five months later, when something else happened and that was the drilling of the relief well.

with the all industry knows how to do very well is drilled. but that is his basically what they know how to do is drilled, so if we have another blowout, there's no reason to assume that a cap will be able to be applied because the only thing we are sure that worked was the relief well. if there is another blowout, what we shouldn't just be decided by months of oil. but we know about the deepwater and remember this is new going out the fire. there's only a hundred 48 in the world had to basically been going on for 20 years at the stats and they are pushing this out because there's a lot of oil out there. what we know about the deepwater is that when you have an accident, it is a long way to go to get to it and there is a lot of oil. but the amount of oil into context, we have all been hampered from being able to explain and really grasp, put into words significant of the size of this bill.

and that is because we can't say the words that would make it that much more dramatic, which is the largest oil spill in world history. there's only one reason why we can't say that and that is because saddam hussein intentionally, in the most late way possible use oil as a weapon in 1991 and intentionally opened up oil pipes and tankers to attack american and british troops with oil in kuwait. and that paying down the largest oils in history because he did it intentionally. had that not happening, this would be hands-down the largest oil spill in world history. 210 million gallons of oil were released. one thing we know for sure and when this happened and we learned it was going to be bigger than we thought and that the 11 men who died, the story was acquainted with them or their family. it was going to spread into this going to spread to all of the

people across the state you lived around the ninth largest body of water and was going to affect the sea life and affect everything in the ocean. the thing to know about the gulf coast is everything that lives in the ocean is part and parcel to everything on the land. it's part and parcel to other people and livelihood and understanding of their community. and the effect on the sea is the effect on the people and livelihoods in the community of those people. what i learned in going down and just the first couple of weeks, the first couple of days was one, this is a huge story. two, transparency was so difficult. getting information is so difficult from the first time i went down, private security guard, police officers, sheriffs are keeping us up to beaches. you couldn't go look. you couldn't record the event. one of the things that happened was controlling the story became

ported to everyone involved in one tool that bp utilizes very powerful as you saw the pictures -- i hope you saw in the beginning. greenpeace took such important photographs of this event. not just the work, but the photographs that capture it. they are used throughout my book to try and make tangible or an industry the story of this event. capturing photographs became more and more difficult. one reason why is if you remember invalid to use it was photographs of the oil spill that really captured people's souls. and people organized aggressively in the response. they shut down stations, protested, demanded policies and got out of bush administration a critical piece of legislation, the oil pollution act. similarly in 1969 off the coast

of santa barbara but an oil well blue, people organized. galvanize, ready, saw an entry that capture their hearts and souls into year later, the doctors say, the clean water act, the clean air act. and 11 long years of organizing major, they got a moratorium on not sure drilling in some places. what happened here was that those photographs, particularly of the brown pelican soaked in oil, the state bird of louisiana captured people, captured our hearts and minds. but this picture started to go away. what most people assumed as the pictures were going awake because what? oiled birds were going away. let's oil bursts, less images. what i was able to track in the book is as the number of births is increasing, photographs were decreasing. the reason was because we started being threatened to thrown in jail if we went within

40 miles -- no, 40 feet of room. if not to beaches where there was oil. i was trying to do one does to take pictures and talk to people to go out into the water. and when the person who was driving the boat wouldn't take me because they at a $40,000 fine and you get thrown in jail. i went on to beaches, even though it meant risking being thrown into jail and did what i care to try and tell the story. we all did our best to do it. but the story became very difficult to tell and i knew that was going to happen and that's when i decided area early on this would require more than an article, more than a few days. he was going to require a full book of investigation and require spending as much time as possible in those communities most affect you. i basically spent my time in real estate previous books for those of you who have read them

i really policy books. my background is public policy. i work for two united states members of congress. a masters in public policy from georgetown. this is going to need to be a different book and it's really a book that's the human story of the human impacts and people impacted on all sides. i talked to people employed in the oil industry, oil executives, environmentalists among policymakers. i spent a good deal of time in washington d.c. talking to people here, policymakers here and down there. and the story that is told in just to say i was overwhelmed by the graciousness of people of the hardest point in their lives taking me in. >> you can watch this and other programs online at otb.org. >> coming up next, booktv

presents afterwards, an hour-long program orientate guest hosts to interview authors. this week, james gleick discusses his latest work, a history of information beginning with the development of various alphabets and ending with what is the next from the information age. the author of chaos chronicles the evolution of how thoughts and knowledge have been passed from one to another throughout human history. he talks with frank rose, a contributing editor wired agassi and and the author of the art of immersion. >> james, thank you so much for joining us. >> guest: thank you for having me. >> host: i really enjoyed your book. it has been very fun to read and i must say quite informative. now, one thing i was sort of fascinated by, the ye