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Rwanda, Darfur, and CNN

TUESDAY JUNE 7 2005 4:44 PM

Submitted by llouys. Edited By MissTyrios.

The brutal violence in Darfur, Sudan has been described as genocide -- and indeed, it's been going on since 2003. Unlike the genocide in Rwanda, however, Darfur apparently isn't good television.

During a May 9, 1994 broadcast, the late CNN correspondent John Holliman emphasized the significance of the images..."The rapidly moving water of the [Kagera] River, carrying with it hundreds of Rwandan bodies, slaughtered and dumped in the river, creating a picture not seen since the Nazi death camps of the 1940s. An image of almost unimaginable horror. Will the world react to these pictures and do anything?"

No - in fact, the world did nothing. But it wasn't for lack of knowing. Every night viewers throughout the world saw such imagery beamed into their living rooms.

Not so with Darfur.

While it might not have been perfect, CNN's performance in 1994, in particular the use of images, far exceeds its skimpy coverage of the current conflict in Sudan. Simply put, if you watched CNN in the summer of 1994, you were made aware of a genocide taking place on a nationwide scale -- and you were given a working understanding of what triggered it.

The same cannot be said for the network's coverage of Sudan this year. These days there's a lot of talk from anchors and guests about the pictures they see, but the network doesn't actually have any footage.

The Washington Post, by way of example, has just one (heroic) reporter, Emily Wax, on location to cover the war in Sudan. Given the amount of money behind the journalism industry, it's perhaps surprising to see where coverage is coming from:

Now, 11 years after Rwanda, it is blogs, not broadcast or cable reporters, that report on fresh attacks in Sudan. Wednesday, Mark Leon Goldberg of The American Prospect reported on an attack by "four Sudanese military helicopter gunships" in Northern Darfur on May 27. Goldberg felt his story deserved a larger platform, writing, "It's somewhat bizarre to be breaking news about an attack in Darfur on a blog, but as this is the most immediate forum at my disposal, here we go." As Goldberg pointed out, there was more to the story than just another attack by the Sudanese military. Just last week Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick reassured reporters that the Sudanese government has "stood down the helicopters and the gunships" and the aircraft are "not moving off the airfields."

Something is amiss here. Where is CNN on this story?

Yeah, no kidding.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to motivating international action on Darfur is a lack of reliable information coming out of the country. CNN may have failed to help rally enough world attention to stop the Rwandan Genocide, but this time, they're barely even trying.

13 Comments

frankjohnson

I'm lost

November 2004

JUN 07, 2005 05:47 PM

It is a terrible and shameful situation, but unless resources we(the developed world) want are threatened, we don't seem to give a shit about what happens in Africa. It's O.K. for us to step in when the Balkans fall apart into a myriad of factions each committing atrocities upon each other. We'll use words like genocide and urge the U.N. and Nato to step in in the name of human decency, but if some dirt poor section of humanity who happen to have been born on the wrong continent and well maybe just the wrong color are being brutally raped, murdered, their homes and possesions destroyed all by their own government and it's mercenaries we just can't seem to be bothered by it. In fact, we'll go out of our way to make sure the word genocide is not applied( in Rwanda ) when the government and the ethnic group in power goes about systematically trying to destroy every man, woman and child of different descent because it would be inconvenient for us. Besides, the O.J. trial was on, that was obviously more important. Fuck.
I'm off my soapbox now.

Cyric

I'm lost

October 2003

JUN 07, 2005 06:48 PM

I belive I speak for most moral upright americans when i say,... TOM CRUISE AND KATIE HOLMES!!!! LOLZ OMG!!!!

MistahPrince

Chicago, IL

February 2005

JUN 07, 2005 06:55 PM

Airlift a bunch of these camcorders into these areas. Then we'll see news agencies airing what they get (if there aren't any images, then there is nothing).

Cigarette

Cleveland, OH

April 2004

JUN 07, 2005 06:57 PM

Wasn't Powell censured for trying to call what was happening in Darfur "genocide"?

Hell, Saddam is half-assedly attacking American interests and turning a blind eye towards Bin Laden so al Qaeda doesn't attack Iraq, and we have to go in with a regime change...

But there are fucking MASSACRES in Sudan and we fucking ignore it. Jesus christ.

waldo

I'm lost

June 2004

JUN 08, 2005 02:14 PM

Yeah. It's not as though this sort of thing doesn't have knock-on effects, either; brutalised children make excellent recruits for terrorism, poor bastards.
You'd think the West would have learned a little by now.

lilviciousone

Los Angeles, CA

March 2005

JUN 08, 2005 02:20 PM

It's a damn shame that in order to get news on what's going on in other countries and the US's participation, etc...I have to reach over in the newstand for the foreign countries press to find out.

dem_z

United Kingdom

June 2004

JUN 08, 2005 02:22 PM

Wait; you can't blame lack of action on lack of reportage. Are you honestly saying that governments don't know what's going on if CNN don't give them pictures?

Also: is the UN still saying it's not genocide? Does anyone know why?

GramNegative

I'm lost

October 2004

JUN 08, 2005 02:30 PM

demetrius_z said:
Wait; you can't blame lack of action on lack of reportage. Are you honestly saying that governments don't know what's going on if CNN don't give them pictures?

Also: is the UN still saying it's not genocide? Does anyone know why?

Something about once it is called 'genocide' then they HAVE to act. Which is why the USA didn't want to call it genocide - we (the bush administration) didn't want to deal with it.

argon

HOPEFUL

New York, NY

JUN 08, 2005 02:32 PM

they're trying to argue that technically it's not genocide because they're raping women instead of killing them, or some little technicality like that.

Phoebus

I'm lost

OLD SKOOL

JUN 08, 2005 02:40 PM

I believe it has something to do with the fact that the Sudanese government is actually a member of the UN's regional HR organization/court (I'm sort of out of it right now) and acts as a sort of stumbling block for the whole process.

chairtamer

Nashville, TN

June 2005

JUN 08, 2005 06:35 PM

The campaign by the Sudanese government against its black population has been going on a lot longer than the recent Darfur campaign. Before Darfur the focus of attacks was in the south, where the population is black and Christian/Animistic, hardly the demographic to generate internation sympathy. The press likes covering the Darfur much better because covering the persecution of non-Christians is much more palatable to their sensitivities.
And yet there is no outrage.

jholtsnider

I'm lost

February 2004

JUN 08, 2005 08:52 PM

GramNegative said:

Something about once it is called 'genocide' then they HAVE to act. Which is why the USA didn't want to call it genocide - we (the bush administration) didn't want to deal with it.

I don't know about that... there was a reference to Darfur in this last Iraq spending bill... I'll dig it up later if I get a chance...

llouys

Brazil

August 2003

JUN 09, 2005 01:03 AM

GramNegative said:

Something about once it is called 'genocide' then they HAVE to act. Which is why the USA didn't want to call it genocide - we (the bush administration) didn't want to deal with it.

There was a lot of talk about that idea last year around this time. The US Senate did declare Darfur to be genocide, officially. Colin Powell and George W Bush made the same statement.

The UN is calling it "Crimes against Humanity" and saying that some actions that have occurred there have genocidal intent. Whatever that means.

Nothing has really resulted from either declaration, aside from a hobbled (but courageous) force of African Union troops, mainly from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and... Rwanda.