April is Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month. It’s a time to reflect on the horrors of colonial and neocolonial violence, Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Burundi, Iraq, Rwanda, Yugoslavia and shamefully, countless other instances of genocidal violence in the past. A time to mourn those who lost their lives to genocide. A time to celebrate those who stood up for peace and justice even in the face of extreme adversity.
It’s also a time to recognize that genocide and crimes against humanity continue to claim lives and that global citizens share a responsibility to protect. As outside activists, our role necessarily is limited; this is both a practical and an ethical imperative. But apathy and inertia are unacceptable alternatives. Our first task is to work to eliminate our own complicity in mass atrocities; in doing so, we create space for local communities to build institutions that serve their own interests.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, war has claimed 5.4 million civilian lives since 1998, making it the deadliest conflict since WWII, according to the International Rescue Committee. Human rights abuses perpetrated in the context of this war include a systematic, pervasive and particularly brutal campaign of sexual and gender-based violence, child soldiering and forced labor. Half of the cases of sexual violence reported in 2010 were against children. This violence is not arbitrary. It is used as a tool by rebel groups to further their own objectives.
Though the war is complex and its causes are many, one of the major factors driving the violence is the presence of conflict minerals. The Congo is one of the most mineral rich countries in the world. According to the Enough Project, armed groups in eastern Congo earn $183 million every year by selling tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold on the international market. The minerals are used in all electronics. But only a few electronics companies have taken some of the necessary initial steps toward sourcing responsibly from the region.
More consumer pressure is needed if companies are to create Congo-sourced conflict-free products. That’s where we come in. Ohio University is a major institutional consumer of electronics, and a heavy investor in electronics companies. For the past 18 months, students have been campaigning with the unanimous support of Student Senate and Graduate Student Senate for OU to pursue responsible procurement and investment policies on conflict minerals. Eighteen months and 810,000 civilian deaths in Congo after Student Senate unanimously supported the Conflict-Free Campus Initiative, and in the face of escalating student pressure, a committee finally was created and met to examine the issue. A policy may be a long way off, but this small victory affirms our faith in the power of collective student action.
OU has an opportunity to be a leader for human rights. Universities can have a real impact on the ground in Congo. Already, companies are responding to the nine other universities that have pursued conflict-free policies.
Motorola Solutions, Kemet and Intel are leading to build closed, clean supply chains from the ground up, and Congo’s largest tin mine recently was demilitarized. United to End Genocide reports that armed groups are starting to feel the impact of lost revenues and are seeing their areas of control shrink.
Decisive action from a large university like OU would put another nail in the coffin of corporate complicity in the violence in the Congo. Growing student engagement on this issue will be an integral part of the solution. Don’t stand on the sidelines when the stakes are this high. Join us. Meetings are Mondays at 7 p.m. in Bentley 021.
You can also find us online at oustand.org, where you can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And if you have ideas about how this movement can better reflect a nuanced, responsible, solidarity-oriented approach to activism, we want to hear them. Show up at a meeting or email stand@ohio.edu. Your ideas matter to us, and we want to help you make them matter to administrators, too.
Maybe, just maybe, if we all join together our children and our grandchildren can live in a world where it’s enough to commemorate the past during Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month.
Ellie Hamrick is a junior anthropology major, president of OU STAND Against Genocide and National Campus Organizer for the Conflict-Free Campus Initiative. Jack Spicer is a sophomore political science major and vice president of OU STAND Against Genocide.
