Genocide Expert Back From War Zone

Samuel Totten, a genocide scholar based at the University of Arkansas, is photographed in the town of Kauda in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan during a visit in January 2012. Totten returned to the war-torn region in December to oversee distribution of more than 5 tons of food to residents there.
Samuel Totten, a genocide scholar based at the University of Arkansas, is photographed in the town of Kauda in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan during a visit in January 2012. Totten returned to the war-torn region in December to oversee distribution of more than 5 tons of food to residents there.

Relentless dust, intense heat and the constant threat of a bomb falling on him were just some of what one Washington County resident experienced during the holiday season.

While most Americans celebrated Christmas and the new year, Samuel Totten was deep in the heart of a war-torn region thousands of miles from home.

Totten, a genocide scholar based at the University of Arkansas, spent about 10 days in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, the site of an ongoing bloody conflict between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.

At A Glance

Totten Talks

Samuel Totten will talk about his recent trip to Sudan and his book “Genocide by Attrition: Nuba Mountains, Sudan” from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday at Nightbird Books, 205 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. The event is free.

Source: Staff Report

Totten went to oversee the delivery of more than 5 tons of food — mainly sorghum, lentils, cooking oil and salt — to the people of the Nuba Mountains, the center of the conflict.

The area has been under a ground and aerial assault by the Sudanese government for about 18 months. The conflict originated over the residents’ perception of a rigged gubernatorial election, according to reports. The people also were irritated by Sudanese President Omar al Bashir’s attempt to establish Muslim law in the area, which is populated largely by moderate Muslims and Christians.

The government has destroyed residents’ farms and curtailed their food supply so much the people have resorted to eating insects and leaves, Totten said. Thousands have fled for refugee camps in neighboring South Sudan, which became a country in 2011.

Hundreds of thousands remain, however, hiding in rocky crevasses and caves of the mountains. An untold, but significant, number of people have starved to death.

Totten, 63, said about $30,000 was spent on the food and transporting it to those residents in late December and early January. That money came from donors from across the country.

“It’s a real drop in the bucket,” Totten said about the amount of food delivered. “But our goal was to get it to people who are in real need and haven’t been able to rely on stores of food they might have gotten from their crops.”

While there, Totten learned the people most in need of food live farther up in the mountains in an area that would take three to four days of hiking to reach.

This was Totten’s third trip to the Nuba Mountains. He previously went for several weeks in January 2012. His latest book, “Genocide by Attrition: The Nuba Mountains of Sudan,” was published last summer.

photo

Courtesy Photo

Sam Totten snapped this photo of Sudanese rebels from the Nuba Mountains region on Jan. 5. He said he was surprised by how willing they were to pose for pictures. “They had just come in from the field where they were fighting,” Totten said. “They looked a little fierce, but they were quite nice.”

His last trip was hardly pleasant.

“In many ways it was rather miserable,” Totten said. “It was very, very hot and very, very dusty.”

Those conditions severely limited his appetite. He said he went an entire four-day stretch without eating.

“All I craved was water,” he said. “That was toward the end when I was feeling really, really lousy.”

Much of his diet consisted of boxes of raisins he took on the trip.

Meanwhile, there was the unnerving sound of government military planes carrying out bombing runs in the area. Every time Totten and his interpreter heard a plane, he said they pulled their truck over in a grove of trees to hide or sought shelter in culverts or one of the many holes dug in the ground for residents to avoid being hit by shrapnel.

He said he had to take shelter about eight times per day. Dozens of bombs were dropped in the area while he was there.

Totten was overseas from Dec. 12 to Jan. 18. Getting to the Nuba Mountains was a long and complex process, which included getting permission to enter South Sudan. He didn’t actually reach the Nuba Mountains until Christmas Day.

He communicated with his wife, Kathleen Barta, about once every four days via satellite phone.

Barta said she has come to realize the work her husband does overseas is important to him and to the world.

“When he’s over there experiencing the extremes, so different from life here, I keep thinking it will be his last trip,” she said. “But it’s compelling work. It’s not completed yet.”

Totten, in fact, said while he was there, he told himself he wouldn’t return because of the misery he experienced.

Now, however, he said he and his interpreter are talking about going back to the Nuba Mountains sometime this year so they can take food to some of the people who are in the most desperate need.

Some area residents said they admire Totten for the work he does.

“He’s a very impressive person,” said Gladys Tiffany, director of the Fayetteville-based Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology. “He has this passion for these people. He packs up and goes to these areas that are totally unsafe and goes tracking them down to record their stories.”

Lowell Grisham, rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, called Totten one of the most principled and courageous men he’s ever met.

“His willingness to look unflinchingly at evil that the rest of the world sometimes turns away from is heroic,” Grisham said. “Especially if it’s not being responded to by the rest of the world, he is willing to put his life on the line to compel the world to respond.”

Both Tiffany and Grisham said their organizations contributed money toward the delivery of food in Sudan.

World’s Response

The United States’ and the world’s response to the crisis in the Nuba Mountains has been disappointing, Totten said.

He has been critical of President Barack Obama for failing to do more for the people of the Nuba Mountains.

At A Glance

Totten’s Career

Samuel Totten officially retired from teaching education at the University of Arkansas last year. In the early 1990s, he co-developed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s guidelines for teaching about the Holocaust. He served as one of 24 members of a U.S. State Department team that traveled to Africa in 2004 to interview refugees of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. He received a Fulbright Fellowship in 2007 to conduct research in Rwanda while developing a genocide studies program at the National University of Rwanda. He has written or edited several books related to genocide.

Source: University Of Arkansas

“In late January (2012), the Obama administration began considering the possibility of establishing a humanitarian corridor in order to get direly needed food into the Nuba Mountains,” Totten wrote in an opinion column published in Northwest Arkansas Newspapers Nov. 18. “But, that is as far as it got: consideration.”

He also noted in April, Obama announced the creation of the Atrocity Prevention Board, whose purpose was to serve as his administration’s primary effort to fight genocide.

The administration has touted that effort, Totten said, but “nobody has seen anything happen in regard to Sudan."

In December, Princeton Lyman, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, stepped down from his post. Totten said a group of genocide scholars urged Lyman to resign from the job in protest, but Totten said it’s unclear why Lyman resigned.

Those interested in helping the people of the Nuba Mountains may help in a few ways.

One is to write to his or her U.S. senator or representative and express concern, Totten said.

“As these senators and representatives receive letters on an issue, it might raise their awareness of an issue they didn’t even know about,” he said.

One may also visit EndNubaGenocide.org to find out more about the crisis and learn how to donate money.

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