As moviegoers filed into the special screening of the film ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Sunday afternoon at Westcott Cinema, they knew that the $6.50 they paid for their tickets would go toward the refugees of the current atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan.

It was the most they could do, since their government can’t get its act together.

The United Nations and First World leaders have argued about the situation in Darfur, for the past several months. In just two years, 50,000 people have been slaughtered; victims of fighting between the government troops and the Janjaweed miltia.

Each day as the debate goes on more Sudanese die of murder, starvation, or disease. The situation is eerily similar to what occurred during the Rwandan genocide, when the international community did not know how to handle the situation, and as months passed, thousands of people died.

The reason for the hold-up this time? The United States.

Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, recommended Wednesday to the UN Security Council that those people who are responsible for the mass killings in Sudan be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as soon as possible.

The U.S. government, however, refuses to accept that the perpetrators be tried in that court. It fears that The Hague court could then try American soldiers or leaders abroad for war crimes as well. Instead, it would prefer they be tried in another international court in Tanzania.

This is nonsense. The United States should be happy to support a court which holds those who commit war crimes accountable. What is the risk?

‘If the international community in general and the United States in particular truly want to protect and promote democracy, we must support the rule of law,’ said Francine D’Amico, director of undergraduate studies in international relations.

The United States supports the rule of law all right, for every country other than itself. It can hold every other state accountable for its actions, but not its own. It can preach, but it does not have to practice.

So Syracuse filmgoers paid their $6.50 to the screening of an Oscar-nominated film, hoping to help, somehow. In 11 more years maybe they will pay $6.50 more to help victims of a future genocide, unless the United States allows the United Nations to get its act together.

JEAN STEVENS IS A JUNIOR MAGAZINE JOURNALISM, WOMEN’S STUDIES AND POLITICAL SCIENCE MAJOR. YOU CAN E-MAIL HER AT JMSTEV03@SYR.EDU

Published on February 20, 2005 at 12:00 pm