The Sudanese government is not pursuing a program of genocide in Darfur, Khidir Haroun Ahmed, Sudan’s ambassador to the United States said last night during a talk hosted by the Muslim Students Awareness Network.

Ahmed recounted Sudan’s prominent role in liberation movements since the 1950s.

“A country with this great contribution to the struggles of Africa would not commit genocide against its own people,” he said.

He also explained that when rebels first began attacking police officers and military personnel in the region in Feb. 2003, many average citizens fled to the nation’s capital Khartoum. Ahmed referred to this movement as people “voting with their feet,” contending that if the government were truly committing genocide, no one would voluntarily travel closer to it.

Ahmed also argued that the outbreak of rebel violence was only an attempt to “attract the attention of international political community,” and that if the United States and other countries choose to condone the rebellion, they will be sending a message that aggression is a “legitimate means to address grievances,” and would therefore “condone rebellion all throughout Africa whenever a group felt marginalized.”

He again assured the audience that “the government has pursued no policy of genocide” and added that the “government is determined to resolve this conflict peacefully and using negotiations.”

Other speakers during the event included two members of the Give Peace a Chance Coalition, Rahiel Tesfamariam, a Stanford alumna, and Hodari Abdul-Ali. The coalition recently traveled to the Sudan for two weeks last month.

As an editor at the Washington Informer, Tesfamariam often witnessed protests at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C. before joining the coalition.

“My African as well as my black identity made this trip very important for me,” she said, adding that there were “a lot of things in Sudanese life that impressed me beyond what I see in America.”

She said she was surprised by the freedom enjoyed by Muslim women in the Sudan relative to the way that their status is portrayed in the Western media. Based on these experiences, and her observations of protesters at the Washington Embassy, she encouraged students to find information from a number of sources before protesting on someone’s behalf.

Tesfamariam said that remaining objective was most difficult when she saw the children and infants in refugee camps during the trip. The only promising sign, she said, was that “the children did smile and they did laugh.” She then implored students to “do whatever you can so we don’t come to the day when those children are no longer smiling.”

Abdul-Ali, also a member of the coalition who has been to Sudan four times, labeled the conflict in Darfur a “problem between nomadic tribesmen and farmers” and discounted claims that slavery exists in Sudan, stating that the current “peace agreement in Sudan is unprecedented.”

He also pointed out that Sudan is strategically located within the African continent and boasts wealth gleaned from both oil reserves and agriculture. These are motivating factors for “outside forces” to try to break up the nation by encouraging Darfur to secede. If this were to occur, it would be easier to exploit Sudan’s resources, he said.

Drawing a parallel to the war in Iraq, Abdul-Ali said, “The United States supposedly went in to bring democracy when most in the world knows that it is simply not the case."

The resemblance between the two situations is enhanced by the fact that the U.S. also has oil interests in Sudan.

He repeatedly emphasized that what is currently occurring in Darfur is not an incident of genocide.

It is “impossible to have ethnic cleansing,” because one “can’t tell Arabs from Africans,” he argued.

Many students who attended the event said they were surprised and angered by the speakers’ statements.

Junior Adam Schwartz said he felt that the ambassador of Sudan could hardly be taken at his word.

“Members of the panel seemed to uniformly tow an apologist line,” he said.

Lily Grainger, a junior, said that the presenters “spoke without a sense of urgency. The lack of urgency is shameful at this point.”

Diana Clough, a sophomore, said she was “pretty shocked that they tried to defend the Sudanese government’s actions,” and expressed particular concern that the parallel between Darfur and Iraq was only brought up to appeal to the many students who oppose the war in Iraq.

The talk was predicted to be controversial, and MSAN President Rania Eltom said the organization saw the crisis in Sudan as an issue of extreme importance, and that the group “takes full responsibility in fostering proper dialogue on issues that pertain to Muslims nationally and globally.”