Worldly speakers discuss genocide

From the Holocaust during World War II in Europe to the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, millions of human beings have perished as a result of genocide in the past 50 years.

Beginning Thursday and lasting through Friday, the first International Genocide Conference Program will be held at CSUS in the University Union. The free conference is open to the public.

The conference is important to the university because of the responsibility academia has to expose the truth about these events, said Alexandre Kimenyi, a CSUS ethnic studies professor and native Rwandan who lost family members to the Tutsi genocide.

"Education in the prevention of genocide should be a priority in the university's curriculum," said Kimenyi, who organized the conference and is teaching a new course on genocide.

The conference will expose the horrific facts of genocide that have not been properly presented to the people, according to Kimenyi.

"The media and academia are not interested or have misrepresented the events surrounding genocide," he said.

The conference will feature local and visiting scholars, including some from CSUS.

Sociology professor Ayad Al-Qazzaz will speak on "Genocide by sanctions: the case of Iraq," and Tony Platt, professor of social work, will address "Legacies of ethnic cleansing in Northern California."

Platt is currently researching the history of California in order to bring the issues of genocide home to California.

"There is a connection between race, racism, and genocide which are of historical and contemporary significance to this state," said Platt.

Dora Sakayan of McGill University in Montreal, Canada will discuss the "Diary of an Armenian genocide victim," and Noubar Arsedian, M.D. of Jerusalem, Israel will lecture on "The miracle in Mesheneh." For more information about the conference, call 278-6645.