by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

May 14, 2009

Ruth Messinger, activist and former politician, has been one of the leading Jewish voices in the fight against genocide in Darfur through the organization she’s led since 1998, American Jewish World Service.

At the end of March, Messinger was invited, along with five other activists and six members of Congress, to meet with President Barack Obama and then newly appointed special envoy to Sudan Gen. J. Scott Gration to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

On Saturday morning, May 16, she will discuss the situation there, as well as in other areas of the developing world served by AJWS, in two talks at Congregation Beth El in South Orange. They are free and open to the public.

Messinger, who served on the New York City Council and as New York City borough president, secured the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1997 but lost to Rudolph Giuliani.

Headquartered in New York, AJWS is an international development organization with 350 economic and social programs in 40 countries. She has been on the Forward’s list of the 50 most influential Jews several years in a row. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Oklahoma.

NJ Jewish News recently spoke with her by telephone while she was in Boston, speaking and raising funds for AJWS.

NJJN: How many times have you visited Darfur?

Messinger: I’ve only been to Darfur once and that was in 2004, but I was in Chad in 2005 and 2007, and that’s essentially the same. There are 300,000 refugees who made it across the border and are living in refugee camps there. I’ve met and talked with them but it’s become increasingly dangerous and difficult getting into Sudan.

NJJN: How have things changed on the ground in Darfur since humanitarian groups were forced out of Sudan on March 4?

Messinger: There’s lots we don’t know. We’re all guessing. We know that those groups were directly in charge of camps that housed 100,000 people and now there is no longer a central humanitarian agency providing health care or clean water or sufficient food. We believe — we being the world, not just AJWS — that there are now that many people at really new and serious risk of hunger and disease.

NJJN: After your meeting with the White House, you were quoted as saying, “The administration understands the need to ensure the reinstatement of international aid groups in Darfur” and that “President Obama clearly indicated that finding a political solution to end the conflict and restore peace to all of Sudan is a top priority.” What suggests to you that the U.S. administration understands the needs in Darfur?

Messinger: The rapid appointment of Gen. Gration and the even more rapid decision to send him to Sudan — they moved up his date of departure by a week to 10 days because they were getting information that the food available was probably not going to be reliable for more than three-four weeks. He’s now back on his second trip. I would give him some of the credit for getting this decision [the May 7 announcement that Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir would allow in aid and humanitarian groups, although not the banned groups]…. That’s a new admission; until now the government has been saying that no one’s at risk.

NJJN: What else needs to happen in Darfur now, in your opinion?

Messinger: The time is long overdue when the United States determines to put literally daily pressure on the situation in Sudan, to talk every day about what they’re seeing, what they’re hearing; to call the powers that be in the world to recognize right now there’s intense humanitarian need, to recognize also the president of Sudan needs to be exposed to economic sanction and denial of trade rights.

NJJN: In your view, what are the biggest challenges to ending the genocide in Darfur?

Messinger: In case you haven’t noticed, there are a few other problems we need to solve. The president’s already being criticized [by some who say that] until the economic problems are solved, the White House should be doing nothing. The president has expressly rejected that, saying it’s Iraq, it’s Afghanistan, it’s health care and education, and we have to look at all of them together.

We’re saying there should be the necessary addition of ongoing genocide but how many issues can you be pursuing? The next big challenge is Bashir. We have not given nearly enough attention to how clever this guy is, what a good manipulator he is, how he has again and again and again denied there were problems and then immediately launched attacks. There is no spotlight on him. The next piece is the number of people who are affected. We are talking four million people who have been dislocated or severely damaged by genocide. Finally, it’s a challenging diplomatic situation. Even if we could mobilize the government to come to the bargaining table, it’s not exactly clear who else to get to the table.

NJJN: The Jewish community has not been that vocal on Darfur since the 2006 rally on the Washington Mall. What are your thoughts on why this might be, and what should the Jewish community be doing?

Messinger: I disagree. Since 2006 we’ve not asked them to mobilize [for a massive rally]; we’ve asked people to contribute dollars for humanitarian aid and put pressure on the White House. There have been rallies around the country and various Jewish communities have passed resolutions on Darfur. We’ve urged people to write their representatives….

This issue is high on our agenda because it’s had nonstop bipartisan support from the Congress and because there’s a universe of activists who have been working on this for five years. That’s an extraordinary level of credit to an advocate community in which the Jewish community has played a significant, although not exclusive, role….

The Jewish community really should be one of the groups playing a leadership role in the world to stop the genocides that have been breaking out with terrifying regularity around the world. It’s not easy to mobilize people to do that for a people and country far away. But people respond. We’ve raised $7 million for Darfur work. I do think the Jewish community, within the limits of “compassion fatigue,” has tried to respond on this issue.

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