From Darfur to Afghanistan: Insider Forum Highlights

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Well, I think there's a trend of Republicans right now, it -- that the money, that they're having difficulty raising. And Cheri raises a good point, Fred Thompson just got into the race. There's a lot of folks out there on the fence on the Republican side. A lot of the Bush Pioneers and Rangers, his top fundraisers in his two presidential campaigns, haven't committed money yet. I think you're going to see a great gain on the Republican side from money, comparatively, in their upcoming fourth quarter, than they have the rest of the year.

But, as for those, overall, over at the Democratic side, there's great momentum. People were enthusiastic among the Democratic Party and Independents after the big win in the 2006 midterm elections.

And when you look at the recent history, like you mentioned, Judy, John Kerry, in 2003, his first three first three quarters, combined, was $17 million. In this one quarter, Hillary Clinton raised $27 million. So, it shows, I believe, a greater momentum, an enthusiasm, a real need for change that a lot of the Democrats are roused about, and they're getting other people to come onboard and give money, that have never given before. But that history also lends John Edwards and Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, other Democrats in the field, to say, "Hey, let's look at recent history." In 2003 at this time, John Kerry was behind Howard Dean, and he got the nomination in Iowa; Howard Dean fizzled out. So, I think those second-tier candidates on the Democratic side are looking to history and saying, "Hey, this could reverse itself again. We still have a chance." And the frontrunners on the Democratic side are saying, "This shows my momentum, that I'm outraising the Democrats from 2003."

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me -- let me come back to Cheri on this question, because I -- I was looking at these numbers. Hillary Clinton has raised, overall, $80 million, almost; Obama, almost 80 million; and Rudy Giuliani, who, you know, may be considered the frontrunner -- you know, Mit Romney is certainly doing well in the early primary States -- they've each raised only about half of what -- 45 -- I guess 44 or 45 million -- of what Clinton and Obama -- it -- I mean, does -- are Republicans worried about this? Is this something -- what does that say about this election and this electorate, if anything?

CHERI JACOBUS: I think that, again, it shows that Republicans are just having a different dynamic in a different place right now in our primary. Whoever comes out of this with the nomination -- and there's -- I think they'd be able to match the Democrat, dollar for dollar.

But, I think, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has been, kind of, running for a long time, and people have known that, so her fundraising operation has been solid, almost as if she were an incumbent, because of that Clinton name. Obama bursts on the scene, and he is exciting and different, and has been able to draw in a lot of new people, much in the same way, I think, that Howard Dean did when he ran for President. I don't really think that a whole lot of folks consider Edwards -- he might be top three, but I think people consider him pretty far behind these other two. And now that people are talking about the Hillary Clinton nomination as inevitable, these others are merely running for Vice President. I mean, to be honest, I think that's what most people consider it -- this to be.

Republican side, we're still -- the race is still shaping up. Again, we mentioned, Thompson just got in the race. Ron Paul has had an absolutely surprising showing, which adds a new dynamic. There is a lot of buzz about Huckabee, because of his strong performances in the debate. So, it's still very much in play.

RAY SUAREZ: Welcome to Insider Forum from the Online NewsHour. I'm Ray Suarez.

This week, the ongoing conflict in Sudan over the Darfur region. Dr. Sarjoh Bah is an expert in security and economic integration in sub-Saharan Africa, and has done field and academic work on the protection of civilians in conflict zones. He meets regularly with United Nations and African Union officials about the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan. He was last there last year.

Welcome to the program.

SARJOH BAH: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: So, as people who have been following the reporting from this part of the world will remember, a lot of civilians have been driven out of villages, people have had their cattle slaughtered. They've been pushed into camps, both inside the Sudanese frontier and in neighboring Chad. What's the situation now on the ground? How many people are displaced, and what kind of conditions are they living in?

SARJOH BAH: Well, I mean, since the start of the conflict, you have very close to 3 million people who have been displaced. The great majority of them are internally displaced persons living within Darfur itself, living in several, you know, IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps that are scattered across the region. And then you have several thousands more that have moved across the borders, primarily into Chad.

The living conditions in the camps are certainly, you know, appalling. I visited several of the camps when I was in Darfur last year; and, to give you a view as an idea of what the living conditions are during the summer months, it is like living somewhere in Arizona or in New Mexico at the heat of the summer, living in tented camps.

RAY SUAREZ: So, it's hot, it's dry, and a lot of the resources, if not all of them, have to be brought in from somewhere else.

SARJOH BAH: Right. It is -- it is hot, dry, and it's a -- very typical desert conditions; and at night the temperatures will plunge, which means that, I mean, it gets terribly cold during the rainy season. But the resources, as you rightly mentioned -- you know, water and, you know, just firewood for cooking -- will have to be, you know, fetched and brought into the camps.

Now, one of the major challenges for the African Union force on the ground has been how to protect the civilians when they venture out of the camps to look for, you know, scarce resources, like water and firewood, for their basic sustenance.

RAY SUAREZ: So, that's when a lot of people are targeted, when they're exposed in that search for the things of everyday life?

SARJOH BAH: The highest number of rape incidents, or incidents of rape that were noted by the African Union, took place during those attempts, when women predominantly move out of the camps in search of water or firewood. The African Union, sort of, force -- the reaction of the force in late 2005 was to mount what proved to be quite effective. It was referred to at the time as "firewood patrols," and what the mission basically did at the time was to identify an area where, you know, women will go out to fetch firewood, and that area will be cordoned off for a particular period, during which time the people are allowed to, you know, get the firewood or the water that they are in search of.

RAY SUAREZ: The African Union is the successor organization to the Organization of African Unity, and, even in the best of circumstances, it's a -- an organization that lives in some difficulty. The force of the AU that's been sent to Darfur has been small, partially at the insistence of the government, partially because it's difficult to get African states to send their armies to Darfur. Have they been effective in policing such a large piece of land? This is a huge area.

SARJOH BAH: Absolutely. I mean, the biggest challenge for the African Union force has been, How do you police an area that most people have always said is the size of France and with a force of under 7,000 uniformed personnel? That has proved to be quite a monumental challenge. And the other challenge, actually, is the fact that the force went in there as an observer force. Their mandate, initially, was just to monitor, to observe, and to report. So, that made it also difficult for them, in terms of their dealings with the government, to, you know, intervene directly in protecting civilians.

But, that being said, I mean, the forces actually was quite effective by late 2005 in protecting civilians. The first time I went to Darfur was in 2005, and the people I spoke to in the IDP camp were very complimentary of what the AU was doing. But this situation changed significant after May 2006, when the Darfur Peace Agreement was signed, leading to a deterioration in the security situation on the ground.

JEFFREY BROWN: Welcome to our latest Insider Forum. This is Jeffrey Brown, from the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Now airing on PBS is the new series on World War II, called "The War," a 15-hour series. Last week, I had a chance to talk with Ken Burns on the NewsHour. Many of you sent in questions, and here to answer some of those is Lynn Novick, the co-producer and co-director of "The War."

And, Lynn, welcome.

LYNN NOVICK: Thank you so much for having me.

JEFFREY BROWN: The -- were there cases where there was a story that you were -- boy, you just so wanted to hear, but you just weren't able to get it to --

LYNN NOVICK: Yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: -- to get the person to talk?

LYNN NOVICK: -- there were many situations like that. We would get calls, oftentimes, from a child of a veteran, who would say, "You've got to come to my house. My dad was in Omaha Beach," for example, "and I know he wants to tell his story. He's never told it to me, but I know he'll tell it to you." And so, we would come, and we'd sit down, and we'd know enough about this person's experience to know that we were very interested in what they might have to say, and, oftentimes, the child would be prompting their parent to say, "Tell them about what happened to you here or there," and sometimes the father would just say, "No, I can't. I don't want to," or he'd make a joke or whatever.

So, we found that we actually had to figure out which people wanted to participate. And one of my most vivid memories of this whole process was, I had been told about a veteran who was on Omaha Beach, and we were looking specifically for somebody who was on Omaha Beach, and we hadn't found anybody yet. And so, I went to this person's house, and we sat down to talk. And he was in the engineers, as well, just like the person who wrote the letter. And I said something to him about -- because, for me, whenever I think about D-Day, and I see this footage of the guys in the boats, and I know what's going to be awaiting them when the ramp goes down, and they're getting the machine guns, they're coming off -- you know, bullets are ricocheting off the landing craft, and things are exploding, and it's definitely not going to be good when you get out of that boat. And I asked, I said, "I -- if it were me, I would have asked myself, What" -- how is it possible that you get out of the boat at that moment when the ramp goes down? If it were me, I'd probably hide in the back and just fall apart. I wouldn't be able to get out of the boat. And he said, "No, everyone gets out, because your friends are going, and because you don't know how bad it's going to be, and you just -- you get out, because it's what you've been trained to do, and you just do it. You don't think about it." So, I thought, "Okay, this is going to be a good interview, he's going to really put us in that moment." And then he said, "So, when the ramp went down, I got out with my buddies, we ran up onto the beach. A shell came in, and my best friends got blown to pieces right in front of me." And he started to cry, and that was the end of the interview. He never recovered enough to tell me anything more of what happened. I mean, this was not on camera, this was just a meeting to see if he would be someone to be -- you know --

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

LYNN NOVICK: -- be in the film.

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

LYNN NOVICK: And he had -- he had never discussed this, and he couldn't talk about it, and it -- we -- you know, we always wonder -- well, that would have been so interesting, to hear more about what he went through, but it wasn't something he felt comfortable doing. And, of course, we had all the respect for that, but it wasn't something that we could really work with.

And I have sympathy for the person who wrote the letter, because it may prove to be frustrating. But you never know what can unlock -- what I have found, from many of the veterans we interviewed -- many of whom had been through extremely traumatic experiences -- the thing that unlocked it for them was having a grandchild ask.

JEFFREY BROWN: A grandchild.

LYNN NOVICK: Yes. Over and over again, they would --

JEFFREY BROWN: As opposed to --

LYNN NOVICK: -- a child.

JEFFREY BROWN: -- a daughter or something.

LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh, yup. They would say, "I hadn't talked about this for years, I couldn't talk about it." We have a gentleman who was on the USS Indianapolis, which was a ship that was -- without giving away too much -- something bad happened in episode seven, which our -- your viewers will see -- our viewers will see, too -- and it was a very, very extreme situation that happened, and he couldn't talk about it for 50 years, and then his grandson started asking him. And his children had asked before, and he couldn't talk to them about it. And there was something about the grandson; he really wanted his grandson to know him --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

LYNN NOVICK: -- and to know who he was and what he had been through. And so, that unlocked it. And once he had told his grandson, he now goes to schools, and he talks about this all the time, in a very -- sort of matter of fact and somewhat chilling way -- chilling, not that he's chilling, but that --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

LYNN NOVICK: -- you hear what happened, and it is very disturbing, kind of horrifying. But he's able to talk about it without losing control, because he's, sort of -- he's worked through it, kind of.

JEFFREY BROWN: I've got a --

LYNN NOVICK: -- a lot.

JEFFREY BROWN: Very interesting. I've got another interesting follow-up on that, on the subject of memory and people's willingness to talk. This is from Alan, in York, Pennsylvania, "One aspect of a documentary project such as this, which draws heavily on the memories of participants, is the likelihood of memories to be reshaped over the" --

LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY BROWN: -- "passage of time, or to be outright false, though not necessarily intentionally false. Memory researchers know a lot more about the general unreliability of human memory now than they did even 10 years ago. What does a producer do to mitigate these inevitable lapses in interview subjects?"

LYNN NOVICK: That's a great, great question, and a terrifying one, obviously, for anyone who's engaged in the kind of things that we do. We were very well aware of that, and we did our best to verify the stories as well as we could by looking at the people's service records, if we could get them; many of them were burned in a fire in the Army storage facility. So, if it was possible, we would get hold of the service records or any kind of documentation that would at least show they were where -- in the unit that they said they were in. And then we could figure out where that unit was. But if they're telling me a specific story of something that happened to a friend, or whatever, those stories are very hard to verify. So, we just -- we did our best with the resources that were available to us. But it is -- it is a risk, certainly. There's no getting around that.

I think we also have to recognize that someone might be telling you about a -- an experience that happened to them -- they may not remember the exact date of, you know, when it happened, but they can give you the feeling of what it felt like to be, say, under fire repeatedly in a battle. And they may not be giving you specific time and place, but they're giving you a feeling for what the whole experience was like. And so, we tended to use those, probably, just as much as a specific story.