At the Royal Wootton Bassett Academy, 7.00pm Wednesday 10 July, Mukesh Kapila – the whistleblower who as UN Sudan chief in 2004 first brought Darfur to global attention – will give a public talk on his memoirs, ‘Against A Tide of Evil’; a no-holds-barred insider account of a crisis that still keeps rolling.
Now Special Representative on Crimes Against Humanity for the Aegis Trust, this year Kapila revisited the Darfur frontier and travelled 1000km through Sudan’s forgotten war zones in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State. Hundreds of thousands of people in the two areas, bombed out of their villages and farms, have been cut off from international humanitarian relief since the outbreak of hostilities between the Sudanese Government and opposition groups in June 2011.
“Not a single diplomat has been brought to account for the failure to act; in fact, many of them were promoted,” says Kapila. “When those who are in charge of institutions charged with the responsibility to prevent and protect fail in that duty and there is no accountability for it, then Darfur will happen again and again and again.”
Mukesh Kapila will be speaking at the Academy’s fifth annual Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Awareness and Memorial Evening, a student-led event featuring music, drama, presentations, poetry and speeches. Each student contribution will reflect an aspect of the work undertaken by the Academy’s unique Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Programme (HGP) that has garnered national and international recognition for its innovative and challenging approach. A significant moment for the Academy and its community, the event will be supported by local civic dignitaries, church and community representatives, the armed forces and organisations including the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, IOE’s Centre for Holocaust Education, SURF and Harbour Project among others. The evening event follows a day-long exhibition of student work in the Academy’s Sixth Form Lecture Theatre from 10am-6pm, featuring Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, the Holocaust, Human Rights, Peace, forgiveness and past school visits by various survivors and public figures.
Royal Wootton Bassett Academy Headteacher Mr George Croxford comments “This evening is an extraordinary opportunity for our students to speak up and speak out on complex issues. It reflects our deep commitment to ensuring our young people are equipped to become the informed, responsible, active and empathetic global citizens of the future. Holocaust and Genocide Education is central to our school values as we remember the past in order to understand our present and shape a better future. As an Academy we aredeeply honoured and proud to have someone of Mukesh Kapila’s calibre visit with us, someone who has actually stood up and spoken out! We recommend our whole community does that, but often people don’t know how they can make a difference. The chance to speak and listen to someone who has done it is a serious rarity in the world! We feel sure our students, staff, parents and community will be inspired, challenged and transformed by such an evening.”
Along with Mukesh Kapila, the Royal Wootton Bassett Academy’s evening will also feature Jo Berry.Sixteen years after her father was killed by an IRA bomb, Jo first met with the man responsible, Pat Magee. Her preparedness to try to understand him opened a path to empathy that continues to develop. Their unusual relationship has been portrayed in the BBC documentary “Facing the Enemy”, was featured in the film “Beyond Right and Wrong”, and inspired “The Bomb”, a play by Kevin Dyer. The founder of Building Bridges for Peace, Jo advocates that empathy is the biggest weapon we have to end conflict. She has spoken over 100 times with Pat Magee and works regularly in the UK and in areas of pastconflict including Lebanon and Rwanda.
