Blair, former head of Pacific Command and Institute for Defense Analyses, to discuss war on terrorism

Adm. Dennis Blair -- former head of the Pacific Command in charge of all U.S. forces in the region and current head of the Institute for Defense Analyses, the premier federally funded defense think thank -- will discuss the global war on terrorism on March 19 at UNC.

Blair's presentation as the Frey Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor will be at 3 p.m. in Hamilton Hall (room 100).  The lecture and discussion are free and open to the public.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Command from 1999 until his retirement in 2002, Blair directed Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force operations throughout the Pacific region, an area that spans more than 100 million square miles stretching from the west coast of the United States to the tip of eastern Africa.  The region includes Southeast Asia, where radical Islamic groups with suspected ties to Al-Qaida have been active.

Blair has been involved in most of the major decisions in U.S. defense policy and interventions overseas during his extensive military career. Today, as president of the Institute for Defense analyses, he heads a public service analytical organization of several hundred professional researchers, scholars and technical experts who study issues of national security for the Department of Defense.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a Rhodes Scholar.

The lecture, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense, marks Blair's second visit to campus as the Frey Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor. Last February he gave a public lecture on U.S. relations with China.

The Frey Foundation professorship was established in 1989 to bring to campus leaders from a variety of fields including government, diplomacy, military service, public policy and the arts. The Frey Foundation was established in 1974 by Edward J. and Frances Frey of Grand Rapids, Mich. Their son, David Gardner Frey, is vice chairman of the Frey Foundation and a longtime supporter of  UNC's College of Arts and Sciences. He is a 1965 Carolina alumnus and a 1967 graduate of the university's law school. 

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Historian wins Guggenhein fellowship to study forgotten victims of war in Bangladesh

Dr. Yasmin Saikia, assistant professor of history at UNC, has received a Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship to support the first comprehensive study of sexual violence against women in the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh.

The fellowship, awarded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in New York, includes a grant of nearly $25,000 to support one year of continued research in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh beginning in July 2004.

For her book in progress, "My Body Is in Pain," Saikia has interviewed both rape victims and perpetrators, many of whom had never spoken openly before about their cases in the three decades that have elapsed since the war.

Much of the violence against women during the war was conducted by men they knew in their own villages, said Sakia, who has interviewed more than 200 rape victims in Bangladesh. The women had been reluctant to speak about what happened to them, she said, because of the social stigma associated with rape.

Saikia has also spoken with men, who she said boasted about their heroism during the war and then quietly acknowledged their shame for acts of sexual violence.

"Nationalism and ethnicity have produced conditions that brutalized ordinary people and created a need for victims to remain silent," said Saikia.

"My book will overcome the silences concerning gendered violence and document the suffering of both men and women in the war," she said. "I hope this will contribute to humanizing history and reveal the human losses that often get sidelined and forgotten in the rhetoric of heroism and duty."

Saikia, who joined the UNC faculty in 1999, was raised in India and is fluent in Bengali, Urdu and Hindi.

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Contacts:  Dr. Douglas MacLean, professor of philosophy and acting chair of the curriculum in peace, war and defense, (919) 843-4500, email maclean@email.unc.edu; Dee Reid in the College of Arts and Sciences, (919) 843-6339, email deereid@unc.edu