The images of thousands of Kurdish refugees--their...

The images of thousands of Kurdish refugees--their faces marked by cold, hunger and fear--have become part of the troubling legacy of the Persian Gulf War.

But Magdaleno Rose-Avila believes that when the TV cameras leave, public concern about the plight of the Kurds will probably also wane.

“We’ve been talking about the Kurds for years and couldn’t get people to pay attention,” said Rose-Avila, director of the western region of Amnesty International USA. “It just happens that the cameras are there right now.”

Rose-Avila, a 45-year-old resident of Altadena, will appear at Cal Poly Pomona on Wednesday to urge people to maintain the fight for human rights “in a time when our attention is changed by the headlines of the moment.”

The 7 p.m. talk in the University Union, to be followed by a question-and-answer session, costs $4 for students, $7 general admission.

Rose-Avila, a former Peace Corps director in Guatemala and Nicaragua, has served as national director for Amnesty International’s campaign to abolish the death penalty and was media director of the Human Rights Now! concert tour that featured Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel, Sting and Bruce Springsteen.

“If people understood the power they have by raising their voices, they would do more for human rights,” said Rose-Avila, whose organization has investigated more than 42,000 cases of alleged human rights abuses since 1961. “My job is to present them with that challenge.”