Genocide in Africa

What’s happening in the Sudan?

• The fighting started in early 2003 • Black Africans from Darfur rebelled against the country’s

Arab Muslim leadership– Wanted infrastructure improvements, oil revenues, and a

standing in government– Gov’t responded by sending in forces to stop the rebellion

• Janjaweed militia were paid to fight the rebels

• Janjaweed burned villages and raped and killed people in Darfur

• More than 2 million people fled their homes in Darfur to live in refugee camps along the border with Chad– dry and isolated– hard for aid workers to get there

• Two primary rebel groups in Darfur– the Sudan Liberation Army– the Justice and Equality Movement

• Both groups consist of black Africans who oppose their treatment under the Arab Muslim government

• Gov’t denies the claims that it uses its military to target its own people

• UN & US imposed economic sanctions– President Bush declared the violence there “genocide”

• Sudanese gov’t have resisted efforts to stabilize the country• A peacekeeping force of 26,000 African Union and UN troops

moved into Sudan– Gov’t dictated the terms of the peacekeeping force in Sudan

Is this genocide?• Genocide Convention Article 2 

In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as: 

• (a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

• Parties to the genocide convention are obligated, under the terms of the convention, to prevent genocide when proof is presented, i.e. to mount a humanitarian intervention. This can include the taking of military action.

Darfur: 10 Years Later

• 1,600 non-Arab villages burned• More than 300,000 deaths• More than 3 million displaced• Global anti-genocide movement exposed the

genocide’s survivors, which forced the Khartoum regime to allow a U.N. peacekeeping force and humanitarian assistance into Darfur– War still going on– Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir indicted by ICC for

crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes

• Government of Sudan has not surrendered him to the ICC

ICC (International Criminal Court)

• Permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression– Crimes of Genocide: the intent to destroy, in whole or

in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group– Crimes against humanity: murder; extermination;

torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution– War crimes: murder of civilians; ill-treatment or

deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, killing of prisoners; destruction of cities, towns, and villages

Crimes of Aggression (2017)

• The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State into the territory of another State;

• Bombardment or the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State;

• The blockade of ports or coasts of a state by the armed forces of another State;

• The action of a State in allowing its territory to be used by another State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State;

• The use of armed bands or mercenaries which carry out acts of armed force against another State.

Rwanda: 1994• Over approximately 100 days, 500,000 people killed

(April – July)• Culmination of competition between Hutu (majority) and

Tutsi (minority) groups– Result of decades of tension and effects of colonialism by

Belgium

• Hutu Power ideology– Asserted that the Tutsi intended to enslave the Hutu– Must be resisted at all costs

• Used the radio to incite and mobilize the population into killing– Compared the Tutsi to cockroaches