genocide in darfur report

8/14/2019 Genocide in Darfur Report

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GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

Emily LamMay 15, 2009

CGW 4UOMr. Turner


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The humanitarian tragedy in Darfur has stirred politicians, Hollywood

celebrities and students to appeal for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. But

despite UN resolutions and agreements, the genocide continues. Throughout

time, there have been many reports about genocides occurring. The most

predominant ones included the Rwanda genocide and the extinction on Jews

during Adolf Hitlers reign. There had been many attempts made to end all

genocides but it is still occurring in todays society. There are very few people

who know about the genocide in Darfur. Over the past five years, over 400,000

Darfurian civilians have been killed (IRC, n.d.). Despite an abundance of oil and

other natural resources, the vast majority of Sudans people live in poverty, and

its government has been described as the most repressive regime in the world

(Cheadle, and Prendergast, 2007, p. 91). Humanitarian refugee camps in Chad

and Sudan are overcrowded, disease infested, and prone to attacks (IRC, n.d.).

80 infants die each day in Darfur due to a lack of proper nutrition (Cheadle, and

Prendergast, 2007, p. 25). On September 9th 2004, United States Secretary of

State Colin Powell said that the Darfur conflict was genocide, and called it the

worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century (IRC, n.d.). This is the first time the

Untied States has ever declared a genocide while the genocide was still

happening (IRC, n.d.).

Northern Sudan was populated by people who practiced Islam, while the

people of Southern Sudan became rich in African culture and Christianity needed

to end this conflict (Daly, 2007, p.1-2). In 1947, the British decided that Northern

and Southern Sudan should unite to become one country (Daly, 2007, p.1-2).


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The British decision to make Sudan one country was a terrible mistake because

the Northern and Southern people were so different, especially in terms of

religion, which led to the first civil war in Sudan in 1955 (Daly, 2007, p.1-2). The

first civil war was a struggle to free

Southern Sudan from the Islamic North

and lasted from 1955-1972 (Daly, 2007,

p.1-2). Between 750,000 and 1,500,000

Southern Sudanese died in this war.

Finally, a peace agreement called the

Addis Ababa Agreement was signed, but

the peace lasted for only ten years (Daly,

2007, p.1-2). When the Southern

Sudanese realized they would never gain true independence, they began to

rebel. Sudan's second civil war started on May 16th, 1983 (Daly, 2007, p.1-2).

This civil war was largely about the desire on the part of the northern Sudanese

to impose Islamic law on the entire country (Daly, 2007, p.1-2). Even though

most of the people in the northern part of Sudan are Arab Muslims, Arab Muslims

make up only around 33% of the total population of Sudan (Daly, 2007, p. 4-5). In

this civil war, more than 2 million Sudanese Christians who lived in the south of

Sudan were killed (Daly, 2007, p.1-2). The war was largely a religious war

between Muslims and Christians. In present day, the conflict is in the Darfur

region of western Sudan (Daly, 2007, p.1-2). Unlike the Second Sudanese Civil


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War, the current lines of conflict are seen by some reporters to be ethnic, rather

than religious (Daly, 2007, p. 4-5).

In one of the most remote places in Africa, an insurgency began unnoticed

under the shadow of the war in Iraq in 2003, killing 350,000 to 400,000 people in

29 months by means of violence, malnutrition, and disease in the first genocidal

rampage of the 21st century (Cheadle, and Prendergast, 2007, p. 90). The

underlying cause of the present disaster in Darfur is the failure of traditional

systems for the allocation of land and water resources and the mediation of

conflict (Flint, and Waal, 2008, p. 23). This failure is compounded by a

combination of drastic ecological changes and cynical human manipulation

(Flint, and Waal, 2008, p. 23). As the ability of local communities to cope with

drought and famine declined over the last two decades, and the capacity of their

traditional systems of conflict mediation over rapidly diminishing resources

became overwhelmed, opportunistic politicians took advantage of the situation

(Cheadle, and Prendergast, 2007, p. 92). In recent years the National Islamic

Front regime, based in Sudans capital of Khartoum, has refused to control

increasingly violent Arab militia raids of African villages in Darfur (Flint, and

Waal, 2008, p. 34). Competition between Arab and African tribal groups over the

scarce primary resources in Darfur-arable land and water-has been exacerbated

by advancing desertification throughout the Sahel region (Flint, and Waal, 2008,

p. 59). It was Khartoums failure to respond to the desperate economic needs of

this huge region on the part of Arab raiders that gave rise to the full-scale armed

conflict (Flint, and Waal, 2008, p. 66).


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There have long been rumors about possible oil reserves in Darfur and

how they're connected with conflict in the region. Some people believe that the

situation in Darfur is tragic but is not genocide - oil may be the real target of those

seeking military intervention. Darfur's tribes rebelled against the government

complaining that the Sudan government had failed to develop the area (Flint,

and Waal, 2008, p. 151). Southern Darfur, like southern Sudan, is rich in oil. The

Chinese National Petroleum Corporation holds the large oil concession in

southern Darfur (Flint, and

Waal, 2008, p. 151-152).

Chinese soldiers are alleged

to be protecting Chinese oil

interests (Flint, and Waal,

2008, p. 151). As quoted

from the LA Times, The

main reason behind Darfur

is oil. There is no other

reason for this area to have

blown like this". It turns out there are oilfields under Darfur's deserts, it would

make yet another conflict where oil seems more of a curse than a blessing (Flint,

and Waal, 2008, p. 154). The discovery of oil in Darfur would explain why "a

seemingly barren wasteland" of Sudan has ignited \ a fierce war. A Khartoum

analyst says that oil is what's really motivating interventions from the United

States, the United Nations and Libya (Flint, and Waal, 2008, p. 172). Rights


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activists who said that the hunger for oil is what's made the Khartoum

government so keen to crack down on rebel demands in the region (Flint, and

Waal, 2008, p. 174).

In response to the rebellion, the government of Sudan admits mobilizing

"self-defense militias" following rebel attacks (Cheadle, and Prendergast, 2007,

p. 77). But it denies any links to the Janjaweed, gunmen on horseback accused

of trying to "cleanse" black Africans from large territory (Cheadle, and

Prendergast, 2007, p. 77). Refugees from Darfur say that following air raids by

government aircraft, the Janjaweed ride into villages on horses and camels,

slaughtering men and stealing whatever they can find. Those cause in the

crossfire say the Janjaweed patrol outside the camps and men are killed and

women raped if they venture too far in search of firewood or water. The United

Nations says more than 2.7 million have fled their homes and now live in camps

near Darfur's main towns. Chad's eastern areas have a similar ethnic make-up to

Darfur and the violence has spilled over the border area, with the neighbors

accusing one another of supporting each other's rebel groups. The United

Nations says up to 300,000 people have died from the combined effects of war,

famine and disease, and President Bashir puts the death toll at 10,000. Many aid

agencies are working in Darfur but they are unable to get access to vast areas

because of the insecurity and political influence from the president of Sudan.

The president of Sudan plays an important role in the genocide in Darfur.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court formally requested an

arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir Monday, accusing


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him of masterminding and implementing a plan to wipe out three African tribes in

Darfur with a campaign of mass murder, rape, torture and genocide (Cheadle,

and Prendergast, 2007,

p. 34-35). The

prosecutor said "Al

Bashir specifically and

purposefully targeted

civilians, who were not

participants to any

conflict, with the intent to destroy them as a group, almost the entire population of

the three targeted tribes have been forcibly displaced (Daly, 2007, p. 303)."

According to Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the attacks were typically

launched against civilian targets and were not simply the collateral damage of a

military campaign (Daly, 2007, p. 303). To prove this, the survivors of the attacks

were pursued and killed. The military would raid into towns and destroy food,

wells, and water pumping machines, shelter, crops, livestock, as well as any

physical structures capable of sustaining life or commerce (Daly, 2007, p. 303).

They destroy farms and loot grain stores or set them on fire. The goal is to

ensure that those inhabitants not killed outright would not be able to survive

without assistance

The UN and other aid organizations have faced may obstacles in their war

to help Darfur. As Darfur continues to suffer, a peacekeeping force, expected to

be the worlds largest, is in danger of failing even as it begins its mission because


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of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by Sudans government and reluctance from

troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict.

The force, a joint mission of the African Union and the United Nations, officially

took over from an overstretched and exhausted African Union force in Darfur on

January 1, 2009 (Daly, 2007, p. 307). The troops placed in the conflict areas lack

essential equipment, like sufficient armored personnel carriers and helicopters, to

carry out even the most rudimentary of peacekeeping tasks (Cheadle, and

Prendergast, 2007, p. 144). In additional to the lack of soldiers, China's thirst for

oil is causing bloodshed. There have been reports connecting China's rising

imports of Sudanese oil with sales of Chinese small weapons to Khartoum, used

to further the deadly conflict in the western region of Darfur (Cheadle, and

Prendergast, 2007, p. 190). When it comes to oil consumption, China is second

only to the U.S. and almost half of China's oil needs come from imports (Daly,

2007, p. 304). The Chinese rely on Sudan to supply a big part of that. Sudanese

oil shipments to China increased 63% from 2003 to 2006 and soared 113% last

year alone (Daly, 2007, p. 304-305). China is Sudan's closest economic, military

and political partner, making it the government most able to pressure Sudan to

end the atrocities it commits in Darfur and the violence it supports in Chad (Daly,

2007, p. 307).

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it in the

future. As history has shown, many genocides have occurred yet it continues to

happen today. Darfur is the prime example of the ignorance in our society. The

war in Sudan's Darfur region is the kind of conflict the African Union was intended


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to resolve when its 53 member countries created it two years ago (Hermanson,

2007, p.161). Yet fighting here last week has revealed the group's limitations. As

the conflict in Darfur enters its sixth year, conditions continue to deteriorate for

civilians. Humanitarian assistance in Darfur continues to be at risk of collapse, in

part because of sustained harassment by the Sudanese government, and in part

because of the governments militia allies and common criminals (Flint, and

Waal, 2008, p.65 ). We can help end the genocide by taking small steps that can

make a big difference for the people of Darfur. By, educating others, planning a

local event, and generating coverage in the media about the crisis, you will help

build the political power needed to end this conflict.

genocide in darfur report

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