what is causing the darfur genocide?

8/11/2019 What is Causing the Darfur Genocide?

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Diana Carey

Lit and Comp 9

Period 4

23rd February 2014

What is Causing the Darfur Genocide?

Its January 2014 in an overcrowded refugee camp in eastern Chad. There is a small school

house with the cries of young children seeping through the loose wooden panels that stand as walls.

Inside there are around 20 women with their malnourished children. A reporter stands near the far wall

interviewing these refugees to hear their tragic stories. One frail woman starts to speak, and the room

quiets down. I was pregnant before the Janjaweed came. I was inside my house putting my son to bed

when I heard their terrible screech from the other side of the village. My husband went to block the

door but before he got there two masked men with guns came through the door and started shouting at

us. They said things like Get down slave. Bring that boy over here you stupid black slave. They shot

both my son and husband right in front of me. When they saw I was pregnant they kicked my stomach

until I bled. They said, The baby needs to die because the father is a dirty slave. They dragged me

outside of my hut and then burnt it down with the bodies of my son and husband inside. The woman

had stayed stoic until now but with that last line she starts to cry. She starts to speak once more with

tears flowing down her cheeks. I never got to say goodbye to my loves. I will never forgive the gods

for that. She sits down and puts her head on the shoulder of the woman next to her. From the corner of

the schoolhouse a small voice speaks up. I was with Nijma when the Janjaweed attacked us. We had

just left the camp to get clean water when they rode up horseback. We tried to hide behind some

bushes but they saw us. They dragged us off the road and tied us up. We were screaming for help but


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then they threatened to shoot us if we kept screaming. They ripped off our clothes and... the small girl

who looks no older than fourteen starts to choke on her words. ...And then they raped us. It was the

most terrible, terrible feeling ever. They said we needed to have light babies. They called us slaves. It

went on for hours. They killed Nijma because she started screaming again. The young girl starts

sobbing and shrinks down into the corner. At first, one might say that the ghastly crimes being

committed in the Sudanese province of Darfur need to stop and that is true. But to completely

understand how to stop the crimes that are being committed, one needs to understand the conflict in

Darfur and how it began. So the question that need to be asked is, what is the main cause of the conflict

in Darfur? This question is important to know because to truly stop the conflict that some sources say is

a genocide, we need to be able to cut it off at the roots. According to one source, There is a long

history of civil unrest between Arab and non-Arab factions in the Sudan, fueled by poverty and a

scarcity of natural resources (Corey, US Congress Terms to Situation in Darfur Genocide) This

means that throughout history there has been a tremendous amount of tensions between the Arab

herders and the non-Arab farmers. Everyone has known of the strain between the different factions of

Sudan but no one has done anything to stop it or discover the roots of the conflict. The first scope that

must be explored in this paper is the history of conflict in Sudan. The next thing that is essential to look

at in this topic is what influence other countries had on the conflict in Darfur. Also the environmental

aspect must be explored to truly understand the conflict in Darfur. Finally, it is necessary to look at the

effect that the racial inequality in the social structure of Sudan had on the conflict in Darfur.

Before one is able to delve deep into the causes of the genocide in Darfur, one needs to know

more about the background of Sudans history of conflict and social structure. An article from the online

encyclopedia Untilall states that, Sudan, Africa's largest country and the 10th largest in the world,


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straddles the "Arab world" to the north and the "black African world" to the south. As noted, Khartoum

is ruled by three Arab clans. The Darfur conflict is often seen as an Arab-African one, reinforced by its

use of the Arab Janjaweed pitted against the African Darfurian. All are Muslim (The Arab-African

Question) This is important to know so one can understand that the roots of the conflict are not based

on religion. They are all Muslim and all speak and write in Arabic, as well as many different tribal

tongues. Another thing that one needs to understand that this conflict isnt just a normal tribal conflict.

Charles W. Corey, a Washington File Staff Writer wrote in a report on the US Congress Terms to

Situation in Darfur, In the present day, the annihilation of citizens and the forced encampment or

relocation of survivors in Darfur has been termed genocide by the US federal government, among

others and according to human rights officials and aid workers in this region of western Sudan, 1.2

million Africans have been driven from their lands by government- backed Arab militias, tribal fighters

known as Janjaweed (Corey). By the definition of genocide from the 1948 United Nations National

General Assembly, the conflict in Darfur qualifies. It is not merely a conflict between tribes, but a

full-fledged attack on a racial minority to marginalize them to the point of extermination.

One of the major contributors to the genocide in Darfur is the influence foreign countries have

had on the government of Sudan. Also from the encyclopedia Untillall, contributor Rod Downing

writes about the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who wanted to take complete control of North

Africa and make it completely Arab. He writes, in the late 1970s the Libyan leader Muammar

Gaddafi had a vision of a pan-Arab state straddling the desert. He planted seeds of Arab supremacism

(and later arms) in Darfur and felt Sudan was on his side ... (Downing) Gaddafi was trying to influence

the Sudanese government to be on his side. He wanted the powers in Sudan to believe what he did that

Arabs are superior to blacks. Also, countries that have strong financial ties to Sudan have an equally


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strong influence over them. When the China National Petroleum Company was willing to put $5 billion

down on oil field development in one of the Southwestern territories of Sudan, the government was

willing to do whatever they had to, to get make sure they would get that $5 billion. Jay Spaulding

White Nile, Black Blood, gives facts about the influence of oil on the racial minorities in Sudan. He

writes:

[In 1983], oil discovered within the southern territory (although close to a northern province)

tempted the government to redefine the relevant northern boundary expanding it southward.

Shari was declared the law of the land. This action legally limited the southern representation

over their own territories and even the fruits of their homelands wealth to only those willing to

convert to the Islamic faith (Spaulding).

What is being said is that by expanding the North Sudanese borders because of oil, and in those

borders the Islamic law, the Sudanese government is assuring their Arabic dominance of the South

Sudanese and the Darfurians. Because the South Sudanese and Darfurians dont conform to the Islamic

law, they have less rights than their Arab neighbors to the north. Without the oil, this wouldnt have been

happening. The oil is giving the government a reason to control and discriminate against the racial

minorities, and is a prominent reason for the genocide that is occurring.

As Darfur is in the middle of a desert, the environment has had a large impact on conflicts and

the genocide that is currently going on. Scott Anderson, a reporter for the New York Times, believes

that droughts are the pivotal cause of the genocide. He writes:

Among the few things that the various antagonists in the Darfur crisis agree on is the conflict's

root cause: cataclysmic droughts that have afflicted a vast stretch of northern and eastern Africa

since the 1980's. Drought has strained the relationships that existed among the various tribes in


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the region and, most acutely, the relationships between its farming and nomadic communities...

With water holes and seasonal rivers vanishing in the drought, though, the nomads were forced

to venture farther south to find pasturage and to stay far longer...With everyone in increasing

competition for the same shrinking pool of natural resources -- water, grassland, arable soil --

conflicts increased. (Anderson)

What Mr. Anderson is saying is that because of a lack of water, the Arab and non-Arab factions of

Sudan started fighting. If there wasnt the drought going on, there would be no reason to fight, and

hence, no genocide. This can be pulled back even further by finding out what caused the drought that

caused the genocide. The secretary general for the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, says that the

whole thing is caused by climate change. He wrote in an article from June 2007 that:

It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought. Until then, Arab nomadic

herders had lived amicably with settled farmers. A recent Atlantic Monthly article by Stephan

Faris describes how black farmers would welcome herders as they crisscrossed the land,

grazing their camels and sharing wells. But once the rains stopped, farmers fenced their land for

fear it would be ruined by the passing herds. For the first time in memory, there was no longer

enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out. By 2003, it evolved into the full-fledged

tragedy we witness today. (Ban Ki-moon)

Mr. Ban Ki-moon says that if there was enough water for everyone, there wouldnt be the fighting. The

lack of water is caused by climate change and is the reason why the killing is happening. Because there

wasnt enough water for the whole population, conflicts increased. And the lack of water was caused

by desertification, an effect of climate change. To stop the killing we need to cut greenhouse gasses and

develop more sustainable industries in Sub-Saharan Africa that do not rely on fossil fuels.


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All of the previous scopes in this paper all had one thing in common. They said the reasons for

the conflict were things that causes the factions of Sudan to be pitted against each other. The racial

tensions of Sub-Saharan Africa are one of the biggest causes of conflict. Makau Mutua, a reporter for

the Christian Science Monitor says that, "Race - not religion - is the fundamental fault line in Sudan

the demon of Sudan has been race. The Arab north has exclusively held political and military power.

To protest political exclusion, military repression, enslavement, and economic exploitation, Africans in

the south rose against the state several years after independence" (Matu, 2004) Without having the

overwhelming racial inequality in Sudan, the Darfurians would have never to needed to revolt and then

the government of Sudan (GOS) wouldnt have felt the need to send the Janjaweed militia into Darfur

and cause an explosion of violence. The GOS needs to give the Africans more input in the government

or let them secede. An agency calledDo Somethingis working with US teens to make a difference in

Darfur. On their website, they gave a couple of background facts about the genocide. One was, "The

genocide is racial-based, because the Muslim Arab Sudanese are killing the Muslim Black Sudanese, by

way of the Arab militia (known as the Janjaweed) and the Sudanese Army (11 Facts about Darfur).

Even though the people of Darfur have the same religion, they still continue to fight over racial

superiority. If the non-Arabs and the Arabs were treated the same, there wouldnt be the constant

fighting.

What would life be like constantly living in terror, not knowing where the next threat to your life

would be coming from? Fearing for the lives of your family and loved ones, trying your best to make it

through the day? That is what its like for the black tribes in Darfur, where they are constantly fighting

for their lives everyday, against the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia that are sent there to

decimate the populations. The answer to the previous question of what caused the conflict that is going


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what is causing the darfur genocide?

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