About the genocide in Darfur:
Darfur, an ethnically diverse nation, is a large region in Sudan, which is the largest country in Africa. Sudan is located in north-east Africa, bordered by Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia among others.
The conflict in Darfur, started in 2003 when the local rebel movements known as the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) began series of joint attacks against Sudanese government soldiers, accusing the Sudanese government of not protecting villages from nomadic groups and economic disarray. The Sudanese government at the time was pressed in negotiations involving a peace between North and South Sudan and acted swiftly to disperse the rebels.
Usually the 3 things that prompt genocide are:
· Scapegoats, something to draw followers to the government by means of propaganda.
· Ethnicity, stereotyping a race that commonly adds to governmental issues (not actually
scapegoats).
· Extremism, claiming that the individual's belief is the only and right belief, willing to die for it.
In Darfur, the Sudanese government's actions directly reflect these 3 prompts. The villagers are used as scapegoats for problems to draw propaganda. Their ethnicity was sterotyped as entirely rebels against the government.
Genocide is extremely terrifying and not only because of massive, horrific civilian death tolls, but also because the idea of a government turning on its own people frightens every civilian who pays their taxes. People want to trust and fund their government, thereby supporting the domestic needs and law & order of the country. If a citizen were to look around and see a landscape of dead neighbors, family, and friends, where does the citizen turn to? The police? Politics? Religion? In the horrors of genocide, the victims have nowhere to turn to, and little to run to in order to hide from their own government, boxed in their home country.
The Janjaweed:
The Sudanese government had its own people killed by acting as a hirer of the ruthlessly armed, well government supplied militia who known to the world as the Janjaweed, was hired to target specific ethnic groups known to support the rebels. That's the killings began. Although the Sudanese government publicly denies arming the Janjaweed, there is strong evidence suggesting so.
Hundreds of civilians were killed by the Janjaweed simply because of their ethnicity. The Janjaweed razed 400 villages, and killed approximately 300,000 civilians who had nothing to do with the rebels. The Janjaweed alone are also responsible for the mass murder, rape and torture of innocent lives in Darfur.
Learning from Rwanda:
Darfur is a modern day genocide, once again putting the actions and liability of the UN to the test. Many people wonder if the conflict in Darfur will end up like the genocide in Rwanda, with the UN doing little to nothing and the world only watching as almost thousands of people die. When the dust settled in Rwanda, all of those dead bodies scattered the landscape, decomposing everywhere while the entire country lay in the oppressive hand of the government. After Rwanda, former President Clinton "deeply regretted" the lack of a course of action that the US government took, but close listeners never heard him say "sorry". However, in 2004, former President Bush became the first sitting American president to declare a foreign genocide.
According to Savedarfur.org,
In September 2004, President George W. Bush declared the crisis in Darfur a “genocide” – the first time a sitting American president had made such a declaration regarding an ongoing conflict. Despite the world’s growing outcry, the violence continued in Darfur and the number of dead and displaced increased considerably.
Groups to Aid Darfur:
Determined to prevent a 2nd Rwanda event, groups were formed to end the violence, such as the "Save Darfur" group, who petitioned and pressed world leaders to do everything in national power to end the conflicts the Sudanese were facing in Darfur. Also, the group known as "Eyes on Darfur" has made its purpose to raise public awareness of the events that occured in Darfur with photo evidence to the public.
The End of the Conflict:
By 2006, the Darfur Peace Agreement was finally signed between the SLM (and later the JEM too) and the reluctant government of Sudan, and in 2007, the International Crimes Court convicted Ahmed Haroun, Sudan’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, and Janjaweed militia leader,Ali Kushayb, on 51 war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.
Finally, in 2008, the control of the government was handed to the UN peace-keepers and the conflict official ended. It took 5 years for the UN to take action in Darfur, the conflict was ended, but the lives lost in Darfur will not be forgotten. As Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, commander of the peace keeping mission in Rwanda, said, "How many times must we say, 'never again'?"
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