Yesterday, Janjaweed (supported by the Sudanese government) targeted the village of Um Beyy in the southern part of Darfur. It is reported that 80 civilians were killed and the leaders of the rebel groups who signed the May 2006 peace agreement with Khartoum are claiming that this illustrates the lack of interest Sudan has in implementing peace.
Darfur Q&A #2
I’m sorry; I don’t really understand what’s going on in Darfur. Who are the bad guys and what is their motivation for all of the raping and killing?
The crisis in Darfur is fairly complex and often difficult to understand. First, you should know that a Civil War has been ongoing in Sudan for thirty years. The war is between the South and the North and people often confuse what’s happening in Darfur as being part of the Civil War, even though it’s not.
Rebels in Darfur, which is in the West, rose up against the Khartoum government in 2001. This happened because the people in the region felt that the Arab government wasn’t treating their non-Arab citizens equally.
Since the Sudan Army had been engaged in the civil war in the South, Khartoum had few troops in reserve, so they decided to enlistment militias to put down the rebels in Darfur. These militia, known as Janjaweed (meaning “hordes”), began attacking villages and civilians in order to drive them from the region. The Janjaweed are composed of nomadic tribes, while the rest of Darfur is made up of farmers.
Even though these two groups have clashed over land and resources in the past, the conflict became an international crisis in 2004 when the Janjaweed pushed 100,000 people out of their homes and burned their villages to the ground. As the people fled to Chad and humanitarian organizations got involved, Darfur made its first real international headlines.
The motivation for the killing and rapes is to demoralize and depopulate the region. The Khartoum government has been supporting and outfitting the Janjaweed in an effort to not only put down the rebellion, but to get rid of the people who are opposed to the Khartoum government, and give their land and resources to the tribes who are helping them.
Darfur Q&A (#1)
Yesterday, I was asked to help field a bunch of questions about Darfur and genocide for Richmond.com. Not surprisingly, the questions ranged from background questions to the much tougher ideological questions.
My responses to the questions I received will be showing up on their site in the next day or two and I plan on answering another batch here at geistweg † genocide. In the meantime, I thought I’d share one of the questions here, with a less philosophical answer than I originally gave.
I’ve heard that a while back, people were saying Darfur would be the next Rwanda. So where’s the next Darfur?
The next Darfur will be in Iraq.
Regardless of whether the US pulls out of Iraq, as a new government takes hold and feuding factions attempt to express their disillusion for (or against) the new regime, violence will boil up until it erupts into an all out conflagration. Whichever faction winds up holding the reigns of power will then pick up the machete (or AK-47) and march against the opposing sectarian, religious, or ethnic groups.
What’s worse is that unlike similar conflicts in Africa, where refugees spill across borders in order to find safety, those who are fleeing the violence in Iraq will be boxed into the country, unable to escape to Iran or Turkey without meeting further violence. This will create a situation where rebellions will appear and disappear, shadowing the movements of a civil war, while the controlling faction(s) refine their execution by either legislation or force.
To further exacerbate the problem, humanitarian groups won’t be allowed to enter the country and sanctions will be all but untenable against a nation with immense oil reserves. The military, if they’re still in the country (as we don’t deploy troops to stop genocides), will find themselves unable to cope with such a conflict, for which they have no training, or will be unable to act on the violence because they have no mandate.
Either way, the next (big) genocide is bound for the Middle East.
Genocide arrests
Five genocide suspects were recently arrested in the UK, where they had fled and were seeking asylum.
Among the five, who were all senior leaders of the Hutu militia during the Genocide, is one Vincent Bajinya, who has been allegedly working for a London-based charity as a doctor; Emmanuel Ntezilyayo, Charlesall Munyaneza and Celestin Ugirasebuja. Contacted Saturday, Justice Minister, Tharcisse Karugarama told The New Times that the five suspects were arrested by British police and would appear in court to determine their deportation.
Rwanda had previously asked that the UK and other European countries hand over suspects for trials, but the process has been slow as the majority of nations don’t support the death penalty.
North Carolina divests
My one time home — North Carolina — has become the latest in a series of states to divest from companies that have ties to Sudan. Treasurer Richard Moore, who oversees the state’s pension funds, arranged to pull support from nine different foreign companies who have ties to the conflicted region, totaling $24 million.
“Our state pension funds should not be used to invest in companies that profit from genocide,” Moore said Wednesday. He was addressing about 2,000 members of the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, which met in Winston-Salem.
“As the ninth-largest pension fund in the nation, we have both the clout and the resources to make a difference,” Moore said.
If you’re interested in finding out more, or would like information on how to help your state divest from Sudan, visit the Sudan Divestment Task Force.