geistweg

Statistically, do you think the Darfur situation will supersede the Rwandan situation in the mid-1990s? What are the similarities in the buildup for each of these conflicts?

The Rwandan genocide was unique because of its swiftness. In 100 days, 800,000 people were killed. Darfur’s numbers don’t yet match that, but the conflict continues to rage unchecked, and Janjaweed have begun attacking refugee camps in Chad, it’s likely that the number of victims will continue to grow.

It’s important to keep in mind, however, that these raw numbers are not the best method for gauging the severity of any given genocide. In most cases, it’s the method and causes that defines how we view and discuss these atrocities rather than the number of victims.

The one overwhelming historical similarity to these two genocides is that both countries were former colonies, meaning that they wound up being an amalgam of peoples, cultures, tribes, and even languages. When the colonial powers pulled out of Africa, not only was a governing vacuum left, but a unifying cultural void was created.

To put it another way, there was nothing really holding these groups together as a nation. They were a huge grouping of tribes and traditions and in both cases, the leaders of their government wound up disliking one particular group.

Odette Nyiramilimo, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, put it best when she said:

“The similarities are that the government has not done enough to protect its people. It is the government who has supported the killers — the Janjaweed — and did not prevent people from being killed. Like it happened in Rwanda: The government was arming the perpetrators –Interahamwe. That’s terrible to happen again in Darfur. That’s why we can say what is happening in Darfur is a genocide. Something has to be done. The people need to be protected and be considered as human beings having rights. There are so many similarities between the two governments–Rwanda 1994 and Darfur–in failing at their role of protecting their people.” (TNR Online, 07.19.06)

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.

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.