An Investigation Into Regional Integration : A Case Study Of The Sudan Conflict

Basing itself on the fact that one of the fundamental purposes of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security and to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace.( See attachment 1).

As a response to the crisis in Darfur in 30th July 2004, the United Nations and the Security Council assigned

The UN and the US government are accredited for deploring conflict situations as well as contributing humanitarian aid, and this is what these two organizations did in Rwanda and Darfur. However, the UN did not do anything to punish or prevent the genocides that took place in these two countries. The US government promised to support the peace talk’s agreement in Darfur and hold the perpetrators accountable for their acts. It never kept that promise since nothing has been done. So far, the UN’s Security Council has also failed in its peace keeping mission effeorts, and is instead pressuring Sudan with words only. No solid steps have been made to bring the wrong doers into justice (Shapiro).

Darfur is the western region of the African country of Sudan. Currently, the people of Darfur have been continually attacked by the Sudanese army and by proxy-militia controlled by the Sudanese government. Families are being uprooted and starved, children tormented and murdered by the thousands and women raped without punishment. Innocent civilians in Darfur continue to be victims of unthinkable brutality. Many people have become homeless and seek protection in refugee camps in Chad. Yet despite its outward appearance, Darfur has a vast ethnic diversity and a complex, ancient system of resolving conflict. Genocide has occurred in several places around the world, but in Darfur there are certain reasons why it

In the second half of the twentieth-century, African countries were able to gain their independence and strive to create unified countries. However, many countries were plagued with civil wars and the issues left behind the colonial era. The adversities faced by these new African nations are at the hands of their old colonial powers and the neo-colonialism that has taken place. These new independent countries were left to unify their people of different backgrounds, create a strong government and economy, and leave the post-colonial legacy behind.

The Sudan is home to two civil wars taking place dating back hundreds of years. “The older of the two, pitting the Muslim revels from the south, has claimed 2m lives in the past two decades, and spurred 4m people to abandon their homes.”(Economist 11) Although the two sides in this old war are close to a peace resolution, a new insurgence has begun in the region pitting “Arabs” against the “black Africans”, in an effort to attract peace concessions from the Sudanese government just as the older rebels did years before. An uprising by rebel groups against government targets sparked this new war because they felt neglected by the Sudanese government. But the response of the government to the new revolt falls extremely short of peace concessions, and instead perpetuates an environment of violence, torture and depression. The government has given its own militia, the janjaweed, free reign to pillage, rape and kill black civilians in a futile attempt to squelch the revolt. This can be see as an “ethnic cleansing” in which the government feels that the killings of blacks will hopefully rid the country of the rebels given that the Darfur rebels are mostly black Africans. Thus, the Sudanese

2003 marked the beginning of the Darfur Genocide. It has consisted of some of the most appalling treatment and murder of the innocent citizens of Darfur. It also quickly became clear why the government never stepped in. A group known as the Janjaweed, which ironically enough translates to ‘devils on horseback,’ has been at the head of the genocide. They are armed and funded by the government. Their disturbing actions consist of destroy the people by burning villages, looting money, polluting water, and worst of all, the murdering, raping, and torturing of men, woman, and children. It continues there today.

After these two genocides, one may look at the past and ask, how could this death and destruction possibly happen again? The bad part is that it is happening again in the Darfur region of Sudan. This region is “about the size of Texas” (DarfurScores, par. 1) and “five thousand die every month”

Soon after this new government and administration was established, conflict, unfortunately, came back again. It is important to note the environment that precipitated the conflict. Once South Sudan achieved their independence, the international community stepped away without giving much guidance. The government

Since 2003, the black African farmers of western Sudan's Darfur region have been victims of genocide. The genociders are Sudan's Arab-dominated government and nomadic Arab militia groups known as the Janjaweed. Darfur’s residents have suffered from discrimination, lack of resources, education, health services, etc. There is a large gap between the resources that the government has invested in Darfur and those invested in riverine Sudan. A fact that clearly illustrates the lack of safety towards the Muslims in the Darfur region is, “Thousands of villages were destroyed, pillaged, burned to the ground, and residents dislocated and killed amongst the violence. Only the villages of African tribes were bombed and attacked; nearby Arab villages were left unharmed, “ (Combat Genocide 1). This quote emphasizes the fact that because of the violence occurring, residents are getting killed or being force to be “dislocated.” In 2009 the United Nations estimated that there were 2.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Darfur and approximately 270,000 refugees in eastern Chad (Combat Genocide 1). The battles between the rebel groups and the Janjaweed spread into Chad, which led to tensions between Chad and Sudan. Chad had huge problems with dealing with the huge number of refugees (Combat Genocide 1). In the refugee camps, the Janjaweed captured, attacked and raped women when they go outside refugee camps to collect firewood. Many refugees who fled their homes continued to flee from repeat attacks by the Janjaweed throughout Darfur. The genocide of the Darfur people have clearly taken a toll on the persecuted people, creating a life of violence for

Fighting between the Muslim government in Khartoumand Christian rebel forces located in southern Sudan has long been ignored.This struggle has caused nothing but devastation and depravation for in theregion. More than two millionpeople have died as a result of the conflict, including many innocent civilians. In addition, extremely valuableresources that would surely benefit the entire global economy, are beingneglected and the with the minimized benefits only helping a few . As is the case in most if not all civilwars power is what each side is struggling over. .The north and south werejoined for no good

The video “On our Watch,” provides the viewer with detailed accounts about the first genocide of the 21st century. The images of death and destruction in Darfur, coupled with the startling murder and rape statistics, clearly suggests that the United Nations (UN), an organization designed to maintain international peace and security failed to protect the people of Darfur from the Janjaweed militias or the corrupt Sudanese government. Although, the UN and the world had embraced the slogan “Never Again,” after 800,000 innocent civilians were slaughtered in Rwanda, history would repeat itself in Bosnia, Darfur, and Chad. Sudan’s campaign of genocide, its economic and political ties with China and Russia, combined with failed peace talks, as well

The U.S. must intervene in South Sudan, as it is an enduring interest within our National Security Strategy to maintain “An international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace, security, and opportunity.” General Rodriguez, commander of AFRICOM, should employ both diplomatic and economic instruments of power. By doing so, the U.S. risks a potentially long-term engagement in East Africa.

From 1972 onwards, the government “usually ran Darfur through officials brought in from other parts of Sudan, mainly from Khartoum” (Darfur: Origins). What Britain did basically doomed Non-Arab Darfur to “a future as an underdeveloped colony of Sudan’s Arab-speaking Nile Valley heartland” (Darfur: Origins).

The origin of the war between these two regions goes back to the 1950s when the country, which was previously two separate nations, was made one after World War II by the west. Shortly after this union, Sudan was emancipated from England. 1983 marks the beginning of the violent relations between the North and South Sudan. The initiation of this conflict was brought forth by the Islamic Sudanese of the North, invading with military force the Southern Sudanese Christians . From 1983, it is estimated that at least two million people have been killed in the violent duration of this genocide, most of whom are of the Christian faith and lead non-violent civilian lives. Attention on human trafficking was brought into the international community’s scope with close proximity to the beginning of the violence as two professors from the University of Khartoum shed light on the subject. Ushari Ahmad Mahumud and Suleyman Ali Baldo learned about the genocide and enslavement being practiced on the Dinka people, a tribal group in the southern Sudan, and upon this discovery they dicided to investigate it further. What they found was that raiders from the north were killing the Southern Christian men and kidnapping the women and children to be sold into slavery. The most disturbing part of this discovery was the newfound knowledge that this had been going on for over two years. Professors Mahumud and Baldo