The War In Darfur

It is the Darfur genocide. Arab militias called Janjaweed go through Western Sudan. They burn villages, intentionally killing Darfurians, looting economic resources, raping, murdering, and torturing them. Over 400,000 Darfurians have been been killed and over 2,500,000 have been displaced due to such events ongoing. Another genocide that was not too long ago was the Bosnia genocide that lasted about 4 years, 1991-1995. The reasons why this happened was because Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted independence. That wasn’t given, so the Serbs started targeting Bosniak and Croatian in the areas where the “cleaning” was taking place. This genocide claimed the lives of 100,000

The citizens were raising their families and animals. To me if more then one million people of the same race are killed I think it would be genocide. I also believe that it was more than just genocide, because it was the mass slaughtering and rape. The government didn’t need to hurt the citizens of Darfur by doing that. Now the citizens will not cooperate with the government, they will stand alone fighting for what they believe in.

The Darfur Genocide is the current mass slaughter and rape of civilians from South Sudan killing women and children in Sudan. The Genocide began in 2003 but the outbreak around the world in early 2004 and still continues today which is known as the first genocide in the 21 Century. There have been many responses toward the genocide such as United Nations and China but the conflict continues to be unresolved. This had caught attention from many countries around the world, including our country, the united Nation and China had different perspectives referring to Sudan conflict, however their initiatives had worsen the situation.

According to Amnesty International (2012), “throughout Sudan, the government routinely represses human rights defenders, political opponents, and ordinary civilians subjecting many to torture and other forms of ill-treatment.” Since the Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003, systematic human rights abuses have occurred. These abuses include killing, torture, rape, looting and destroying property. All parties have been involved, but these abuses have mostly been committed by the Sudanese government and government-backed Janjawid militia. These attacks have led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur, with an estimated two million internally displaced people and another 250,000 refugees

The Darfur crisis was a horrific event because of the savage treatment of civilians that led to an immense number of civilian casualties. As of today, over four hundred and eighty thousand people have been killed, and over two point eight million people are displaced. (World Without Genocide, Worldwithoutgenocide.org). Women and children were forced to endure a systematic program of sexual assault, torture, and murder. The central government of Sudan, working largely through nomadic Arab militias, humiliates women, and tears apart families and shreds the social fabric of communities through rape. (Smart Library on Globalization, clg.portalxm.com). It is clear from these sources that the innocent civilian deaths tore apart families. After villages are attacked parents and children have had to run away from the

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 recent times, the media has highlighted the genocide that has been occurring in Darfur, Sudan. Darfur, Sudan is a country roughly the size of the state of Texas (Darfur Scores, n.d.). Genocide is the systematic killing of an entire ethnic group of people from a national, ethnic, or religious group, or an attempt to do away with them all (Darfur Scores, n.d.). Beginning around 2003, according to Darfur Scores (n.d.), “the Sudanese government in Khartoum and the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia have used rape, displacement, organized starvation, threats against aid workers and mass murder. Violence, disease, and displacement continue to kill thousands of innocent Darfurians every month.”

The genocide began on April 24, 1915, when “300 Armenian political leaders, educators, writers, clergy and dignitaries in Istanbul were taken from their homes, briefly jailed and tortured, then hanged or shot” just for being a non-believer in the Muslim religion (UHRC, par. 19). After this, many Armenian men were being arrested for no real reason. They were then taken and shot or bayoneted by Turkish soldiers. Now, it was time for the Armenian women and children. These people were “ordered to pack a few belongings and be ready to leave home, under the pretext that they were being relocated to a non-military zone for their own safety when they were actually being taken on death marches heading south toward the Syrian Desert” (UHRC, par. 21). Over a million people took part in these “death marches” with almost ¾ of people dying while traveling through the desert.

The ongoing genocide in Darfur is in desperate need of help. As the first genocide of the 20th century it impacts us directly. The men, women and children of Darfur are being exposed to death, rape and even water contamination.The Janjaweed is the root of the destruction in Darfur has motivated economic power, political power and a plain simple rivalry over the non- Muslim and the non-Arab. The Janjaweed translates to devils on horseback they got there name for a reason they ride around horseback armed with assault rifles and intentions of destruction.

Particularly, Darfur, a genocide beginning in 2003 and carrying on into present day. Darfur is a small region located in Western Sudan housing 6 million people and is approximately the size of Spain. This genocide is driven by the major conflict between Arab grazers and non-Arab farmers. Competition for resources is what played a hefty role in these conflicts arising. In Western Sudan, oil was discovered and the land in Darfur became increasingly known. Thousands of refugees have fled into neighboring republics. The Sudanese Air Force and Janjaweed, a government-supported Arab tribesman, raided and bombed non-Arab villages in Darfur bringing them to a burn as well as terrorizing and slaughtering the civilians with the goal of creating a Pan-Arab state. Women and children left in these villages were raped, and men were enslaved. Much like the Bosnian genocide, slaughtered bodies were thrown into wells to drain out their blood in an attempt to contaminate the drinking water. The government has forcefully expelled aid agencies jeopardizing the conditions of displaced civilians. Unlike Cambodia, the United States has not fell quiet about the Darfur genocide. In 2006, President Bush sent for a number of international troops in Darfur to be doubled. As a result, British Prime Minister called the European Union to team up with the United States as a unified response to the crisis at hand. Two years later, the United Nations issued a United Nations-African Union mission to maintain peace. Immediately following, 26,000 troops were ordered to protect civilians. According to the United Nations, 2.7 million people are internally displaced, 600,000 have been killed in 13 years, and more than 350,000 refugees have currently fled to neighboring cities. The Sudanese government trains and provides arms to Arab militias to continuously kill, terrorize, and destroy non-Arabs in Darfur

Genocide is defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. “The ‘Darfur Genocide’ refers to the current mass slaughter and rape of men, women, and children in Western Sudan” (Mitchell Hamline School of Law). Not only are these atrocities happening, but the Darfurians are being force from their land and into refugee camps, mainly in the country Chad, but also other countries like Ethiopia or Kenya. Darfur genocide causes can be found both culturally and politically. The cultural and political causes come from the same source of that being an underdeveloped country with no effective government protecting the rights of the Darfurians. Darfurians were violently pushed around, physically and mentally, with the western world not stepping in to assist. Although eventually, both Britain and the United Nations came to the same conclusion that the atrocities occurring in Darfur were genocide and “one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises” (Thomson Reuters). Genocide occurred in Sudan in the Darfur region starting in 2003 and continues today. The long-standing divide between Arab herding tribes and the African farming tribes and the political opportunism arising from the environmental calamity led to the genocide in Sudan.

Even though these groups agreed to the ceasefire, there was still violence going on in Darfur. In August 2004, 7,000 Rwandan and Nigerien peacekeeping troops are sent by the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to work in Darfur. Around 2 million civilians were displaced in Darfur and Chad by the end of 2004, around 100,000 were dead. On September 9, 2004, the conflict in Darfur was declared a Genocide. Some of the other countries involved blame the Sudanese government because they have done nothing to help the citizens of Darfur, but the UN doesn’t agree. On January 9, 2005, the Sudanese government and the SPLM/A sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Second Sudanese Civil War ends. In March 2005, the people who violated the ceasefire in Darfur have sanctions authorized against them by the UN Security Council. There were also people accused of war crimes. These people are referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In June, a formal investigation is begun, but the Sudanese government chose not to

Throughout Northern and Central Africa ethnic fighting and mass genocide has run rampant. Clashes between, diverse ethnic and cultural people has caused instability, these mass humanitarian disasters that can no longer be ignored. With the help of other nations South Sudan can go from another mass genocide waiting to happen, to a region supplier of much needed resources, with the help of other nations. In the 1990’s Rwanda genocide was basically ignored by the United States government and because of this hundreds of thousands were either killed or injured in the area. In the early 2000’s the war in Darfur, created a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. Again thousands of Africans were killed and the United

In addition, political aspects have played a role in the roots of the Darfur conflict. The leader, General Omar Hassan Ahmad al- Bashir (who came to power in 1989), is a major source of the problem. Al-

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