Genocide in Darfur, Sudan
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Genocide in Darfur, Sudan
There has been conflict characterized by mass killings, rape, torture, and deportation of Darfur people in Sudan. This is the first genocide occurring in the 21st century. The conflict has been between rebel groups and Sudanese government. The violence initially started with southern rebels protesting the Muslim central government’s marginalization of Darfur’s ethnic groups. In a bid to curb the rebellion, the government supported and financed the Janjaweed, Arab militias, to enact ethnic cleansing policies against civilian population in Darfur. These left many people dead, and others displaced from their homes. It has been estimated over 2 million people were deported while the number killed was in terms of hundreds of thousands.
The conflict was thought to be rooted only in structural inequity. However, tensions in the 20th Century were exacerbated by a combination of political opportunism, regional geopolitics, as well as environmental calamity. Darfur is cosmopolitan and quite diverse; it is made up of 90 ethnic groups and numerous sub-clans. Situated in western Sudan, with an area almost the size of America’s Texas, Darfur had a population of 6 million pre-conflict. It was an autonomous sultanate until its incorporation into the rest of Sudan in 1916 by the British. Under British administration, Darfur did not receive the level of development and investment the Nile River Valley and Eastern Sudan did. Following independence, this marginalization continued unabated under the series of Islamic Sudanese governments that took over.
The United Nations has frequently described the conflict as one between distinct ‘African’ and ‘Arab’ tribes. Nonetheless, an accurate distinction among Darfur population groups is economic, not ethnic. Principally ethnic groups that claim ‘Arab’ descent and developed a nomadic based economy populate the northern part of Darfur, which is incredibly arid. The south is more arable, and the majority of people trace ‘non-Arab’ descent. This population developed an economy based on cultivation of subsistence crops. Decades of the slave trade and intermarriage have contributed to blurring the lines between Africans and Arabs. The distinguishing physical characteristics that would otherwise define each group clearly have disappeared. For the most part, however, the economic division remains (Prunier, 2007).
Beginning in the 1980s, increased desertification caused intensification in the competition for arable land. This upset the structure of society of Darfur severely. Farmers lay claim to every available bit of arable land, intending to forage for food. This closed off traditional routes that the Arabic herders used previously. The herders were desperate to water and feed their livestock in a landscape that dwindled day by day. They tried open up the southern routes forcibly and attacked any farmer who blocked their paths. During this time, however, conflict resolution occurred with little or no violence as the local councils resolved disputes fairly. When Bashir came to power, his regime abolished council resolution. This meant there was no mechanism left for peaceful dispute resolution.
Spurred by the intensifying conflict over the diminishing resources as well as central government’s wedge politics, farming and nomadic tribes started to polarize along tribal lines. The dichotomous ideology of Arab versus African started to have explanatory power to Darfuris facing starvation. Amongst ‘Africans’, the conception that uncaring Khartoum ‘Arabs’ had let the famine occur and then Darfur ‘Arabs’ had attacked ‘Africans’ started to gain credence. In a similar fashion, nomadic Darfuri ‘Arabs’ started to consider ‘Africans’ had punished them vindictively for the famine when they kept them from traditional pasturelands (Hagan & Rymond-Richmond, 2009).
The progression of attacks on villages in Darfuri was blood curdling. The central government exploited the economic and tribal differences and armed local Arab militias, the ‘Janjaweed,’ who attacked the African groups. The Sudanese Air Force bombed civilian households many times in a week. Raids from the government-sponsored militia often followed air campaigns. All remaining civilians, including women and children would either be murdered or displaced forcibly. Burning food stocks, looting, raping of women and children, stealing livestock, as well as enslaving were commonplace. In addition, the ‘Janjaweed’ contaminated water supplies by tossing the dead bodies into wells. Because of such inhumane actions, over a record 400,000 people was killed in a very short time. In addition, women were raped systematically and then killed so that they would not bear children. Those that were pregnant faced instant killing.
In 2004, the U.S., through its special envoy, recognized the actions described above as genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. Subsequently, it alerted the UN, which began criminal proceedings promptly with the International Criminal Tribunal. The UN and AU (African Union) later sought to introduce troops to end the violence while aiding those that had been displaced internally and refugees that had fled to Chad. The unabated genocide made the International Criminal Court issue an arrest warrant in 2009 for Sudanese President. The allegations were that he had directed a campaign of mass murder, rape, as well as pillage against Darfuri civilians. Additionally, there were arrest warrants for Ahmad Haru, the Sudanese Minister of State for Internal Affairs and Ali Kushayb, the leader of Janjaweed. In spite of the issuance of these warrants, the three remain at large, and there are an estimated 2.7 million Darfuris in refugee camps and over 4.7 million relying on humanitarian aid to date (Totten & Markusen, 2006).
Recently, the genocide took a new twist as government forces not only attacked Darfuri civilians, but also humanitarian aid workers. UN relief workers supplying food to the internally displaced persons were raped and then killed. The food they carried was taken away and used to feed the central government-sponsored militiamen, despite their huge supply from the government. Medical personnel were reportedly seized and forced to offer medical services to the Janjaweed. Those who refused or resisted were killed. In addition, medical camps were bombed and ‘Africans’ receiving medical attention therein killed (Levy, 2009).
The Khartoum government managed to obstruct access to Darfur and block efforts of the international community to establish a relief program for over one year. For the umpteenth time, it had refused to honor a cease-fire agreement it had signed in 2005. Consequently, Darfur faced an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the subsequent years. Of those killed, 30,000 were reportedly stripped naked prior to the killing in the full glare of the public and their bodies later dumped in wells to contaminate water sources. International aid agencies said that the crisis was so bad, and over 350, 000 civilians were doomed to die even if humanitarian assistance was provided (Mohamed, 2007).
Recently, South Sudan has seceded from the rest of Sudan through a referendum. While this has been seen as a major milestone toward ending the genocide, civilians in Darfur are still at risk. Systematic genocide continues on this new political landscape, but this time it remains speculative as who might be perpetrating the violence.