Darfur, as we now know, is the size of France. It is in Sudan in the west. War broke out there in 2003 and since then 300,000 have died and ten times that number have fled. Towns are burned to the ground, men killed and women raped. In 2007 it is still going on. The war has now spread to Chad and the Central African Republic. It threatens to overturn their governments.
America calls it genocide, like what Hitler did to the Jews – destruction of a people. The United Nations stops short of that.
Both sides are Muslim, so it is not a religious war.
It seems like a land war: Darfur is at a growing edge of the Sahara where good land is becoming scarcer. Arab herders are pushing black farmers off their land.
But it is in fact a race war – genocide: because only people from three tribes are being killed: the Fur (whom Darfur is named after), Massaleet and Zagawa tribes. All of them are black Africans. Their villages are destroyed while nearby Arab villages are untouched.
Darfur has become a fashionable cause in the West, but it does little beyond send aid workers (who, yes, are badly needed) and threaten to cut off trade (an empty threat). The Arab world is indifferent while China needs Sudan’s oil and Russia sells it arms. So united action at the United Nations seems unlikely. Talk of sending UN forces remains just that, talk.
What commonly happens in Darfur: the government bombs a town from the air, then irregular forces of the Arab janjaweed move in and kill the men of fighting age, rape the women and burn down the town. Then comes the regular army.
Most people flee, many of them to Chad. Having been forced off their land, they have no way to feed themselves. They become completely dependent on aid workers for food.
If they go back home, the same thing happens all over again. The janjaweed attack not just the people of Darfur, but also Western aid workers and towns in Chad as well.
To be fair, Darfur started the war. It took up arms against the government in 2003. The government had to punish Darfur to preserve the unity of the country. But instead of merely restoring order, it is wiping out people wholesale, men, women and children.
Peace was made in May 2006, but it quickly fell apart. The war is now pulling in Chad and the Central African Republic. It is only getting worse.
In 2009 Sudan is due to hold countrywide elections. They could change the political facts enough to make peace possible.
In 2011 the south of Sudan will vote on whether to become an independent country. Since most of the country’s oil is in the south, it is hard to believe the north would let the south go quietly. It might make peace in Darfur to make war on the south.
See also:
- Sudan
- The eight stages of genocide – the comments there discuss whether Darfur truly is a case of genocide.
- Islam
- Arab world
- 2006
- Hitler
- The West
- United Nations
This is very sad, what happened to the people of Sudan. They
did not diserve all this heartache over land. 😦
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