Darfur, the new genocide

People, there are huge things happening in Darfur in Western Sudan. The Sudan Tribune has ongoing updates such as this, explaining the factors involved.

There's been a 50 year long civil war in Sudan along ethnic and religious lines which has drawn very close to a peace agreement in recent years. This is now being jeopardised by a seperate situation in Darfur.

This new situation is not related to religion (they are all Muslim) and only slightly related to race ( theres been a good degree of mixing), it actually has more to do with social groups based on income sources - nomadic herders vs. settled farmers. This genocide is born out of poverty and a desperate struggle over the limited resources in a fragile country.

What has been the response of the West? A UN-resolution calling for the Sudanese government to act, with vague references to repercussions.

Meanwhile, there are semantic arguments over whether Darfur is a case of "genocide" as such yet or whether it's just ethnic cleansing or some other tragedy. The reason for these ridiculous charades is that many of the UN member nations signed an agreement to be bound to act promptly in cases of "genocide" so as not to allow repeats of situations such as Cambodia or East Timor. The talking continues...

So far, this has prompted the government to move the unofficially supported militias perpetrating the genocide into official posts in the police or military in a bid to claim they have dealt with the issue. The reason it seems the government has sided with the nomad militias, or Janjaweed ("men on horses") is that after their early attacks angry farmers organised an attack on government forces they saw as apathetic to the fighting.

One of the most disturbing stories to come out of the conflict is that rape has been being used as a weapon to terrorize victims.

One place worth checking out for campaigns etc is SaveDarfur.org. From that site there are efforts to make tomorrow, the 25th, a Day of Conscience for Darfur and the website has many suggestions as to what people can do to get involved.

Related Link