Sudan




 * The purpose of this page is for you to be able to post your research and/or questions with regard to the Cambodia portion of the videoconferencing unit. Please be sure to "save" after each posting. Also, keep in mind...only one person can be posting at a time...so...as soon as you are done log off of that page. We will use all of the information that you post in creating our web portal at the end of the conference. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. :) Ms. Caine**



__Background Information__ --- Darfur is a region in Sudan about the size of Texas, home to both African farmers and Arab herders. Both groups identify mainly with Islam. In 2003, as a result of neglect on the part of the Sudanese government which resulted in horrific poverty, two rebel Darfurian groups rebelled against the government. In response to the Darfurian rebellions, the Sudanese government banded together a militia comprised of the Arab herders (known as the Janjaweed) in order to eliminate the African peasants and other non-Arabs. In other words, the genocide in Darfur is a government sponsored extermination of non-Arabs in the region of Darfur. - Michael McGahren-Clemens

__Statistics__ -- Total Deaths: 400,000 -- Total Displacements: 2,500,000 -- Deaths Per Month: About 5,000 -- Deaths Per Day: About 150 Michael McGahren-Clemens

The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease. President Bashir puts the death toll at 10,000. Accurate figures are difficult to research and have made no distinction between those dying as a result of violence and those dying as a result of starvation or disease in the camps. The numbers are crucial in determining whether the deaths in Darfur are genocide or - as the Sudanese government says - the situation is being exaggerated.
 * How many have died?**

I thought this was interesting because there is no real way that we can know what the true death toll in Darfur really is due to just the violence going on. -Luke Nitis

The birth mortality rate in different parts of Sudan shows the willingness of the government to help out. In the north, where most of the administrators come from, the mortality rate is about 100 boys for 1000 births and 90 girls for the same amount. In the rest of Darfur, the mortality rate is about 120 male deaths and 104 female deaths for 1000 births. This difference in birth mortality rate shows that the North has access to better resources and commodities. They have more adequate medical resources than the rest of Sudan. This shows a bit of sectional elitism and the distribution of wealth across Darfur, a country with 90% of its citizens below the poverty line. - anish **
 * Birth Mortality Rate

In this political cartoon, you can bear witness to the fact that multiple groups are dealing with darfur but not doing a thing. They are walking around in a circle are air failing to accomplish anything. You've got your UN, your African and European Union and your Arab league and they seem to not take the genocide as a big deal. It is present and they are not even taking notice to the deaths.- Anish

The GOS's control of information is evident. Corruption seems to be rampant in Sudan while the current administration still denies the death toll that the rest of the world acknowledges. Even the Economic Freedom has been low in Sudan. For the past few years, Sudan hasn't been rated due to political instability, but leading up to the genocide Sudan seemed to have a lack of transparency in its private sector. Access to information is very important and Sudan a lack of it demonstrates the authoritarian rule.- Anish []

Currently the African Union or the majority of it has stated its opinion that al Bashir does not deserve his international warrant for arrest. As a result he is able to go to many countries in Africa. 30 nations or so in Africa have objected and will arrest him if he steps into their country. The African Union boasts a large amount of Arabian nations which support al Bashir. It is also important to note that the Arabian nomads were the ones that committed the genocide. - anish []

This comic released in 2006 shows a lack of willingness from the American people to get involved with Darfur. The excuses of the common people are contributed to their "other" more American problems. It us four years later and there is either a lack of awareness of the American people pertaining to the genocide in Darfur or the denial of the fact that it's a problem. This comic mocks America as a chauvinistic obese man who just has too many issues with which to deal -Anish Patel



====This comic, like the one previous, displays how the Americans blatantly ignore getting involved in Darfur. The boy sitting next to the lady is in obvious need of help, but she's too busy and interested in reading about the help a polar bear needs. This problem has "Twenty Trillion Dollars" vested into it, whereas in Darfur, absolutely no money is being provided. In the background, nobody takes notice of the boy, ignoring his problems and his cry for help -Victoria Chin====

//note:// program of Arabization in process
 * Ethnic groups:** black 52%, Arab 39%, Beja 6%, foreigners 2%, other 1%
 * Religions:** Sunni Muslim 70% (in north), indigenous beliefs 25%, Christian 5% (mostly in south and Khartoum)
 * Languages:** Arabic (official), Nubian, Ta Bedawie, diverse dialects of Nilotic, Nilo-Hamitic, Sudanic languages, English

-Victoria Chin

====Does anyone else find it surprising that up to forty two percent of people do not want to help people who are starving from hunger and exposure in Darfur? Almost half of the population in Pakistan does not express interest in helping people who obviously need it! I don't see how anybody could want to ignore these problems. -Victoria Chin====

As terrible as these statistics may appear, I don't find them all that surprising. The United States has always had a policy of wanting to aid other nations. However, many other areas of the world don't appreciate what we consider "helpful" interventions. From a different perspective, the UN's aid could be viewed as an unnecessary invasion and an insult to the integrity of Sudan's government. -Mary Lu Unterburger

[]

An interesting video about the genocide in Darfur - Victoria Chin

11 Facts about Darfur

 * 1) **Over the past five years, over 400,000 Darfurian civilians have been killed. **
 * 2) **150,000 people have died directly from acts of violence in Darfur. **
 * 3) **90% of the villages of Darfur’s targeted ethnic groups have been destroyed. **
 * 4) **97% of these killings have been against innocent civilians and executed by militia groups instructed by the government. **
 * 5) **80 infants die each day in Darfur due to a lack of proper nutrition **
 * 6) **80% of those displaced are women and young girls who are consistently the victims of sexual violence and abducted into sexual slavery **
 * 7) **Humanitarian refugee camps in Chad and Sudan are overcrowded, disease infested, and prone to attacks. **
 * 8) **2.8 million people have been displaced within Sudan. **
 * 9) **250,000 people have fled Darfur, mainly to Chad where they are facing further violence. **
 * 10) **Despite an abundance of oil and other natural resources, the vast majority of Sudan’s people live in poverty, and its Government has been described as ‘the most repressive regime in the world’. **
 * 11) **On September 9th 2004, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Darfur conflict was genocide, and called it the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. This is the first time the Untied States has ever declared genocide while the genocide was still happening. **

- Victoria Chin



The cartoon above represents the consequences of the United Nations' desire to wait to intervene in Sudan. The UN allowed the government of Sudan to head the efforts to limit genocide in Darfur. Over 300,000 Darfurians have died as a result of the genocide. Those people are represented by the skeletons laying below the newly arrived UN soldiers. -Jesse DeCesare

Darfur Genocide Current Event- " Strolling to end Genocide in Darfur"
 * Last Saturday, there were kids, teens, and adults marching to raise money to send off to Darfur. It was in support for the group “Stroll for Sudan” The money goes to food, medical supplies, as well as clothes and other provisions. The contributors were marching to raise awareness about the Sudanese Genocide. They don’t want the atrocities to be overlooked. Despite a slow decrease in violence, diseases, starvation, and malnutrition are still killing. **

I was happy to see this current event. I am glad that people are trying to get the terrible situation in Darfur noticed. I think sometimes people tend to overlook the fact that people living in Sudan through the violence are not getting proper treatment in multiple areas. For instance, they often lack sturdy medical attention, and don’t have the proper nutrition.

- Olivia p.4

This is a map of Darfur that shows the extensive damage that had been going on. There were hundreds of villages destroyed, others damaged and also tons of people forced to leave their villages due to all the conflict going on in Darfur. -Luke Nitis

Each month 100 civilians are killed by one side or another and there will probably be more when the army tries to clear rebel strongholds after the attempted putsch. UN patrols around the displaced camps could stop many of these killings and monitors following army operations can deter others. I am all for this. But let us not pretend that they would stop the war. Like emergency food rations, this sort of protection is a stop-gap measure that saves lives until a political solution can be found. The one thing that has really worked in Darfur is emergency relief. It has kept millions alive. Humanitarian aid in wartime is an exercise in making a disaster just about tolerable. Relief is now so proficient that death rates among Darfur's children have been brought down to pre-war levels. We should keep that aid effort going.

This article from BBC News in 2008, is interesting because it opposes UN intervention in Sudan. Although it does say that it is all for the possibility of UN patrols to "...stop many of these killings" it also states that UN intervention would not put a halt to the war. The author of the article, Alex de Waal, believes that humanitarian efforts are more effective than UN efforts. He states that humanitarian aid has kept millions alive and limited the destruction of the war. This is just a passage from the article, here is the link. []

Jesse DeCesare

Darfur Camps: A Photo Gallery About one fifth of Sudan's population is living in refugee camps to escape their Janjaweed oppressors. The majority of this group consists of young people. The above link features many pictures of these camps, along with basic facts about them. For instance, basic commodities such as sugar and grains are in short supply, and can arrive to the camps up to three months late. The government clearly isn't making much of an effort to help refugees at a fast pace. -Mary Lu Unterburger  Never again? After the Holocaust we made a promise to never let something like that ever happen again. US leaders have made pledges to never let genocide happen again. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush as well as Bill Clinton have mentioned it. Yet so many genocides were still allowed to happen after the Holocaust. The genocide in Darfur was carried out and is still ongoing. For the Africans its an everyday battle. The crisis has led to systematic murder, rape, abduction, and displacements. They also suffer from starvation, dehydration, diseases, and malnutrition. Millions of men, women, and children are suffering at this moment and yet we let it continue on. -StephanieChan

The message in this political cartoon is that while the events of genocide are being neglected so are some of the things that happen as a result of genocide. Mass rapes are a major concern in all genocides because through dehumanization the soldiers bring themselves to be able to rape whole villages of women. Its really horrible that the general public tends to ignore things like mass rape on top of neglecting the genocides themselves. Therefore horrors such as mass rape occur in the "shadows" of genocide. -Kevin Teahan  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMBZpGRF4tg Brian Steidle is a former marine captain goes to Darfur as a patrol leader in Sudan. It was when he arrived there did he realize what truly was happening to the people in Africa. He quotes, "I hadn't heard of you know people hacking each other up, burning people alive, I mean its the twenty first century. That doesn't happen, but it does, it happens everyday in Sudan." I think it's because most people just like him live only in this advanced lifestyle. It makes genocide seems so unreal and we often just forget about the rest of the world. He goes on to explain how the conflict started. I found it interesting how Mr. Steidle relates the Arabs and Africans' fight over land rights with the US's history with the farmers and ranchers. Our government was able to intervene but the Sudan government chose to side with the Arabs in fighting against the Africans. The Sudan government claims their army and the Janjaweed are separate. Mr. Steidle is a witness of seeing them work side by side. He has also witnessed the helicopters shootings, destroying of villages and the impact it has had on the people living there. He is hopeful in believing that the pictures he took and his story will reach out to people. I found this video and his words very inspiring. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tAPeDEUjcE&NR=1 This is another video on the genocide in Darfur. Instead of an eyewitness, this has actual victims who speak of the problem in Darfur and what they have gone through. -Stephanie Chan

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;">** __RAPE IN SUDAN__ ** Rape was used and still is as a weapon of genocide in Darfur. It is used in three main ways as a weapon. 1. to impregnate women so that they have children that are not fully 'black' (assists in ending the black race) 2. to ostracize (to exclude from a group by common consent) so that they don't get married and therefore don't reproduce 3. to damage the reproductive organs of a woman so that she cant reproduce in the future "Attacks on women are characterized by extreme physical abuse. Women who attempt to escape or resist attack are beaten, tortured or killed. Some women have reported havingtheir fingernails pulled out as a form of torture or their legs broken so that they are not capable of escaping. Rape has particularly severe health consequences in Darfur where anestimated 89% of women have undergone female circumcision and/or infibulation. Furthermore, rape exposes women to an increased risk of HIV/AIDS and other sexuallytransmitted diseases." -Darfur: Gendered Violence and Rape as a Weapon of Genocide ~Abbie Orlando

[] The United Nations were also involved in the rape of young children in Darfur and the United Nations being corrupt is a big problem for refugees when they have to deal with both rape from Sudanese and now even corrupt U.N. peacekeepers. -Luke Nitis

[] This is a timeline that shows the events in Darfur during the genocide, and how the UN responds to the crisis - Stephen Sorgi

The GOS plays an active role in the murdering of the Black Africans in Darfur. Below is a picture of a helicopter provided to the Janjaweed by the GOS to bomb villages in Darfur. -Angela Bujaj

__Classification__
The population in Darfur can be divided using a different classification into four groups, the Baggara (cattle nomads), the Aballa (camel nomads), the Zurga (the local name for non-Arab peasants derived from the Arabic word for black), and the inhabitants of the urban centres. Some other groups are the Fur, they are the largest ethnic group in Darfur and were the founders of the Fur Sultanate and the traditional rulers of the region. The other non-Arab ethnic groups are the Zaghawa nomads, Meidob, Masalit, Berti, Tama, Mararit, and Tunjur.
 * -**Roisin Wiley

Images of Genocide in Sudan The above video features a plethora of photos depicting the awful results of the tragedy in Darfur. It is a simple yet effective compilation that will force any viewer to reconsider their thoughts on the genocide. -Mary Lu Unterburger

__**Denial**__
I found this brief article and video of Omar Al- Bashir denying all war crimes that he was accused of. [|Omar Al-Bashir Denies All War Crimes]

-Roisin Wiley
I found an article that has quotes from an ex-Janjaweed member describing what happened. What happens daily in Darfur is horrible: "The aircraft went ahead of the Janjaweed. We saw the smoke, we saw the fire, then we went in... Whenever we go into a village and find resistance we kill everyone. Sometimes they said wipe out an entire village... We hear kill! Kill! Kill! And we shoot to kill... "

[] - Angela Bujaj

This cartoon depicts America as a lazy bystander who is casually observing the genocide in Sudan. Like many Americans, he reflects upon the conflict without feeling much compassion or emotion. Rather than taking action himself, he thinks that someone else should, and goes back to his leisurely activities. The laziness depicted above reflects the attitude of far too many observers who think that someone else will take hold of the situation. If everyone thinks this way, no one will be willing to take action in Sudan.

=History of Darfur:= Darfur was an independent state for hundreds of years. In the 1800’s, the leadership in Darfur was tossed around between an notorious slave trader named Zubya Rahma and then taken under the power of the Ottoman Empire. Bandits, nomads and local armies attacked defenseless villages and were often in conflict. A larger Islamic army was busy fighting the British colonies and therefore created a larger Muslim population in Darfur. Constant fighting continued until 1899 when Egypt declared a new sultan (leader) of Darfur as Ali Dinar. This returned peace to Darfur for a period of years. British and French forces were building colonies surrounding Darfur and the British already had control of Sudan. Ali Dinar spent most of his career fighting the British until he was one day ambushed and killed. Darfur was then absorbed into the British colony and thus Sudan. The new colonial rulers did not care about development of the region, but only in keeping the area peaceful. Therefore living standards were extremely low and poverty was common. When Sudan was granted independence in 1956, the colonists of Sudan continued to keep the North that had the fertile land prospering and neglect the rest of the land south east and (Darfur) west. The people of Sudan offered control to an Arab elite group, who if you recall was a main reason for the constant fighting in the region. There was constant tension between the government and the farmers and Arab supremacism in neighboring countries like Chad did not help. Famine and loss of marginal land also put excess stress on farmers. When Bashir came to power in 1989, he stopped all peace efforts and began to send ethnic militias to fight the non arab southerners. The rest went downhill from there. –Annie Carforo



This cartoon simply depicts Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. The skulls below him represent the dead Darfurians that he is responsible for killing. The net beside him represents the International Criminal Court whom has sent out an arrest warrant on Bashir. They have not been able to catch him yet and that is depicted in the cartoon. -Jesse DeCesare

[] This is a timeline of events in Sudan dating back to when they were ruled by the Britsh and the Egyptians during the first half of the 20th century, then when they received independence in 1956, then into periods of turmoil during the latter half of the 20th century and finally it concludes with the recent uprisings and killings that have brought about the question of Darfur being a genocide or not. This is interesting because it displays the instability of Sudan throughout the 20th and the early 21st centuries. --Jesse DeCesare

Young boys and girls kidnapped About 11,000 young boys and girls were kidnapped and taken to South Darfur or West Kordofan. They are forced to convert to Islam. The Janjaweed abductors have been accused of abducting children and forcing them to become domestic workers. An anonymous boy said that he was beat regularly by his kidnappers. He quotes They were treating me and the other boys very badly, they kept telling us that we are not human beings and we are here to serve them, I also worked on their farms." This also showed they were dehumanized. Another young girl quoted, "My abductor told me that I was his slave and I had to do all the work he told me to — fetching water and firewood, looking after animals and farming. When I was 12, he said he wanted to sleep with me. I could not refuse because I was a slave, I had to do everything he wanted, or he could have killed me." -StephanieChan

This is a good cartoon showing that while the genocide in Darfur was going on, the media made no effort or a very little one to get the public attention to what was going on in Darfur. -Luke Nitis



This is another cartoon rendering the lack of involvement from the U.S. and the rest of the western world. Darfurians are calling for help but they are not receiving any attention. Westerners are too busy with other matters and therefore they have put the massacre in Darfur behind all of their other concerns.---Jesse DeCesare

The GOS and Janjaweed split up the extermination of the black Africans into two steps. First, black African villages would be targeted and destroyed. The GOS would bomb and shell the villages in order to force everyone to leave. Anyone who stayed behind would either be killed or raped by Janjaweed infantry who followed the GOS attack. The oppressors would subsequently burn the villages down, including all of the livestock that the farmers left behind. Now, all of the black Africans would be gathered in IDP camps along Darfur and Chad. Resources were not enough to support everyone in the camps, so dying for starvation or malnutrition was not difficult. Also, women were constantly sent out to gather materials such as firewood, and would be raped by any GOS or Janjaweed in the area. At times, the oppressors would invade and massacre all of the people in the cramped IDP camps. These camps were almost an indirect form of preparation, where all of the targeted people were gathered together, and the conditions were harsh enough to kill many of them. Although the extermination is not as bad today, many people died since 2003 because of these attacks. -Andrew L The above cartoon is yet another example of how the tragedy in Sudan was ignored by the UN. It portrays the United Nations as a small old man, completely unaffected by the enormous pile of dead Darfurians that lies at his feet. The cartoonist clearly believes that the UN is ignoring the conflict because it does not affect Europe at all. The disregarding of African conflicts happens all too often because people simply do not care enough about such foreign areas. -Mary Lu Unterburger