Darfur, a Modern-Day Genocide

Darfur, A Modern-Day Genocide

The Darfur Genocide in Sudan marks the first genocide in the 21st century. Since early 2003, many darfuri men,women, children were murdered..The conflict came from deep ethnic hatred and a history of civil war between nomadic and agricultural tribes. When the Darfur Genocide took place, many human rights were violated. A US Marine, Brian Steidle,was able to observe the Darfuri people and the human dignities of which they were so dearly neglected [W]itnessed systematic attacks against civilians carried out by the Sudanese government and its allied militias, the Janjaweed”(Human Rights Watch). These attacks led to an estimated amount of 300,000 Darfuris dead in the years of 2003-2008. As the Darfuri people continued to suffer, Darfur remained a hostile place for many years.

In early February 2003, the region of Sudan’s Darfur rebels are under the militaristic dictatorship of Omar Al Bashir. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) rebels attacked the town of El Fasher, due to decades of neglect and claims of ethnic cleansing of all Africans in Darfur by the central government. (Google Sites) Lacking any political means to compete against such great social and economic marginalization, the rebel Darfuris picked up arms to coerce the Sudanese government.

Under the rule of Omar Al Bashir, the government retaliated with extreme military force against civilians and devised the Janjaweed militia to fight the rebel SLM and JEM armies. The Janjaweed and the Sudanese regime used the ideas of salafist discourse to designate Darfuris of the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit tribes as infidels (karfir). The salafist discourse was a excuse by the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese to target the mainly Muslim population. “A mechanism needed to be developed, according to which the people of Darfur could be classified as evil, justifying their destruction. Capitalizing on the Salafist roots of its ideology, the regime managed to develop a powerful narrative that categorized Darfuris as infidels by connecting them to Judaism.” ( Alhaj Warrag)

The onslaught of these beliefs led to the malicious reasoning of the Janjaweed and constituted to the murder of over 300,000 Darfuri citizens, the sexual violation of thousands of young women and children, the thousand villages burnt to ash, and the 2.5 million displaced by the paramilitary forces (Janjaweed) under the puppet strings and influence of the Sudanese government.

On the account of the unstable nature in the Darfur region showed in 2003, is only the outcome of developing tensions since 1955. Due to growing impacts of desertification caused tension to grow between nomadic and agricultural communities. The encroaching deserts forced nomads further south and into ever so increasing conflicts with farming communities. The increasing scarcity of resources led to the rise of tribal antipathies over a period of 20 years. Rising tensions between nomadic and agricultural tribes ended in 1972 with a Addis Ababa agreement, which gains Sudan independence but contributes to a rise of power or coup d’ état and constant conflict continues to cause a unstable government. Later in the year 1977, oil is discovered in southern Sudan. Imperialistic nations such as China, Britain, and India use Sudan’s currently brittle state and “when countries [Sudan] with a few other resources of national wealth exploit their petroleum reserves… and the well equipped and often privileged security forces of the years ‘petro-states’ can be counted on to support them” combining these dictatorial tendencies with history and thirst with imperialistic Chinese, Indian, and British economies, and a formula for destabilization in conflict is formed in Africa. (How oil drives the genocide in Darfur)

The year 1983, just before the conflict in Darfur begins in 2003 sparks the rebel groups such as the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF), and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) against the Sudanese government. These rebels went against the Sudanese government after many decades of neglect, abuse, and distress. After Sharia law was implemented into the Sudanese law and Omar Al Bashir seizes power coup d’ état the rebellion movement armies decide to attack military forces in Gulu in February of 2003. However, it wasn’t until the Sudanese Army and the Janjaweed militia attacked the town of (ushgdu) in February for the United Nations in late April, to notice desecrated human rights in light of the heinous crimes of the Sudanese government such as; murdered communities, the young women and children raped, the incineration villages and home alike, and the intent to neglect and store internally a displaced person to death. According to the US Senate and House, on July 29th,2004