Genocide
Essay Preview: Genocide
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The UN Convention clearly defined genocide. It is committed when a group exterminates or annihilates a different group in a nation. The 400,000 km2 region, whose name derives from Home (Dar) of the Black African Fur tribe, hence, Darfur, is a case of genocide. Sudan became a Muslim-dominated state in 1989 after the National Islamic Front (NIF), a radical Muslim organization, took power in a military coup. The fight is basically between black African insurgents and the Khartoum government and its local agents, the Arab militias. According to the article found in the
The deep causes of the rebellion lie in the feeling of superiority and cultural elitism of the “Arabs”, and of resentment and perceived oppression and neglect on the part of the “Africans”.
The same article also included the different tactics and strategies employed by the government, it said:
Incapable of controlling the situation because it had few troops (and many were made up of Westerners who refused to fight their brothers) the government used three types of tactics to try to curb guerilla activities: (a) Extensive use of airpower. Mil Mi-24 combat helicopters engaged in indiscriminate bombing and machine-gunning of civilians while Antonov An-12 transports were used to drop makeshift bombs on villages and IDP concentrations. (b) Recruitment of large numbers of “Arab” militiamen called “Janjaweed”, mounted on camels or horseback. These were at times recruited in neighboring Chad and were motivated by a mixture of cultural/racial prejudice and the lure of looting. They mercilessly engaged in the massacre of civilians. (c) Destruction of the means of livelihood of the population. Wells were filled, cattle were killed and foodstuff stores were destroyed. This caused massive displacement of civilians who either fled to what they hoped were “secure” areas of the province or to Chad.
These strategies were clear forms of genocide basing from the definitions of genocide presented by the UN Convention. The Arab government, through its collaboration with militia groups, such as Janjaweed (armed men on horses), tried to eradicate the African ethnic groups of its country. The Khartoum government tried every possible excuse to stop any humanitarian aid reaching the Darfur population. According to the same article:
On November 16th it refused to unload US food aid bound for Darfur, saying that the cereals it contained were genetically modified. This was not the case but the food aid was nevertheless not distributed. In early January 2004 two Swiss NGOs, the Henri Dunant Center and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, arranged a humanitarian conference in Geneva to organize relief for Darfur. After promising to come, the Sudanese government refused at the last moment, saying it did not want to internationalize the conflict and that such a conference should be organized in Sudan by the government itself.
The Sudanese government is indeed responsible and liable for the said activities. According to the report of Amnesty International (AI) found in this site
a pattern of systematic and unlawful attacks on civilians… by a government-sponsored militia mostly referred to as Janjawid (armed men on horses) or Arab militia and by the government army, including through bombardments of civilian villages by the Sudanese Air Force… In addition to the military and logistical support and the impunity that it provides to the Janjawid, the Sudanese government has used a policy of repression to deal with the problems of Darfur. It has engaged in arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, disappearances and torture in order to punish human rights activists, lawyers, leaders and members of communities in Darfur. The Sudanese government has also used unfair and summary trials, using confessions sometimes extracted under torture without the right to defense, and applied cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments, such as amputations, floggings and the death penalty.
Sudan is one of the signatories of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.