The Genocide of the People of Darfur

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                                About Me and Why I am Writing This

My name is Tiffany and I am 19 years old. I attend college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where I major in Forensic Anthropology. This web is being written for three reasons, one being the most important. The first being I for a grade in my fluency in information technology class. Now don't think this will be a piece of garbage web site. All ( well most) of my work will be back from research. Which brings me to my second reason for writing this. This web site is being made from a research paper I am doing for my cultural anthropology class. The third and most important is to try to inform everyone that I can on a genocide that is going on in Africa. I just found out about this and I now want others to know

                                                 Genocide: Defined

"According to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is defined as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:"

  1. *(a) Killing members of the group;
  2. *(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  3. *(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  4. *(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  5. *(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."About.com
This includes the holocaust in Rwanda, the famous Germany Holocaust against Jews, and the present-day holocaust against the people of Danfur.


The Civil War in Sudan

                                                         

                The civil war in Sudan is the result of racial stereotyping between Arabic Muslims and black Africans.

CIVIL WAR IN DARFUR: Chronology

  1. 1983-87: Zaghawa and Mahariya against the Fur: The drought of the early 1980s drove nomadic Zaghawa and Arab groups southwards into the central Fur region of Jebel Marra. Some sought water and pasture for their animals, but many had lost so much animal wealth that they were seeking to settle permanently. The Zaghawa who moved to urban centres had some success in petty trade, but those who kept to rural areas encountered hostility from the Fur farmers - who realized that the move might this time be permanent - and from government forces who accused them of camel rustling. The Fur elite in local government resisted the nomads' intrusion rather than seek accommodation. Police and army burned down numerous Zaghawa settlements and extra-judicially executed local Zaghawa leaders. The influx of modern weaponry increased dramatically: an estimated 50,000 AK47s, G3 rifles, RPGs and heavy machine guns were available in Darfur, equivalent to one for every adult male.

  2. 1987 to present: The Arab alliance against the Fur The element of racial prejudice became further entwined with the environmental roots of the conflict with the formation of an alliance of 27 Arab nomad tribes and their declaration of war against the "Zurug" (black) and non-Arab groups of Darfur. The response of the Fur was to form their own militias, at first for local self-defence and later as part of a short-lived but significant linkage with the SPLA. The main aim of the nomads was to seize land, and they would often give notice to Fur villagers before the raids to make way for the "liberating" or "cleansing" forces. Nonetheless, the toll on population and resources was high. By the time of the 1989 peace conference, an estimated 5,000 Fur and 400 Arabs had been killed; tens of thousands had been displaced and 40,000 homes destroyed. The Sahel drought, coupled with interference by government and the struggle for local political power, appears to have polarized the ethnic groups whose identities and inter-relationship had hitherto been fluid. The only way out of the crisis will be the recognition of its environmental and developmental origins, and the negotiation of equitable access to resources in a fragile eco-zone. SudanUpdate

    The history of Sudan before 1983 was just as unstable. The land was once split with different tribes living and claming different areas.It was not until a Muslim leader came and brought the North and most of the South together.Thus this made the majority of the people of Arabic descent. As Americans we know all about the thought of one race better then the other. It is human behavior to always feel this way. So this is what the what the people of Arabic did too. They felt the Africans of Sudan were "slaves" and beneath them.Soon that hatred manifested into bloodlust thus starting the genocide. In WWII, Hilter and the people of Germany hatered for Jew also manifested just like the Muslims in Sudan. The only real difference in the two is in Germany it was kept secret from the world of what was going on. In Darfur, however, one can plainly see the corpeses and burned bulding of the African in plain veiw.