Saturday, November 20, 2004
What is happening in Darfur ?
So many things, mostly undesirable ones , are happening in different
parts of the world we we live in. That is no excuse for the current
apathy and listlessness our world is showing to Darfur. The world
leaders and world bodies appear to be asleep. True, no body can be
awakened if it is a pretended sleep. But,
how long we will continue this pretension?
A campaign of killing, rape, burning and looting by the Janjaweed
militias , have already lead to a loss of more than 75,000 lives and
displacement of an estimated 1.4 million others. It was almost 4
months ago, the UN described the situation in Darfur as "the world's
worst humanitarian crisis". Nothing much has changed in the region,
since that, except for some aid coming in. The government of Sudan
has reneged on its promise to disarm the Janjaweed. Their campaign has
the sole
objective of eradicating the black tribes .If this is not genocide,
it's difficult to imagine what other way it will look like .
Unarmed,defenceless,innocent victims are killed in groups. The
systematic violence driven by ethnic hatred does not spare
women and children. Girls as young as 10 and women as old as 80 are
raped mercilessly. Appalling, gut-wrenching and vicious are just some
of the terms used by the journalists who visited the region and gave
first hand accounts .
Darfur is an area involving western part of the African country of
Sudan, where it borders with the neighbouring country of Chad. It is
an over simplification to say that it is a fight between tribes and
Govt. of Sudan is not just able to control the
fight. Most of the eye witnesses, naturally young men and women
reporters from the west , say it is a systematic killing of the black
African tribes by Arab Africans, with the blessing of the Sudanese
government. First, there is the question of who is an Arab and who is
a black African. The government discounts those labels and says
everyone in Darfur is simply Sudanese. But the local population
recognizes differences. Though in some cases, the Arabs have lighter
skin than the black Africans, it is true that it may be a little
difficult for outsiders to differentiate between them. Years of
intermarriage have blurred that distinction. In general, Arabs tend to
speak Arabic as their first language. They are nomadic. The black
Africans use African languages as well as Arabic. They tend to be
farmers.The problem began because the people of Darfur are divided
into two groups in terms of their way of living, the farmers and the
shepherds. The
natural grazing areas are in the North and when the summer begins and
grass becomes rare to find , the shepherds move down to South to
graze. When draught became a regular affair, the shepherds started
moving to the south earlier in the year,leading to destruction of the
crops of the southern tribes. Tensions started mounting up and instead
of finding a proper solution the Sudanese Government in an attempt to
quell all rebels started supporting a dangerous Arab militia called
janjaveeds who found this as the golden opportunity to cleanse the
area ethnically. The Islamic websites do support Sudanese government
in general, resisting all western versions alleging that this is just
another anti islamic propaganda. Strangely, the African nations, who
have deployed a monitoring force with no policing powers in the
region, also keep a silence , which is criminal.
But the world bodies should have a proper perspective over and above
the versions of Africa Sudan,Europe or US. By now independent
observers and media men have furnished enough evidences to reasonably
believe that what is occurring in Darfur
is almost genocide. The fact that there are a few Arab groups who do
not take part in the carnage and the armed militia called Janjaveed
some time attack even liberal Arab groups should not help to divert
the attention from the attempt to eradicate the black Africans. The
fact that both the attackers and victims are muslims and both go to
Mosques also should not lead to complacency. Sub groups and main
groups themselves may behave erratically during genocide. Even the
violence in Rwanda 10 years ago, which the United States belatedly
labeled a genocide, was
not as simple a matter as it was often portrayed.There, Hutus were
victims as well as perpetrators. Yet there was no doubt that the
Hutu-led government's overall plan was to eliminate the ethnic Tutsi
population.In Darfur, one more dimension is that the Janjaveed militia
conduct the raids in Sudanese army uniforms. In other words, instead
of keeping the promise to the world , of disarming the Janjaveed, they
are armed to the teeth by Government itself, legitimising their
cruelty.
What is genocide? The question is more than academic. The Genocide
Convention, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, calls on signers to
"prevent" and "punish" genocide. Genocide is defined as a calculated
effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The
term grew out of the Nazi crimes
but has been defined broadly to include many heinous acts: killing,
causing serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting conditions designed
to bring about physical destruction, attempting to prevent births or
forcibly transferring children.
According to the principles accepted from genocide convention, an
attempt for genocide , whether in whole or in part deserves the same
attention and the perpetrators as well as those who abet such heinous
crimes to humanity should be punished . It is disgusting and horrible
to read the reports and view the images
on the human tragedy of Darfur. Th statements and body languages of
the Sudanese politicians themselves speak the truth. Still experts are
researching whether what is going on , does amount to genocide or
not. The African Union says that the threshold for genocide had not
been reached. "Even though the crisis in Darfur is grave, with
unacceptable levels of deaths, human suffering and destruction of
homes and infrastructure, the situation cannot be described as a
genocide," the group of African states said. Even Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch say that more evidence is needed.
Much of the current
disagreement centers on how much evidence is necessary to make a
etermination of genocide, said Susannah Sirkin, deputy director of
Physicians for Human Rights. Should enough facts be gathered to
prosecute a genocide case in court or should the threshold be lower?
"The goal of prevention, which is paramount, cannot wait until a full
legal determination is made," she said.
My point is that united nations had much lesser justifications to
intimidate Iraq. Even then, it as a world body only paved the way for
an illegal war and invasion of Iraq. In the current controversy,
ironically, t is only the US, a country that has lost
its credibility in the contemporary world , that has recognised what
is going on in Darfur as genocide. As we heard Kofee Annan recently
saying that world was late to recognise the genocide of Rwanda 10
years ago, we might hear another UN secretary general proclaiming
after 10 years that world failed in its duty in Darfur. 10 years ago,
800,000 people died in 100 days in Rwanda, as the international
community looked on. The 135 signatories to the 1948 Geneva Convention
Against Genocide have a duty to "prevent and protect" and
subsequently to prosecute and to bring to justice those who commit
crimes against humanity.
But, the cruel world is just looking on !
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