What's Up With Darfur, Anyway?

The following is a brief crash course through some of the relevant history of the Darfur region of Sudan: one cannot hope to stem the bloodshed of infants if one does not have a grasp of the causes behind the deadly ailment...

- The people of Darfur (the western region of Sudan) have been historically either marginalized or used in brutal ways by the government in Khartoum (far away on the eastern side of Sudan).

- 1960s-70s - Colonel Gaddafi from Libya (north-western border of Darfur) wanted to create a pan-Arab state - his first step was to overthrow the Chadian government (western border of Darfur). He armed people in Darfur to fight against “black” tribes (you know how the West drew bizarre borders in Africa after WWII that didn’t respect tribal boundaries, etc? Well, there are some “black” tribes which were split by the border between Darfur/Sudan and Chad, so tribal loyalties exist across internationally established borders) in Chad. In response, the Chadian government armed its tribal connections in Darfur to resist the Libyans, and a very bloody proxy war ensued. The Sudanese government in Khartoum allowed this to happen because Libya paid the government in weaponry and cash to do so.

- 1984 - There was a drought in the region, and Khartoum could have but did not help the Darfuri people get food. A famine ensued. Traditionally, “Arab” nomadic folk in Darfur had grazed their animals on “African” farmland, and everyone was alright with that because there was trading that occurred and it was beneficial for everyone. During the famine, though, the “African” farmers didn’t want to share their crop because there was hardly enough for them, so obviously conflict arose. The conflict was not ethnic, it was regional and economic, but Khartoum saw it and took advantage, continuing to try and convince the “Arabs” that the “Africans” were not letting them graze on their land because they were trying to kill them, etc. I keep using quotes because those terms are general and do not respect tribal subtleties, but they are accurate enough for our purposes.

- 1989 - Current President al-Bashir took power, dissolving parliament and all opposition parties

- 1994 - Darfur fell victim to, essentially, government gerrymandering - Khartoum split Darfur into a Western, Southern, and Northern state, so that the overall “African” majority of the Fur tribe became, in each new state, a minority. The “Africans” were brutally oppressed and often forced to fight a war in Southern Sudan that they had nothing to do with.

- 25 April 2003 - The oppressed folk had been organizing for years, and on this date, staged a militaristically brilliant attack on government forces in order to gain economic and political credence. The government was scared out of its mind because Darfur had always been a buffer zone and an area to fight proxy wars with Libya and Chad - if the Darfuri “Africans” were staging attacks, Chadian forces would probably help them take over the Khartoum government. So they unleashed an “Arab” militia, the Janjaweed, to do more than suppress the insurgency: the orders were to rid the land of the “African slaves” - you get the picture.

- So now, 7,000 kids under age five are dying per month. There are 2.5 million internally displaced refugees in Darfur, and over 500,000 refugees in Chad. The government is helping the Janjaweed rape women and slaughter babies, while the conflict is becoming fast a part of an international war with Chad - Sudanese president al-Bashir is again trying to overthrow the Chadian government. Rape and starvation are used as weapons of war and 13 international aid workers have been killed in the last few months.

- The genocidal bloodshed has (quite literally) spilled into Chad and the Central African Republic. The Sudanese government recently seemed to agree to some form of United Nations assistance in achieving stability in the region, which it had resisted vehemently for some time. This tentative agreement, however, is as useless as the Darfur Peace Agreement that was signed on 5 May 2006 (since that date, the violence has escalated dramatically). However, within forty-eight hours of the meeting in which Khartoum agreed to UN assistance with Darfur, over fifty civilians, including children, were butchered by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed. Journalists are being separated from their permits (which often are the only things standing between them and prison) at a rapid rate, and international aid agencies continue to be forced out of the country at an alarming rate. Within the last few days, seven young girls were burnt alive: a common fate for the very young and the very old who were born to "African" parents in Darfur and Chad.