GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Intro -- It's Hardly a World Away

Almost two years ago, then Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and said the following:

"The conflict between the Government of Sudan and two rebel groups that began in 2003 has precipitated the worst humanitarian and human rights crisis in the world today. The primary clevage is ethnic: Arabs (GOS and militia forces) vs. non-Arab villagers belonging primarily to the Zaghawa, Massalit, and Fur ethnic groups. Both groups are predominantly Muslim."

This came two months after the US House of Representatives declared the situation in the Darfur region of western Sudan a genocide.

Now, two years later, feckless cease-fires have come and gone. Rallies in Washington have been had. Celebrities have affixed their visages to the cause, and what's left? Still a torn country, an enlarged refugee crisis in neighboring Chad and no end in site.

This week The Inquirer will deliver on the genocide taking place in Darfur. Mainstream media outlets, namely the nightly news broadcasts, have been shameless in their coverage. Well, let's be honest, they just haven't covered it at all. Luckily, however, journalists like Nicholas Kristof have championed the cause with vivid, horrific and endlessly informative reporting.

What's harrowing is that there's no simple solution. The situation today is years in the making, tribal in nature and in light of the disastrous 1992 US humanitarian intervention in Somalia, not going to be simply ended by a military intervention.

The cry from the revelations of Nazi death camps in 1945 was "never again!" And today, in another part of a drastically shrunk -- some say flattened -- world, arguments against a more vigorous pursuit of a solution simply sound doltish.

This week The Inquirer will give you everything from a timeline of the conflict and a Darfur for Dummies to coverage of the weekly vigil held outside the UN on 45th Street and possible ways to move forward.

Stay tuned.

(Photo from the Genocide Memorial in Nyamata, Rwanda from flickr.)

Comments

[Sam Davidson]

Thank you so much for doing this. I keep a blog (www.darfurbedamned.blogspot.com) in order to keep people informed about all that is going on. I appreciate your willingness to educate.

[darfurnews]

the genocide intervention network has a weekly news update on darfur.
http://www.GenocideIntervention.net/educate/darfurnews/

[Scott Sutton]

I lived in Darfur for 11 years. Thank you for shedding light on this aweful genocide that plagues my home land. I have a blog at www.dyinginthedust.blogspot.com

[jc]

I just watched a segment on 60 minutes dealing with the darfur situation. What their saying is the us gov. is looking the other way on behalf of dafur gov. passing along info on terroriste alkieda in exchange. A negative(us looking the other way) multiplied by a positive(homeland security gaining info on terrorists) equals a negative...(may god help us)

[Nevdja]

Don't you find it "sweet" that 60 minutes ran an October suprise. An old, old story with a progrressive twist - and vola! it's Bush's fault.

Evangelicals for Darfur's website, which is part of Sojourners' website, includes some "resource" materials that actually get around to naming who is actually doing the killing in Darfur, i.e. the Sudanese government and the janjaweed militias. The Arabist component of Khartoum's agenda is briefly mentioned, but there is strangely not a word about the radical Islamism that guides the Sudanese regime and justifies its aggressionn, nor mentioning the UN who stands passive waiting for what?

[Nevdja]

Don't you find it "sweet" that 60 minutes ran an October suprise. An old, old story with a progrressive twist - and vola! it's Bush's fault.

Evangelicals for Darfur's website, which is part of Sojourners' website, includes some "resource" materials that actually get around to naming who is actually doing the killing in Darfur, i.e. the Sudanese government and the janjaweed militias. The Arabist component of Khartoum's agenda is briefly mentioned, but there is strangely not a word about the radical Islamism that guides the Sudanese regime and justifies its aggressionn, nor mentioning the UN who stands passive waiting for what?