GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Sudan Timeline

The history of any modern nation is inexhaustibly complex. In other words, plotting the history of a failed postcolonial state like Sudan is like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

However, what's been lost in so many reports of the genocide in the western Darfur region of the country is the fact that a civil war has separated the north and the south for decades, and has just been, for lack of a better term, settled. After all, the new President of southern Sudan sat with President Bush in the White House last month.

So here is a rough timeline of the postcolonial history of Sudan, drawn from news sources, especially the BBC and also from the United Nations.

1899-1955 | Sudan exists as a colony under the joint-rule of Britain and Egypt.

1972 | Southern Sudan becomes a self-governing region.

1978 | Oil is discovered in Sudan, only to be pumped and sold -- much to China -- almost 20 years later.

1983 | At the behest of President Numayri, Sharia (Islamic Law) is imposed on Sudan.

1985 | Civil war breaks out between North and South and continues to rage for almost the next twenty years.

1998 |US President Bill Clinton, as part of a concentrated military strike against Osama Bin Laden, bombs a pharmaceutical plant in the capital city of Khartoum, ostensibly a facility to manufacture chemical weapons.

1999 | Oil exports commence.

2002 | Civil War ends.

2003 Feb.-Mar. | Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rise up in Western region of Sudan against the central government in Khartoum. "Militants accused President Omar Hassan El-Bashir of oppressing black Africans in favor of Arabs in Darfur." From Wikipedia: "A point of particular confusion has been the characterization of the conflict as one between 'Arab' and 'African' populations, a dichotomy that one historian describes as "both true and false."

2003 Sep. | Refugees in neigboring Chad number 65,000. A half million are in need of aid.

2003 Dec. | Arab Janjaweed rampage through Darfur, burning villages and raping women. Refugees increase. Khartoum government restricts international aid agencies. UN Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland calls Darfur "one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world." Number in need of aid doubles to a million.

2004 Jan. | Militia attacks multiply. Khartoum allows aid workers.

2004 Apr. | Egeland reports to the UN Security Council a coordinated "scorched-earth" campaign. Janjaweed are burning villages, nothing short of ethnic cleansing of Darfur's Black Africans.

2004 Apr. | A Khartoum/SLA/JEM cease-fire is signed. Does little.

2004 May | UN Security Council calls on Khartoum to disarm Janjaweed.

2004 June | Fundraising for region begins in earnest.

2004 June-July | UN Secretary General Kofi Annan makes trip to Khartoum with US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Meetings are held with Sudanese Government officials about humanitarian aid. A communique is signed. Annan and Powell return home and hold press conferences to "call for greater international pressure" on the government in Khartoum.

2004 Aug. | UN report finds that the Sudanese military and Government-allied militias have carried out most of the extrajudicial killings. African Union ceasefire monitors confirm atrocities of Sudanese military. More peace talks, in Nigeria. International funding lags.

2004 Sep. | 200 people dying daily. US President Bush declares the crisis in Darfur a genocide and then goes silent on the issue.

2005 Jan. | Khartoum and rebels in South sign peace deal. Genocide in West rages.

2005 Mar. | UN Security Council imposes sanctions and threat of International Criminal Court.

2005 Oct. | Autonomous government takes power in South.

2006 Apr. | Due to lack of funding, UN cuts food aid to Darfur.

2006 May | Total US foreign aid to Darfur tops $1 billion (85% of World Food Program's work in region).

2006 July | Bush renews call for UN peacekeeping forces in Darfur before 2007. Meets with Southern President Salva Kiir at White House. Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir says UN troops will enter Sudan, "only over my dead body . . . We will not allow colonial forces into the country."

(Image of Southern Sudanese Village from flickr and image from Suakin from flickr.)

Comments

[chris]

what the fuck is a black african?

Only (God) himself will best this nation to it's fullish, time is a matter at hand.

A black african is a distinct ethnic group in Sudan compared to the lighter skinned Arabs. These two groups used to coexist peacefully and titles were normally only economic, until western countries unified Sudan under one country. They did so without consulting the Black African population, and thus they became marginalized and largely oppressed by the Arabs under the new government. When the Black Africans began to demand their rights, using rebel groups such as the Darfur Liberation Army, that is when the Sudanese government began the genocide through military action and the janjaweed terrorist activities.

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