GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Hanging By a Thread

by Eric Reeves

For the past seven years, Eric Reeves has worked full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst. He publishes regularly on the topic and has testified several times before Congress. He is a professor at Smith College and runs the endlessly informative sudanreeves.org.

Despite the blandly disingenuous words of UN officials such as Jan Pronk, and the shameful silence of African Union officials, the catastrophe in Darfur continues to deepen---relentlessly, dangerously, uncontrollably. Malnutrition and mortality are rising rapidly, and growing water shortages will result in the increased use of unsanitary ground water during the current rainy season. Water-borne diseases are already increasingly prevalent and will continue to spread through September. The current outbreak of cholera is poised to explode in any number of camps that have diminished humanitarian resources, fewer sanitary latrines and in many cases are still absorbing large numbers of newly displaced persons as violence continues apace in many locations.

Insecurity has also increased steadily, with a recent spate of deadly attacks on humanitarians that has produced evacuations and suspensions of operations. As Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) notes this week in its Latest Operational Update:

“Despite the signing of a peace agreement in early May, violence has escalated. While the government and rebels have clashed and attacks on civilians have continued in certain areas of Darfur, fighting between different branches of the rebellion has increased, plunging Darfur into deeper insecurity.”

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: The Case of Minni Minnawi

by Andrew Bast

In June of 2005, Robert Zoellick, then Deputy Secretary of State, headed for Sudan carrying personal letters signed by President George W. Bush. They were intended for the signers of the Darfur Peace Agreement, and they guaranteed, in return for a cease-fire, an audience in the White House.

The ensuing tale, frightening and frosty, highlights the raging complexity of the Darfur crisis.

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Shhhhhh! Or We'll Have to Act

From josephine_marie's flickr stream . . .

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: A Story Slow to Spread

by Andrew Bast

Rebel groups began slaughtering innocents in the Darfur region of Western Sudan in early 2003, yet the fighting that more than two years later would be deemed genocide took almost as long to make the headlines. As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof put it, “If only Michael Jackson’s trial had been held in Darfur.” In a month of 2005, on CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS he counted 55 times more stories about Michael Jackson.

By that time, there was no excuse. President Bush had named the genocide as such. People, however few in scale, were aware of the conflict. The cat was out of the bag.

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Maps of Scorched Villages and Refugee Camps

From USAID is an excellent map of the Sudan border area with Chad. Click here to see the map in full detail, but simply put, wherever you see orange fires are where villages have been burned or completely destroyed.

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Why Peacekeeping Forces Come Up Short

by Fred Copley

The latest news from Darfur is that the truce has been broken and the Washington and African Union-sponsored peace deal is now in jeopardy. Although a genuine cessation of hostilities is the most desirable immediate outcome, this disruption provides an opportunity to rethink the following points:

(1) Does the peace deal even addresses Darfur’s root problems?

(2) Did the peace deal ever have a chance to succeed, given both its limited aims and the insufficient and non-committal financial and material support provided to the African Union effort?

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Brussels Donor Conference a Bust in More Ways Than One

by Andrew Bast

In some ways, the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan is about money. With millions of refugees and no suitable infrastructure, when it comes to saving lives, aid is the name.

Last month, an international donor committee came together in Brussels. The objective was to raise cash to sustain the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur at least until the end of the year. (Some, including the UN and the US, hope that a UN force will then take over before 2007.)

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.

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Video -- Senator Barack Obama Speaking to the Darfur Rally

The junior senator says a lot of the right things, but it's his voice, really.

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.