What are the roots of the conflict in Sudan?
DAVID HOWELL
Journal Staff Writer
EDMONTON
Printed in the Edmonton Journal Friday 10 Sept 04
In February 2003, violence erupted in the Darfur region of north-western Sudan, leading to what the United Nations now calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Two rebel factions ,drawn largely from black African tribes, rose up against the Arab-dominated national government. The Sudanese government is accused of backing the Arab militiamen, known as the Janjaweed, in a scorched-earth campaign to quell the rebellion.
The United Nations estimates 30,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict Another 1.2 million have been internally displaced. Some 200,000 have fled the country and are living in refugee camps in neighbouring Chad.
Last week, retired Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who led the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping mission during the 1994 Rwandan massacre, blasted Western countries for â Å“lame and obtuseâ ? response to the Darfur crisis. The world's powers and the UN have learned little from Rwanda, he said.
Andy Knight is a professor of political science at the University of Alberta, specializing in international relations and UN issues. Rob Huebert is associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary The Journal asked for their thoughts on Darfur.
What is at the root of the Darfur conflict?
â Å“Essentially, the Darfur conflict was about land resources and water resources,â ? Knight said. Desertification has resulted in the shrinkage of the fertile land in that area. There was less and less fertile land to be tilled, and people living on those lands were primarily black Africans. The Arabs, who moved from place to place, had cattle and migrated seasonally between the dry season and the wet season. The Arabs began to make claims on the last remaining fertile lands in Darfur. This started conflicts. When war broke out in 2003, the government did not have sufficient military presence in Darfur. It got Arab tribal groups to give them militiamen to work with government soldiers in the region.â ?
Who are the Janjaweed?
â Å“They are mostly Arab tribesmen, herders,â ? Knight said. â Å“In the Darfur region, they are young, on horse back or on camels, and usually armed with AK-47 assault rifles. They are usually recruited into the militia by the heads of tribes who... brainwash recruits into thinking they are protecting their land.â ?
How are the black African people in Darfur suffering because of the conflict?
â Å“They are losing basically all of their possessionsâ â€their possessions are burned or destroyed, their villages are burned or destroyed,â ? Knight said. â Å“There is an attempt at 'deracialization,' a fancy word for a policy of deliberate rape of African women by Arab men. Amnesty International has reported on this. There is also a huge humanitarian problem because of the famine, and the UN is trying to address it. Humanitarian workers are not getting access to these people; they are being interfered with by militia groups.â ?
Why hasn't the Sudanese government taken the action dictated by the Security Council?
â Å“The government has said all along that it is not supporting the Janjaweed,â ? Knight said. â Å“That's false. They claim they are disarming militia groups, but they are not disarming the Janjaweed. Also, the government, because it is Islamic, has been able to get the support of the Arab League and most Islamic countries at the UN. Islamic countries are supporting the Sudanese government, despite claims of genocide and ethnic cleansing.â ?
How many troops could Canada send as part of an effort to restore peace?
â Å“It's a guesstimate, but about 600 troops,â ? Huebert said. â Å“We possibly could scrape something together, but it would come at the very real cost of family time that these people desperately need, and (at the cost of) training. In other words, it would fall on one of the units just coming back from finishing up in Bosnia or Afghanistan. We constantly do not have the number of troops for our foreign policy.â ?
Could Canada send officers to lead a peacekeeping effort?
â Å“You get to be in command when you provide the troops; you get command when you have the commitment,â ? Huebert said. 'That's why we had the command in Afghanistan because we had the bulk of the troops. The international community says if you're willing to pay the piper, you get to call some of the tune. â Å“They'll rely on some Canadian expertise, but quite frankly, a whole lot of other people have expertise too, nowadays, because a lot of other people are doing peace-support operations.â ?
How else could Canada help?
â Å“Well, we can talk,â ? Huebert said. â Å“With someone like a RomeoDallaire (speaking out it keeps Canadian attention on the issue. When Dallaire starts saying it, people say, 'Holy cow, there are all sorts of similarities to Rwanda.' Canadian political leaders can do their part for keeping the issue on the world's agenda. â Å“The problem, of course, is we're seen as hypocrites if we don't have the resources to back it up.â ?
dhowell@thejournal.canwest.com
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Powell calls Sudanese crisis genocide' for the first time
Knight Ridder with files from Can West News Service
WASHINGTON
Printed in the Edmonton Journal Friday 10 Sept 04
U.S. Secretary of State Cohn Powell declared for the first time Thursday that the wave of atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region constitutes genocide, a finding the Bush administration hopes will increase world pressure on Sudanese rulers to end the crisis.
Powell, speaking to a Senate panel, said Sudan's government is complicating the brutal campaign of racial eradication carried out by Arab militias known as the Janjaweed against black non- Arabs in Darfur.
After reviewing a report by teams of investigators, â Å“we concluded â †I con duded â †that genocide has been committed in Darfur, and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring,â ? he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Powell's announcement ends a months-long debate within the U.S. government over the issue, a debate heavily coloured by the world's failure to deal with the genocide in Rwanda a decade ago.
But it's unclear what practical effect it will have. Powell acknowledged that â Å“no new action is dictated by this determination.â ? The Bush administration isn't considering direct military intervention. Instead, it's pushing Sudan to accept the deployment of roughly 4,000 African Union troops and police to protect Darfur's non-Arab population.
In months of interviews across Darfur scores of Sudanese have described to Knight Ridder horrific atrocities committed by the Janjaweed and Sudanese soldiers. A nearly identical picture was painted by the U.S. State Department report, which was based on interviews with 1,136 refugees in neighbouring Chad.
The report, released Thursday, said 67 percent of refugees reported witnessing aerial bombardment by Sudanese government aircraft; 61 per cent reported the killing of a family member; 16 per cent reported rape; and 33 per cent reported hearing racial epithets.
The Canadian government won't join the United States in calling recent atrocities in western Sudan acts of genocide. A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said Canada was reluctant to do the same because the government remains concerned about the definition of genocide and whether the events in Darfur meet it.
â Å“Genocide is defined in a fair1y narrow manner legally,â ? said Sebastien Theberge, Pettigrew's director of communications, reached in Paris on Thursday.
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