Background of the Darfur Humanitarian Crisis

I have read a lot of articles about the Sudanese genocide that tell me who is dying, when something happens and where. But a lot of the times articles forget to explain why a government would be working to systematically massacre a whole portion of its population. So I took a little time to read up on the genocide to find out how and why the killing began. The violence in Sudan began with a civil war, which began as a fight between rebel Christian/Animist sects of the Sudanese and the Muslim Central Government. There had long since been a distaste of the animist by the Muslim majority of the country. The President and government then funded an Arab Militia to keep the rebels in check. This militia became known as the Janjaweed or armed horsemen. What began as an insurrection over scarce resources and poor treatment by the Muslim leaders of the Sudan, morphed into a Religious and Ethnic cleansing.

The current crisis known as the Darfur Genocide Began in December of 2003 when the peace talks between the Government and the rebel forces now known as the SLM/A, Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army and the JEM, Justice and Equality Movement, fell apart. The Armed Horsemen were then turned loose on the African Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa people whom the rebels get their support from. A lot of these groups under attack are also Muslims with slight differences in that some have tinges of Animism and Sufismin their practices. Animism being the belief that spirits inhabit and animate the world around us and these spirits are separable from the body; and Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam that deviates from orthodox strictures.

As you read this article the genocide continues. The Armed Horsemen funded by a country with oil Income rain bullets down on civilians. Even those who escape the Sudan to nearby Chad into the refugee camps are allowed no solace pursued by the militia; women being raped and tortured and men killed. At best count to this day 350,000 people have died as a result of this crisis and nearly as many displaced from their home. The violence continues and makes me wonder, how we will be judged by our progeny for letting this atrocity continue with not a thought for human life. Instead our concerns are for the oil/gas prices that partially fuel this human massacre.

Oldgen Rillago