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Polly Mann, W A M M
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Today starvation and death face hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan. As with many other disastrous world situations, there seems to be little we can do about it.
I wonder if one aspect of this seeming helplessness is racism. When I examine my own racism, I look back at the movies I saw as I was growing up. All the shows set in Africa depicted Africans as savage people without culture of any kind bent on destroying white people, who were, of course, noble and good. Today I still know nothing about African culture as it must have been before Europeans colonized the continent.
But that was then and now is now-we cannot overlook the impact of colonialism. Today, we see documentaries and read of Africans who have the same basic human needs and feelings as our own. They love their children, and their family ties are strong. They have no weapons of mass destruction or enormous military budgets. But colonialism left them vulnerable to corrupt leaders who are easily bought off by Western governments greedy for whatever natural resources they possess.
Ten years ago, 800,000 Tutsis were destroyed in the Rwandan genocide while the whole world did little but watch. Today in Sudan, in the Texas-size western province of Darfur, government-armed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed-with open support from the Sudanese military-are attacking villages from non-Arab ethnic groups.
As of August, an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people had been killed and between one and two million people had been driven from their looted and burned homes. Most of these refugees are in camps inside Darfur, where Janjaweed openly steal food aid and rape women. It is predicted that 350,000 Sudanese will die from hunger and disease in the upcoming months.
A commonly accepted definition of Arab is one who speaks Arabic. Darfur’s Arabs are black, indigenous, African, and Muslim-just like Darfur’s non-Arabs. Until recently, Darfurians used the term “Arab” in its ancient sense of bedouin. These Arabic-speaking nomads are distinct from the inheritors of the Arab culture of the Nile and the Fertile Crescent. Sudan’s 40-million population is 70% Sunni Muslim, 25% indigenous beliefs, and 5% Christian. Tensions in Darfur have been at a low boil since the 1970s. Forced by drought and scarce resources, the nomadic cattle herders in the north ventured into lands populated by the more settled farmers in the south.
The government first began arming the Janjaweed in response to a February, 2003, insurgency in Darfur by two rebel organizations, drawing from three non-Arab ethnic groups. Within months, the militias and government had adopted a scorched-earth policy. Rather than attack rebel bases, they attacked civilian towns. The attacks escalated sharply in December and continued even after an official cease-fire was signed between the rebels and the government in April. Instead of enforcing that cease-fire, the government of Sudan continues to collude with the Janjaweed, to deny that there is a problem, and to use the peace process as leverage to demand that the world ignore atrocities.
Southern Darfur, like most of southern Sudan, is rich in oil. The Chinese National Petroleum Corporation holds the large oil concession in southern Darfur. Chinese soldiers are alleged to be protecting Chinese oil interests. It is also alleged that the rebels in southern Darfur are getting weapons from outside Sudan. “UN observers say they have better weapons than the Sudanese army, and are receiving supplies by air,” according to Crescent International (UK).
The UN has passed Security Council Resolution 1564, sponsored by the United States, which calls on the Sudanese government to restore security to the Darfur region. It warns that the Security Council “will envisage” sanctions against Sudan’s oil industry, after consulting with the African Union, unless Sudan makes good on its promise to protect the population.
The UN resolution was adopted after three weeks of talks between Sudan and Darfur rebels in Nigeria were suspended because of disagreements on key issues. Sudan’s chief delegate to the talks, Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed, said the resolution had been expected. He further stated that the oil sanctions provision was “part of a struggle between the US Chevron Company and China,” the main investor in Sudan’s oil sector. Sudan produces an estimated 300,000 daily barrels of oil and has forecasted oil exports worth almost two billion dollars this year.
The organization Citizens for Global Solutions is calling for the U.S. to support a UN Security Council Referral to the International Criminal Court for Sudan since U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Darfur a genocide. This is a beginning. Certainly, one thing each of us can do is contact our senators and representative asking that the U.S. keep the situation in Darfur on the “front burner” until the genocide is brought to a halt. |
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© 2004 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete October 2004 Index - click here
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