GENOCIDE IN AFRICA : A Historical Perspective
Ø 1968-79 - Equatorial Guinea - 80,000
Ø 1977-78 - Ethiopia 150,000 – 500,000 people were systematically wiped out by the Ethiopian Red Terror.
Ø 1971-1979 – Uganda - 300,000 to 500,000 were killed in Uganda by Idi Amin.
Ø 1994 - One of the worst instances of genocide took place in Rwanda; there was ethnic cleansing of the tutsi tribe. 937,000 is the official stated number and the speed of the killing far exceeded any other genocide in history. 100 days is all it took to wipe out 937,000 people.
History, Demographics and the like..
Ø Irrespective of the govt that comes to power in Khartoum, the Darfurians feel neglected.
Ø Due to overpopulation and low agricultural productivity, there is a perpetual food crisis.
Ø The population is roughly divided into two groups : the Arab Africans and the native tribal population. Ø The influence of an ideology of Arab supremacy propagated by Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi that began to be acted upon by Darfurians. Soon categorization of the Darfurians began into "progressive, revolutionary Arabs " and "reactionary, anti-Arab Africans ".
Ø A famine in the mid-1980s disrupted many societal structures and led to the first significant fighting amongst Darfurians. A low level conflict continued for the next 15 years, with the government co-opting and arming "Arab" militias against its enemies.
Humanitarian Crisis: Facts, Figures and a Timeline
Ø April 23, 2003 - Due to continuous neglect, the black non-Arabs decide to take matters in their own hands. They form two militant groups known as the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
Ø The rebel groups attack govt officials (killing 75) and the conflict soon resulted in civilians moving out in large numbers.
Ø In response, the Sudanese govt. trains and arms the Janjaweed, a black Arab militia to fight and destroy the rebels and the tribes that they belong to.
Ø Janjaweed literally means “devils on horseback” as they mainly used camels and horses to launch their attacks. The Janjaweed got the ‘Carte Blanche’ which means an official license to loot, rape, extort and murder at will. That is exactly what they did.
Ø This further causes thousands of civilians to take refuge in the neighbouring Chad.
Ø The two groups sign many ceasefire agreements and violate them anyway, accusing the other party of violating it first.
Ø Dec, 2003 – Almost 100,000 refugees are in Chad due to emergence of conflict.
Ø Jan, 2004 – The Sudanese govt sends its army also and the fighting and the no of refugees escalates.
Ø A typical attack would involve the “devils on horseback” launch an ground attack. They would kill and rape anything that even moved. This would be followed by an aerial attack of bombing by the Army to kill anything that might have survived the Janjaweed carnage.Ø June, 2004 - UN officials say every fifth child in the Darfur region is acutely undernourished. Many have dysentery, measles and high fever. Children in refugee camps are dying every day from starvation and exhaustion.
Ø UN aid organization also warns about mass rapes of women and a new generation of displaced children.
Ø July, 2004 – The UN Security Council will ‘consider’ to “threaten” to issue an arms embargo and a travel ban against Sudan.
Ø The Arab militias destroy food and water resources and deny entry for the humanitarian groups.
Ø Later in 2004 - The US congress decides to label this as “genocide” in Darfur. Ø Apparently, the Congress label of genocide is supposed to carry a lot of weightage. Ø Sudanese President Omar al Bashir couldn’t care less about the sanctions. He says “I couldn’t care less about the UN or its sanctions”
Ø Sept, 2004 - The World Health Organization says about 10,000+ who fled their homes in Darfur are dying each month.
Ø While these thousands are dying, the UN calls for a meeting to discuss two extremely important issues:
Ø Whether it would be appropriate to call this as genocide?
Ø Secondly, whether or not to put Omar al Bashir, when captured, to trial in the UN Court of Justice?
Ø Dec, 2004 – The aid workers become the new target of the militia and this resulted in the humanitarian groups pulling out in large numbers.
Ø The official numbers come out as close to 400,000 killed because of the civil war and yet, some experts believe that this is a gross underestimation.
Ø The weak and inefficient African Union peace keeping force struggles to keep things from getting out of hand.
Ø Oct, 2005 - Aid workers and part of the UN peace keeping force pulls out due to increased attacks, while the Sudanese govt denies entry for all foreign journalists, making information about current situations extremely hard to reach to the international community.
Ø 10 peace meetings have been held so far between the govt and the rebels and in each of them, one of the two parties walked out without coming to a satisfactory conclusion.
The Killing Continues...
... And so does the Political Drama
Ø Oct, 2006 - Food supply to the refugee camps is cut in half because of shortage of funds.
Ø May 29, 2007 - The US announces further sanctions against Sudan.
Ø The Sudanese Govt further cuts food and medicinal rations to the refugee camps.
Ø Oxfam, the biggest aid workers in Sudan pulled out which left the refugee camps in even dire situations.
Sudan, Oil and The Darfur Crisis: The Background Story
Making Sense of it all ... A Crash Course in Political Economy
Ø The first relevant question is who’s responsible for this mess? Who’s to take the fall for the disaster? Who should we send to the gallows on count of the murder of 400,000?
Ø The First nominee is quite obviously Al Bashir’s regime.
Ø It’s a simple tale of an insatiable thirst for power. As long as there is anarchy in Sudan, he will stay in power. And as long as he is in power, he keeps becoming rich. Simple enough.. A little too simple actually. So, we call upon our second nominee… The JANJAWEED!
Ø As we already know, Darfur is an impoverished region which cannot sustain the existing huge population. The Janjaweed sees this as the perfect opportunity to loot large amounts of wealth which they could never accumulate in the normal course.
Ø The Janjaweed also gets all its desires fulfilled, be it sexual in terms of the 200 rapes committed in a day or be it for power they get when torturing and taking lives.
CHAPTER II : Love thy NeighbourØ Our next nominee… CHAD!
Ø In 1990, Chad's Idriss Deby came to power by launching a military blitzkrieg from Darfur and overthrowing President Hissan Habre. Deby hails from the elite Zaghawa tribe, which makes up one of the Darfur rebel groups trying to topple the government. So when the conflict broke out, Deby had to decide whether to support Sudan or his tribe. He eventually chose his tribe!
Ø Meanwhile, Sudan’s rebels also have their base in Chad and are continuously trying to destabilize the govt.
CHAPTER III : The Logic of "Humanitarian Intervention“ …Neocolonial tool serving geopolitical interests
Ø The fourth nominee for the prestigious position.. the US of A!
Ø After Sudan received its formal independence from Britain in 1956, the country went through a period of internal struggles. It began moving in a radical Islamic direction rejecting the neocolonial relations that the US and UK was trying to impose.
Ø The U.S in order to tap the rich oil resources in Sudan, sponsored and trained the southern rebel groups (SLA and JEM) in the beginning. It was mainly responsible for providing sophisticated arms to the rebel groups.
Ø The expected consequence was clear to see. As in neighbouring Chad, Rwanda and many other African countries, the rebel groups can cause enough havoc and destruction to completely destabilize the economy.
Ø The IMF and World Bank would then move in along with UN peace keeping force. The IMF would promise to lend money on the condition that Sudan would open up its economy and the hungry American corporations will swoop in to have exclusive control over the rich oil base.
Ø Washington even went so far as to bomb the only pharmaceutical industry in Sudan under no particular pretext (biochemicals or terrorism).
Ø What it did not expect however is for the govt to employ a stronger counter-militia.
Ø What really ticked off US is the fact that Sudan has been using its oil for the cardinal sin of developing an economy independent of the United States.
Ø The US is pushing for its army led peacekeeping force to enter Darfur so as to deny Sudanese the liberty of their land.
Ø It also has to be noted that though the killings were intense enough to be called genocide in 2003 – early 2004, the US were still hopeful of entry into the zone. But when Al Bashir made it clear that the US was not going to have a share of the pie, they suddenly termed it as genocide and issued sanctions.
CHAPTER IV: Beijing 'fuel'ing the killings
Ø So, the question is: If the US and the West is not benefiting from the Darfur crisis, who is? The strongest contender is definitely the burgeoning Asian super power – CHINA!
Ø As we know that China has reached growth rates of over 10% and would eventually find it difficult to sustain unless they found new sources of energy. The answer was Sudan.
Ø China has invested over 300 bn $ through China National Petroleum Company (CNPS) and is responsible for roughly 2/3rds of Sudan’s oil exports.
Ø The new oil refinery pumped as much as 1 billion $ into the govt coffers which will allow Al Bashir to defy the UN and US with much ease and continue the ‘crime against humanity’.
Ø Because of this immense nature and level of investment, china is doing all it can to shield Bashir.
Ø Primarily by Vetoing against any suggestions of sanctions against Sudan.
Ø China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms, according to a former Sudan government minister.
Ø Chinese-made tanks, fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have intensified Sudan's two-decade-old north-south civil war.
Ø While Beijing may be one focal point for international outrage, it would be a mistake if it were the only one. With the Darfur death toll well over rising and with 2.5 million people left homeless by the conflict--there's plenty of blame to go around.
CHAPTER V – Arms instead of Alms
Ø While the US is supplying arms to the SLA and JEM, Russia and China are providing arms to the Sudanese govt and the Janjaweed. Whoever wins, wins the jackpot!
Ø Russia is also one of the nations with veto power and thus would ensure no sanctions and embargo are applied to Sudan.
Ø Russia is the leading supplier of helicopters, and other sophisticated military weapons and is known to make a good deal of money.
CHAPTER VI: Other 'Developing' Interests
Other important players in Sudan's slowly growing oil industry are mostly from India and Malaysia, two other industrialising Asian countries with urgent strategic needs to secure their parts of the world's oil production in an ever fiercer competition with US interests.
Ø India's ONGC Videsh and Malaysia's Petronas have bought substantial shares in Sudanese oil fields as Western companies have been pressured to divest in the country during the last years.
Ø India has already signed 2 pipeline deals with Sudan which means a substantial amount of money going into the Janjaweed.
Ø We can also observe that Darfur crisis has received no or very little attention from the Indian media because of its indirect involvement. Ø In the past three years India's trade with Sudan has increased 100%.
Ø ONGC has a little over 25% in Sudan’s biggest oil extracting projects.
Ø Meanwhile, both India and Malaysia have helped to prevent the U.N. Human Rights Council from criticizing Sudan's conduct.
CONCLUSION
Ø Thus, it seems that after reading about all this political drama, the rebel groups and the janjaweed are perhaps more innocent than the vicious, parochial and avarice nations battling it out to get a share of the oil. The janjaweed after all is just carrying out orders.
Ø The Black man’s skin is now worth so little that the international community still prefers to keep quite and has not found a solution.
Ø As big and powerful nations battle it out amongst themselves to gain control over oil resources, the ‘insignificant’ black man dies for this larger than life cause!
Ø I wonder how many more should die before they think that too many have died!!!
Ø It’s time to put an end to it! NOW!!!
