After Almost a Year Of Rampage In Darfur by the Arab-Muslim Dominated Sudanese Government, Only An Idiot Would Fail To See Their Crimes As Genocide
09 Sep 2004, 15:44 UTCVoice of America: Colin Powell
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says genocide has taken place -- and may still be occurring -- in Sudan's western Darfur region
Mr. Powell told a Senate panel Thursday the Sudanese government and pro-government militia have carried out murders, rapes, and other assaults against black Africans in Darfur.
He said the violence amounts to genocide because the perpetrators intended to destroy a group of people in whole or in part -- the official definition of genocide under the 1948 Geneva Convention.
"The evidence leads the United States to the conclusion, that genocide has occurred and may still be occurring in Darfur. We believe the evidence corroborate the specific intent of the perpertrators to destroy a group in whole or in part," says Mr. Powell.
That convention allows signatories to call on the United Nations to take action to prevent genocide. Mr. Powell said the United States was calling for a full U.N. investigation, with, in his words, "a view to ensuring accountability."
Mr. Powell said the United States concluded genocide was occurring after interviewing more than 1,000 Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad.
Note: Of course saying it is different than seeing it. Both the UN and the US have been loathe to call it genocide since that requires action by the UN, rather than the feeble efforts which have thus far been attempted solely by African Peace Keeping Forces which have proved to be in-effective in dealing with the crisis.
The majority Arab-Muslim government in Khartoum is actively working to eradicate the Dar-fur Black-Muslim subsistence farmers in West Sudan, which has thus far caused at least a million refugees to have crossed the border into neighboring Chad to escape the rampage.
As Jerry Fowler pointed out in his article: "In Sudan, Staring Genocide in the Face" on June 6th. 2004:
When asked why their villages were attacked and burned, most of the refugees said it was because of their black skin. They believe that the Khartoum-based government of President Omar Hassan Bashir wants to give their land to his Janjaweed allies who, like him, are Arab. Members of the Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other black African tribes will simply have to go. Like the Janjaweed, the Darfurians are Muslims. But culturally and ethnically they retain an African identity, of which they are proud. They also tend to be more settled than the nomadic Janjaweed. Racism undoubtedly does play a part in Bashir's support of the Janjaweed, as the blacks are seen as inferior.
Ironically, the prospects for peace in southern Sudan also contribute to the conflict. Fearing that an end to the generation-long rebellion in southern Sudan will divide access to the country's resources between the ruling elite in Khartoum and the southerners and condemn Darfur to permanent second-class status, some Darfurians launched an armed rebellion in early 2003. Khartoum responded by unleashing the Janjaweed and its own military on the black African civilian population. The result was what a team of U.N. investigators last month called a "reign of terror."
All of which is ample evidence to prove again, that genocide and war are two sides of the same coin: an attempt by one group to appropriate the land and assets of another group by force. Those who start wars and genocide are not motivated by a desire to pacify a group, as much as it is to decimate, destroy, and control the assets of another group. This holds true for "The War on Drugs", "The War on Terrorism", "The War In Iraq", etc, etc. Whether this principle is universally true or not really doesn't matter, as the Muslim insurgency makes abundantly clear in the Middle East. Wars are the dark side of our species' hunter-gatherer heritage.
posted by Richard at
Thursday, September 09, 2004
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