This was an article that was mostly talking about how Darfur was not getting any attention or help and is being treated horribly right now even though there is a major genocide occurring in Darfur. The article says that Darfur is just a “sideshow” to the situation in southern Sudan. Everyone is focusing on southern Sudan becoming its own nation rather than paying attention to the genocide. The sad part is that this is true. Darfur is not getting any attention right now and is just getting in worse and worse condition. I feel that genocide is way more important than a new nation forming. The new nation can wait. People are dying and it needs to stop. Nobody wants to get involved because once they do they end up getting the responsibility for the whole thing and they are expected to fix the problems, but nobody wants to do this and I understand that, but the attacks are brutal and they are just ruining every ones’ lives. If this genocide happened in the United States, there wouldn’t be any problem because we are in a better situation than Sudan right now and we also have many allies that are willing to help us, but the most important thing is that you would care because it is happening in your own country and you would want to do something about it. The difference between you and the people in Darfur that are being killed is that there is nothing that they can do about it and there are things that you can do about it. People need to start caring and think about how they would feel if they were in this situation.
Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-tinsley/the-bloody-sideshow-in-su_b_851980.html
Monday, May 2, 2011
In response to: Darfur refugee shares horrors of Sudan at ISU Human Rights Day
El-Fadel Arbab is a survivor from the Darfur genocide and he spoke to multiple schools in the U.S. about his experience. He was thrown into a burning house when the Janjaweed attacked his village, but he managed to escape the house and hide in the forest. Arbab ran at night and hid during the day until he got to a city and he met up with his mother in the city and then went to Egypt from there which is where he got his visa and flew to Portland, Maine. I think it is an expiring journey, because he saw people get killed, tortured and raped, but he was able to get through it. It is a great thing that he is going around to schools and talking about what is going on in Darfur because Americans are so ignorant about what is going on in Darfur right now. In his speech that he gave to the school he mentions how after the Holocaust the survivors said “Never again”, but now it is happening again in Darfur. It is genocide and people need to accept that it is one, but people keep denying it because they do not want to deal with another problem. He also talks about how the people being killed are innocent people and they haven’t done a thing to deserve this and it is true, they haven’t done anything to deserve this. This is all happening because of some stupid belief and now over 400,000 people are killed because of it and over two million have been chased out of their homes and have been displaced. The Janjaweed are doing horrible things and these people deserve to be able to keep their homes and not be killed for any reason.
Article: http://tribstar.com/news/x333448632/Darfur-refugee-shares-horrors-of-Sudan-at-ISU-Human-Rights-Day
Article: http://tribstar.com/news/x333448632/Darfur-refugee-shares-horrors-of-Sudan-at-ISU-Human-Rights-Day
In Response To: U.S. says Janjaweed militia is supported by Sudan's government
In this article it states that the Sudanese government will not accept any help from other nation except for very small amounts from the United Nations and they have also done nothing about it to stop the dispute. There was an attempt to have a peace treaty signed, but it didn’t make it all the way to being signed. I find this very interesting because it doesn’t make any sense. This is only hurting Darfur more and more. According to other articles that I have read the Janjaweed have been supplied with weapon and trained by the government, so therefore the government has the power to stop this, but they aren’t. This shows that the government wants the war to happen or just has nothing wrong with the war and therefore it will not stop unless someone from another country stops it. The government obviously wants to lessen or even remove the African population from Darfur which I think is also weird considering that Darfur is in Africa. The Sudanese government could disarm the Janjaweed at any moment because they control them and they really should, but they don’t do it. I feel as if the attempt at a peace treaty was just done because of the peer pressure. Most of the rest of the world feels that they should stop the genocide, but since the government doesn’t want to stop the genocide, but they also don’t want everyone on their back, so they decided to make the peace treaty to make it seem that they are trying to stop the dispute. The government has the power to stop this, but they don’t.
Article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-448866/U-S-says-janjaweed-militia-supported-Sudans-government.html
Article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-448866/U-S-says-janjaweed-militia-supported-Sudans-government.html
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Darfur Genocide: The Janjaweed
Just to give some background information the Darfur Genocide began in 2003 and still continues today. The genocide started because the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement started attacking government targets. They accused Khartoum of oppressing black Africans in favor of Arabs. The people that are driving out the black African farmers are the Arab Janjaweed militia. This is basically a genocide where the Arabs kill and drive out African farmers from the Fur, Massaleet and Zagawa ethnic groups.
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| This is a Janjaweed soldier. |
The Janjaweed are known as the Arab tribesmen. When Janjaweed is translated from Arabic to English it means “a man with a gun on a horse.” They are nomads and they have had troubles with desertification in the past. The Janjaweed were armed and recruited by the Sudanese government. The Janjaweed have killed, raped, stole money and burned down thousands of village houses.
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| This is a picture of Musa Hilal. |
Musa Hilal is a man that is expected to be one of the leaders of the Janjaweed. He denies the fact that this is genocide and he says that the deaths in Darfur were just simply “repercussions” of the war. He constantly says along with the rest of the people that support the Janjaweed, which the westerners (i.e. the U.S.) are exaggerating the whole story and making it seem like more than it actually is. Hilal also has the strong belief that the Janjaweed did not start the war and that it all began because the Sudan Liberation Army started the conflict. Hilal says “The rebels started this war. They started burning and destroying many of the villages. They started destroying our villages first.”
In the genocide the Janjaweed are playing the part of being the people that are causing the genocide even though they may not admit it. The Janjaweed are the Arab men that are attacking the darker skinned African farmers. During these attacks the Janjaweed who are armed by the Sudanese government are attacking people but they are mostly just driving people out of their homes. This battle is also slightly religious because Mr. Idres admits to leading a campaign of 5,000 soldiers on horse to attack black southerners because they did not share the same religion.
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| Rebels in East Chad, where refugees flee to. |
Mr. Idres was a key commander for the Janjaweed between 2003 and 2007. He admits to many things that the Janjaweed have done over an interview. He admits that his troops have killed and raped old people and children. The people that he attacked had no weapons and were defenseless against him. Mr. Idres has given himself a reputation that scares people from just when they look at him. When he first began in 2003 he had a secret meeting about recruiting northerners to invade with, but after the meeting a government figure told him that they didn’t care about the people and that they only wanted land. He led killing sprees against the poorest people in Darfur and also on Earth. He now believes that the Sudanese government doesn’t want him anymore and that they are going to kill him because he knows too much and he is a potential threat against the government. He has fled to an east African location and he is now hiding while trying to make a deal with international prosecutors which could keep him alive.
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| This a African village burning after a Janjaweed attack. |
The Janjaweed surprisingly even have a certain way of attacking the Africans. The Janjaweed will have the Sudanese government drop bombs onto the area that they are attacking and after the bombs are dropped they go into the villages and pick people off. Children are included in their victims that they pick up. While they are doing this they also loot the town and steal anything that could be valuable. Then once they have dropped the bomb and gone into the village to take people and cause terror, they light the village on fire and let it all burn down. In 2004 it was estimated that more than 400 African villages have been burned down. The Sudanese government says that they bombed the villages only to put down a regional uprising for the Sudan Liberation Army rebels, but the survivors say that this is not true.
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| This is Kalima. |
African refugees who used to live in Kidinyir, one of the many villages that burned down, say that the government planes five times and each time that they bombed them the Janjaweed were surrounding the village ready to attack. The refugees say that as people tried to escape from the village to safety the Janjaweed moved in, set all of the houses on fire and then they killed anything that moved. One of the surviving villagers named Hawa said “They attacked is in the early hours of the morning as usual they attacked with planes, vehicles, camels and horses. People were running in all directions.” Another fellow survivor of Hawa named Kalima said “Bombs were dropping from the planes. When I heard the men I told the children to run from the house, but men with horses and cars had already entered the village. I was shouting to my husband to also het out of the house.”
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| This is the school after the Janjaweed attack. |
A teacher had also survived the attack. She said that as she was about to start the class she heard gunfire and the planes. Then students started to jump out of the windows and run away and some tried to hide inside. When the Janjaweed came in the shot kids in the classroom and shot at the kids that were trying to runaway.
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| This is a cartoon that shows the rest of the world pressuring Darfur to get help while the government denies all of the claims. |
A BBC article from 2004 says that after having pressure from the rest of the world to stop the genocide the government promises to disarm the Janjaweed. The question in this situation is whether or not they will actually do this or not considering that the government is the one that armed the Janjaweed in the first place. We know that this doesn’t happen considering that it is 2011 now and the Janjaweed have not been disarmed and the genocide continues today, but this shows that there is hope that the government can disarm the Janjaweed and will possibly in the future. The African tribes’ people provide the Sudanese government with troops for their forces, so the Janjaweed are working for the government while disrupting the government at the same time. In 2004 ten Janjaweed men had been sentenced to having one hand and one foot amputated from their body. This gave the Africans hope that change could happen.
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| This is a victim of the Darfur Genocide. |
The Janjaweed continue to attack, kill, rape and ruin black Africans’ lives in Darfur today. The Janjaweed are vicious people that need to be stopped and cannot be allowed to do these things to innocent people in Darfur just because of racial/religious differences. They go into the villages that do not belong to them and they destroy them. There have been over 500,000 people killed since 2003 all because of this dispute that the Janjaweed have caused. This dispute is believed to not be genocide, but it is obvious that what the Janjaweed are doing is genocide.
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