Is there genocide in Darfur?

We respect human rights in Sudan perhaps our understanding of human rights differs from your government Bashir to US Amb. Don Petterson, Nov. 10, 1992 Yes. It is indeed genocide as the word speaks for itself. According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which was instituted in 1998, genocide is committed when the elements are all present. Its Article 6 states that:
Article 6: Genocide For the purpose of this Statute, "genocide" means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) (b) Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) (e) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Before can be committed as shown in the article itself, three elements must be there: first, there must be the actus rea of committing certain acts, including killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm, measures intended to prevent births, and the transfer of children; second, these acts must be committed against national, ethnic, racial, or religious group; and lastly, is the mens rea requirement that the acts be intended to destroy the said group in whole or in part1 Based on the facts, genocide is committed. Omar Al-Bashir and Hassan Al-Turabi went into Sudan` s second civil war in 1983 (the first occurred during 1962). It led Bashir to power in Sudan. Once he gained control of the nation and its military, he had to match his words with the backing of Saddam` s Iraq and Libya` s Qaddafi against the SPLA (Sudan People` s Liberation Army/ Movement (SPLA/M). But in 1991, the SPLA lost important bases and supply routes, and 200,000 refugees, who had been living in Ethiopia, were forced to return to Sudan. Bashir reacted quickly to this humanitarian crisis: he sent his air force to drop bombs on the refugees. The outside world is helpless watching the bombing but he and his government had a policy for dealing with this problem that they would follow forever. Their strategy was to burn down villages, force the inhabitants into camps, classify them as refugees, apply for disaster relief, and then distribute the relief goods to pro- government areas, giving it to displaced families only if they agreed to convert to Islam. In late 1991, the war spread to the Nuba Mountains, home to the 1.5 million people who spoke fifty different languages and dialects. Although most of the Nuban tribes were Muslims they followed Sufism and so, in the eyes of Bashir and Turabi, they were really anti- Islam. Bashir ordered the destruction of mosques in the Nuba Mts and
1

Eric Heinze. The Rhetoric of Genocide in US Foreign Policy: Rwanda and Darfur Compared. Political Science Quarterly Journal of Public and International Affairs.Volume 122. November 3, 2007,page 375

the prohibition of the use of the local languages. The government seized the land, sold it to Arab businessmen, and forced the local people into camps, which they called peace villages. Almost one-third of the population was displaced. Non. Muslim men were circumcised and their children were forced to attend Quranic schools. According to the Amnesty International, troops used civilians as human shields. In order to justify this jihad against fellow Muslims, his deputy Turabi arranged for the issuance of a fatwa that broadened the definition of apostasy: An insurgent who was previously a Muslim is now an apostate; and a non-Muslim is a non-believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam and Islam has granted the freedom of killing both of them. Thus, people who had for generations identified themselves as Muslims found themselves redefined as the mortal enemies of Islam. By 2003, there were two major rebel movements operating in Darfur. To counter their influence, Bashir launched a ghastly campaign of destruction and ethnic cleansing. Government fighter jets and helicopters bombed villages and minutes later government-supported militia, known as the Janjaweed, communicating by satellite phones, arrived on horseback and camel to murder, torture and rape the villagers. In this conflict, the specter of genocide was raised amidst findings that Khartoum` s strategy in combating the insurgency was essentially to depopulate the countryside of sympathetic Darfurian civilians-mostly members of the Fur, Massaleit, and Zaghawa tribes-by arming and providing air support to Arab militias called Janjaweed who would attack villages, kill, rape and forcibly displace at will.2 The bombers targeted hospitals and schools and the Janjaweed burned crops and threw dead bodies into wells in order to contaminate the water supply. On February 9, 2004, in a George Bushian Mission Accomplished moment, Bashir declared the Darfur war finished, although in reality the killing continued. By the end of 2005, human rights groups estimated that 180,000 people had died and two million people were left homeless, while not a single Janjaweed member had been arrested for his crimes3. Even though there is an UN Commission that investigate the alleged genocide which concluded that only crimes against humanity and war crimes are only committed by Bashir for lack of intent in destroying the Fur, Massaleit, and Zaghawa tribes and the Janjaweed militia. The United States still condemned it a genocide which prompted the UN to create such a commission. But due to lack of military muscle by the US to stop such atrocities by having a big commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan during that time, the Bush administration just went to the rhetorics of genocide as a replacement for the military invasion that everyone is expecting. As we could see in the facts, indeed the International Criminal Court Prosecutor Ocampo of accusing Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. But since Sudan used itself diplomatic influence because of its oil- China and its other major allies like the African Union, South Africa did not vote to capture Bashir. Its a matter of legal hairsplitting that separates genocide from mere mass murder or simple crimes against humanity. But the word genocide undoubtedly has entailments that these other atrocities do not: it is more inflammatory, more reproachful and entails at least a moral ( if not legal) obligation to stop such acts.4

2 3

Ibid. page 359 David Wallechinsky. The Word` s Worst Living Dictators.2006.page 24-25 4 Ibid page 383