Confronting Genocide - Never Again - Part II - Seven Case Studies - The Choices Program

1/23/23, 12:42 PM Confronting Genocide: Never Again?
- Part II: Seven Case Studies - The Choices Program
For many survivors, memories of the 1994 genocide remain fresh. Health problems resulting
from sexual violence and HIV/AIDS plague many Rwandan women who survived. Witnessing
atrocities has also caused many to struggle with mental health conditions. Intermarriage and
close friendships between Tutsis and Hutus are no longer as common as they once were.
Regional instability and the massive refugee problem in the wider area are additional factors that
threaten stability in Rwanda. Like any country with a traumatic history, Rwanda faces the
daunting task of coming to terms with its tragic past. The genocide will linger for generations in
the minds of everyone who experienced it first hand and in the memory of the country as a
whole.
“
Rwanda has a problem. On the surface, things are becoming normal. But
some of the flowers which are flowering have bodies beneath them.”
— Esther Mujaway, Rwandan counselor, 1999
The Rwandan government, which a single party and the same president have controlled for
nearly twenty-five years, says its promotion of national unity is working, and that it has
significantly reduced poverty. The infant mortality rate has declined by half since the 1990s.
Museums and memorials have been constructed at genocide sites throughout the country, and
organizations have been created which are dedicated to scholarship and conversation about the
genocide. Groups of survivors started support and community groups for others who witnessed
the atrocities. Sixty percent of parliamentary seats are held by women today. A recent surge in
interest in the sport of cricket brings Hutus and Tutsis together to practice and compete.
Thousands of students have increased enrollment at universities. Still, in interviews, many
Rwandans say the political climate discourages real competition, and that people do not feel safe
talking freely.
Genocide in Sudan
NOTE ON DISTURBING CONTENT

This reading contains content that may be upsetting for readers. It refers to
physical and psychological violence, including persecution, mass killing, intense
hatreds, trauma, and sexual violence, and includes first-hand accounts from
https://curriculum.choices.edu/classes/2911/units/71/parts/6467 30/40
1/23/23, 12:42 PM Confronting Genocide: Never Again? - Part II: Seven Case Studies - The Choices Program
survivors. Texts and images might be particularly intense for students with a
personal connection to the topic. It is important to be sensitive to your classmates
and the ways in which this content might be a difficult topic to study.
Although many of the world’s most deadly genocides took place throughout the twentieth
century, others have continued into the twenty-first. After its independence from British colonial
rule in the 1950s, the predominantly Arab government in Sudan implemented policies and
practices to control minority communities. While the greatest attention from the international
community did not come until the 2003 genocide in Darfur, people throughout Sudan
experienced violence before and after this genocide. In fact, more than 2.5 million Sudanese
civilians have lost their lives in these ethnic, religious, and political conflicts throughout the past
seventy years.
HOW DID SUDAN’S COLONIAL HISTORY SET THE STAGE FOR

CONFLICT AND GENOCIDE?
The area that is now Sudan and South Sudan has always been home to culturally and religiously
diverse peoples. The area also has a long history of colonialism. The tensions, and ultimately
genocide, that arose in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century are rooted in this
complex history.
Ottoman, Egyptian, and European colonialism that exploited and deepened religious and ethnic
tensions set the stage for conflict. Each colonial government used what is called a “divide and
rule” policy, which means they manipulated different groups in order to divide the groups from
each other and therefore gain and maintain power for themselves. The British, who colonized
Sudan from 1896-1955, enacted policies that benefitted the Arabic- and English-speaking
majority-Muslim northern part of the region and isolated people in the south. For example, they
invested more in infrastructure and education in the north than in the south. In fact, the British
regarded the north and south as separate until the 1940s when they officially formed a new, joint
government.
Despite the official unification, the colonial government still favored people from the north,
reserving most government positions for them. People from the south, many of whom were
Christian or practitioners of Indigenous religions, worried that the new united government
might attempt to make Islam the official religion.
HOW DID INDEPENDENCE IN SUDAN AFFECT POWER-

SHARING?
After years under colonial rule, Sudan officially gained independence on January 1, 1956. Newly
independent Sudan was ruled by a predominantly Arab government that once again served the
interests of Sudan’s Arab population and ignored the concerns of other ethnic groups. As a result
of the mistrust and inequality between the regions, isolated protests from southerners seeking
autonomy transformed into the First Sudanese Civil War. Half a million people were killed
during this war, and many others fled their homes. In 1972, the southern rebels and the Arab
government, based in the capital city of Khartoum, signed a peace agreement to end the war. The
agreement granted the south political and economic autonomy.
In 1983, Sudan’s president, Jaafar Nimeiry, reclaimed all power for the north. He made Arabic
the official language and declared that Sudan would be governed by Islamic law. Arguing instead
in favor of diversity, many southerners joined the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
The SPLA and the government and its militia allies began a war in 1983, known as the Second
Sudanese Civil War.
WHAT EVENTS LED TO THE GENOCIDE?
In 1989, Brigadier-General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir came to power in a coup

(government overthrow). Al-Bashir, a member of one of the Arab groups previously favored by
the British, invested little in the south, east, and west during his rule. Meanwhile, the
government and the SPLA continued their brutal fight, leading to widespread death and
destruction. In the 1980s and 1990s, the government systematically attacked civilians. Each of
these acts of violence by the Sudanese government and its allies contributed to an environment
that made genocide possible.
HOW WAS THE GENOCIDE IN THE NUBA MOUNTAINS IN

SUDAN CARRIED OUT?
Fighting began in the Nuba Mountains in the early 1980s and worsened in the region when al-
Bashir’s government came to power. Pro-government forces took Nuba land, kidnapped and
killed Nuba leaders, and destroyed Nuba food systems. Some Nuba people fled the area, and
others starved to death or were killed. Government attacks from 1992-1993 alone killed an
estimated 100,000 Nuba civilians. Although the Sudanese government’s genocide against the
Nuba was at its height in the early 1990s, attacks intensified once more in 2011 and continue
today.
HOW WAS THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR CARRIED OUT?
In addition to the genocide of the Nuba people, the Sudanese government carried out a genocide
against the people living in Darfur, a multiethnic and multilingual region in western Sudan. Two
Darfuri rebel groups launched attacks to protest the government’s neglect of their region and
their mistreatment. To counter the uprisings, the government sought to destroy support for the
southern rebels who were active in the region. In addition, pro-government militia forces, the
Janjaweed, worked with the government in order to gain land and resources. To achieve their
goals, the Sudanese government and militia groups raided villages of the Fur, Zaghawa, and
Masalit ethnic groups from 2003-2005. They bombed the villages and killed, tortured, and
sexually assaulted villagers. The UN estimates that they killed at least 300,000 people during the
genocide.
“
I saw them take fifty-two
men from my village,
including my cousin, and
they took them to the edge of
the mountain, made them go
on their knees...and shot each
one of them.”
— Mohamed, a Zaghawa One of hundreds of children’s drawings collected by an aid

survivor of the genocide organization in a refugee camp in Chad. This drawing was by a
in Darfur, reflecting on child aged eight at the time of the genocide in Sudan and shows
his experiences, 2004
armed people and vehicles attacking fleeing families and setting fire
to their homes. The International Criminal Court accepted the
drawings as evidence.
Two and a half million more people were Courtesy of Waging Peace. https://wagingpeace.info/.
displaced within Sudan or fled the country as

refugees due to the genocide. Many died as
they made their way to camps for displaced people. Millions of civilians settled into these camps
within Sudan, while hundreds of thousands of others fled to the neighboring country of Chad.
“
Since independence, the government of Sudan hasn’t given anything to the
people of Darfur—the people were asking for education and other things,
and the government didn’t want us to ask for these things, so they are
killing us instead.”
— A survivor of the genocide in Darfur living in a refugee camp in

Chad, 2004
HOW DID THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY RESPOND TO

THE GENOCIDE?
Before the genocide, international groups sought to provide humanitarian assistance, primarily
food aid, to victims of war, drought, flooding, and famine in Sudan and South Sudan. Operation
Lifeline Sudan—a humanitarian assistance agency joining together UN agencies with forty other
groups—began assisting Sudan in April 1989. The group provided supplies to civilians, training
to increase good governance, and ran projects that helped to increase participation in
democracy. However, both sides of the fighting hindered Operation Lifeline’s ability to offer
relief on many occasions.
Most world powers, including the African

Union (AU) and the European Union (EU),
refused to label the unfolding events in
Darfur as genocide while it was happening.
Disagreements about whether or not the
events were indeed a genocide complicated
the responses and the responsibilities of the
international community.
As the violence increased, however, the media A woman living in Kassab Camp for Internally Displaced People
and advocacy groups drew attention to it. (IDPs) in Kutum, North Darfur, Sudan, expresses her sorrow over
the increase in rapes in the area to UN representative Ibrahim
International groups, such as Amnesty Gambari in January 2012.
International, published reports on the UN Photo/Albert González Farran.
atrocities. Celebrities used the media to call

the public to action. Public attention
prompted more of the international community to respond. The EU joined the humanitarian
efforts in 2004 and also supported peace talks. The AU sent a peacekeeping force that year to try
to end the genocide, but its first force of 150 soldiers was quickly overpowered.
Until 2005, the Sudanese government prevented a larger deployment of peacekeeping forces.
That year the UN Security Council threatened sanctions against the Sudanese government if it
did not agree to a larger force. The AU, with logistics support from the EU, was then able to send
seven thousand additional peacekeepers, but again, the Sudanese government policies and
dangerous circumstances interfered with their efforts. In March, the Security Council also
referred the case of Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In 2007, the AU and UN jointly sent a peacekeeping force of over fifteen thousand to Sudan.
This larger force, in addition to the ongoing peace negotiations and humanitarian relief, was able
to stabilize the situation somewhat. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for President al-Bashir in
2009, charging him with crimes against humanity and war crimes. In 2010, the ICC also charged
him with genocide.
THE LIMITS OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE
Despite the International Criminal

Court’s (ICC) indictments,
President al-Bashir has yet to face a
day in court. He is not alone: of the
 VIDEO AVAILABLE
ONLINE
In 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s

thirty-eight arrest warrants the president. Why is this a challenge to human rights law?
ICC has issued since its creation,
DENNIS DAVIS, HIGH COURT OF
fourteen people remain at large. In SOUTH AFRICA
many cases, the countries in which

these accused people live have not
arrested them. Many believe that the only way for these defendants to be brought
to The Hague, where the ICC is located, is during their travels abroad. This will
depend on the cooperation of other countries.
Countries that have joined the ICC are obligated to arrest defendants if they step
foot in their territory, but countries have sometimes avoided doing so. For
example, in 2015, al-Bashir traveled to South Africa. South Africa’s High Court
ordered officials to prevent al-Bashir from leaving the country, but the South
African government refused to arrest him. Al-Bashir slipped out of the country.
The case of al-Bashir and the other at-large defendants highlights one of the limits
of international justice.
HOW DID THE UNITED STATES RESPOND TO THE GENOCIDE

IN SUDAN?
For many years, the United States and Sudan have had a complicated relationship. During the
first Gulf War (1990-1991), Sudan supported Iraq while the United States led a coalition against
Iraq. Sudan’s support for international terrorist groups also concerned the United States. As a
result, the United States attempted to isolate Sudan. The United States placed Sudan on its list of
state sponsors of terrorism in 1993, shut down the U.S. embassy in Sudan in 1996, and imposed
economic sanctions in 1997. Whenever violence broke out in Sudan, international political and
economic interests shaped the U.S. response.
Like many other countries, the United States has often refused to label atrocities as genocide as
these events are unfolding. In early 2004, the U.S. State Department interviewed survivors from
Darfur to determine whether genocide had taken place. The U.S. House of Representatives and
the Senate concluded that events in Darfur were indeed genocide. Later that year, U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell publicly labeled the events in Darfur as genocide. This was the first time
that a member of the U.S. government labeled an ongoing crisis as a genocide.
Powell’s declaration of genocide ultimately failed to inspire widespread political action from
other countries. But within the United States, labeling the conflict as genocide led many
individuals to pressure the George W. Bush administration (2001-2009) to take action in Darfur.
During the genocide, the United States was the largest international humanitarian aid donor in
Sudan. It remains so today. The United States has assisted in peace talks, has used sanctions to
try to curb government support for terrorism, and supports programs that promote education,
health, and inclusive economic growth. Even so, critics say that the United States did not act
decisively enough to stop the genocide.
“
Genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan has lasted over four years and
claimed as many as 450,000 lives. Over this period, as the situation has
steadily worsened, the United States has done little to halt the killing. U.S.
policy has coupled generous humanitarian assistance with unfulfilled
threats and feckless diplomacy.”
— Dr. Susan Rice, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution at the time,
in a document suggesting ideas for the next U.S. president, 2008
WHAT DO CRITICS SAY ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL

RESPONSE TO SUDAN?
Many people have criticized the international responses to the genocide in Sudan. While some
praise the efforts of celebrities and politically powerful people in the United States and other
countries, critics argue that this sort of activism silences the voices of the people directly
impacted by the genocide. Others suggest that international intervention efforts interfered, or
even destroyed, local efforts against the genocide. Some critics argue that the international
community has simply done far too little to address the genocide.
“
It is enough. Is it difficult for you to raise your hand and say ‘enough’ and
stop the killing of children? Is it fair that Sudanese continue to die...? If the
political situation is not addressed and aid is not delivered to the people
remaining in the Nuba Mountains...immediately, the situation will reach
the climax level. And, it will be too late and shame on the international
community.”
— Zeinab Blandia, Nuba human rights activist and Founder of the Ru’ya
Association, in her letter to President Barack Obama (2009-2017),
December 2013
WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN

TODAY?
The civil war between the north and the

south that began in 1983 ended in 2005 with
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
The agreement granted the south the right to
vote to remain part of Sudan or to form an
independent country. The south voted for
independence, becoming the Republic of
South Sudan in 2011. (Darfur and the Nuba
Mountains remained a part of Sudan.)
Despite these steps, civilians in both Sudan
An internally displaced persons camp in South Darfur, 2005.
and South Sudan have faced violence and USAID, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
instability and continue to struggle to recover

from years of war and genocide.
In South Sudan, ethnic tensions, the availability of weapons, the desire for political power, and
poverty fueled another civil war, which lasted from 2013 until 2020. Today, a large majority of
the population is dependent on food aid, and corruption and natural disasters remain significant
problems for the new government. Raids on emergency food supplies and violence against aid
workers have added to the food shortages and increased tensions among different ethnic groups.
The government does not have the resources to stabilize the situation or to provide basic services
such as schools and healthcare.
“
People are losing their livelihoods, cattle, homes, land and crops. So
imagine you are struggling to survive or build a stable future because of
conflict, displacement and high food prices, then the floods come to finish
you off. Sadly, people here do not get a moment’s rest.”
— Marwa Awad, Head of Communications for the World Food

Programme in South Sudan, March 2022
In Sudan, extensive food shortages and rising prices led to public anger and several months of
protests in 2019. In April of that year al-Bashir was removed from power in a military coup. The
new interim government planned to extradite him to The Hague to face the charges against him,
but that government, as well, was removed in a coup in 2021. The international community is
trying to establish another interim government to restart the peace process. About half of the
country lives below the poverty line, and significant conflicts between regions and ethnic groups
remain.
Many people from Sudan and South Sudan still live in displaced persons camps that lack
supplies. Camp residents, particularly women who experienced sexual violence during the
genocide, face further abuse and often cannot receive the medical and psychological services that
they require. In addition to the huge numbers of people displaced within Sudan and South
Sudan, nearly nine hundred thousand South Sudanese refugees have also migrated elsewhere in
search of safety.
HOW HAVE LOCAL GROUPS HELPED TO HEAL THE TRAUMA

OF GENOCIDE IN SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN?
Throughout both Sudan and South Sudan, survivors work to heal from trauma, even as the
current situation remains dire. Advocates for women’s rights, such as activists Safaa Elagib
Adam, Zeinab Mohamed Blandia, and Fahima Hashim, have started movements, founded
organizations, and worked in politics in order to raise awareness of the violence that women and
girls in particular faced during the genocide.
“
Women want to be valued
stakeholders, not victims or
symbols of the revolution.... It
is not a matter of only
stopping war or reaching a
ceasefire—We want to make
sure that women in conflict
zones are protected, that
women can move freely, and
Young people collecting water from a well in Yei Province, South
reach their farms without Sudan, in 2012. It is important to remember that countries and
fear..., that they can watch people affected by genocide are not just victims. They are individuals
leading diverse lives.
their children go to school
Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr
safely. We want more space

and participation and the
chance to be dignified as human beings.”
— Safaa Elagib Adam, Secretary-General and General Advisor,

Community Development Association, Sudan, speaking at the UN
Security Council, October 2019
The futures of both Sudan and South Sudan remain uncertain, raising further questions about
how local and international actors can best prevent and respond to genocide.
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1/23/23, 12:42 PM Confronting Genocide: Never Again?

- Part II: Seven Case Studies - The Choices Program

— Esther Mujaway, Rwandan counselor, 1999

NOTE ON DISTURBING CONTENT

HOW DID SUDAN’S COLONIAL HISTORY SET THE STAGE FOR

HOW DID INDEPENDENCE IN SUDAN AFFECT POWER-

WHAT EVENTS LED TO THE GENOCIDE?

In 1989, Brigadier-General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir came to power in a coup

HOW WAS THE GENOCIDE IN THE NUBA MOUNTAINS IN

HOW WAS THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR CARRIED OUT?

— Mohamed, a Zaghawa One of hundreds of children’s drawings collected by an aid

displaced within Sudan or fled the country as

— A survivor of the genocide in Darfur living in a refugee camp in

HOW DID THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY RESPOND TO

Most world powers, including the African

atrocities. Celebrities used the media to call

THE LIMITS OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE

Despite the International Criminal

In 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s

many cases, the countries in which

HOW DID THE UNITED STATES RESPOND TO THE GENOCIDE

WHAT DO CRITICS SAY ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL

WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN

The civil war between the north and the

instability and continue to struggle to recover

— Marwa Awad, Head of Communications for the World Food

HOW HAVE LOCAL GROUPS HELPED TO HEAL THE TRAUMA

safely. We want more space

— Safaa Elagib Adam, Secretary-General and General Advisor,

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