UN: Ethnic Cleansing Sweeps Sudan's Darfur Region

Yahoo! News ^ | 4/2/04 | Irwin Arieff - Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Arab militias are conducting an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing to drive out black Africans from Sudan's Darfur region and the government is doing little to stop it, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator said on Friday.

"I have no reason to believe that the government is actively planning it, but I have reason to say that little is done to stop it, and therefore it seems as if it is being condoned," Jan Egeland, the world body's humanitarian affairs chief, said after briefing the Security Council.

"Scorched-earth tactics are being employed throughout Darfur, including the deliberate destruction of schools, wells, seed and food supplies, making whole towns and villages uninhabitable," he said, describing an "organized campaign" that has driven hundreds of thousands from their homes and triggered "one of the world's worst humanitarian crises."

Following his briefing, the 15-nation council issued a statement calling on the Sudan government and rebel groups to protect civilians in the northeast African nation, help aid workers gain access to needy regions, agree on a humanitarian cease-fire and "reach a political settlement to the dispute."

Two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement, launched a revolt in the Darfur region in February of last year, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the poor area bordering Chad and arming Arab militias to loot and burn African villages.

But other parts of the arid nation, Africa's largest in size, have been mired in two decades of civil war, fueled by religion, ethnicity, oil and political ideology.

SUDAN SAYS CRISIS 'INFLATED'

Darfur peace talks opened this week in N'Djamena, the capital of neighboring Chad, where the United Nations (news - web sites) says tens of thousands of Darfur refugees have fled.

But the talks have gotten off to a slow start, with the first few days devoted to "talking about talks," Egeland said.

U.S. envoy Stuart Holliday said Washington wanted all parties to the conflict to adopt an immediate cease-fire, quickly provide aid workers free access to the area, and let in monitors to ensure civilians are protected.

U.S. officials privately grumbled that council members Pakistan and Algeria had insisted on watering down the council statement's language, a charge those two countries denied.

Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Elfatih Mohamed Ahmed Erwa, predicted the peace talks could take anywhere from two weeks to two or three months to reach a deal but accused U.N. officials of inflating the gravity of the crisis.

"It is inflated in its real magnitude, I think in both the number of people displaced, the number who have died and also the number of refugees," he told reporters.

Erwa also denied government involvement in the conflict although he did not deny that militias in Darfur blamed for the ethnic cleansing campaign may be backed by his government.

A U.N. spokesman in Geneva said on Friday the United Nations planned to send a fact-finding mission to Darfur in coming days to probe allegations of rights abuses.

While some have compared the Darfur conflict to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Egeland said U.N. eyewitnesses reported a systematic campaign by Arab militias -- including a militia known as "janjaweed" -- to drive black Africans out of the region, rather than mass killings.

"I would say it is ethnic cleansing, but it is not genocide, and we should avoid it escalating further," he said.

[NormsRevenge]

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[GeronL]

Is it me or are they trying to make it sound racial instead of blaming Islamic radicals?

[Destro]

Both groups are Muslims I think - Arab Muslims vs Black (Native) Muslims.

[FlyVet]

Seeing as we're a little busy right now, I'm sure the UN will assemble a task force and send them in to put a stop to this atrocity.

/SARCASM

[Wilhelm Tell]

Radical Islam is attacking everywhere -- from white Europe to black Africa. And it is not politically correct to mention that the Islamists enslave the Africans they don't kill or drive out.

[Wilhelm Tell]

Both groups are Muslims I think - Arab Muslims vs Black (Native) Muslims.

It is my understanding that the Black Sudanese are mostly Christian or Annimist (native African religions). I'm rather sure that is the case, but I am not an expert on Africa and I could be wrong. I'm not sure if the Christians are Catholic, Protestant, or maybe Coptic or something else.

[Destro]

Sudan has Black Christians of all kinds, Black anamists and Black Muslims.

[Clive]

-

[VOA]

Hey, let's put get some return on our tax dollars...by consulting the CIA
World Factbook on Sudan at
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/su.html

Here's part of the summary:
"Military regimes favoring Islamic-oriented governments have dominated national
politics since independence from the UK in 1956. Sudan has been embroiled in a civil
war for all but 10 years of this period (1972-82). The wars are rooted in northern
economic, political, and social domination of non-Muslim, non-Arab southern Sudanese.
Since 1983, the war and war- and famine-related effects have led to more than
2 million deaths and over 4 million people displaced. The ruling regime is a mixture
of military elite and an
Islamist party that came to power in a 1989 coup. Some northern opposition parties
have made common cause with the southern rebels and entered the war as a part
of an anti-government alliance. Peace talks gained momentum in 2002-03 with
the signing of several accords, including a cease-fire agreement. "

(VOA's cynical comment: "cease-fire agreement", right. The Islamics are just
getting a little R&R before trying to finish off the Christians and animists
in the south and seizing all the oil holdings.)

[VOA]

Radical Islam is attacking everywhere -- from white Europe to black Africa. And it
is not politically correct to mention that the Islamists enslave the Africans
they don't kill or drive out.

I read a nice profile on Luol Deng, one of the players on Duke's basketball team.
The article detailed how his family were refugees from Sudan...and not word
about what really could have made the flight from home a necessity.

Whenever I read an article about decent folks being killed or put to flight
and the reasons just can't be dredged out of the article...it seems like
I very often find out "Yep, it was due to Islamics doing what they do.".

[Dante3]

BUMP