The genocides of the 20th century which occurred in Rwanda and Germany had striking similarities, something that should have alerted the world to stop them. At the core of these two massacres, patterns existed that outlined how similar thinking and reasoning could lead to something as horrible as these two events. One can see how both groups used their command of knowledge as a way to control the people, how the rest of the world refused to step up to stop the killings, and how the people were thought of as less than humans to provide a just cause for such terrible acts.
Genocide: The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular group or nationality. When people think of this forbidding word, their mind immediately flashes to images of concentration camps and Adolf Hitler’s army raising their arms, saluting to swastikas used during the Holocaust in WWII. But what people don’t realize is that genocide is not such a rarity. Thousands, even millions of civilians die each time genocide strikes. Genocides have been committed since the beginning of humanity, but three massacres since Hitler’s reign left the world shocked again at its own cruelty.
...he same size as France. Darfur is the home of approximately 6 million people all of which are Muslim. In a struggle for political control, weapons poured into Darfur in which started to form conflict. Two Darfuri rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality movement, started conflict against the Sudanese government in 2003. The government of Sudan unleashed the Janjaweed (devils on horseback) to retaliate. Sudanese forces with the help form the Janjaweed attacked hundreds of villages, over 400 villages were destroyed and millions were forced to flee. The genocide in Darfur has a death count of 400,000 and displaced over 2,500,000 people. More than 1,000 people die each day, and approximately 5,000 people die each month. Darfur today is still suffering and the problem with Sudan cannot be resolved until peace is establish in Darfur.
The definition of genocide as given in the Webster's College Dictionary is "The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group." This definition depicts the situation in 1994 of Rwanda, a small, poor, central African country. The Rwandan genocide was the systematic extermination of over eight hundred thousand Tutsi, an ethnic group in Rwanda, by the Hutu, another ethnic group in Rwanda. In this essay I will briefly describe the history of the conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi, the 100 days of genocide in 1994, and the affects of the massacre on the economy and the people of Rwanda.
"The Genocide in Darfur and Its Consequences." By Kallie Szczepanski. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.
The Sudan genocide, a civil war that was started in the early 1980s when drought, famine and the spread of un-arable land caused traditional African herders and Darfur citizens to argue over land. For the next 22 years relationships worsened between the Arab and non-Arab tribes. The Western region of Sudan: Darfur was thrown into civil war by its own government and two rbel armies in an uprising that should have been seen coming for a long time. This essay will elaberate on the events that occurred in Sudan over the past twenty two years and to what extent the mass killings that occurred can be defined as Genocide. The insurgeny began in Febuary 2003; goning virtually uunnoticed by the international community and shadowed by the ongoing war in Irac. The Sudan governent has been blamed for virtually every event during the past 22 years of civil unrest that has led up to the mass killing of hundreds and thousands of civilians. The many different ethinic groups in Sudan were constantly arguing and fighting over any and all issues and problems that could be brought upon to their attention; this led to growing tension. The mass killings in Sudan could be classified as ethnic cleansing; a term used to describe the killing of an ethnic group of people because their role in that society is unjustified or they are invading on terriotory that they are not welcome on.
In 1898, Britain and Egypt took control over Sudan. This didn’t include Darfur, which was an independent territory ruled by a sultan. In 1916, Britain added Darfur to the territory it controlled. After World War II, in 1945, Britain and Egypt began preparing Sudan for independence. From 1945-1989, Darfur -remote from Khartoum and having invaluable resources- suffered neglect from all governments. Sudan has been independence since 1956. However, the journey that led to Sudan’s genocide in Darfur began in the late 1800s. It’s a complicated tale that involves conquest; internal politics; social, ethnical, racial, and re...
In international law, a crime against humanity is an act of persecution or any large scale atrocities against a "people," and it is the highest level of a criminal offense. Crimes against humanity have existed in international law for over half a century and are also evidenced in prosecutions before some national courts. There are controversies in the world today that surrounds the importance and value of human life. One of these controversies is the systematic killing of a mass amount of people that is known as genocide. The most egregious crime of all is genocide which also shares similarities with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Genocide targets a group of people and seek out to destroy them in whole. Genocide is included as one of the four core international crimes. The Penal Statue defines international crimes as the gravest crimes that threaten peace, security and well-being of the world and are of concern to the international community. (Natarajan 2014) In history, two of the unforgettable mass genocides were the annihilation of the Jewish population known as the Holocaust, and Tutsi population being killed in the Rwandan genocide.
"Summary of the Crisis in Darfur, Sudan." Stop the Genocide in Darfur. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. .
Sudan is the biggest nation in Africa and around six million people live in Darfur. The massacres in Darfur began in 2003 and still continue today. The genocide is let by equipped Arab soldiers (also known as the Janjaweed). The Janjaweed soldiers dismantled communities, corrupted the point of supply of water, killed, abused, and tormented innocent people. Millions of people in Darfur were left without homes and forty-eight thousand dead. Sudan has been in two civil wars since their freedom in 1956. There was then a fight for limited supplies and wanderers began to fight for land. This led to a war between North Sudan against South Sudan. In 1972, the first domestic war comes to a finish. Eleven years later the second, and deadliest, war begins. Over four millions were left without a home and over two million were killed in a span of twenty years. The government rejected any information of disturbance in Darfur. In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the North versus the South fight. South Sudan gained more legislative control in the agreement. In 2009, Sudan president Omar Bashir was wanted for felonies against mankind and later wanted for genocide. Omar Bashir has fled to different countries where he has been protected.
The atrocities in Darfur are being conducted by an assembly of government funded and heavily armed militants who are known as the Janjaweed. These groups of Arab radicals destroy the people of Darfur by pillaging and burning their villages, robbing them of their economic assets, contaminating their water supplies by dumping dead bodies into the wells, slaughtering, raping, and tormenting them. The attacks on the villages range from a variety of approaches but the most typical start with bombings from the Sudanese Air Force, followed by the raids of the Janjaweed. A recent estimate by UNICEF has the death toll in Darfur at an astonishing 300,000. Out of the total population of 6.2 million people, 4.7 million are affected by the conflict. Half of the directly affected people are children; of these children, almost 700,000 have lived their entire life knowing nothing more than the violent lifestyle that has overtaken the region (Sudan: Darfur Overview).
The purpose of this essay is to adequately depict the current conflict in Darfur and discuss the effects that the Darfur Conflict has had on the neighboring countries, the Horn of Africa region and U.S. interest. In addition, this essay will explore how Darfur Conflict affects global concerns.
Since its independence from the United Kingdom and Egypt, the country of Sudan has always been in constant ethnic and rebel conflicts. Ironically, the conflicts that Sudan engaged in can be found inside its territories instead of its neighboring countries. The dangerous situation of the country created many Sudanese refugees in the process. Out of fear of being slaughtered, raped and enslaved, many fled to neighboring states of Eritrea, Chad, Ethiopia, Uganda and Cent...
? Sudan: Government commits ?ethic cleansing? in Darfur. (2004). Retrieved May 20, 2004, from Human Rights Watch Web site: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/07/darfur8549_txt.htm
Percival, Valerie, and Thomas Homer-Dixon. "Getting Rwanda wrong. (genocide in Rwanda)." Saturday Night. v110. n7 (Sept 1995): p47(3). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. K12 Trial Site. 12 Apr. 2010 .