The Crisis in Darfur

The War in Darfur, a region in Sudan, has been the reason for mass slaughter and rape of Darfur men, women, and children. The U.S. named it “The Genocide”. The war in Darfur has been called the worst humanitarian crisis of the century and its effects are still seen today. The UN wanted to help so the UN Security Council visited the President to try to get approval. The Crisis in Darfur is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan due to the Sudanese burning villages murdering, raping, and more. The UN Security Council visited the President wanting approval to end human rights violations taking place in Darfur.

Muslim festivals are timed to local sightings of various phases of the moon. Revolution day in Sudan is a national holiday, that commemorates the bloodless coup of 1989. Revolution day is on June 30. The African nation in Sudan is a country with strong Islamic and Christian influences. Partially ruled by Islamic law, the type of clothes worn in Sudan is similar to those worn in the surrounding nations of Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia. The climate also usually affects how the dress.

The UN has warned that violent attacks on international peacekeepers and civilians in Sudan’s conflict-torn Darfur region have been increasing, forcing tens of thousands of people out of their homes. Darfur has been turmoil since 2003, when ethnic Africans revolted accusing the Arab domination Sudanese government of discrimination. Hassan Hamid Hassan, Sudan’s deputy UN ambassador, told the Security Council that the violence and displacements were mainly due to tribal clashes and attacks by rebels, not government forces.

In the past twenty years, Darfur has been in a disastrous famine. Darfur is affected by poor rainfall, resulting in sudden market fluctuation, livelihood changes and displacement. The May 2010, West Darfur Food Security Monitoring Survey reported that the cost of a minimum health food basket has increased 14% between February and May of 2011. In recent years, the percent of food insecure households has decreased but it was still a staggering 45% in 2008. Access to clean water in 2007 stood at 76%, while 3 million conflict-affected people had access to basic health services.

The Bush administration invested heavily in negotiating an end to the north-south was, and the signing earlier this year to a formal peace agreement-however limited and flawed-must be recognized as a major foreign policy achievement. But precisely because of the administration’s investment in a north-south agreement, including the appointment Senator John Danforth as a special envoy to Sudan, there was a widespread reluctant within the State Department to hold Khartoum accountable for the genocide that was clearly unfolding in early 2004, when north-south negotiations had entered their final phase.

“The thinking by U.S. officials involved in the negotiations, and their British and Norwegian counterparts, was that pressing the National Islamic Front regime too hard on Darfur would undermine the chances of consummating the north-south agreement. But this diplomatic strategy was of course transparent to Khartoum and thus perversely provided an incentive for the regime to extend negotiations as long as possible-always promising a light at the end of the diplomatic tunnel.”() The last issue of substance between Khartoum and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement was resolved in a protocol signed by all parties in late May 2004. Two weeks later, following months of terrifying reports from human rights groups, the State Department announced that it would begin an investigation to determine whether Khartoum was guilty of genocide in Darfur. The close sequence of dates was not a coincidence.

But a tremendous amount of the violent destruction in Darfur had already been accomplished by June 2004; indeed, this marks the approximate point in the conflict at which deaths from malnutrition and disease began to exceed those from violence. Moreover, Khartoum continued to use the north-south peace agreement as a threat, declaring with brazen confidence that if it were pushed too hard on Darfur, the negotiated agreement might be endangered. The agreement’s final signing ceremony occurred in Nairobi on January 9, 2005; the inauguration of a new government took place six months later, on July 9, 2005; the killing in Darfur, of course, continues.

“The AU began to deploy a small number of monitors to Darfur following a ceasefire signed in April 2004 in N’Djamena, Chad. A commitment in late summer 2004 to increase the monitoring force to approximately 3,500 went unfulfilled for over half a year, and during this time the AU was unable to secure from Khartoum a mandate for civilian protection-only a mandate to monitor the largely nonexistent ceasefire. Recently, the AU has said it will increase its force to 7,700 by September, and possibly 12,000 by spring 2006.”() “As many have recognized, the AU is quite unable to deploy to this force-level with its own resources and NATO, as a consequence, has very recently agreed to provide logistics and transport capacity. The bigger problem, however, is that even with NATO’s help, the nascent AU Peace and Security Commission is simply not up to this mission if the goal for Darfur is adequate protection for civilians and humanitarian operations.”()

Works Cited

“Darfur Crisis: Death Estimates Demonstrates Severity of Crisis, but Their Accuracy and Credibility Could Be Enhanced: GAO-07-24.” GAO Reports (2006): 1. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.

“Darfur.” Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 15 Jun. 2015. . Accessed 6 Feb. 2017.

Jumbert, Maria Gabrielsen. Third World Quarterly 35.2 (2014): 284-99. History Reference Center. Web.

“United Nations Children’s Fund.” Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. N.p.: World Book, 2016. 1p. 1. Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.

Van De Walle, Nicolas. “Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa/From War to Genocide: Criminal Politics in Rwanda, 1990-1994.” Foreign Affairs 95.3 (2016): 189. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.