The scene begins with a car driving through the Sudanese desert with three panicked passengers: a white male doctor, a white female journalist and a Sudanese woman.

They are struggling to get their bearings from a map that barely shows the road. Suddenly a bullet pings the back of the car, then another…then another. So begins In Darfur, a play written by New York Times researcher Winter Miller who has analyzed the Darfur crisis for years. The play is a vivid attempt to make people connect with the characters and witness the pain and despair that black Africans experience in Darfur, but also highlight their seemingly endless resilience in the face of unquestionable evil. As I looked around the theater at the shocked faces of the audience, I was stunned at the very real absence of black faces.

The Sudan, despite being the largest country in Africa, has had a rough and complicated history with disputes mainly over land and water (and now oil) that have left many ethnic groups feeling marginalized. The various factions fighting each other have over the years merged, splintered, coalesced and backstabbed each other to the point where none are without their share of blame for the conflict. The most recent conflict escalated in 2003, when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), mostly comprised of black Africans, started an uprising against Omar Al-Bashir’s government. The government and government sponsored militias then retaliated by letting loose one of the most horrific and bloody campaigns in recent history to try and completely wipe out this developing threat.

The Janjaweed, an Arab militia, was given free reign to pillage, rape, maim and murder black Africans, most not active participants in the conflict, with government air and logistical support. Together they launched a systematic plan to wipe out the darker skinned black African from Darfur – killing the men and boys, raping, abusing and maiming the women, burning the villages, stealing the animals (killing what they could not take), poisoning the water wells, and destroying crops and stored food. This was all calculated to completely decimate these people and not leave them any means of survival or continuity. The UN estimates the current death toll at around 400,00 but most experts believe it to be over half a million black Africans while the Sudan Government claims it a mere 9,000! Since the conflict started, almost 3,000,000 refugees and Internally Displaced People (IDPs), the term given to "refugees" in their own country, have fled their homes and wound up in camps in Sudan and Chad.

In June 2005 president Bush declared the situation in Darfur a genocide, the first time a sitting US president declared an on going action as genocide as it happened, yet did not do much to confront it. The UN and the African Union refused to call it a genocide instead using the much softer "mass murder of civilians".

According to the UN General Assembly resolution of 9 December 1948 (article 2), genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, members of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) 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) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

How many more hundreds of thousands of people must die before the World decides enough? Where is the outrage among Africans and why are their leaders who never seem to short of words on issues regarding the Colonial abuse of Africans, suddenly quiet when hundreds of thousands of our kin are being slaughtered? The harshest action that these leaders have taken was to deny Bashir the chairmanship of the AU earlier this week!

After the Holocaust the world said no more, then Bosnia happened! After Bosnia the World said no more, then Rwanda happened! After Rwanda the World said no more, now Darfur is happening!

"Let us remember: what hurts the victim the most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the Bystander". Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor.

Photo Courtesy of Mark Brecke

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black Africans
written by emmo opoti , January 31, 2007

Was counting the number of times the author says black Africans, ran out of fingers and stopped.

There's a lot of propaganda in this and in the West's perception of the Darfuri conflict. I will write more later, but rest assured it is not about race. The Janjaweed do not have leave to kill, maim, torture, etc but yes, war in Africa is brutal and often ethnic considerations do come into play.

The Janajaweed are not Arab either. A lot of this belongs in the same sort of book that Pat Robertson and other such preach from, telling the world about Arabs with black slaves in Sudan. This issue came into the international sphere purely as a 'what-about?' in response to international outrage on the Iraq War and Israeli action in the OT.

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written by Bosibori , January 31, 2007

It is a fact that most if not all civil and inter-border wars occuring in Africa,bottle down to the fight for leadership and resources,but these wars are carried out according to racial and tribal lines....and Dave YES !!! a silent bystander is equally as gulity as an the one inflicting the pain!!!!! how much more blood shed does the Security council need to see before they can take action,indeed cosmopolitanism is truly a fleeting fable as far as the dilapidation of Africa and the UN are concerned !!!

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written by emmo opoti , February 01, 2007

It is all well and good to call on our 'racist' emotions in defence of the Darfurians, but the conflict is much different than what is portrayed in the article, or in the popular press.

For starters the Janjaweed are not Arabs. They may be from tribes that have adpted Arabic as their primary language but no they are not Arabs.

Second, the definition of genocide that you have given diqualifies the Darfurian conflict from that label. There is doubtless a war, and as wars go ethnicity plays a big role, however there is no systematic campaign by the government of Sudan to eliminate the Darfurian peoples!

Oh, and Dave is so kind as to drop us a line about what George Bush thinks as evidence!! What gives? To wrap up, just as the Ethiopians traced their royal lineage back to the meeting of Solomon and the Makeda, so did the legitimacy of the rulers of many Muslim lands strive to show an Arabic ancesrty. Hence all the Sheikhs and such you have around. This was not restricted to this part of the world, even in Europe many royal families try to trace their lineage back to the Christ, whose story itself seeks justification in association with the Royal House of David, or with Muhammad who similarly maps his ancestry back to Abraham. (This is such fun you see, given time and a good imagination we can probably prove that anyone living long enough in the past was an ancestor of ours!!)
P.S George W. is related to the Queen of England who is related to Prophet Muhammad through Sancha de Castille and Maria de Padilla!! He would be shocked would he not?



Back to earth now, and the genesis of the Darfurian conflict. The government in Khartoum like ours in nairobi is forced to distribute national income across the breadth of this massive country, and much like ours fails dismally in this task. The good people of the Darfur region, who are not all Fur, rose in rebellion against the Central government, and much as Kenyatta armed North Eastern Kenya against the shifta or the way the government has previoulsy armed the people of North Western Kenya against bandits, the Sudanese government armed the Janjaweed.

Are atrocities being committed? Yes. Is Khartoum responsible for a large part of it? Yes. But this is no genocide, a catastrophe though it is! Actually, in the past year, the bulk of the atrocities and the stalling of a peace deal has been from the rebels of Darfur, not the government or the Janjaweed!

Did you hear about the rape of the Aid Worker? Arabs? Those towel-headed spectres of violence and hate?

Who are the Janjaweed? Slate.com.

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written by Amir Ibrahim , February 01, 2007

To persist in the analogy with Nairobi and the northern regions, there is a sense in Kenya's remoter regions just as in Sudan, Uganda, Afghanistan,etc that Nairobi rules there indirectly, i.e in these parts of the country tribal law and communal rights,etc usually trump any decrees from Nairobi.

Blood feuds are settled traditionally and the importance of elders and such is greater than in the rest of the country.

Remember Alice Lakwena? Or even now Joseph Kony?

That said, Khartoum bears responsibility, especially given the oil bounty for redeeming the Sudan's poorer regions.

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written by emmo opoti , February 01, 2007

seems we have got side-tracked from the atrocities and are bent instead on discussing its politicisation.
Another link, debunking the Arab vs. African myth that the West loves to push as part of a wider scheme.

Characterising the Darfur war as 'Arabs' versus 'Africans' obscures the reality. Darfur's Arabs are black, indigenous, African and Muslim - just like Darfur's non-Arabs, who hail from the Fur, Masalit, Zaghawa and a dozen smaller tribes.

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written by emmo opoti , February 02, 2007

The semantics are important because the conflict is being used to slur sections of the world population and also because it respites true settlement of the conflict. Also calling it a genocide imposes rigid imperatives on the international community.

The Convention on Genocide in Article 1 expressly binds the international community to prevention and punishing of genocides. This is not just sanctions but a full chapter VII military take-out. The narrative spun by the international media has lent credence to the belief that there is a genocide underway. A study of the facts proves otherwise.

The Abuja talks and the work of Jan Egeland show clearly that the threat of international intervention while a possible deterrent for the government is an incentive to increased lawlessness and brinkmanship from the rebels and especially the JEM- Justice and Equality Movement.

Now, I believe it is the Arab League and the African Union that could best intervene here, pushing Khartoum not only towards a peace deal but also towards a less Nilo-Centric and more just distribution of national resources. This is after all the genesis of the violence.

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written by Amir Ibrahim , February 02, 2007

Good comment emmo.

There's more information on Darfur here, the writer is at Havard I believe.

An extract,

One significance of this becomes apparent when we map the categories onto the Turko-Egyptian state in the middle Nile Valley, 1821-74. For this state—which is essentially the direct predecessor of what we have today—the core identity is ‘Arab’, focused on the three tribes Shaigiya, Jaaliyiin and Danagla. (The first and second are particularly dominant in the current regime. The last is ‘Nubian’, illustrating just how conditional the term ‘Arab’ can be.) The other identity pole was originally ‘Sudanese’, the term used for enslaveable black populations from the South in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but which by a curious process of label migration, came by the 1980s to refer to the ruling elite, the three tribes themselves. Meanwhile, the Southerners had adopted the term ‘African’ to assert their identity, contributing to a vibrant debate among Sudanese intellectuals as to Sudan’s relative positions in the Arab and African worlds.6 From the viewpoint of Southern Sudan (and indeed east Africa), ‘African’ and ‘Arab’ are polar opposites. From the viewpoint of Darfur and its ‘Sudanic’ orientation, ‘Arab’ is merely one subset of ‘African’. Darfurians had no difficulty with multiple identities, and indeed would have defined their African kingdom as encompassing indigenous Arabs, both Bedouins and cultural literate Arabs.

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Genocide?
written by Amina , February 02, 2007

What then is going on in Darfur? Seems to me we are hell bent on semantics here! (and like you just said, emmo, politics). Without a doubt, there is mass murder going on Darfur, whether sanctioned by the government or not. Noone is really taking a strong stand on this! Will be back with more on this!!

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Hahahaa...I laugh because it h
written by Honey , February 03, 2007

For one, I am writng my views as one who has worked closely with the 'Lost Boys' of Sudan, and their transition into American society, watched videos about their childhood. I have this to say: if what goes on is not 'ethnic cleansing' or 'race cleansing'...then it has metamorphosized into a bigger ogre...with the two elements fused as the core.

We are not here to blame 'races' and 'groups' of people...we need to look at the facts on the ground.

Not all arabs are murderers, but those who sit on the fence doing nothing cannot be exonerated from the blame either!

'Janjaweed' may not be arab. Negro yes, but brainwashed negro. If one had a chance of watching the movie 'blood diamond', and observed character change in the young boy, they need not ask more. Whose Ideals are the maimers following...the arab of course! Lets stop and think why Kony, or even Museveni himself prefered children soldiers. Some get rehabilitated once recaptured, some remain the beasts they were turned into.

Specific examples...when soldiers chop off women's breasts so they cannot breast feed...especially women with boy children..what are we talking here...ending the birthline right?

When crops are sprayed with toxicants to kill them, so villages with more men can starve...what are we about? It was this devious few years ago, thank God the international pressure has stopped such bold ethnic cleansing!

Thats why in early eighties, parents sent their 6,4, 5 year old boys on along trek to Ethiopia, to Kenya, to anywhere so they can have a chance to live. A good number perished in the river Nile, as Ethipia tossed them out. Please tell me, how many Arab children have been thru this?. Being Arab or Somali or Caucasian or Negro or Mullatto should not make one turn a blind eye to atrocities perpetrated by their 'own'.

Which makes me ask, why are arabs never blamed for the slave trade they initiated? Instead we seem to pin the caucasian more, yet the root of all evil was the arab..huh?

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there still exists ethnic clea
written by Nekessa , February 03, 2007

What the Janajaweed does now--- they surround villages for days asking people to run away.. and as they leave their homes, they shoot and kill the men and boys. This is going on in Darfur right now. I honestly don't care whether its racial, tribal, religious OR a genocide, or mass murder, but the truth of the matter is there are people in Darfur being killed, and something has to be done about it..... no government should be this helpless (assuming they are) in protecting its citizens.. neither shud any govt partake in such atrocities( assuming Bashir is responsible), and the international community (yes, includes AU, should work harder than they are)

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What is genocide?
written by Dave Nyambati , February 06, 2007

Emmo – Can you seriously compare my argument with the insane ramblings of the Pat Robertsons of this world? And the only reason I brought up Bush was to show how much the West truly regards Africa and African life. The Bush administration declared it genocide then did nothing of substance (yet it mobilized all the arms of its government for one Terri Schiavo) – African should expect nothing from the West, we should take it upon ourselves to deal with the Darfur situation. I admit that the West has its own agendas and only gets involved when it sees a chance to propagate them.

War in Africa is brutal and like I said there have been many atrocities committed by both sides but only one of these sides has government approval and help. On the eve of an attack, survivors have reported seeing military aircraft flying above, no doubt conduction recon. In many cases the aircraft actually bomb the villages first before the Janjaweed (who have surrounded the village) move in and pick off those trying to escape. They then kill the men and the boys, rape women, cutting off the breasts of those lactating. They even go as far as putting holes in all the water containers and poisoning the water holes after burning all the stored food so whoever comes back cannot salvage food or water containers. This is a systematic operation and as per the articles of the UN – genocide. Bashir has on many occasions openly backed up the Janjaweed so there’s no ambiguity on where he stands. Any government that sanctions this or that turns its military against its non-combatant civilian population has to be condemned and action taken against it by the world body.

Acording to the UN, the Janjaweed is comprised of nomadic Arab tribes. We know that most Janjaweed come from the Abbala and the Bagagra tribes who both consider themselves Arabs and speak dialects of Arabic. The Janjaweed are also largely lighter skinned and have straighter hair than the ethnic groups of Darfur (Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit) - but like Amina said, semantics. To be clear, there are other Arabic tribes in Sudan that are not part of this conflict. It is interesting though that UN Aid workers have reported finding an untouched “Arab” villages in between “ethnic Darfuri” villages attacked by the Janjaweed – an obvious exception.

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written by emmo opoti , February 06, 2007

Like I said, there are atrocities being committed, but to package the conflict as Arab vs. African is exactly the reason why there is no international reaction or an effort by the Arab League or African Union to bring the conflict to an end.

This would not have registered anywhere on the Kenyan conscience but for our love of the Arabic pinata.

Like I said before, the Darfuris are rebelling against the government in Khartoum, and it is arming the locals to beat them down. I am not sure that the atrocities you have talked about are systematic or planned - which is what it would take for them to be called a genocide. I have seen no information that would lead to that conclusion.

As for Pat Robertson, the only people, certainly in the UK that talk about Darfur in those terms are those sponsored by the likes of people Bush and Robertson cosy up to. The USA is in a time-warp so perhaps I judged you a little harshly. My apologies.

To iterate, it is not Arabs, vs. Africans ( whatever that means!!) By your standards what would you call Somalis, or Nubians, or Tuaregs or the Oromo or the Ouaddai? Is Zidane an Arab? etc, etc.

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written by Damn right! The atrocities are , February 06, 2007

Emmo:
Your testaments reek heresy, empty rhetoric and ignorance.

If you have followed this war at all, by now you'd know that the kind of inhumanity waged against sudanese of African origin is not your everyday gorilla tussling! This war has been going on for over 15 years.
Let a lone the hollywood hyped Darfur issues. A generation of Sudanese people were raised in the camps of Nothern Kenya.
Are they the same who have been arming locals as you claim? Arming them with stones and sticks?

Please find nother line of argument, the above is so weak it can not hold a sentense.

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Sudanese Ambassador
written by Nekessa , February 07, 2007

The Sudanese Ambassador to the United States, John Ukec Lueth Ukec, is in Minnesota for a speaking engagement in Minneapolis Wednesday night, and he spoke with MPR's Tom Crann about the situation in his country.
Listen here

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written by emmo opoti , February 08, 2007

I can see the 'Arab' Ambassador defending his Arab people. So much more important to read scholarly works on Darfur, like the links I have laid out above, than to listen to the lazy ruminations of America's corporate media.

@amnRight,
You obviously haven't got a clue. The Darfuri people's fought on the government side in the Sudanese Civil War, they are not a part of the historical south and I have not heard of the presence of Sudanese of Western origin living in the camps of Northern Kenya.

It would be exciting if you and your friend Honey could provide links to source your blather.

@Honey
Get with reality. So there are Arabs in Sierra Leone and in Northern Uganda? Joseph Kony is a very Chritian man as was Alice Lakwena. They even claim to be prophets!! I know its open season on Islam but a bit of reality would not hurt anyone!

@Nyambati
Why would there be ambiguity about where Bashir stands? The JEM and other Darfuri groups are rebel forces causing unrest within his borders. Let's talk about the tactics he is using here, about the abuse of human rights, but not about inanities like 'it is clear where his sympathies lie'.

Now as to the fact that the Janjaweed seem selective in what villages they attack, this has everything to do with the fact that in a civil war such as this, or indeed in any African struggle ( look at Kenyan politics) the battlelines are drawn in the sand of ethnicities. Most if not all Luo Nyanza is anti-Kibaki, and for all the Njamaba talk, Central Kenya is anti-Raila, similarly in Darfur, there are tribes allied to Bashir, and others allied to the different Darfuri factions. More, there is even strife within these groups with some controlling different areas, read about Minni Minnawi and the way his forces have been attacking other ethnic Africans,etc. If only things were so simple....

On the genocide charge, read this article here. Darfur, damned by Western Pity

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Amazing grace
written by a guest , February 08, 2007

Poor Black African Darfurians!! Imagine if they were fighting a Christian government, or a Hindu one,a secular or an atheistic state. It would not matter how many of them got killed for their seperatist ambitions, cf. Thailand, Chechnya, Kashmir, Kurds in Turkey, etc they would then just be terrorists, like all Muslims resisting oppression, but this somehow makes headline news because it can be used to great effect to thrash the Arab!

P.S, How many more are dying in the Congo? Has Honey heard of that other massive country? The Congo?

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