Subscribe"The 1948 convention provides a stringent definition of genocide. It must involve "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.."
Darfur, which is roughly the size of Texas, was an autonomous sultanate until 1916, when it was conquered by Britain and incorporated into Sudan. The area is topographically diverse—high desert in the north flows into lush grasslands in the south—and ethnically kaleidoscopic. It is populated by some ninety tribes and countless sub-clans. Virtually all of Darfur’s six million residents are Muslim, and, because of decades of intermarriage, almost everyone has dark skin and African features. To a visitor, Darfurians appear indistinguishable.(Emphasis added to bring out salient points.) If you want to call that "genocide," that's up to you; I prefer to reserve the term for much more clear-cut cases. I trust it's clear that I don't think Darfur is any less of a hellhole or there is any less need to do something about it because I don't call it "genocide," and frankly I find it strange that people have to call it by the worst name around in order to work up their indignation. (Talking mainly about the US Congress, not present company.)
Despite the tradition of ethnic mixing, the population has recently begun subdividing between “Arabs” and “Africans,” who are known, derogatorily, as zurga, or “blacks.” People of Arab descent tend to be nomadic, herding camels in North Darfur and cattle in the south. The three largest African tribes are the Fur—Darfur means “land of the Fur”—the Zaghawa, and the Masaaleit. The Africans generally farm, though certain groups, like the Zaghawa, sometimes maintain farms while also sweeping south with their herds during the harvest season. Competition among the tribes—for economic, not ethnic, reasons—has always been fierce, but tribal leaders customarily resolved these disputes, and their decisions were respected by the authorities in Khartoum.
In the nineteen-eighties, however, competition for land intensified. There was a regional drought, and the expanding Sahara began transforming arable soil into desert. The introduction of tractors and other mechanized farming equipment fed the ambition of some African farmers. Arab herders in North Darfur began to resent the seasonal forays of Zaghawa herdsmen into Arab-occupied grazing areas. African farmers grew hostile to the camel-riding Arab nomads from the north who increasingly trampled their farmland as they roamed in search of pasture. Arabs from countries to the west—Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad—also began flooding the region, exacerbating the feuds. Farmers who had once celebrated the annual return of Arab nomads, whose animals had fertilized their farmland and helped carry their harvests to market, began to impede their migrations.
Instead of intervening to defuse these tensions, Khartoum’s leaders essentially ignored them. A previous government had weakened the tribal-administration system, in favor of state institutions that had little legitimacy in Darfur. As a result, the region lacked a trusted system for resolving conflicts. The tribes grew more polarized, and they began gathering arms to defend their economic interests. Between 1987 and 1989, serious battles broke out between Fur farmers and Arab camel herders. Some twenty-five hundred Fur were killed, forty thousand cattle were lost, and four hundred villages were burned; five hundred Arabs died, and hundreds of the nomads’ tents were burned. Even though a local inter-tribal conference was held in 1989, its recommendations for compensation and punishment went largely unheeded—leaving outstanding grievances that would explode fourteen years later.
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posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:30 AM on July 5, 2005