LegendaryLife Blog

Oct
21
2007

Documentary Review: Darfur, on our watch

Life is tough if you live in Darfur Sudan is Africa’s largest country but has been strife with war for decades as has much of Africa. Muslims use to live side by side with their Arabian friends for centuries within the Darfur region but when great oil wealth was discovered this all changed for the worse. Sadly, Darfur has been characterized as a Rwanda going in slow motion and still, even to this day, little has been done to stem the tide of death and rape.

Background

Sadly, our colonial raping of the continent of Africa continues to this day but slavery has been replaced by something far worse, indifference. We are all responsible for what is occurring as the precious commodity that sparked this tragedy is what goes into your gas tank, is molded into your Barbie Dolls and what powers much of the worlds machinery… we are talking about OIL. So far in the 21st century, from Nigeria to Iraq, OIL has been the catalyst to cause so much misery and death.

Summary

I believe this is worth watching but if you don’t have time, here is a summary of the key points outlined in the documentary:

Darfur is the first genocide of the 21st century and has gone on pretty much unimpeded over the past 4 years
camps in Chad (neighboring country where many refuges head to for safety) have a 3 week waiting period
200 000 dead, 2.5 million forced to move
the motto of the UN was “Never Again” after what occurred during the Holocaust but the it has been bogged down by political semantics
Mia Farrow has given thousands of interviews to push Darfur into he forefront of the worlds consciousness, using her celebrity to spread the word
Mia has traveled to Darfur (Sudan) 7 times so far
sudanreeves.org is an influential site to bare witness to the genocide within Darfur
most attacks begin with an uncoordinated areal attack with a retrofitted cargo plane dropping barrels of explosives onto a village to cause panic followed by the Jajaweed coming into the village by camel, killing the men and raping the woman before moving onto the next village
in 2003, the security council got together to discuss reports about mass killings happening within Darfur, a province of Sudan
China partnered with Sudan after oil was discovered in the 21st century and has becoming one of their biggest offshore suppliers
when oil wealth came into being due to historic agreements in China, the ruling military elite became extremely wealthy as they kept this wealth to themselves with little making its way into the region of Darfur
Darfur region was comprised of 6 million Muslims use to share scarce water resources with nomadic Arabian herdsmen
rebel groups formed to claim a share of the countries new found wealth from the ruling elite but instead of sharing, the ruling elite decided to wage war against the rebels by arming militias to do the dirty work, the Janjaweed
Janjaweed translates to “devil on horseback”
government arms the Arabs to kill off the Muslims, no more sharing of resources
government used the Arabs because its a cheap way to wage war, they loot instead of receiving a salary and they reposes land by force
in 2004 the Muslims thought the UN was coming to rescue them from systematic annihilation but now they have realized that the UN doesn’t care about them
by 2007, camps in Eastern Chad and Western Sudan comprise of most of the settlements within that region
the UN provides aid but fails to do anything to prevent the problems causing refuges needing the camps to begin with
by the end of 2003, 700 000 people in Darfur where forced from their homes
by 2004, areal photographs showed villages burning to the ground followed by a number of alarming reports
200 000 to 500 000 people so far are estimated to have been killed during the conflict so far
in the book A Problem from Hell – America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power shows that world governments have a history of being shy to intervening when genocide is occurring even when faced with overwhelming proof, they want it stopped but don’t want to take risks
the UN sat idly by as Bosnia and Rwanda occurred, when Sudan began to occur, the lessons learned from past failures regarding genocide where not practiced
the United Nations security council is the most powerful council within the UN but sadly, it’s also where most of the politics of inaction towards Sudan took place
Russia couldn’t condemn Sudan because it was doing the same thing in Chechnya, United States wanted action but it lost status due to its carelessness within Iraq, China didn’t want to do anything that would affect its relationship with the Sudanese government providing it with much needed oil
Sudan ignored security council resolutions and suffered NO REPROCUSIONS
on September 9th, 2004, Colin Powell told the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee that genocide had occurred within Sudan and the Sudanese government along with the Janjaweed bear responsibility for what was occurring
war crimes and crimes against humanity where discovered within Darfur by the UN after extensive investigations but still nothing has happened
woman living in camps within Chad and Sudan risk rape daily simply because they need to leave the camps to gather firewood to feed their family
Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, the Sudanese Ambassador to the UN, said much of the genocide occuring is blown out of proportion and made up, they say bad things happen during war and that is basically the way life goes
in 2005, the UN continued to talk about what is happening within Sudan and the government didn’t do anything while the Security Council was in a stalemate
the UN doesn’t have the ability to enter a country against the governments wishes
it took 5 years of Canadian advocacy before the UN passed a resolution allowing it to enter sovereign states without their permission during the world summit in 2005, it now had the authority to enter a country and protect its citizens from their own government
in 2006, 8 resolutions happened against Sudan (7 in 2005, 4 in 2004) and they where systematically ignored like the previous ones by the Sudanese government
one of the resolutions allowed the UN to enter by force to protect the populations within Darfur but China added a demand that it must be done with the approval by Sudan, which Sudan then declined
the problems within Darfur has now spread into Chad, turning the border between the two country into a new killing field
Chad is the 5th poorest country in the world but now they have the Janjaweed to worry about in addition to abject poverty and malnutrition
on the United States Mall, in Washington, The worlds largest antigenocide rally occurred in May 2006 with many celebrities trying to highlight the cause including George Clooney
in 2007, the Janjaweed and Sudanese leader where indited by the International Criminal Court (world court) for crimes against humanity but the Sudanese government said it would not hand over these two criminals
Olympic Games in China called by some the “Genocide Olympics” to make China personally responsible for the Genocide occurring in Sudan due to its direct investments in Sudanese Oil which was the cause of this genocide to begin with
on July 31st, 2007, there is an agreement within the UN Security Council to send 26 000 troops to Darfur by the end of the year but there is no mandate to protect the citizens nor disarming the Janjaweed