Misconceptions About Darfur

Posted on April 23, 2006
Filed Under General Thoughts |

Here are the most common misconceptions about the Darfur conflict. 7 more days to go until the results of the Abuja talks are official. I hope they turn out to be good. With all the recent new events I’m even more against the UN taking over the AU. If anything the UN should fund the AU to remain there. UN troops will just make it worse than it is especially if the jihad does really start. This is an internal matter and should be settled without foreign intervention. The solution should be 100% local. If peace between the South and North can happen so can another one with the West. Let’s all pray this ends well. The next month will be a very crucial time.

Comments

10 Responses to “Misconceptions About Darfur”

  1. tommy on April 23rd, 2006 6:37 pm

    Hey Drima, why not just split Sudan up? Why would that not be a good idea? It seems like an awfully big country (the largest in Africa right?) with a lot of people who just don’t get along. The boundaries of the Sudan were set by colonialists anyway. Why not just have the international community partition the country up along more natural lines?

  2. Anonymous on April 24th, 2006 5:19 am

    They don’t even know how many people have been killed and misplaced in Dafur. A conservative estimate is that 50,000 have been murdered.
    An internal matter?
    An when the internal government started the problem and started the rampage?
    Your right, we don’t agree on much. We can’t even agree on people’s basic right to live. I wonder if it makes a difference to the people getting murdered and displaced who stops the violence.
    Good luck with your exams.
    t

  3. Drima aka ST on April 24th, 2006 7:25 pm

    yes t,
    we respectfuly disagree again but I would still like to discuss further with you later

    thanx for wishin me luck…
    gtg. I’m in class now =p

    aaarggh OK wait… fine I hate to admit it but yes it isn’t an internal matter as you said… It was and should have been but clearly the “local” solution isn’t working. If the government didn’t screw it up so badly the situation wouldn’t be what it is today… However I still think we should wait until the end of April to see the results of the Abuja talks

  4. Drima aka ST on April 24th, 2006 10:27 pm

    tommy,

    good idea many Sudanese people believe it would work but it’s not that simple. The current peace between south and north has some conditions. if they manage to work things out and get along for the next 5 years, Sudan will stay one country but if things are still messy the southerners will split up and set up their own country…

    Egypt doesn’t want that to happen at all because if the south becomes a seperate country, it would mean the Nile agreement on the water resources would have to be revised. Egypt already has a serious water problem and it can’t afford to have a new country pop out and say they want their share of the Nile water.

    Some say Sudan must not split up by all means. They think it’s a matter of “national pride”. I think that’s just retarded.

  5. Andrew Brehm on April 25th, 2006 6:33 am

    “Some say Sudan must not split up by all means. They think it’s a matter of “national pride”. I think that’s just retarded.”

    That is the nationalist attitute that is quite popular in Arab countries. It is a big problem. It leads to terrible wars and attempts to unite several countries under one ethnic group (including assimilated groups, perhaps) and horrible treatment of minorities (think of Jews or Kurds in Arab countries).

    We have had these problems in Europe.

    I am usually against nationalism by default.

    See

    http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=73057

    and

    http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=75062

  6. tommy on April 25th, 2006 8:06 pm

    “Sudan will stay one country but if things are still messy the southerners will split up and set up their own country…”

    Even if things don’t work out, do you really believe Khartoum will ever let the South go.

    Sudan, like so many African countries, was simply carved up along the lines of colonial interests. While not all problems in African can simply be blamed on colonialism, the current boundaries of many African countries just don’t work very well and are not very natural.

  7. tommy on April 25th, 2006 8:09 pm

    Andrew,

    You mention the Kurds. I think they are an excellent example of Arab cultural imperialism. Many Arabs cannot even bring themselves to admit that the Kurds are not just Arabs. They are linguistically related to Iranians, not Semitic peoples.

    Yet, the Arabs constantly insist the Kurds shouldn’t have and don’t need independence.

  8. Drima aka ST on April 25th, 2006 9:12 pm

    “Even if things don’t work out, do you really believe Khartoum will ever let the South go.”

    Plans are already under way by the southerners to split up. Whether Khartoum will let it happen or not, I don’t know but it’s a matter of time. They signed the peace treaty didn’t they so they better keep their word.

  9. doolz on April 26th, 2006 10:43 pm

    Most of what she said in the article was stuff I already knew. Hassan al-Turabi’s alleged links with JEM, for instnace, I’d like to see someone substantiate those claims with some evidence. I don’t tend to take the UN’s word for things.

    Perhaps most counterproductive, the United States has failed to follow up with meaningful action. “The word ’genocide’ was not an action word; it was a responsibility word,” Charles R. Snyder, the State Department’s senior representative on Sudan, told me in late 2004. “There was an ethical and moral obligation, and saying it underscored how seriously we took this.” The Bush administration’s recent idea of sending several hundred NATO advisers to support African Union peacekeepers falls short of what many advocates had hoped for.

    She sort of has a point here, but it’s still stupid to say that ‘the genocide label made it worse’. This is just reflexive anti-Americanism. It was already a genocide, how can calling it a genocide make it worse? I do agree that failing to take direct action to stop it after calling it what it is was wrong. The US *like almost every other country on Earth* is signatory to the UN Convention Against Genocide, which means that it is obligated to intervene stop any genocide.

    Whether or not Sudan stays intact is a good question. My impression is that the government only cares about people in the major cities, and sees areas like Darfur and the South as an internal empire. I was surprised that the South didn’t completely lose its cool over the death of Garang last year. What’s your opinion of Salva Kir?

  10. Drima aka ST on May 1st, 2006 11:13 am

    Whether the “genocide” label made it worse or not is a complex issue but one thing I can tell you for sure is that this is not a racial conflict. There is no such thing as ethnic cleansing occuring. That’s a huge misconception.

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