Students With A View

For hundreds of years Darfur thrived as an independent sultanate which had economic ties to surrounding countries and the Mediterranean. In 1917 Britain added Darfur to the Republic of Sudan which caused a small amount of upper-class ethnic groups to attain most government power (Arabs, mostly).

            Constant neglect resulting in a stagnant government for southern Sudan caused several civil wars. In January 2003 the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was passed, but was too late to assuage the frustration from decades of economic repression. Rebel groups began their fight for freedom with an attack on a government air force base in El Fasher in February 2003.

            The government of Sudan has sent non-Arab ethnic groups so as to end the rebel attacks. Tactics used within the past four years include rape, torture, indiscriminate aerial bombings, burning of villages, and the use of child soldiers. Thousands of innocent people of all ages are being murdered (about 15,000 a month) and thousands others are starving to death due to the destruction of livestock and farms.

            The AU has sent in only about 7,000 inexperienced soldiers simply to oversee the disaster occurring in Darfur. The UN has promised 26,000 strong troops to protect civilians, but as of mid-January of this year, only about 9,000 soldiers have entered Darfur. The amount of help being offered to Darfur is proportionally minute compared to the level of atrocities being committed on a daily basis.

            Altogether about 2.6 million lives have been inexplicably altered, ruined, and ended. Crimes against humanity are being committed on a colossal scale that cannot and must not be ignored any longer. It is the moral and ethical responsibility of the American people and International community to step into Darfur and end these massacres.

                                                                                                                                                 –Jeffersonian

http://www.jcrcdallas.org/dl_docs/StatsOnDarfur.doc

http://www.genocideintervention.net/educate/crisis/darfur

According to the on-line Dictionary Genocide means the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

In East Timor in 1975 they became independent from Portugal. In article of Publishers Weekly they stated that: when East Timor became independent Indonesia decided to take over East Timor because they wanted their land. At first they let them vote to choose to be independent, but the problem was that if they chose to be independent they would kill them. Basically their choice was either die being independent or be a slave. Most people chose to be independent. Indonesia started attacking East Timor, and the United Nations allowed that to happen. In 1975 the population was roughly 700,000. Between then and now about 600,000 Timorese have died. On a CNN report the US has discovered that the Indonesians are currently trying to kill the government.

What can we do to help? Well for one we should send trained soldiers to East Timor to get the Indonesians out, and then Help rebuild it. It was our fault this happened, and we should fix it.

–TAI

http://web.esc20.net/k12databases/accessk12.html

http://web.ebscohost.com

Publishers Weekly

Located in the western region of Sudan is Darfur, a place where killing of certain ethnic groups is taking place which started in the year 2003. So far over 300,000 people have died and 15,000 more die each month in Darfur (about.com, jcrcdallas.org). The genocide is between Arabs and the Non-Arab Blacks.

            The government of Sudan allowed people such as the Janjaweed to terminate a certain group of people or even just torture them. Bombings, shootings, or rapings are some examples of how the Janjaweed are handling their mission. 1.85 million people have been displaced in Darfur due to the killings and other things that have occurred in Darfur.

            By getting the United States to go over to Darfur and monitor the people, the United States could maybe save some lives and slow down the production of the violence. The Janjaweed bomb certain areas, go around shooting random people, and use rape as another weapon to make the people fear them. If the United States went over to Darfur to stop the Janjaweed, their presence may result in the saving of lives.

            Many children and adults are dying due to malnutrition. Having to move from place to place, just to find safety and shelter for themselves is not the way a family should live. The United States could also send food to Darfur to help the starving people because more than 20% of children under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition. 

            Genocide in Darfur is something people need to look in on because of the massive killing. More and more people die each month, not only from violence but simply from malnutrition.

Ying Leap

Brea, Jennifer. “An overview of the Genocide in Darfur.” About.com. (2008): The New York Times Company. 29.    Feb. 2008

                <http://worldnews.about.com/od/sudan/ig/Darfur/Darfur.–3R.htm>

American Jewish World Service. “Statistics on the Crisis in Darfur” (April 2005)

                <http://www.jcrcdallas.org/international.php>

The first genocide of the twenty-first century is currently going on in Darfur, Sudan, and has caused distress and pain among many innocent civilians of Darfur. Of the 6 million people that live in Darfur, thousands upon thousands have been killed, and 2.5 million Darfurians have been displaced from the villages they live in. In 2007, over 250,000 people were displaced in that year alone. Due to displacement and much violence, refugees have escaped to the bordering country, Chad. International peacekeepers have been trying relentlessly to bring Darfur the appropriate protection and aid Sudan needed.(genocideinterventionnetwork.org)

In 1917, Darfur was a strong monarchy and had economic ties with bordering countries and the Mediterranean. (genocideintervention.net). When Darfur was brought into the region of the Republic of Sudan by the British, in 2003, small ethnic groups gained power. Sudan’s government sent in hired soldiers to destroy the existence of Darfurians by bombing villages, murdering, raping women and children, and ruining all economic activity. This violence has hurt not only Darfur, but also humanitarian convoys trying to stop this mess.

Trying to help, the UN had stepped in and sent in approximately 19,000 troops to protect and 6,000 police to monitor the violence. (protectdarfur.org) Other countries have tried to step in, but have never succeeded in following through.

We, as humans, can send more food to the Darfurians, therefore, lessening the number of starvation deaths, sending food itself and not sending the materials to grow food because Janjaweeds would burn the crops. Hopefully, the food we did send would get to the ones who actually needed it, then who just wanted food. Although we have no control over this, we could try our hardest to get it where we wanted it to go. We could send in more troops to stop the violence, create more organizations and foundations to donate money and support these suffering people, send medical supplies to help health needs, organize the government, and setup tent cities for Darfurians to flee to. (darfurgenocide.org).

–tennisgirl

http://www.genocideintervention.net/educate/darfur

http://www.eyesondarfur.org/takeaction.html

http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes

http://www.darfurgenocide.org/act.php

Genocide always seems to be the most devastating and despicable act in our world. However, these horrible acts all have one thing in common: apparently no one knows what has happened until after hundreds of thousands of deaths. The Holocaust, for example, was hidden from everyone until almost all the Jews were dead. Today, in East Timor, one such genocide has happened, and still, the UN and others have failed to recognize it.

            In 1975, the former Portuguese-colonized country of East Timor gained full independence. However in December of that year, the Indonesian Government attacked East Timor with the approval of the Ford administration in the United States [http://www.gendercide.org/case_timor.html] and killed at least 100,000 people by July 1976. So not only did the U.S. and UN help start the genocide, they didn’t do anything to stop it because they were so irresponsible. By 1976, Indonesian president Suharto declared East Timor’s annexation into Indonesia. Even after this, the killing and fighting continued and according to the book The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, a third of the Timorese population had been killed because of the Indonesian independence suppressors.

            Later in 1999, East Timor was allowed a plebiscite (vote by which the people of a political unit determine autonomy or affiliation with another country [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plebiscite]) to decide whether East Timor should become independent or stay part of Indonesia. However, there was a catch. With the U.N. giving “security” responsibilities to the already ruthless Indonesian army (who had just finished killing five thousand people and left sixty thousand displaced in 1998), the Timorese had a different choice. They could be independent and die, or stay part of Indonesia and still be slowly killed off. When Indonesia found out that the Timorese voted independence (with 98% of eligible people voting and 78% voting independence [http://www.gendercide.org/case_timor.html]) they went in and started killing. By 2000, two-hundred thousand people had been killed.

            The actual genocide ended in 2000, but we, the guilty, need to clean up our mess. Instead of denying the evidence (which claimed only a few hundred died—this comes from the U.N. [http://www.gendercide.org/case_timor.html]), we need to be protecting the people fighting for freedom. Two weeks ago on February 12, 2008, President Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao of East Timor nearly escaped assassination attempts by Indonesian forces [http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/12/east.timor/index.html?iref=newssearch] (Jose Ramos won the Nobel peace prize in 1996 for helping solve the problems in East Timor). This shows that Indonesia is still trying to take over East Timor, and we need to say no. We did it for South Korea, we helped Vietnam, we need to go help East Timor. We need to protect what little hope they have. Now that Suharto is dead (he died Janurary 27 of this year), it would be prime time to head in and clean up our mess.

-          Demeter of Law

http://www.gendercide.org/case_timor.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plebiscite

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/12/east.timor/index.html?iref=newssearch

Genocide is hurting the life of East Timor’s People. Kids are being killed and women are being raped. The places involved with this are the United States, Canada, Australia, and other western countries. In 1975 East Timor had a tiny population of 700,000 nine days later the Indonesians attacked. Since that day 200,000 East Timorese (or East Timor’s people) have died and we helped the Indonesians

All this started in 1975 and ended in 1999 but still some conflict remains. This started because the East Timorese wanted to become independent, and wanted their own political power, but the Indonesians weren’t going to let them do that so the East Timorese were going to try to leave Indonesian power. That is what started the whole thing.

Very little things in the past have tried to be done to help. So we need to take the position to help them. First we could send them food because all of their food was burnt for another way to kill them. Plus we could send troops to help them we may not get anything out of helping them. Also in the past children have been killed and women by women have been raped we can help prevent that. So we are lucky to not be living with genocide in our lives because we may not get any help.

–Jonathan Erlenmeyer

 In the country of Bosnia, one of the small countries that resulted in the break up of Yugoslavia, there are many different ethnic and religious groups. The main ethnic groups in this region are the Serbs, the Albanians, and the Bosnians.

             There was a civil war in Yugoslavia because of when Slovenia and Croatia declaring their independence in 1991. This  led to the Yugoslavian army, which consists mostly of Serbs, to try and subdue the separatists in Slovenia. The President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, decided to send his troops that were in Slovenia, where there was not many Serbs, to Croatia. After the city of Vukovar fell to the Yugoslavian military, the Serbs began mass killings of Croatians. In 1992 the U.S. and European Community chose to recognize the independence of Bosnia. Milosevic did not like the fact that Bosnia was declared as an independent country because he wanted Bosnia under his control  and responded by attacking Sarajevo. All of this fighting was a result of one ethnic group wanting to rule all of Yugoslavia and ethnically clean the rest of Yugoslavia.

            Since the beginning of this war, there have been many cases of genocide. The Serbs began to round up Muslim people and execute them, they also used rape as a weapon against the women to cause them to flee their villages. The U.N. began to help the Bosnian Muslims by protecting the distribution of food and medicine but the troops were not allowed to interfere with the Serbs militarily. The Serbs were confident enough in the fact that the U.N. would not militarily interfere, that they continued to freely commit genocide. The Serbs have also made concentration camps of all these Muslims that they are trying to kill, and say that they do not want to waste a bullet on them (www.nybooks.com).

            At a concentration camp called Omarska, they turned theses people into “walking corpses” by withholding all the but the barest nourishment, forcing their bodies to waste away, impose on them a ceaseless terror by subjecting them to unremitting physical cruelty, and immerse them in degradation and death and decay, destroying all hope and obliterating the will to live. On August 5, 1992, Ed Vulliamy of The Guardian, the first newspaperman admitted to Omarska, stood in the camp’s canteen and watched while a group of men came squinting out of a rusted old shed, like they had not seen light in some time. All the prisoners called it the human hen coop in which thousands of men were crammed and left there in their own filth, commonly dying of asphyxiation. When these groups of people come running out of these sheds, they have precisely three minutes to run to the canteen where they eat their steaming hot stew or beans, which often caused them to have “ inside burns” but they could not help it because if they did not make it back into their shed by three minutes, they would be beaten to death (www.nybooks.com).

            This is just one example of genocide in Bosnia, which is happening everyday while we sit comfortably at our homes doing nothing about it. When we should be trying to help them in any way we can.

                                    –Gangsta Lincoln

Work Cited

The New York Review of Books. December 4, 1997. New York Review.  February 24, 2008. [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/989]

  United Human Rights Control. Human Rights. February 27, 2008. [http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/bosnia_genocide.htm]

All over the world people are in arguments, and all over the world, others are paying for these arguments.  The need for property and selfish gain by two people can destroy a country for thousands of innocent civilians.  However, once a conflict is introduced, and the people of that land become involved, they are no longer innocent.  The innocence of these people is diminished because one side will become their opinion, and that influence and motivation will be their death trap.  What once was a land of minimal or small argument is now one with millions of small ones and one large one.  However, instead of compromising and listening to one another, we fight.

            In the country of Serbia, all was at ease until Albanians wanted purity.  Not to say that the Serbians were not pure, but Albanians wanted, in other words, a world where Serbians did not exist.  Now, I am sure we all obtain this feeling at times, one exertion of undisguised insanity that the world would be a better place without someone.  However, most of us, the ones who have the strength to come back to the sane section of the brain, handle these situations somewhat peacefully, while others, remain in the crazed frenzy until it is too late.  The seven continents and four oceans of this world do not become a better place when someone or group of people are gone.  Haven’t we ever noticed what happens when someone dies?  There is mourning and souls who weep, maybe not the majority who sob, but someone, a human being who loses someone because he was different.  Children from our generation and younger are learning that it is okay to murder someone if they perform or say something you do not agree with.  And we wonder where the youth of today will bring us tomorrow.  Well I know exactly where, at this rate, we are going, and the final destination is not a popular tourist site. 

            The reasons for the beginning of the genocide in Serbia, Bosnia, and Albania are pretty simple: Albania wants to rule over Bosnia and Serbia, but the Bosnia and Serbia do not want to be ruled over, so they are skirmishing to preserve themselves.  In my opinion, only the people engaged in the conflict can stop it, and all of those who choose to help can.  Even though there are many landmines being utilized in this, more can be done on foot than we think.  Training dogs or possibly cats, since cats are quick on their feet, to search out and locate landmines before someone steps on them could be an alternative.  However, the real solution to this ethnic battle of greed would be to sit down with all of the leaders and work out the issue with words and nothing else. 

            Holding children hostage and blowing civilians to pieces is not a productive way to get what you truly are hunting for. Human nature is to fight for revenge and to get what we want.  However, human nature is not always a productive way to manage situations.  Arguments are not between two people; they are between many people that just so happen to be around them at the time.  There is no lesser or more cause to help, just arguments to cease. 

                                                                                    –Golfer

www.ppu.org. Peace Pledge Union Information. 2-26-08. [http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_bosnia.html]

Darfur lies in the western region of Sudan, and its area is the size of Texas.

The genocide in Darfur would be like a country the size of Texas being wiped out, and the Darfurians consist of about 6 million people. Roughly 400,000 have died since 2003 when the genocide started. That’s BIG.  The UN has failed at helping them. The genocide will not come to a halt until someone helps out.

The genocide began from militias in Sudan that wanted all non-Arab Africans out of Darfur, which is the majority of the Darfur population.  The Janjaweed are the main militia, and they are considered the mercenaries of Sudan. The Janjaweeds go and destroy whole villages in Darfur, rape women, which is a disgrace to their religion, and they torture innocent people.

Darfurians have begun to give up hope about fighting back at the Janjaweed and the Sudanese government. There has been three peace treaties given from the UN to the Sudanese government and every single one of them was broken. This is because the Janjaweed still kept killing and destroying all of Darfur and its people. Sudan is not going to give up the killing of Darfurians unless the UN helps stop it. The UN has stated that the Janjaweed has destroyed every non-Arab village in Darfur already. Over 100,000 people have fled to Chad since 2003. They are fleeing from their home villages to save their own lives. If the genocide continues to get worse, the Darfurians will have no chance to flee and will all begin to die.

Osman Ahmed could only see the quarrels that took him and his family away from their home and getting put in a refugee camp. But, it was no different from what he had been through for the last four years. “The village was totally burned and looted. It was the janjaweed,” said Ahmed. Some from Osman’s village stayed and fought, but him and his family fled to safety. Osman Ahmed and his family haven’t had any control over their lives since the start of the genocide. This young boy and his family could be just like any other family in our country, and they live day to day wondering if they are going to die or have to run away from their home. This story is only of one person out of millions people’s lives in Darfur who struggle with the same problems as this boy, Osman Ahmed.

                                                                                    –Sloth Boy

Stanton, Gregory. “Genocide Emergency: Darfur, Sudan.” Genocide Watch. 15, June, 2005. 28 Feb 2008 <http://www.genocidewatch.org/SudanTwelveWaysToDenyAGenocidebyGregStanton.htm>.

Bengali, Shashank. “Darfur conflict takes unexpected turn.” McClatchy Washington Bureau. August, 2007. Mclatchy Newspaper. 28 Feb 2008 <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/17820.html>.

Darfur’s humanitarian crisis, bloody and focused enough to even be called a genocide, has called attention the world over. Britain’s foreign secretary David Miliband has called for the faster deployment of peacekeepers to Sudan, and also addressed the issues of the large number of bombings taking place in Darfur, specifically referring to the  “fresh offensive by government soldiers and Arab militiamen against rebels in the war-torn region where hundreds of thousands have been killed in bombings and raids by militias.” (Britain Calls for Sudan to End Bombing. Yahoo News) China itself has also taken up a particularly significant role in Sudan’s war. Though China has claimed the intentions of help by sending out a special envoy and many engineers to Africa, they also will not use their influence on Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, to seek peace instead of the constant warring. No one seems willing to help past a certain point, and the worst part is, no one seems to know who to help; it’s difficult to even point the bad guy out.

            One of the most obvious villains, however, is the armed force called the Janjaweed, who apparently were unleashed by the Sudanese government itself. The Janjaweed’s original goal was to wipe out the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement), the rebel fighters against Sudan, but they’ve gone out of control. They have many methods of both killing and humiliating the Dafurians; the two best-known are bombings…and rape.

            Rape is a touchy subject, one that most people have some sort of connection with, and that is why the Dafurians’ plight hits home with so many different people. The Janjaweed are systematically using rape to ethnically cleanse Darfur, and the events are so widespread is it impossible to even get a fair estimate. The Janjaweed seize the women on the single reason that they are black, calling them dogs and abid, meaning slaves, and when the rape-children are born, they are at least partially Arab, like their fathers. The children of that generation are the product of a racial purification, and it is a sign that the Janjaweed have taken this all too far. They’re out of control, killing randomly, and without the signal to stop, they’ll continue wiping out Darfur under legal prefaces.

–Alchemists Ennui