|
|
 Re: Tell Mr. Bolton – Stop the Hypocrisy and Act Now on Darfur (Re: Ahmed Mohamedain)
|
Dear World: Arrest Them, They're Killers
ByDoris Lane
Posted on Sun Oct 16th, 2005 at 09:09:30 AM EST
Amir Idris of Fordham University wrote an enlightening piece recently on the complexities of race, religion and politics at play in the Khartoum government's murderous policies in Darfur. He concludes the roots of this tragedy are deep and long and tangled, but its contemporary villain is the ruthless and racist, "Islamized and Arabized" government of Sudan.
Yes, indeed.
Understanding the Genocide Politically: the case of Darfur
-snip-
The racialization of the conflict, however, has grown rapidly since the Islamist regime of Omer al Bashir came to power by a military coup in 1989. Bashir’s regime has attempted to impose the Arab and Islamic identity on all the people of the Sudan including the Muslim people of Darfur through its policy of Jihad- holy war. In the violence that has engulfed the region since early 2003, race has become a cruel reality. In fact, the violence that is unfolding in Darfur is the same violence that has happened in southern Sudan for the last 20 years. Of course, there is one difference between the war in the south and the war in Darfur. It is true that people of Darfur unlike those of the south, are Muslim. And not just Muslim: deeply, devoutly, unshakably Muslim. Although the people of Darfur are Muslims, they have been subjected to discrimination and racism.
Neither of the two wars in the south, nor the current conflict in Darfur are aberrations. Instead, these wars should be viewed as the logical results of a state dominated from its inception by the interest of an Islamized and Arabized group. The form of the state that was created during the pre-colonial period, and consolidated and institutionalized its policies during the colonial and the postcolonial periods, laid the seeds of the current political violence. The process of state formation in the Sudan was/ is a violent process. Discrimination, displacement and slavery were strategies used by the state to quell opposition. The legacies of slavery and colonialism have contributed to the inventions of two categories of people with different entitlements. Those who are considered Arabs by the racialized state are treated as citizens and those who are perceived as non Arabs are treated as subjects.
What should be done?
The vicious conflict in the western region of Darfur demonstrates the complexity of the Sudan’s tragedy. The peace negotiations between the Government of Sudan (GOS) and the SPLA/M, however, have focused on outstanding north-south conflicts over identity, power and wealth sharing, and the future of the three contested regions. But the north-south conflict is only one of the many regional conflicts that have devastated Sudan. Furthermore, political parties within and outside the NDA have contested the SPLA/M and the Sudan government’s monopoly of peace negotiations, labeling them as non democratic in their handling of issues pertinent to the future of the whole country.
The UN, the AU and the United States have to treat the Government of Sudan as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. The international community also has to recognize the fact that the AU mission is understaffed, poorly finance, and ill-equipped to cope with the scale of the crisis in Darfur. Indeed, faced with a deepening crisis of the postcolonial state and the growing discontentment in the eastern and western regions, only a de-racialized democratic regime can be expected to confront the grievances that gave rise to war in the south and are producing conflict in other parts of the country, particularly in Darfur. Given these realities, any attempt to end the political violence in the Sudan has to confront the existing racialized and Islamicized state. A regime change is a precondition for any meaningful democratic transformation in the Sudan. Furthermore, if the international community and the Sudanese political forces, in particular the SPLA/M and the GOS continue to ignore these historical and political realities and view the peace process merely in terms of north and south, Arab and African, then it is predictable that the Sudan’s crisis will deepen and violence will continue.
The international community, including Arab and African nations, should carry these thugs off to The Hague, where they belong. But why should they when our own government protects the government that runs the killers?
With the Darfur ceasefire "on the brink of collapse," the United Nations mission declaring much of Darfur "unsafe for humanitarian operations," when African Union peacekeepers are being killed or kidnapped by rebels and Khartoum sends in the Janjaweed, known far and wide for their skill at rape and slaughter, our own UN Ambassador decided, along with those other stalwarts of human rights, China, Algeria and Russia, to block a report to the Security Council calling the Khartoum regime on its perfidy and its pretense that it was doing anything at all to stop the ongoing violence against Darfuri civilians.
Bolton claimed he was asking for more action and less talk.
Fine, John, throw the murdering #######s in jail. There's one ready and waiting at The Hague. Then maybe we can all do less talking and start helping what's left of this country to its feet.
International :: Link & Discuss ::
Amir H. Idris
Assistant Professor of African Studies
Dept. of African & African American Studies
Fordham University, New York City
113 West 60th Street
(عدل بواسطة bakri abdalla on 10-21-2005, 10:42 AM)
| |
 
|
|
|
|
Ahmed Mohamedain
bakri abdalla
محمدين محمد اسحق
Mohamed Adam
Tragie Mustafa
ayman haroun
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست