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 SudanHumanitarian Disaster in DarfurJust as Sudan's civil war seemed to be coming to an end, another war
intensified in the northwestern Darfur region. After the government
quelled a rebellion in Darfur in Jan. 2004, it allowed pro-government
militias called the Janjaweed to carry out massacres against black
villagers and rebel groups in the region. These Arab militias, believed to
have been armed by the government, have killed between 200,000 and 300,000
civilians and displaced more than 1 million. While the war in the south
was fought against black Christians and animists, the Darfur conflict is
being fought against black Muslims. Although the international community
has reacted with alarm to the humanitarian disaster—unmistakably the
world's worst—it has been ineffective in persuading the Sudanese
government to rein in the Janjaweed. Despite the EU and the U.S.
describing the killing as genocide, and despite a UN Security Council
resolution demanding that Sudan stop the Arab militias, the killing
continued throughout 2005.
On Jan. 9, 2005, after three years of negotiations, the peace deal
between the southern rebels, led by John Garang of the SPLA, and the
Khartoum government to end the two-decades-long civil war was signed,
giving roughly half of Sudan’s oil wealth to the south, as well as
nearly complete autonomy and the right to secede after six years. But just
two weeks after Garang was sworn in as first vice president as part of the
power-sharing agreement, he was killed in a helicopter crash during bad
weather. Rioting erupted in Khartoum, killing nearly 100. Garang’s
deputy, Salva Kiir, was quickly sworn in as the new vice president, and
both north and south vowed that the peace agreement would hold.
In 2006, the slaughter in Darfur escalated, and the Khartoum government
remained defiantly indifferent to the international communities' calls to
stop the violence. The 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers deployed to
Darfur proved too small and ill equipped a force to prevent much of it. A
fragile peace deal in May 2006 was signed between the Sudanese government
and the main Darfur rebel group; two smaller rebel groups, however,
refused to sign. The UN reported that there has in fact been a dramatic
upsurge in the violence since the agreement. The Sudanese government
reneged on essential elements of the accord, including the plan to disarm
the militias and allow a UN peacekeeping force into the region to replace
the modest AU force. Khartoum eventually agreed to allow the modest AU
force to remain in the country until the end of 2006, but rejected a
hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force entering the country. In. Jan. 2007, Sudan
and Darfur rebel groups agreed to a 60-day cease-fire, which was intended
to lead to peace talks sponsored by the African Union. Libya hosted peace
talks ni October, but several rebel groups boycotted the proceedings, and
the summit ended shortly after the opening ceremony. In July 2007, the UN
Security Council voted unanimously to deploy as many as 26,000
peacekeepers from the African Union and the United Nations forces to help
end the violence in Darfur. The African Union peacekeeper base in Darfur
was attacked in September. Ten peacekeepers were killed. Days later, the
town was razed, leaving some 7,000 Darfuris homeless.
In Feb. 2007, the International Criminal Court at the Hague named Ahmad
Harun, Sudan's deputy minister for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Kushayb,
also known as Ali Abd-al-Rahman, a militia leader, as suspects in the
murder, rape, and displacement of thousands of civilians in the Darfur
region. In May, the Court issued arrest warrants for Haroun and Ali
Kosheib, a Janjaweed leader, charging them with mass murder, rape, and
other crimes. The Sudanese government refused to hand over them over to
the Court. Kushayb was arrested by Sudanese police in October 2008. He was
not, however, handed over to the ICC.
The Bush administration expanded sanctions on Sudan in May, banning 31
Sudanese companies and four individuals from doing business in the
U.S.
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