by Preston 20 Replies latest social current
hilfun
The peace talks is yet another effort by the AU to solve African problems by Africans. The AU has made headway into resolving the Darfur conflict since a summit in Ethiopia in July, but the process remained slow.
This is the kind of thing that i was advocating. But, there isn't much momentum, as yet. As the article pointed out, the money is coming from the european union. That is a smart move by the eu.
S
Yep. And when money/aid/intervention was coming from my country to help end the genocidal war in Europe between christian and muslim, I never once factored in the skin color of the people being helped. But I guess that is where you and I differ.
Well, Sudan is on the UN's Human Rights Committe this year... And btw, the Sudanese gov't insists that only 7000 (NOT 70,000) people have died...
Here is a good snapshot of Sudan's history:
What is now northern Sudan was in ancient times the kingdom of Nubia, which came under Egyptian rule after 2600 B.C. An Egyptian and Nubian civilization called Kush flourished until A.D. 350. Missionaries converted the region to Christianity in the 6th century, but an influx of Muslim Arabs, who had already conquered Egypt, eventually controlled the area and replaced Christianity with Islam. During the 1500s a people called the Funj conquered much of Sudan, and several other black African groups settled in the south, including the Dinka, Shilluk, Nuer, and Azande. Egyptians again conquered the Sudan in 1874, and after Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, it took over Sudan in 1898, ruling the country in conjunction with Egypt. It was known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan between 1898 and 1955.
The 20th century saw the growth of Sudanese nationalism, and in 1953 Egypt and Britain granted the Sudan self-government. Independence was proclaimed on Jan. 1, 1956. Since independence, the Sudan has been ruled by a series of unstable parliamentary governments and military regimes. Under Maj. Gen. Gaafar Mohamed Nimeiri, the Sudan instituted fundamentalist Islamic law in 1983. This exacerbated the rift between the Arab North, the seat of the government, and the black African animists and Christians in the South. Differences in language, religion, ethnicity, and political power erupted in an unending civil war between government forces, strongly influenced by the National Islamic Front (NIF), and the southern rebels, whose most influential faction is the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Human rights violations, religious persecution, and allegations that the Sudan had been a safe haven for terrorists isolated the country from most of the international community. In 1995, the UN imposed sanctions against it.
On Aug. 20, 1998, the United States launched cruise missiles that destroyed a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Khartoum that allegedly manufactured chemical weapons. The U.S. contended that the Sudanese factory was financed by Islamic militant Osama bin Laden.
Since 1999 international attention has been focused on evidence that slavery is widespread throughout Sudan. Arab raiders from the north of the country have enslaved thousands of southerners, who are black. The Dinka people have been the hardest hit. Some sources point out that the raids intensified in the 1980s along with the civil war between north and south.
Ever since Bashir's military coup in 1989, the de facto ruler of Sudan had been Hassan el-Turabi , a cleric and political leader who is a major figure in the pan-Arabic Islamic fundamentalist resurgence. In 1999, however, Bashir ousted Turabi and placed him under house arrest. (He was freed in Oct. 2003.) Since then Bashir has made overtures to the West, and in Sept. 2001, the UN lifted its five-year-old sanctions. The U.S., however, still officially considers it a terrorist state.
A cease-fire was declared between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in July 2002. During peace talks, which continued through 2003, the government agreed to a power-sharing government for six years, to be followed by a referendum on self-determination for the south. Fighting on both sides continued throughout the peace negotiations. In May 2004, a peace deal between the government and the SPLA was signed, ending 20 years of brutal civil war that resulted in the deaths of 2 million people.
Just 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 militia, believed to have been armed by the government, have killed more than 30,000 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 the summer and fall of 2004.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107996.html
bebu
Thank you Bebu, I know Sudan's politics concern you
nilfun
Are you on the Bosnia-Herzegovina page? I never said anything about that war, much less about the skin colors of the groups invovled. So, you are doing a strawman job on me.
S
I guess your coupling of this:
Isn't that where muslim blacks are killing christian blacks?
With this:
Maybe they should be the first to get up off their arses.
And this:
They do genocide a lot. Maybe that is their way. It seems that no other african govts care. Why should western countries do anything?
Just rubbed me the wrong way. I just don't understand how
some people (maybe even you?) can view mass murder/genocide
as "their way" when it is a problem that can cut across nationalities
and can include people of all colors/religions.
Genocide, anywhere it happens, is everybody's problem, IMO.
I guess we can just agree to disagree on this one, Satanus, and leave it at that.
Take care.
africa hosts some of the most violent societies. it will take a lot of outside intervention and education of the locals to improve the situation.
Nilfun
You may well be a better person than i. But, accepting and following political correctness whole hog makes it just another religion. I prefer to not follow any systems. When stuff i say about those systems offends or challenges the sensibilities of the adherents, then i do end up with labels, even though i don't consider myself adhered to anything.
S
NilfunYou may well be a better person than i. But, accepting and following political correctness whole hog makes it just another religion. I prefer to not follow any systems. When stuff i say about those systems offends or challenges the sensibilities of the adherents, then i do end up with labels, even though i don't consider myself adhered to anything.
S
And you may very well be a better person than I. Who knows?
I'm not following any systems either, just my heart.
Some people may even label my feelings for fellow humans who are suffering genocide as "political correctness". Imagine that...
Some people may even label my feelings for fellow humans who are suffering genocide as "political correctness". Imagine that...
The bastards!
S
