What caused the war?

The conflict taking place in Darfur happened in Feburary 2003 and is still occuring today. The conflict in Darfur has nothing to do with marginalisation or the inequality of social class. It is mainly a struggle of differnence between two groups. The Sudanese Islamist movement, the (opposition) Popular Congress party and the ruling National Congress (party). Two armed groups in Darfur launched attacks on policemen, people in the government and civilians in the area. The two groups are called the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan liberation Army. The Darfur conflict is a clash between Arab and black African Sudanese. The Arab are nomadic while the black African are sedentary farmers. The drought caused tension between the two groups because of the centuries long competition for natural resources such as land and water.

Where is Darfur?

Darfur is a region in Sudan. Darfur was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Eyptian force. The region of Sudan is divided into three federal state: the West Darfur, the South Darfur and the North Darfur. As a result of the Darfur conflict the regions are now in a humanitarian emergency. Darfur covers an area of 493,180 km² (196,555 miles²). It is an arid plateau with the Marrah Mountains, and a range of volcanic peaks rising up to 3000m. in the center of the region. The regions has 3 main town Al Fashir, Nyala, and Geneina. There are four main geography feature in Darfur. The eastern part of Darfur is covered with plains and low hills of sandy soil and sandstone hills. Another feature in Darfur are the wadis. The wadis ranges from seasonal watercourses that flood once in a while to large wadis that flood from the rains and flow from western Darfur to Lake Chad. The west side of Darfur is also a feature it is a basement rock. A basement rock is infertile so it cannot be farm but it has forest cover that can be grazed by animals. The last feature are the Marrah Mountains is a volcanic plugs created by a massif. It rise up to a peak at Deriba crater where the climate are temperate.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Darfur_map.png (the three states compromising with Darfur within Sudan)

What is Genocide?

Genocide is the killing of people because of their race, ethic, religion or national group. During the Holocaust which took place during World War II many Jews were executed. In December 1948 the United Nation General Assembly adopted The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention is to prevent actions similar to the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II from happening. The convention (article 2) defined genocide as:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

– Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II

Genocide is a crime under international law. All of the participating countries are to prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and in peacetime. But, there are some countries such as , Bahrain, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, the United States, Vietnam, Yemen, and Yugoslavia that signed and believe that no claim of genocide can be bought against them at the International Court of Justice without their consent. But if the governments all over the world are making laws to protect people and prevent genocide from reoccuring why does genocide still happen today? One of the most known genocide happening today would be the War in Darfur. Darfur is located in the western region of Sudan.

My Final Project

I am doing my final project for my U.S government class and I decided to write about Genocide because this is something that still exist today. Even after the Holocaust during World War II people in government always say that they will never let anything like that happen again but, what are they doing to prevent this. Why is genocide still happening today?