The Devil Came on Horseback

By now most Americans have Darfur as a word in their vocabulary. However, for most of us the knowledge ends there. The fact is the American mindset and media outlets have been distracted by two unjust wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with a global financial crisis. Yet the genocide in Darfur rages on. Somewhere around 400,000 people have been massacred, along with another 4,000,000 who have become homeless. To translate those numbers, it would mean a population larger than Toledo, including men, women and children, left burnt and slaughtered and a population the size of Chicago on the street.

The conflict is certainly complex. It involves Darfur, a region roughly the size of France, along with conflicting militias and ethnic groups. Political groups of Darfur demanded the government give them more revenues from oil sales. The response was an Arab-Muslim militia, called the Janjiweed, carrying out Sudanese government sponsored massacres against Black-African-Muslim villages, dating back to 2003. I met a Darfurian refugee at a mosque in Philadelphia and I was surprised because he looked completely Arab. However, he said he is lumped with the Black-Africans because of the village he lives in. To him the ethnic lines of Darfur were arbitrary.

Recently the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and murder. This resulted in al-Bashir kicking out all of the foreign aid workers from Sudan, including Darfur region. A friend of mine, Yasir, is a Sudanese humanitarian worker. While he is outraged by the atrocities in his country, he believes the issuing of the warrant by the ICC was filled with stupidity and an action that has worsened the conditions of the Darfurian refugees.

Genocide continues even though we are given false promises of "never again." It has been going on for six years and it will continue. The violence has spilled out of Sudan and caused a civil war in Chad, and a "bush war" in the Central African Republic. Tonight I watched a movie with grave images from Darfur that I cannot describe with words. The only thing that comes to mind is "fucking horrifying."

To give a face to the genocide check out The Devil Came on Horseback.

salaam alikum