Issue Focus: Darfur

Genocide is a word that gets thrown around a lot in history classes and the news, and sometimes literature classes if you're reading The Diary of Anne Frank. Simply defined, it is "the deliberate and systematic killing of a racial, political, or cultural group." (Merriam-Webster Online)

Darfur is a region located in Southern Sudan, which is located in Africa. It is home to 6 million people and 100 tribes. In 1989, a military coup overthrew the government, led by the National Islamic Front. The fight over land has become a fight between Arab tribes and African farmers. Even though all of them are Muslim (practicing the religion of Islam), the tribes declare that the farmers cannot possibly be true Muslims because they have much darker skin. The group that goes in to villages and attacks is called the Janjaweed, a word that means "devils on horseback". They go through towns killing and then burning, but also raping women and selling children as slaves.

The astounding numbers speak for themselves. The United Nations reports that as of 2008, 300,000 people have been killed, and 2.5 million people are displaced from their homeland.

An interesting new development has occurred in trying to help the situation. Actor George Clooney co-founded an organization called Not On My Watch (along with Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and others), which is helping to promote an effort using Google Imaging and UN Satellites to monitor Darfur and look at areas that have frequent violence to see all that they can, in an effort to help prevent violence in the region.

As teenagers, we're about to go into a world that has a lot of different problems: problems with health (such as HIV/AIDS), international issues (such as the North and South Korean conflict), and human issues (such as the violence associated with drug trafficking and genocide). It's our job to stay informed with what is happening in the world, and to find what we care about, then make a difference. This is one major situation that needs the world's attention.



For more information:
www.satsentinel.org
www.savedarfur.org
www.notonmywatchproject.org
http://unamid.unmissions.org/

For what you can do to help:
www.savedarfur.org
http://www.satsentinel.org/take_action
http://notonourwatchproject.org/what_you_can_do

References for this article:
"Darfur Now", a film by Warner Independent Pictures and Participant Productions
www.savedarfur.org
www.merriamwebster.org
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/12/29/sudan.vote.satellite/index.html?iref=allsearch

See George Clooney on CNN discussing Darfur:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/01/04/exp.situationroom.video.clooney.cnn