Katherine's Crash Course in Sudan

During Maundy Thursday and Good Friday we take time to remember the suffering that Jesus endured before he died on the cross (For a good clarification between suffering and punishment in the Easter story, read here). Jesus' suffering is something that I cling to when I read so many stories of pain in the world. One area that has caught the attention of my family is the situation in Sudan. Have you wondered exactly what the situation is there? Some of my wife's friends asked her that, and she wrote up a short history of the issue. Here's her "Crash Course in Sudan." Warning, there are some very disturbing descriptions below.

A major aspect of understanding conflict in Africa (and this is the case with Sudan) is to realize that before Europeans explored and colonized the continent, Africa was not divided according to the current system of countries. Land was tribally owned, a tribe being a specific ethnicity of people with its own culture, language, and leadership. Tribes warred, conquering each other's lands and then ruling over or enslaving other tribes (hence, Africans willing to sell other tribes to white slave traders). When white people came, they established countries based on colonial rule, boundaries that divided a tribe between two countries or grouped enemy tribes into the same country. For example, Sudan was British, yet Darfur alone contains 30 people-groups, and Mozambique was Portuguese (Mozambique has over a hundred separate tribal languages). Jonathan points out, "In many places (such as Rwanda, Burundi, and Kenya) the colonial governments played the different tribes off one another. They would support one tribe over another, or would fuel tensions between them to keep them separated. If the locals were fighting against each other, they were less likely to unite against the colonizers." As African countries gained independence from colonial rule (Sudan in 1956, Mozambique in 1975), tribal conflict continued and continues today. Tribal conflict in Sudan is even more complicated because of its pre-colonial history with Egypt: Sudan is home not only to people descended from African tribes but also to people descended from Arab tribes-- and people of blended ancestry. Northern Sudan is more Arab and Islamic, and southern Sudan is more black and Christian or animist. Note that Sudan gained independence from British rule in 1956: The first civil war between the north and the south was 1955 to 1972. Before the country was even free from the British, they were already fighting over who would dominate the country, Arabs or Africans, Muslims or Christians. Interestingly, the agreement to cease conflict was reached through talks sponsored by the World Council of Churches (Wikipedia link). (The Church was instrumental in the Mozambican peace process during its major, post-colonial civil war, too. Jonathan wrote a massive paper about this.)

The second civil war "was" 1983 to 2005. (I put was in quotation marks because the government has failed to follow through with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005.) The second civil war started when the government (dominated by the north) went against the peace agreement that had ended the first civil war. From Wikipedia: "The Sudan People's Liberation Army(SPLA), based in southern Sudan and opposing the Islamic government in the north, formed in May 1983. Finally, in June 1983, the Sudanese government under President Gaafar Nimeiry abrogated the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement. The situation was exacerbated after President Gaafar Nimeiry went on to implement Sharia Law in September of the same year." In addition, "observers say the biggest obstacle to reconciliation is the unresolved status of the oil-rich region of Abyei, which is on the north-south border."

In 2003, conflict in Darfur, Sudan's northwest region, added to the issues of the Civil War. Supported by Khartoum (the northern government), Janjaweed (Arab militia, Muslim) began launching raids, bombings, and attacks on villages, killing civilians based on ethnicity, raping women, stealing land, goods, and herds of livestock. Unlike north-south conflict, which pits Muslim v. Christian, Darfur is a Muslim region, so the situation in Darfur is Arab Muslim v. black Muslim. Here is an overview of that development: http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/alert/darfur/contents/01-overview/.

Also, here is the Human Rights Watch summary from May 2004 (Yeah, it's that old, yet not much progress has been made, even with the "Comprehensive Peace Agreement" of 2005.):

http://hrw.org/reports/2004/sudan0504/2.htm#_Toc71531687.

"On Sept. 9, 2006, the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell termed the Darfur conflict a 'genocide,' claiming it as the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. . . So far, over 2.5 million civilians have been displaced and the death toll is variously estimated at 200,000 to 400,000 killed." (Wikipedia)

I have read multiple accounts from women who escaped Janjaweed attacks on different villages at different times. All include murder of every present village male (including children), rape and brutalization of women, and burning of all village structures. Most also include bombs dropped from government military planes and contamination of wells. From an article in Time, this is one woman's account of a Janjaweed (Arab militia/ raiders) attack on a Darfur village:

The first sound Zahara Abdulkarim heard when she woke that last morning in her village was the drone of warplanes circling overhead. Then came gunshots and screams and the sickening crash of bombs ripping through her neighbors' mud-and-thatch huts, gouging craters into the dry earth. When Abdulkarim, 25, ran outside, she was confronted by two men in military uniform, one wielding a knife, the other a whip. They were members, she says, of the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed, which over the past 18 months has slaughtered tens of thousands of black Africans like Abdulkarim across the western Sudanese region of Darfur. Another man, rifle in hand, was standing over her husband's body while others set fire to her home. Two of the intruders, she says, grabbed her and forced her to the ground. With her husband's body a few yards away, the men took turns raping her. They called her a dog and a donkey. "This year, there's no God except us," Abdulkarim says they told her. "We are your god now." When they were finished, one of the men drew his knife and slashed deep across Abdulkarim's left thigh, a few inches above her knee. The scar would mark her as a slave, they told her, or brand her like one of their camels. By nightfall, says Abdulkarim, more than 100 women in the town of Ablieh had been raped and dozens of people killed, including two of her sons, four of her in-laws and her husband. The only survivors in her compound were Abdulkarim and her son Mohammed, 6. "They also wanted to kill me, but when they saw I was pregnant, they released me and let me live," she says. That was eight months ago. Sheltering in a refugee camp in neighboring Chad, Abdulkarim, her baby Mustafa playing in her lap, says she will never go home.

As for the rest of the article, the statistics are watered down (ex. It says "hundreds of women have been raped." In reality, thousands of women have been raped.). But here's the link if you're interested: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101041004-702074,00.html.

Here is one of the first articles that got my attention about Darfur: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/10479.

The link to "More Images from Sudan" isn't working for me right now. It had some significant images, such as aerial images of a burning village-- really undeniable evidence. It really is one of the most telling articles I have ever read on Darfur.

Although the Khartoum tried to stop Darfurians from fleeing the country, Chad has been flooded with refugees. As for what it is like to be a refugee, here is a very telling article from the New York Times:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E5D8163BF937A25757C0A9629C8B63.

By the way, refugee means you have fled to another country. Displaced means you are in your home country but have fled from your home.

You asked why all those people are still in refugee and displacement camps if the conflict is over. For one thing, the conflict is not over (see the next paragraph). Also, the villages are obliterated, and the wells are contaminated. Besides, would you want to return to a place of such horrific memories? The woman whose story you read said she will never go back.

The genocide started in Darfur, but further genocide is brewing in Southern Sudan. Here is an article from a little more than a week ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin.

This struck me: "Only 1 percent of girls here finish elementary school, meaning that a young woman is more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than to become literate." Also, here's more from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/opinion/02kristof.html.

Add to the painful Sudan mix: war with Chad, rebel groups on the Eastern Front, on-going slavery, floods in 2007. . . and UNICEF recently reported that around 80 infants die each day in Darfur as a result of malnutrition.

If you want to keep up with this, I suggest Eric Reeves' blog, especially his "news" section with links to the best coverage. Pretty much every website on the Darfur/ Sudan crisis has a link to the blog of Eric Reeves: http://www.sudanreeves.org/index.html. This quote from a website that links to him sums up why I recommend Eric's blog over any other conventional source of news about Sudan: "By far the best independent analysis of the developing situation--and usually much more pessimistic than official accounts. Also usually proves to be more accurate." He is a college English professor but has been on partial leave for the last 9 years to work full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst. Here is a short NPR audio clip for an idea of why I consider him the most reliable source of information on Sudan:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6788320.

"He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8