Welcome to Gaia! ::

Name: Darfur
Location: Darfur, Sudan. Africa.
Type: Genocide
Facts: for about four years, the government has been killing it's own people. The genocide...yes thats right, genocide, started because the Sudanisese government felt they had rebel problems, therfore letting loose thousands of Janjaweed soliders to kill without really giving a s**t. (Excuse the vulgarity...this gets me worked up) And honestly I really don't want to type all this now, so I will leave you with this little bit of information...Well actualy its a nine minute speech about Darfur (please keep in mind that it is a SPEECH so it might sound a little funny to you...but never the less here it is.

“A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” This emotional statement is a testament to the current status of our world. Ironically, the quote came from Joseph Stalin. Stalin himself was general secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, and had set up work camps called Gulags, which literally, worked people to death. This fact continues on quite nicely into my subject, being genocide. Before we delve into the subject of genocide, I would like to give a definition. One definition found on preventgenocide.org states that “In present convention genocide means acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial, or religious group. When people think of genocide, two that come to mind first are the genocide in Rwanda, and the genocide that has come to be known as the Holocaust. These two genocides were horrific in their own right, but what about others that seem to fly under the radar without so much as a blimp? Cambodia, Ethiopia, the list goes on and on. Americans themselves have been guilty of committing genocide, when America expanded territorially; the American government conflicted with the Native Americans eventually slaughtering thousands.
However, those killings seem far off, so surely in our current society such an atrocity could never occur, right? Wrong. Right now, at this very second, thousands of people are dying. You may be thinking, well of course, death happens all the time, it is only the cycle of life, but it is true that every day ten thousand people die unnecessarily. What am I talking about? Nothing less than genocide in modern times. Right now at this very second there are people being killed in Darfur, Sudan by their own government.

The killings in the North East African country of Sudan started a little more than three years ago when the government felt that they had a group of people that was a threat and they needed to be eliminated. The Sudanese government armed an un-known number of soldiers and sent them to kill. These soldiers have come to be known as the Janjaweed soldiers, which means to eliminate. Their name is quite fitting because that is exactly what they do; they eliminate every thing and everyone in their path. These soldiers are not above running entire communities out of their homes and burning them to the ground, often with people locked inside. These killers have even taken planes, and dropped boxes of specially made nails that fall from the sky piercing people’s bodies and often hurting them just to the point of not being able to run. As if the killing was not enough, the Janjaweed soldiers have chased 2.5 million people out of their villages, and are now roaming Sudan forcing refuges to travel across the desert with no water, food, or medical help.

What’s happening in Darfur is an atrocity, but does it even affect people out side of Sudan? Yes, and the most obvious, and possibly the hardest to control is that refuges must find a palace to run, that place being the nine countries that border Sudan. Because of the large influx of refugees in bordering nations such as Chad and Ethiopia, these other countries are having a hard time controlling the numbers, and supplying their accumulated needs. The help that has been given to the refuges and sufferers of the Sudan genocide seems to be in mass, but yet there always is a need for more, more money, more manpower, and more control. The bordering countries are considerably smaller than Sudan, and all are having trouble dealing with what the people need. The Red Cross organization set up ten medical stations in 2005 right on, and a few miles into Darfur. These medical stations were key to helping the daunting numbers of refuges survive, but still conditions were less than satisfactory when camps that were built to hold 500 were often holding more than a thousand, and were constantly under construction.
The next problem when a country is having major tribulations is that the tension that arises is so great; it often slows, or halts altogether, the work being done to fix the problem. The Government of Sudan is not allowing the United Nations to step in and offer its help. This frustrates many nations, almost to the point of giving up. Currently the African Union has only administered a few thousand poorly armed and trained group of soldiers to try and battle a much larger, governmentally supplied army roaming around one of the biggest countries in Africa. This tension has even spread over the waters to the United States. President Bush, at the beginning of the genocide, stated quite clearly “not on my watch.” This message struck a nerve in many people around the world, and seemed to be helping the helpless in Darfur. However as the situation went on, it seemed governments all over the world got tired and wanted to just give up, seeing Darfur as a lost cause. The giving and taking back from the United States frustrated many people, as a result, turning them away from the cause.

So, what has been going on since the genocide started? Organizations have been set up since the beginning, such as Savedarfur.org that takes any size donation, and sells green wrist bands inscribed with the saying that helped get Darfur noticed, “Not on our watch.” The site also informs the general public about the current going-ons in Darfur.
The last, million-dollar question is: Why? Why do we continue to ignore a problem that- especially in the past year- has been given so much coverage. Obviously this coverage has not been enough because the genocide still rages on. On the other hand, maybe it’s not the coverage amount but the coverage understanding that’s the problem. How many times have you heard someone say, “Oh, I just hate watching the news, it’s all so depressing”? I know I’ve even said it my self. But the mentality that the world is just so depressing that we need to hole up and start making excuses to not go and help another nation is just the thing that could lead to the downfall of the US being one of the leading nations in the world; not to mention the fact that it’s just right to help when innocent people are being slaughtered on the same level as the holocaust. But that’s just the problem isn’t it; it is another holocaust, and that terrifies people to death, so much so, that we can turn a blind eye to our fellow human beings. The world is a depressing place, but that doesn’t have to be my generations legacy, no, our legacy could be change, could be healing, could even be peace. Baby steps at a time, starting with Sudan, we may never have to look at our TV’s and feel dread.
The situation in Darfur is dire, with so many people being killed, that the task of stopping it is nothing short of disheartening, and I my self must be honest, that continuing to rally and support is getting hard, when I see so little results. Perhaps the best way to do the people of Darfur justice is to never let such a thing happen again. The way this can be achieved is drawing all the nations together, and doing the best we can to create peace in our world. Wars all over the globe keep much of the worlds populace too pre-occupied to give attention to a problem that can often be thousands of miles away. But that tension it’s self can be one of the leading causes of genocide all over the world. I’m not asking we drop everything important to us and run to help an under developed country, no, but if we stop and think before we make that one unnecessary snarky comment, or go to the polling office, than each and every persons small contribution will add up in the long run to a peaceful world. My ideals may seem unrealistic because of the number and nature of people in our modern day society, but if we live by the pay it forward attitude, than it’s a small but important step to never having to deal with genocide and war again. It took United Nations and President Bush two years to officially speak the words Genocide when discussing Darfur. If this problem was caught sooner, and had gotten the public attention it now holds faster, than maybe thousand of people would still be alive. But instead of morning genocide, lets stop one.

Thank you.




Hope you got something from that! biggrin

You are right, we may not be able to stop what is going on, but we can bring relief, and we can bring hope, and most of all we can bring understanding. perhaps even more impotantly, we can bring peace to our children's children so they may never have to see images of dead bodies splayed accros their T.V screens. I do not do this for me, or for them, but for humanities future in general. We have a terrible past and present, that however, does not mean my grand kids must go through this.

Yes, thank you Emi, I think you just gave us the beginings or a mission statement! biggrin biggrin heart

Ahh! that is the part Africa has played since the first British invasion, because Africa has been around for so long, it has over used is resources and in the procecs cut it's self off from the rest of the world. Africa has the potential to be a very importnant power house in the world, but becuase of it's rulers it is held back....this is a wonderful topic, please reaserch and think about why it is like it is and write here...even if its thinking out loud please I want to know.

Great, thats why your here right?

Whats that suposed to mean? If your not here because you want to be, than don't be here. confused

Well this is the question of the topic, really. Should the United Sates help? And the answer to that is--of course--yes, but it goes beyond just doing it because its the right thing to do. Honestly, I don't think the U.S has a choice. Once we went in to "help" Iraq, that puts us in the position to help everyone. You can't be selective about who you help, we helped one now we have to "help" all. The problem is, Darfur doesn't have anything to give back. So now we're in a pickle because all the world eyes are on us, and we haven't moved.

I'm feeling lucky, old lady! Fortune tapping at my elbow!

I don't blame them for wanting us out, we should pull out of Iraq, we seem to have done more damage than anything.

Honestly, the US shouldn't have a choice on whether or not to go into Darfur and help.
The US is regarded as one of the best countries in the world, people in other countries dream of coming here for job opportunities and other various reasons. The people in America are probably some of the coldest in the world, we're hostile and think that because we're so great, everyone should learn English.
This is only true of some people, mind you, but I think that America needs to step their game up a bit, if things continue the way they are, the US is gunna start getting a bad reputation.

That was me telling you not to be stupid.