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roachboy · 07-17-2004, 09:19 PM

i am hardly an expert in this area, but this is what i have been able to put together:

it appears that the sudanese government has been complicit in arming militias in the darfur region, which have been accused of acts that are in the strange zone that separates "ethnic cleansing" and genocide. these militias have been engaged in a campaign of astonishing brutality--the blog has a significant amount of information on them--and the idea seems to be to drive the southern sudanese population off the land--there are something on the order of 60,000 (i think) refugees from teh region over the border with chad, for example, and raids have been going over the border--food and medical supplies are running very low already--and it is turning into one of the major humanitarian catastrophes is the world in recent years.

there is a good argument that what is at stake here is control over the region in the context of a post-civil war sudan---because the region apparently has considerable oil reserves.

there are lots of problems with this situation: not least is the link between the sudanese government and the janjawid militias--which creates lots of problems for state-to-state negociations.

one clear point is that something needs to be done, but then the immediate questions are by whom and through what channels.
and this is where everyone seems to be stuck at the moment.

there was an earlier thread about this but it started with surface information and quickly got diverted into unrelated matters and was locked--when i found this site--which has lots of information on it, i figured i would post it here as a source for better information.

but seriously, i am not an expert on this, so i would hope that folk who read this far will spend some time looking at the site and--particularly--the network of links. and maybe would think about what the hell could or should happen there.

this is one of those situations where nothing appears straightforward.
except that alot of people die.

07-17-2004, 09:19 PM	#3 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i am hardly an expert in this area, but this is what i have been able to put together: it appears that the sudanese government has been complicit in arming militias in the darfur region, which have been accused of acts that are in the strange zone that separates "ethnic cleansing" and genocide. these militias have been engaged in a campaign of astonishing brutality--the blog has a significant amount of information on them--and the idea seems to be to drive the southern sudanese population off the land--there are something on the order of 60,000 (i think) refugees from teh region over the border with chad, for example, and raids have been going over the border--food and medical supplies are running very low already--and it is turning into one of the major humanitarian catastrophes is the world in recent years. there is a good argument that what is at stake here is control over the region in the context of a post-civil war sudan---because the region apparently has considerable oil reserves. there are lots of problems with this situation: not least is the link between the sudanese government and the janjawid militias--which creates lots of problems for state-to-state negociations. one clear point is that something needs to be done, but then the immediate questions are by whom and through what channels. and this is where everyone seems to be stuck at the moment. there was an earlier thread about this but it started with surface information and quickly got diverted into unrelated matters and was locked--when i found this site--which has lots of information on it, i figured i would post it here as a source for better information. but seriously, i am not an expert on this, so i would hope that folk who read this far will spend some time looking at the site and--particularly--the network of links. and maybe would think about what the hell could or should happen there. this is one of those situations where nothing appears straightforward. except that alot of people die. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 07-17-2004 at 09:22 PM..