Jordan Davis Andrew Watson ENGL 2030-SECTION 006 November 26, 2008 The Extinction of Darfur I remember that

I had been feeling tense all over, as if my body were trying to tell me something. I could not sleep. It was a dark night, with no moon to reflect off the standing water that pooled beside out huts. My parents and other adults were sleeping outside so that the children and elderly could all be inside. [] My brothers and sisters and I, as well as about a dozen refugees from other villages in southern Sudan, stretched out on the ground inside the hut [] All was silent except for the whine of the occasional mosquito [] Silence it must have been around 2 a.m. Silence. Then, a whistle. It started low and soft at first, then grew louder as it came closer. Next came a sound like the cracking of some giant limb in the forest. Again, the same sound, louder and in short bursts. I wondered if I were dreaming. As deafening explosions made the village beneath me and hysterical voices penetrated the walls of the hut, I realized what was happening. My village was being shelled. I sprang up, fully awake. In my panic, I tried to run, but the huts interior was so impenetrably black I slammed headfirst into something hard. I could not even see the outline of the door. But I could hear voices of my brothers and sisters, loud and crying as shells began exploding, [] My whole being focused on a single thought of finding the door. [] Suddenly, I felt a hint of a breeze. [] I found myself on top of somebody, but I could see the doors faint outline. I crawled through the two layers of grass that formed

the door of the hut and emerged into the outside world. I stared to run but did no know where to go. Suddenly, my father ran from left to right in front of me. I pivoted and followed him. He ran between huts, and I tried to catch him, but, after a hundred yards he halted and knelt, disappearing into the grass [] As I started to pass him in the darkness, my father reached up, grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down beside him. Within seconds a line of shadowy forms, carrying atomic rifles ran along the path toward the hut I had just left. We moved through the muck, smearing our knees and hands, until we reached the sanctuary of the forest. The light grew. I heard more gunshots and more crying. [] I had wondered what happened to my mother and siblings. I had just turned 13. I had no food or water and I was naked. My village had been destroyed. [] Armed men who spoke a foreign tongue combed the forest and grasslands, and if they found me, they most likely would kill me. The only good thing I could imagine was that I might be safe for a awhile. It was then I realized the man who sat beside me was not my father (Dau 1-5). This is the story of a young Sudanese boy named John Bul Dau, one of many lost boys of Sudan. At the age of 13, his village was one of many attacks on the Sudanese people from their government, due to an ongoing civil war in Sudan. After reading this story and hearing many others, Darfur has been on my mind and hasnt left since. Now the violence has spread to a small region in Sudan called Darfur. Since 2003, the violence of the Sudanese government against many African tribes has heightened resulting in over 400,000 men, women and children being murdered and 2.2 million being displaced from there homes. Now many civilians have either fled to Chad or are

seeking refuge in camps on the border of Sudan, but many are still being killed today. This is the genocide of the 21st century; this is the extermination of Darfur. Few international issues have been as controversial and have caught the attention of the American people, including myself, as much as the genocide in Darfur. In 2004 the United States Congress passed a resolution labeling Darfur a genocide. Using peace treaties, the United has tried to help bring an end to the war in Sudan, but has failed resulting in more violence. Despite the Genocide Convention created in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the United States promise to protect people from genocide has proven ineffective and weak. Now more than ever, the United States needs to keep there promise and help the people of Darfur as many are being raped, tortured and enslaved as boy soldiers. That is why I feel that it is morally impressible for the United States not to enter Darfur in order to stop genocide. It is also the duty of people around the world to push there governments to intervene in the war. To better understand why it is so important for the U.S. to help the people of Darfur, one must understand the history of genocide and what genocide really is. The word geno comes from the Greek word people and cide from Latin meaning to kill. In order for something to be called genocide it must follow strict criteria. Genocide is defined as ethnic cleansing meaning the killing or displacing of a single ethnic group. The African tribes in Darfur are experiencing this very thing as their villages are being burned, livestock and people killed, and others forced to run for their lives. Darfur is made up of 36 main tribes and 110 different languages. Arab tribes in Darfur make up 40 percent of the population. Due to such a wide range of people, Darfur is infested with tribal conflicts which have sparked war everywhere. The crisis in Sudan

has grown out of several separate conflicts. The first is the civil war between the Islamist, Khartoum-based national government and two separate rebel groups based in Darfur: the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice of Equality Movement. The Rebels angered by Darfurs political and economic influence by Khartoum, first appeared in February 2003. The government, however, did not launch a major counteroffensive until April of 3003, after rebels attacked a military airfield, destroying several aircraft and kidnapping an air force general in the process. Khartoum responded by arming irregular forces and directing them to eradicate the rebellion, but the mass violence on civilians is what followed. The genocide in Darfur is also related to a second conflict in Darfur. In southern Sudan, civil war has been going on for several decades between the northern, Arabdominated government and the Christian and animist black southerners. They have been fighting in one from or another which has been going on since the countrys independence from the United Kingdom in 1956 and has cost over two million lives since 1983 alone. After the United States labeled Darfur as a genocide, they tried to be the translator between all sides involved by having all sides sign a peace treaty, but this too failed and now there are over ten different groups involved and the civilians are the ones who are suffering. Many think that this conflict is a clash between Arab and non- Arab ethnicities residing in Darfur. However, the conflict is rooted in the manipulation of the latent and overt ethinic tensions by both the Sudanese government and rebel movements in order to polarize the residents of Darfur. Now there are over ten different parties fighting in Darfur. The parties targeting innocent civilians are; Sudanese Security forces who are hired by the Sudanese

government to bomb villages and kill civilians, Janjaweed Militias, Arabs on horseback supported by the government to kill non-Arab tribes, Sudanese Liberation Army, assist Janjaweed by giving them air support and the Government of Chad who launches aerial attacks of villages on the Darfur-Chad border. The people fighting the government of Sudan are the Sudanese Liberation Army, who has tried to help with negotiations, Justice of Equality (JEM) who attack oil fields and help protect civilians and many other rebel groups have been formed from people who have survived village attacks. This might be many peoples first time hearing about genocide, but genocide has been repeated throughout history and continues to repeat it self. That is why I want to know, when people will learn from history, to change history. Although the word genocide hasnt always been used to describe such situations, genocide has existed for many years. Examples of past genocides can date back to 1915, were over one million people in Armenia were killed, Cambodia in 1975, where two million where killed, 1992 Bosnia, two million killed, 1994 Rwanda where 800,000 were killed, and people have even said that the killing of many Native Americans can and should be considered genocide. The biggest case of genocide the Holocaust, where 6,000,000 Jews and 5,000,000 Polish and Romanians were murdered is something that many people studied and will study throughout school. I have watched movies and ask questions of why no one did anything to help until it was too late? Although there is a big difference between 400,000 people killed in Darfur and 11,000,000 in the Holocaust, the genocide in Darfur isnt over. What number will the death toll have to reach, until the United States has done something about it?