NEWS: The professional opinion of Powell: Sudan IS genocide

Powell declares the Sudan crisis a genocide in front of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The use of the word "genocide" is going to have obvious diplomatic effects.




Well he would know being once part of the biggest genocide machine in the world (US army).
So it seems the US can argue for another "gun based" solution to a humanitarian crisis. Great that will augment the "greedy" war in iraq with a "philanthropic" one in sudan.
This is from a country that has yet to face up to its own holocaust! Cute!

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Destroying Darfur

[edit on 9-10-2004 by Valhall]

Originally posted by Corinthas
This is from a country that has yet to face up to its own holocaust! Cute!

You need to explain this... What Holocaust??????

Bad job explaining your side of the story

Does this mean it is now legally 'genocide'. May provide an excuse to get international troops in via the UN!

Just another excuse for intervention in Sudan. Poor powell, who still trust whatever you have to say?

Originally posted by zcheng
Just another excuse for intervention in Sudan. Poor powell, who still trust whatever you have to say?

You know the credibility of Powell has been so shaky since the Iraq conflict and the results of the invasions that I wonder how can go on without feel ashamed from being used. I don't think the international community will have much respect for him.

Seems like this is what-

Sudan has "needed" outside intervention for a long time?

I don't get Sudan-

From the time of the British invasion of this area stability has been lacking. The people suffer because of . . . . .?

What is the reason, I just don't know. The effects are fairly obvious. The reason "the Sudan" is in such a state of apparent chaos is beyond my view.

Originally posted by Corinthas

Well he would know being once part of the biggest genocide machine in the world (US army).

How can you compare us with the Sudan? lol

We haven't committed any outright acts of "genocide" in at least 100 years lol. Our military may very well claim a fair amount of casualties from time to time, but I think it's far from being a "genocide machine"... especially one of the biggest in the world. Maybe we're liberating a few people or maybe we're conquering them, but... systematically destroying them as a people?

Sudan is infamous for their... civil rights issues. It's not the most stable region in the world. There are many large scale tribal conflicts happening throughout that region of Africa, and the atrocities aren't restricted to Sudan. Besides, none of this is really news anyway. This has been going on for years.

Originally posted by fortunate1
How can you compare us with the Sudan? lol

US Army is 100 times evil than Sudan by killing and instigating around the world, esp. now in Iraq and Afganistan.

Originally posted by zcheng
US Army is 100 times evil than Sudan by killing and instigating around the world, esp. now in Iraq and Afganistan.

People really have lost touch with reality these days have they not? If you think that WE are bad guys... consult your history books or even a newspaper or two. Look up Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Hussein, Milosevic, etc. etc. etc.

We kill people in the thousands and yes... stir up a fair amount of trouble from time to time. Between Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda and Sierra Leone (which combined is still geographically much smaller than the U.S.) MILLIONS have been killed just over the past few years. MILLIONS! I understand foreigners hating the U.S. because of it's power and influence, but saying that it's 100 times as evil as a place like Sudan.... just seems a bit crazy to me.

I don't blindly support my government, in fact I question every move that they make. However, I've chosen to restrict my observations to reality and not make ridiculous correlations.

Sorry if this post is a bit rough and possibly offensive, but blind hatred for any one group of people (especially MY people lol) really puts me on edge.

Also I saw something to the effect of.... "Deny Bias" adopted as one of the mottos of this site. LOL. ROFL. It's sad but it doesn't look like ANY news source (including this one) actually operates free of bias. Oh well. Guess we just have to sift through the opinions to find the facts.

[edit on 10-9-2004 by fortunate1]

[edit on 10-9-2004 by fortunate1]

They're calling for sanctions against Sudan but will that help?

Did Castro or Hussein go hungry under the sanctions against their countries?
Probably not, but a lot of their citizens did.
This will hurt the people, not the government or the military.

These sanctions will just make the situation worse.

Originally posted by AceOfBase
They're calling for sanctions against Sudan but will that help?

Did Castro or Hussein go hungry under the sanctions against their countries?
Probably not, but a lot of their citizens did.
This will hurt the people, not the government or the military.

These sanctions will just make the situation worse.

You're absolutely correct. The only thing that really works in situations like this... is military action or just time... a lot of time. Since every time we try to help someone militarily, we BECOME the bad guys... I suggest that we just let the world outside of our borders (of all "civilized" nations) continue to suck. Either that, or build a Blockbuster Video and McDonald's on every corner and just wait for them to trade in their weapons for video games and movies lol.

Corinthas and zcheng just hate America and everything we do. I wouldn't waste type arguing with them.



The UN won't do anything because they just put Sudan on their Human Rights commission, didn't they? No one needs to trust Powell. They can read and see with their own eyes that there's a problem going on there which needs to be stopped. The U.S. can't step in because we don't have the money or manpower to put into it right now. Even if we did, I'm sure we'd be accused of having a hidden evil agenda. It'll be people like Corinthas who's opening post was used only to bash America and Powell instead of actually talking about the Sudanese problem.

Fellow posters have you missed or ignored what is really transpiring in the Sudan. This is a relgious conflict or has this illuded you. Muslims versus Christians. Prove me wrong if you can.

Originally posted by flycatch
Fellow posters have you missed or ignored what is really transpiring in the Sudan. This is a relgious conflict or has this illuded you. Muslims versus Christians. Prove me wrong if you can.

Is it just about a religious war or is it also about a war of independece between Southern Sudan and Northern Sudan?

Sudan Tribune
Under the provisions of the various July 2002 accords - signed, and still being negotiated - between Sudan's Muslim, Arab north and its animist Christian south, the southern region will benefit from a six-year interim period of autonomy before its citizens vote on whether or not to remain part of Sudan. Along with its own new flag, licence plates and a system of collecting taxes, the New Sudan, as it is often referred to by negotiators, will also have its own currency, the New Sudan Pound (NSP)...

...The war in Sudan erupted in 1983 when southern-based rebels, the Popular Army for the Liberation of Sudan (SPLA), rose up against the capital, Khartoum, to end Arab and Muslim domination and marginalisation of the black, animist and Christian south.

WOW-
I still know very little regarding "the Sudan."

I don't understand the 'why' of conflict there that seems to have transcended time. There were to many thoughts thus far in such a short thread for me to get the formatting to work- I couldn't tell who was saying what!

Also, I found myself agreeing with everyone! YIKES!

Are there any strategic minerals in Sudan? From a non-human (meaning politics, religion, etc.) point is there any reason anyone wants Sudan except the local inhabitants?

In 1999, Sudan began exporting oil and in 1999-2000 had recorded its first trade surpluses. Current oil production stands at 185,000 barrels per day, of which about 70% is exported and the rest refined for domestic consumption.

Yes Sudan has an economy and yes guess what. You got it.

Now sanctions are only going to bring more desperation and hatred against US in the long end, the ones that will receive the punishment are not the government or the militia they control the economy and oil, but the citizens that already are under oppression.

Originally posted by marg6043
In 1999, Sudan began exporting oil and in 1999-2000 had recorded its first trade surpluses. Current oil production stands at 185,000 barrels per day, of which about 70% is exported and the rest refined for domestic consumption.

Yes Sudan has an economy and yes guess what. You got it.

Now sanctions are only going to bring more desperation and hatred against US in the long end, the ones that will receive the punishment are not the government or the militia they control the economy and oil, but the citizens that already are under oppression.

Sorry to read about the sanctions- I'm still looking into 'the Sudan.'
Sanctions are what the U.S. has done to Cuba for decades- it is sad and wrong in my opinion.

Iraq sanctions- eeehhh, well I could see that in a way. (Gulf 1-Kuwait)

To impose sanctions ON a struggling nation (Sudan) makes no sense at all to me. go in and help THEM build a better life the way THEY want to to.

Iraq sanctions- eeehhh, well I could see that in a way. (Gulf 1-Kuwait)

You right just looked what sanctions did to Iraq, Sadam was business as usual while the people of Iraq was getting punished.

Sadam was building palaces and the people starving and then I ask; do sanctions really work?

It looks like this conflict in Darfur is separate from the one that occurred between the North and the South.

This current conflict in Darfur, the Western Sudan, does not appear to be a religious conflict. It's not between Christians and Muslims but is seemingly between the Sudan government (with the aid of Arab militias) and the population of Darfur, who are also Muslim.

There was indeed a long war between the North and South which resulted in a peace deal, which took place due in part to US involvement.

The President, Omar al-Bashir, provisionally agreed to share about half the oil revenues with the South, and to permit Christians in the North to escape punishments dictated by Sharia�traditional Islamic law. Bashir even offered to give the South the right to secede from Sudan six years from the signing date, if irreconcilable divisions remained. In return, the rebel leader, John Garang, said he would be willing to serve as Vice-President in a postwar government.

Darfur, whose population of six million is almost entirely Muslim also has its own conflicts.

In 2003, an attack was carried out by members of a group called the Sudanese Liberation Army.
This group seems to have been comprised of mostly Africans and a few Arabs who were angered that the region was being ignored by the Sudanese government.

The Sudanese Liberation Army�s founding manifesto, which was posted on the Internet and circulated by hand in Darfur, invited Arabs and Africans alike to join in protesting Khartoum�s �policies of marginalization, racial discrimination, exclusion, exploitation, and divisiveness.� The group�s objective, it said, was �to create a united democratic Sudan on a new basis of equality, complete restructuring and devolution of power, even development, cultural and political pluralism and moral and material prosperity for all Sudanese.� All regions should have significant autonomy and work together under the banner of �Sudanism��a shared identity for Arabs, Africans, Christians, and Muslims. The S.L.A. attempted to demonstrate its inclusiveness by appointing an Arab, Ahmed Kabour Jibril, to be its commander in South Darfur.

During the attack by the SLA, they managed to take over a vital military outpost, killed about a hundred Sudanese soldiers, destroyed aircraft, siezed vehicles and weapons and kidnapped the head of the Sudanese Air Force, General Ibrahim Bushra Ismail, whom they released forty-five days later, after protracted negotiations with tribal leaders.

The Sudanese government responded to the attack by recruiting local Arab militias to 'defend their homeland against rebels'.

Musa Hilal, a forty-three-year-old Arab sheikh, answered the call and became the leader of the janjaweed.

These men, who receive orders on Thuraya satellite phones, have joined up with the Sudanese Air Force and Army, killing as many as fifty thousand Darfurians and destroying nearly four hundred villages. More than a million and a half people have fled from their homes�fifty refugee camps have been established in Chad, and a hundred and fifty unofficial sites have sprung up in Sudan�but this hasn�t stopped the janjaweed. They continue to terrorize, murdering men and raping women who dare to venture outside the camps.

A couple of theories on what has led to the conflict are presented in an article by the New Yorker:

Throughout the crisis in Darfur, the government�s agenda has remained obscure. Why, exactly, has it armed and funded the janjaweed, bombed African villages, and purged or killed so many non-Arabs? One theory holds that the slaughter and deportations in Darfur are part of a master plan that was hatched in the late nineteen-eighties, by political hard-liners, to �Arabize� Sudan. Around that time, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, of Libya, began promoting �Arabism� as a political ideology in sub-Saharan Africa, backing armed Arab rebels in the region and fostering grander dreams of an �Arab belt.� In October, 1987, twenty-three Arab intellectuals sent a letter to Sadiq al-Mahdi, Sudan�s Prime Minister at the time. The letter, which was published in the local press, credited the �Arab race� with the �creation of civilization in the region . . . in the areas of governance, religion and language.� The signatories demanded a larger proportion of local, state, and national jobs, warning, �If this neglect of the participation of the Arab race continues, things will break loose from the hands of the wise men to those of the ignorant.� Soon afterward, the process of removing Africans from senior civil posts in Darfur and replacing them with Arabs began. The current assaults on Darfurians who are considered �black� are thought by some to be phase two of Sudan�s Arabization plan.

A second theory, which is slightly kinder to the leaders in Khartoum, holds that the Sudanese government, which in 2002 had just agreed to grant a right of secession to rebels in the South, could not afford to placate another rebel group. To do so would have emboldened disaffected minorities throughout the vast country, ultimately unravelling the patchwork state of Sudan. The government was particularly reluctant to lose Darfur, a Muslim territory. It therefore decided to quash the rebellion, gambling that Musa Hilal and other Arab tribal leaders in Darfur, as well as Arab-immigrant fighters, would serve as reliable proxies. (In return, the Arab militias could freely plunder villages.) The Sudanese government could hardly have predicted that an obscure, inaccessible Muslim region like Darfur would become a cause c�l�bre in America. Nor could it necessarily have expected that, even after it had emptied out more than half of Darfur�s African villages, the janjaweed would continue attacking so many civilians.

----

I'm still doing some research on this conflict.
The information I provided in this post is from a New Yorker article.
DYING IN DARFUR
by SAMANTHA POWER

[edit on 10-9-2004 by AceOfBase]

Nice research AceOfBase, very interesting I had not clue that it was a north and south, whoa, I guess I should read more into the iformation you supply.