Darfur and Rwanda: Not Just Our Imaginations

No one can deny the striking similarities of the Zalingei and Mornay refugee camps in Sudan compared to Kibeho’s refugee camp at the time of the Rwandan genocide.

Everyday, newspaper articles advertise “fresh violence” in Sudan as if it were fresh produce or fresh coffee. Everyday, precious lives are being lost in Darfur while the media practices verbal gymnastics, trying to find the most animated way to describe the violence in Darfur, while Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweed (men on horseback carrying G3 guns) daily emulate the Rwandan genocide. The question is, “What are we going to do about it?” Ceasefire agreements have been broken, humanitarian efforts have been blocked, refugees returning to their villages have been shot and killed, the death toll is 50,000, at minimum; yet Geneva’s United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman, Peter Kessler, “can’t tell if people are being led into a trap.”

It is a shame that we have so horrific an example before us – the Rwandan Genocide – yet we are avoiding the obvious solution to the problem in Darfur. Neither the United Nations nor the United States has deployed military troops to Darfur, Sudan .

The United Nation’s reluctance to use force, however, is, in fact, inviting more violence and atrocities to the region. If the Janjaweed know that the UN does not plan to intervene militarily until “things [get] much worse,” (in accordance with Article 41 of the Security Council’s 30 July Resolution), the Janjaweed can intermittently curb the violence in Darfur just enough to prevent UN intervention. Moreover, since there are no military troops in Darfur humanitarian aid has been severely stifled. Some Darfuris believe that the restriction of humanitarian aid is a ploy by the Janjaweed and the Sudanese government to exterminate Darfuris through “forced starvation”. As a result, the death toll has climbed.

Subsequently, the high death toll in Darfur is a direct result of the lack of military intervention. If UN troops had been deployed to Darfur more than a year ago when the ethnic cleansing began, chances are the death toll would be significantly lower than the estimated 50,000 today. Even more Darfuris are being killed as they leave the Zalingei and Mornay refugee camps to return home to their villages. In spite of the fact that Rwandans were similarly killed as they journeyed home from the Kibeho refugee camp, the UN has yet to intervene militarily.

In the same way commissioner general for humanitarian affairs, Sulaf Din Salih, is encouraging Darfuris to leave the Zalingei and Mornay refugee camps and return home to their villages, the interhamwe in Rwanda urged internally displaced persons at the Kibeho refugee camp in 1995 to return to their homes. Like Rwandans, Darfuris attempting to return home in Sudan are being senselessly and brutally murdered in the same way Tutsis were killed by génocidaires a decade ago in Rwanda.

After Rwanda, we cannot feign ignorance. If there is no military intervention in Darfur, we know how the story will end; someone will author another “genocide” book entitled “Re-Imagining Sudan,” assessing the mass deaths and the effects of ethnic cleansing in Sudan on surviving Darfuris. Let’s do our part to stop the ethnic cleansing in Darfur so we won’t have to re-imagine Sudan.