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NEWS & LETTERS, June 2004Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry'Ethnic cleansing' in Darfur, SudanIn May, the UN Security Council sidestepped calls to take action against the massive "ethnic cleansing" in Darfur, Sudan. In the worst such case since Kosova in 1999, government-armed "Arab" militias known as the Janjaweed have driven a million people considered to be "Africans" from their homes, burned their villages, poisoned their wells, and stolen their livestock. Human rights groups estimate that 1,000 people are being murdered every week, with thousands of women subjected to rape. Some 110,000 African refugees have fled to neighboring Chad, while 900,000 are trapped in camps inside Darfur, often surrounded by hostile Janjaweed. Literally thousands face starvation in the coming weeks. The courageous African women of Darfur are not only refusing to give up their rightful claims to their land, but are coming forth publicly and giving their names as they charge the Janjaweed with rape. As is well known, the Islamist Sudanese regime is already guilty of a genocide involving two million deaths from starvation, massacre, and slavery during its 20-year war on the Christian and animist South. Given this record and the evidence of present atrocities in Darfur, the silence is deafening, whether from the Western powers, the Arab-Muslim world, or the Left. |
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