Union of Jewish Students

Darfur

Darfur, a region roughly two-thirds the size of France, is located in the west of Africa’s largest country, Sudan. The six million citizens of Darfur, whilst being members of one of the estimated 36 different ethnic tribes in the area, are almost all Muslim of either African or Arab origin.

Since the 1970s Darfur has experienced localized violence caused partially by competition over scarce resources and severe underdevelopment and exacerbated by ethnic, economic and political marginalisation by the government. Sudan’s longest conflict, between the Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, the main rebel movement in the south, ended in 2005. According to the United Nations, at least 2 million people were killed and a further 4 million were displaced during the war over resources, power, the role of religion in the state, and self-determination. The current crisis in Darfur began in April 2003. Claiming years of political, economic and social exclusion in Darfur, and frustrated by a lack of investment, underdevelopment, neglect, poverty and racial discrimination, two separate groups of Darfuris emerged and rose up against the Khartoum government of President al-Bashir.

The mainly African-origin sedentary farmers from the Fur, Massaleet and Zagawa communities make up the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Whilst having very different ideologies they coordinated attacks on government targets. The April 2003 attack on the al-Fashir airport killed some seventy members of the Sudanese army and destroyed
several planes. The government responded by launching air strikes and arming the Janjaweed. International humanitarian and monitoring organisations report the ‘systematic use of indiscriminate aerial bombardment’ of villages
[by Sudanese government aircraft], and the subsequent surrounding and burning of the villages by Janjaweed militiamen who loot, slaughter and rape.
Estimates are that since 2003, the crisis has claimed up to 400,000 lives. Another two million civilians have been displaced and are living in refugee camps with 4 million people reliant on the international community to feed them.

On 9th September 2004 Secretary of State Colin Powell declared, on behalf of the US Administration, that ‘genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility’. In August 2006 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1706 authorising the deployment of up to 17,300 military personnel and 3,300 civilian police to Darfur, calling for rapid reinforcement of the African Union mission of 7000 troops already in Darfur. In March 2007, al-Bashir, the President of Sudan reneged on an agreement in November 2006 to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur to protect civilians. China’s close oil-related relationship with Sudan has raised difficulties at the United Nations Security Council where it is a permanent member with the power of veto.

The Security Council passed a resolution in April 2006 imposing sanctions against four Sudanese nationals accused of war crimes in Darfur, despite its own Commission of Inquiry recommending 17 individuals for targeted sanctions. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has indicted a government Minister and a Janjaweed official, accusing them of committing war crimes.

Elie Weisel
‘You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour’ Leviticus 19:16

Not only are we compelled by our texts to look after those who are in need, but the Jewish people also have a great tradition of human rights activism. For example, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish refugee who found himself in the USA during the Second World War, was the person who coined the term ‘genocide’ to explain actions that meant total annihilation and destruction of one specific group of people.

He wrote the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was formally adopted in 1948.

Rene? Cassin was one of the principal drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the UN Commission for Human Rights between 1946 and 1959, President of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 1950 to 1960 and President of the European Court of Human Rights from 1965 to 1968. He was also a Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 1968.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most prominent Jewish theologians of the twentieth century, was famous for his friendship with Martin Luther King and his participation in the US civil rights movement.

How can we reproach the indifference of non-Jews to Jewish
suffering if we remain indifferent to another people’s plight?