NYT: Refugee Crisis Grows as Darfur War Crosses a Border

[Pirate Smile]

ADRÉ, Chad — The chaos in Darfur, the war-ravaged region in Sudan where more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, has spread across the border into Chad, deepening one of the world's worst refugee crises.


A boy and his sister in a camp in Kolloye, Chad, are among the refugees left homeless by marauding militias along the border with Sudan.

Arab gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, making them refugees in their own country.

Hundreds of thousands more people in this area, along with 200,000 Sudanese who fled here for safety, find themselves caught up in a growing conflict between Chad and Sudan, which have a long history of violence and meddling in each other's affairs.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/international/africa/28border.html?hp&ex=1141102800&en=e28ea476e2eb35a1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Monkie]

1. The USA's Tactical Use of Genocide in Sudan

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=GER20060217&articleId=1994

Tactical Use of Genocide in Sudan and the Five Lakes Region

by John Bart Gerald

February 17, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca

When food production is disrupted by war there are few defences to natural disaster.

Interrelated wars of varying intensity continue in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo. Much of East Africa is starving.

Amidst the terrible suffering we find the United States and its principle humanitarian organizations insisting that the Government of Sudan is committing genocide. This was officially decided in 2002 with the Sudan Peace Act (1), and the position is dutifully echoed by U.S. officials, many government funded NGO’s, and the U.S. news media.

If nations of the world agreed that a verifiable genocide were occurring, it would allow the U.S. to occupy Sudan and gain its assets. There is profit for the U.S. in deciding that Sudan’s Government has committed genocide. The nations of the world did not agree. The Director of the World Health Organization stated last summer it was not a genocide(2). Medecins sans Frontières workers have reported it is not a genocide(3). And finally the U.N. decided it wasn’t a genocide(4). Yet something terrible has happened there.

Over four million Sudanese became displaced, according to a 1999 estimate(5), and the subsequent diminished figures suggest the accounts are juggled. In the South of Sudan alone two million have died from war and starvation brought about by a rebellion and guerilla war. When peace was finally made between the Government of Sudan and the rebel forces in the South (SPLM/A), Jan. 9, 2005,(6) the rebels were able to claim the land they won , to negotiate and sell its substantial oil concessions. So the war and rebellion was something other than tribal differences or raids for slaves.

The leader of the Southern rebellion, John Garang, went to Grinnell College in the U.S. and was trained at the U.S. Army command school. (7)

more @ link....

[Alpharetta]

2. A plausibly credible summary

I would find more credibility in the author's assertions of US and European intent to prolong the near-genocide, if only the author had been less intent to affix a cultural predisposition to genocide on Americans and Europeans.

Yes, I can believe the US "aid" has gone to Sudan's rebels. I would like to see more proof.

Yes, I can believe the oil and mineral rights in Sudan gather US and European interest in destabilizing Sudan and prolonging the agony.

That's interesting, the US training of the leaders of the death squads in Sudan and Rwanda.

The European inquisition as some sort of background evidence had no place in the story. This story would be more valuable and more widely circulated without this tidbit.