Jenna Matson
Darfur
Ever since South Sudan broke away from North Sudan there has been a lot of tension and fear between the two neighboring countries. At first both countries tried to keep peace, while discussing how to split oil, and other natural resources, but soon, the Sudanese government accused South Sudan of providing weapons and military support to the Sudanese rebels. Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan rejected the Sudanese government’s accusations, by saying that arming the rebels was “utterly baseless and malicious.” Things only got worse from there. This November, Mr. Kiir, declared that the Sudanese government was invading South Sudan. He said that Sudan had bombed Guffa, and had killed at least seven people. Then here’s where we step in. The United States released a statement saying that they did not support the violence and fighting between the two countries and that they were especially against the air strike that the Sudanese had performed. A little later, the government of Sudan filed a complaint against the United States arguing that South Sudan was trying to start a border war.
Here is some history about North Sudan and South Sudan. In 2005, there was a peace treaty for the two provinces in Sudan. This gave South Sudan to vote to break away from Sudan, or stay apart of Sudan. In January, The people of South Sudan almost unanimously voted to secede for the rest of the country. After this, like I said in the beginning, there has been a lot of tension and fear. Southern Sudan is different from North Sudan culturally and religiously. The North, is mostly Arab and Muslim. In the South, the people are mostly Christian. Mr. Bashir, the president of North Sudan, seems to want to start a war between the two countries. The north forced nearly 100,000 people in the south to leave their homes. Mr. Bashir has ruled Sudan since 1989. He has been accused of being close to Osama bin Laden, and has been taking away the people of Sudan’s rights, and has been sending death squads to Darfur.
Darfur has been the center of attention since 2004, when government troops and militia groups(also known as janajaweed) moved to attack the rebels who complained about the areas black African ethnic groups that had been been neglected by the Muslim central government. The janjaweed, who is teamed up with the government troops, have killed many civilians. The United Nations has estimated that 2.7 million fled from their homes. Recently, Darfur’s violence has risen, and the rebel groups have broke off peace talks between the two countries.
By reading these articles, I think the main reason they are fighting, is because most of the oil supplies are in South Sudan, and the people in the North want all the oil. I think another reason is because of the cultural and ethnic differences. I hope that all these killing and other forms of violence stops soon. There is no reason that innocent civilians should be killed by the masses.
Sources: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/sudan/index.html
http://www.darfurscores.org/darfur
Comments
Good job!