The U.N. says no, but are they correct?

I think there's one generally accepted definition of genocide. One that I found reads: 'the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group'.
Same general idea mo matter where you look. If that's whats happening, then yea. Most people use the term 'genocide in Darfur'. I also don't know how trustworthy the UN really is.

No, they are wrong. It is an "ethnic cleansing" according to the killers, I call that genocide. It is kind of a North tribes vs south tribes kinda thing.

If you use the term "genocide" to describe the waring between two ethnic groups as minimally different as two tribes of the same African country, then you could consider most wars through-out the history of mankind to be "genocidal".

It's merely a buzz word used to draw attention to the situation, not that that's a bad thing though.

What would you call the systematic elimination of all humans? It isn't cleansing of a race, political/cultural group, and since it's everybody it wouldn't be national group either. Would it be anthrocide maybe?

If the UN didn't consider the freaking Rwandan genocide worthy of their best efforts, then I don't see why they would care about the Darfur genocide.

In contrast, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the Genocide Intervention Network and Genocide Watch do call it genocide. I'd rather believe the world of experts in genocidal matters than politicians in this matter.

I recently did a research paper on the whole Darfur shebang, and from what I've read about it I would say that "genocide" is very accurate. Of course, the media is very biased against the pre-dominantly Arab government, and I have also read from less known sources that the African rebels are committing just as many (if not more) atrocities than the Arabs are. While answering this question for myself, I used something my World Cultures teacher said; that the Trans-atlantic slave trade was a form of genocide. The Europeans were trying to gain labor and resources, not purge them from the land, as al-Bashir is apparently trying to do.

Thanks for the replies, folks.


Personally, the Darfur situation seems rather "genocidal" to me. I think the UN is full o' shite, in this case.

It seems like the UN will do whatever it can to keep out of a conflict. They remind me of the League of Nations leading into World War II. They just sat back and allowed Hitler to take all he wanted with a, "aw, just let him have his fun" kind of attitude, "the last thing we want is another war."

The UN is the last place to turn to when looking for clarifications on what is a genocide and what is not. Their interpretation obviously varries from ours as has been proved time and again.

Firstly, RWANDA.

And as Resident_Hazard noted the League Of Nations(prehistoric UN)'s initial attitude at the Second World War.

Or even earlier, like with Mussolini and Ethiopia.







LOL @ that pic...

No one in the UN is going to call it genocide. If they do people will ask why aren't you sending in the troops. But the UN can't send in the troops without the a security council resolution. The UN knows it can't get a security council resolution because China (and thus Russia) will block anything because they have billions invested in the region.

It's simple politics, the UN doesn't want to expose how weak it is. Don't blame the UN, blame China for Darfur, US for Israel, Russia for Iran and the UK for just being pussies.

This is the best explanation of the cluster-fuck way the world works.

The UN is an organization that was founded not to prevent every war, but to prevent THE war between America and the Soviet Union. If the USSR hadn’t been boycotting the UN, then they could have vetoed the whole Korean War and there would only be one Korea today. The idea that the UN can stop one group from exterminating another weaker group is a little naive. The only was the UN could do that was if it’s had an army strong enough to kick the shit out of anyone it wanted to. Because it doesn’t, it sits on its ass whining at the involved parties to play nice until we come up with a bull-shit way to “resolve” the situation.

Darfur IS a genocide as it fullfils the requirements to be called a genocide: there is a systematic extermination of people, the people that are exterminated are part of a defined ethnic/religious group therefore it is a genocide.
And to people that say it is not genocide because it's ethnic cleansing, what do you think ethnic cleansing is? Ethnic cleansing is just a sub-concept of genocide, just a word used to define genocide along ethnic lines (because complete eradication of a population from land in which they have inhabited for centuries is to be defined as genocide).

Anyway, as many as said the UN will not do anything at all. Due mainly to the political and economical implications with investments in Sudan (ok China is involved in the area with huge sovreign investments, but the US is involved privately in Sudan within the oil sector). Also because of, again as people said, because the UN does not posses the military apparatus to sustain full out conflict in Sudan.
But a point i am surprised people have not touched upon, is how the UN can't and won't do anything because this could potentially have a destabilization effect on the whole of Eastern Africa. Outright war in Sudan would displace a large amount of people that would probably seek refuge in Ethiopia, but these people would mainly be Arab Muslims and that coupled with the recent spillage of suspected Islamist militants from Somalia could ignite in a full scale civil war in Ethiopia (given the rage of Somali people that have seen their country invaded by Ehtiopia and the rather terrible relation between Sudan and Ethiopia). Add to that the still unstable situation in Chad and the growing tensions between the region's people (also due to the displacement of people from Darfur) and also here we have risk of the resuming of the civil war in Chad. Same situation in other parts of the region. So all in all, another reason not to act in Darfur on the UN's side is the fear that war in Sudan could destabilize the whole area and start a chain reacion of wars and civil wars throught central Africa.