I care about Darfur, but I am also a realist, and understand there aint much we can do about it in the present political climate. Plus the logistical nightmare of the area adds to the reluctance in the west (among miliatry leaders especially).
As for genocide. Again the present political climate comes into the picture.
The definition is (as posted)
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(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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Is that happening in Darfur? Yes it is, but it is also happening in other countries/areas but they are not called genocides are they now? No they are called civil wars, insurgency or something different, and often because the west has a vested interest in the outcome or in one or the other side of the conflict. After all smacking on the "genocide" label in say Iraq would be bad politically, but each of the above definitions can easily be convereted to the Iraqi situation. If you dont belive me, then lets take a look.. remember to be called a genocide you need all or in part of the definitions to be forfilled.
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(a) Killing members of the group;
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Cant deny that is not happening. Sunni killing Shia, and visa versa.
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(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
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Yep cant deny that either. The attacks cause both bodily and mental harm to Sunnies or Shias.
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(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
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Bombing market places, driving out people of areas based on religion and so on. Killing off or threatning proffessionals based on what religion you are.. yes all happening in Iraq.
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(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
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A bit iffy I admit, but one could say killing off the men or women does prevent births. Probally the only one not fitting 100%.
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(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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Yep the huge amounts of rapes in Iraq is evident of this. If a Sunni woman is raped by a Shia man, and has a child, then per tradition and Iraqi law, that child is Shia and the woman has in principle no rights over said child.
So at least 4 out of 5 have been forfilled in Iraq, does that mean its a genocide?
But back to Africa, it has been plauged by "genocides" (as per the above definition) since the dawn of time. If it was not countries then it was tribes going at each other. Then again the same thing was happening in Europe, Asia and other parts of the planet, but we evolved so to say. Even during this century there has been many "genocides" in Africa.. the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s were plauged with them.
In fact there have been more "genocides" in Africa than anywhere else if you look at the history.. but we did not call them genocides, but civil wars (often a proxy battle between the west and the USSR), but every single of the above mentioned definitions were in place in each civil war, war between nations or internal unrest, groups targeting other groups.
Who is too blame? The Africans, of course, but also the west. We (as in the west) butted our ugly colonial heads into the frame, often preventing the continents own natural evolutuon and when we finaly left Africa, we left a continent not able to support the basic prinicples of society. The population at large was lacking education and skills, and there was next to no educated professionels to take over the workings of goverment (a basic of society) from thier colonial masters.
On top of the above we have old tribal issues plus the mixing of various "new" religions that have basicly added to the problem. Uneducated masses are easy to "convert" as we have seen through history and religion has been the biggest preventer of progress in society through out history. Also societies rooted in tribal loyalites and tradition, such as much of Africa is, have often been held back because of these loyalties and traditions.. again look at history.