War in Darfur Analysis: Assignment 1
Assessment of the Darfur conflict and its humanitarian impact.
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WAR IN DARFUR 1
War in Darfur Analysis: Assignment 1
Joseph Brown
Dr. Timothy Smith
PAD-540
January 29, 2014
How have the political decisions made by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and international
interventions, particularly by the United States and the United Nations, impacted the ongoing
conflict and humanitarian crisis in Darfur? In your response, analyze the root causes of the
conflict, the major humanitarian consequences, and the roles of various international actors
involved. (Word count: 1200-1500 words)
War in Darfur Analysis: Assignment 1
Joseph Brown
Dr. Timothy Smith
PAD-540
January 29, 2014
How have the political decisions made by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and international
interventions, particularly by the United States and the United Nations, impacted the ongoing
conflict and humanitarian crisis in Darfur? In your response, analyze the root causes of the
conflict, the major humanitarian consequences, and the roles of various international actors
involved. (Word count: 1200-1500 words)
WAR IN DARFUR 2
Part I: War in Darfur
Introduction
Sudan is Africa’s largest country, roughly the size of Western Europe. It is geo-
strategically significant, especially to an imperial US. Thanks to its location, it is the backdoor
to the Middle East. Thanks to its size, it has the potential to be a dominant power in the African
continent, and thanks to its oil, it has what advanced capitalist economies crave the most.
Darfur, roughly the size of France, is the westernmost province of Sudan. “It was long a place of
Sudanic states, with Daju and Tunjur kingdoms preceding that of Darfur (founded circa 1630),
where a small sultanate of Masalit emerged in the west in the 19th century” (Reyna 2010).
According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, in 1989, a military coup brought
Omar al-Bashir and some fellow officers to power in alliance with the Islamist movement, the
National Islamic Front (NIF) led by Hassan al Turabi. The new regime immediately posed
problems in Darfur, especially for non-Arab peoples. It divided Darfur in 1994 into three
smaller states; North, West and South Darfur. In doing so it made certain that, ‘boundaries were
gerrymandered to make the Fur a minority in each of the states’, thereby diminishing Fur power.
A year later the central government appointed eight Arab emirs in West Darfur. This directly
threatened Masalit authority in their West Darfurian heartland. Darfur was swiftly becoming a
‘dar al-harba’ (Sudanese Arabic, ‘land of war’).
During the decade between 1989 and 1999 what had begun as small localized quarrels
became a larger regional conflict in which the Khartoum regime increasingly sought to intervene
to augment its own authority. “Khartoum’s manipulation of land tenure problems on the side of
Arabs provoked two wars, an Arab–Fur (1987–89) and an Arab–Masalit (1995–99) war” (Reyna
2010). Arabs began to form militias as early as the middle 1980s and, during the Arab–Masalit
Part I: War in Darfur
Introduction
Sudan is Africa’s largest country, roughly the size of Western Europe. It is geo-
strategically significant, especially to an imperial US. Thanks to its location, it is the backdoor
to the Middle East. Thanks to its size, it has the potential to be a dominant power in the African
continent, and thanks to its oil, it has what advanced capitalist economies crave the most.
Darfur, roughly the size of France, is the westernmost province of Sudan. “It was long a place of
Sudanic states, with Daju and Tunjur kingdoms preceding that of Darfur (founded circa 1630),
where a small sultanate of Masalit emerged in the west in the 19th century” (Reyna 2010).
According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, in 1989, a military coup brought
Omar al-Bashir and some fellow officers to power in alliance with the Islamist movement, the
National Islamic Front (NIF) led by Hassan al Turabi. The new regime immediately posed
problems in Darfur, especially for non-Arab peoples. It divided Darfur in 1994 into three
smaller states; North, West and South Darfur. In doing so it made certain that, ‘boundaries were
gerrymandered to make the Fur a minority in each of the states’, thereby diminishing Fur power.
A year later the central government appointed eight Arab emirs in West Darfur. This directly
threatened Masalit authority in their West Darfurian heartland. Darfur was swiftly becoming a
‘dar al-harba’ (Sudanese Arabic, ‘land of war’).
During the decade between 1989 and 1999 what had begun as small localized quarrels
became a larger regional conflict in which the Khartoum regime increasingly sought to intervene
to augment its own authority. “Khartoum’s manipulation of land tenure problems on the side of
Arabs provoked two wars, an Arab–Fur (1987–89) and an Arab–Masalit (1995–99) war” (Reyna
2010). Arabs began to form militias as early as the middle 1980s and, during the Arab–Masalit
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Subject
Political Science