Governor's Project

Save Darfur How did it get this way?

Over 400,000 people have been slaughtered. More than 2.5 million have fled their homes. It's impossible to count the number of villages that have been burned, the number of food and water supplies that have been destroyed, the number of girls who have been raped, or the number of innocent people who have become victims of a genocide happening in our world today.

Something must be done, and that is why this year's Governor's Project is focusing on the atrocities going on in Darfur, Sudan. Since 2003, genocide has been ripping Darfur apart. That's right, genocide, as in systematically killing an entire group of people.

Here's what happened: The people of Darfur had enough with government officials and a select few others in society getting rich from Darfur's oil while 6 million people there are among the poorest in Africa. Two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) decided to challenge the Sudanese government and President Omar al-Bashir to do something about the injustice. In return, al-Bashir sent the Sudanese army and an Arab black Muslim militia, the Janjaweed out to kill. But they aren't just killing rebels; they're attempting to kill the whole race of poor Darfurians.

For the Governor's Project, we are going to work closely with the Darfur Human Rights Organization of the U.S.A. This organization is based close to home in Philadelphia, and a refugee founded it. Our goals for this year are to hold drives, fundraisers, and to raise awareness about the situation plaguing the people of Darfur.



Quick Facts: -The death toll has reached 400,000 since February 2003.
-Over 500 people die each month.
-About 1 Million people could die in the coming months from disease or lack of food.
-Humanitarian aid organizations have access to only 20% of those affected.
-Over 2.5 Million people have been driven from their homes.




What does it all mean?

AFRICAN UNION (AU)--Established in 1999 as a successor to the Organization for African Unity; seeks to further continental unity, peace, and development. The AU has sent a small force of ceasefire monitors to Darfur.

AL-BASHIR, GENERAL OMAR--President of Sudan who seized power in a 1989 military coup that overthrew the elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.

CHAD--Nation to the west of Darfur where some 200,000 Darfurian civilians have fled and are living in refugee camps.

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY--Broader category of crime under international law than genocide, first introduced in the Nuremberg trial of major German war criminals after World War II. The term refers to widespread or systematic attacks against any civilian population that includes acts such as murder, rape, torture, enslavement, deportation,or persecution.

DARFUR--A 150,000-square-mile region of western Sudan, roughly the size of Texas, with about five to six million inhabitants. Darfur¡¯s remoteness is illustrated by the fact that it is linked to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, by seven hundred miles of dirt road and a single-track railway.

GENOCIDE>--Defined in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as ¡°any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (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.


GENOCIDE EMERGENCY--Type of alert issued by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum¡¯s Committee on Conscience when genocide is imminent or is actually occurring. The Committee on Conscience declared a Genocide Emergency for Darfur in July 2004.

JANJAWEED--Term used to refer to government-allied militias that have been carrying out systematic and sustained attacks on the civilian population of non-Arab groups in Darfur such as the Fur, Masaalit, and Zaghawa. It derives from ¡°G3¡± (a type of rifle) and jawad (horse), and has long been western Sudanese dialect for ¡°rabble¡± or ¡°outlaws.¡±

JUSTICE AND EQUALITY MOVEMENT (JEM)--One of two main rebel groups in Darfur.

SUDAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT (SLM)--One of two main rebel groups in Darfur.

SOUTHERN PEOPLE¡¯S LIBERATION MOVEMENT/ARMY (SPLM/A)-- Main rebel group in southern Sudan.

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL--Body of 15 nations that has plenary authority to maintain international peace and security. Five nations have permanent seats on the Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China. The permanent members have the power to veto any action of the Security Council.





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