Darfur: It's not about religion or race. It's about greed By Jane Stillwater

Darfur: It's not about religion or race. It's about greed

By Jane Stillwater

Al-Jazeerah, February 12, 2006

Last night I had a long talk with a woman who had been born in California but raised in the Sudan. Her perspective on what has been going on in that country was very different from what I have been hearing on the news.

"Why are the Khartoum Muslims raping and killing the black people from Darfur?" I had asked her.

This woman looked at me like I was extremely ignorant about Sudanese geography, demographics, etc. Apparently I was. "The majority of Sudanese are Muslims," she said. "Religious conflict is not the issue here."

"Well then why are the Arabs killing the black people?" I asked. Another extremely naive question. "Sudanese come in all shades of skin color. Almost all Sudanese are a mixture of Arab and African descent except for in the south. Southern Sudanese are predominately African-featured. But Darfur isn't in the south. It's in the west." Oh. So the massacres in Darfur are not racially motivated either.

"Then why is one faction butchering the other?"

"Greed. Resources. Land. To create chaos. Wherever there is chaos and lawlessness, those with the most guns win." So. Race and religion have nothing to do with it apparently. It's all about who has the most weapons. "And who can get into the country to acquire the resources of the ignorant, underdeveloped and poor."

So. Sudan apparently is more like Guinea than the former Yugoslavia. Guinea has resources coming of of its ears. Diamonds, minerals, rich topsoil, etc. Yet when the World Bank recently built six (6) classrooms in Guinea, 5,000 students showed up.

It's the same old story -- governments that prey on their people. The powerful few get it all. Like what happened in Iraq? Like what happened in New Orleans? It's a time-tested formula -- create chaos and then take over. Seize the resources. Buy off the army. Pass a Patriot Act.

God bless the child who has his own. Otherwise you will surely find yourself up the Nile (or the Mississippi) without a paddle.

Jane Stillwater, http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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