I passed the signs in the neighbor’s yard every morning during my daily run. “ Save Darfur, Stop the Genocide,” the signs would say. They looked like an endorsement for a political candidate but there were no upcoming elections. Every morning I would run past the signs and I would realize that I was completely oblivious to the issues in Darfur. Yet my neighbor felt so strongly about Darfur, that he had placed signs in his front yard to campaign for its salvation. Since the yard signs were making me feel intellectually challenged on a daily basis, I decided that I needed to find out more about Darfur and did some research.
Darfur::
Ominous Signs Point To New And Deadly Phase In Darfur Fighting They came to this dusty town in the Darfur region of Sudan on horses and camels on market
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/darfurHOME |
I discovered that Darfur is a region in the Western Sudan of Africa that has been involved in an armed conflict resulting in a humanitarian catastrophe since 2003. Hundreds of thousands (200,000 estimated by the United Nations) have died from violence and disease. After decades of minor conflicts over land and water in Darfur, rebels from ethnic African tribes ignited a major conflict in early 2003, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglect and initiating action by attacking government outposts in protest. The central government (which had few ground soldiers) is accused of responding by backing Arab tribal militias which used murder and rape to lay waste to African tribal villages. The government also supported air strikes which killed innocent civilians resulting in charges of genocide.
Darfur Necklace Comes To ABC Home (Baristanet)::
You've seen the lawn signs all over Baristaville, but you can't wear one around your .. thereby saving the world from global warming at the same time.
http://www.baristanet.com/2007/11/darfur_necklace.phpHOME |
History of Darfur**::
File Format: Microsoft Word - View as HTMLUN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated on June 16, 2007 that the conflict “derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming.” Darfur is settled
http://studyabroad.byu.edu/student/modelun/docs/Human%20Rights%20Council.docHOME |
The armed conflict between the two sides (both of which are Muslim) is a result of a combination of drought, desertification, and overpopulation. This area is on the fringe of the Sahara desert. The temperature can reach well over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Many refugees stand in long lines to receive a little over four liters of water each day in refugee camps. This amount of water is barely enough to exist on in the intense heat.
Estimates of regional rainfall totals in the Sudan indicate that rainfall has dropped forty percent in the last fifty years. Lake Chad which forms part of the border between Chad , Nigeria and Niger has lost ninety percent of its capacity and has dropped to ten percent of its original size. In recent years, the Sahara Desert has been expanding southward as a result of these drought cycles. This results in Arab nomads having to move their herds further south to find grazing pasture which brings them into conflict with ethnic African black farmers. Everyone needs a piece of a shrinking water supply and arable land.
Many people in the west are becoming convinced that Darfur is the first war triggered by climate change and global warming.
On June 16, 2007, U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon released a statement in which he proposed that the slaughter in Darfur was caused at least in part from change, and that it derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming. The scale of historical climate change, as recorded in Northern Darfur, is almost unprecedented: the reduction in rainfall has turned millions of hectares of already marginal semi-desert grazing land into desert. The impact of climate change is considered to be directly related to the conflict in the region, as desertification has added significantly to the stress on the livelihoods of pastoralist societies, forcing them to move south to find pasture, .
Also, consider the words of British Home Secretary John Reid in March 2006 as he referred to global warming as the real force behind the genocide in Darfur, “Environmental changes make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely”. “ The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur. We should see this as a warning sign.”
The recent United Nations Resolution 1769 establishes a cease fire and a 20,000 Hybrid U.N peacekeeping force in Darfur by October 2007. It is established with a framework of negotiation to alleviate the dispute between the warring factions.
However, it is clear that permanent peace will not be achieved until all parties in Darfur realize that their war is not a tribal war but a war between man and his changing environment.
Climate change has ramifications for all of us. The signs of global warming are in Darfur and those are the signs that none of us should just run past.
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The Signs of Global Warming are in Darfur