Final Question

Overall learning about Sudan has had a huge impact on my life. The stories i have read, the pictures i have seen and the videos i have watched have changed my life immensely. Before we started school i had no idea at all that this was going on in Darfur. I have not even heard of this conflict in my entire time here at Shattuck. It really makes me think about how lucky i am to live in a country where i have a house to live in, a school to go to, food to eat and all the opportunities that i have. It sucks to know that kids over in Sudan are dying because they are starving, they have no education and don't have a house to live in. They have to see people die at such young ages and so many of them see their family die when they are too young to even to take care of themselves. Many have to take on so much responsibility at such a young age that it probably becomes to overwhelming for a lot of them to handle and its truly sad to think about. I really look at life a lot different now that i can see how lucky i am to be in such good health. Instead of complaining how bad the lunch is tomorrow i will actually appreciate it because i know that millions of Sudanese people would do anything to be in my position. It makes you live life to the fullest because you only have one life and you don't want to spend you life complaining because one of the Sudanese people would do anything to live the life you live.

Ms. Batty Question

McCain believes that we need to give whatever financial, logistics and whatever we can to a peace keeping organization. If the Chinese continues to help the government of Sudan that we need to join a league of Democracies that value human rights and that we can act together. If Russia or the Chinese don't want to join us then that doesn't matter. McCain does not know how he would negotiate with the president of Sudan because he has broke agreements and caused a lot of mayhem. He believes that if the people of the United States keeps on giving Sudan their support that we will end the genocide in Darfur. Obama has been urging President Bush to take more steps in helping Sudan. He has passed the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. He has traveled to the UN and met with Sudanese officials and has been able to visit different refugee camps on the border of Sudan and Chad. He helped make over 20 million dollars for the African Peace Keeping Union and believes the United States needs to lead the whole world on ending the genocide in Sudan.

Question #2

I truly believe that killing is one of the most wrong things anyone could do even if they think their doing the right thing. I don't think anyone knows for sure what goes on when someone is about to kill someone but i don't think to them it seems as bad as it is. I believe that when you have the heart to kill someone something lights up in your brain. They think that, well they killed my family so why shouldn't they die also? I can understand that because my brain would want to hurt someone that killed my family but i think that no matter how hard i tried i wouldn't be able to kill someone. Now for people in Sudan their life is pretty rough and they might think that killing for their beliefs is the right thing to do, but what is it really doing? Nothing, all the killing is really doing is causing more people to kill and this is why now their are children that are starting to join the armies and killing at such a young age can screw with your head pretty bad. The armies in Sudan abuse children in the army for not killing, the armies are basically creating armies of children and turning them into killing machines. So I'm not exactly sure what makes someone kill someone but it has to be a pretty bad thing that is going on in their head.

Question #1

To do harm to either a person or an animal is just ridiculous. I believe that if someone can hurt a animal they can do harm to a human. I can not believe that in Sudan there is so much killing going on that they are the worst war since WWII. This is unbelievable because killing must just come natural to these people. When they have to kill someone they probably don't even think about it, they just push the trigger like its nothing. I could not kill someone that i don't even know anything about, the people that are killing must have something inside them that just don't care about what happens to anyone. No matter if they have no idea who this person is they can just go shoot them. Not even knowing how good of a person this person could be. I understand that revenge plays a big part in the killings. If someone killed my family i too would want to get revenge but why would someone kill my family in the first place? It just shocks me that so much killing goes on there, who knows how many deaths there are each day. Its really sad that this is happening to people just like us. They have families and yet some of their families get killed and this turns them into a killing machine. It really impacts me because i cant believe that it is that easy to kill people.

Atlantic Article

The famine that is talked about in this article is really upsetting to me. Khartoum does not even really care about the famine that is currently going on all they want is to get rid of their leader Nemerie. What really makes me mad in this article is that the Sudan government is leaving it up to the United States. We are giving them food, medical help and all kinds of different things and their government expects us to keep doing it. This really makes me frustrated because i think that it is ridiculous that their whole country is dying and starving and they leave it up to the US who are even kind enough to help at all. All the money that we spend on this country and all they can say is "the US is handling it". They have to take some responsibility before their country is wiped of the face of the earth.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198604/sudan

BBC Article

I read the article "Why Darfur intervention is a mistake" and i don't agree with it at all. It says that most of the killing happened 4 or so years ago and the killing has slowed down a lot but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people did die. I think personally think we should interfere because something has to be done. The article says that its hard to make a "moral distinction" between side because the recent attacks on Khartoum were ordered by the rebels but i think i would be pretty angry too if the government had been killing innocent civilians. I would want to take action against the government too. I'm not saying that we should go in there and start killing people but try and to stop both sides from killing each other. We need to try and settle the conflict and make some sort of peace treaty so that this genocide doesn't continue. It mention that this is becoming Rwanda in slow motion and if we don't do something quick it could easily become worse than that. So my view on this article is i think we should interfere in a way that minimizes killings and works on saving innocent lives.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7411087.stm

An African Tragedy

The pictures on the website that we got really show what its like to be a person living in Sudan. Its really sad to see the people in these pictures suffer, even the little children have to suffer and there is nothing they can do about it. In one of the pictures a group of men are praying for a 2 year old boy who has died. This picture really shows the impacts of the Darfur conflict. Even young children are dying for something they cant do anything about. The children have to take a lot of responsibility at a young age and a lot of children die because of malnutrition. In some of the pictures there is skeletons just laying on the ground. I think that it would be pretty scary to see skeletons laying on the ground where you walk everyday. All the pictures are all very sad and really show whats going on in Sudan.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/slideshow_040830?slide=3#showHeader

Denying Sudan

I posted this video because it shows Sudan and its allies trying to deny the genocide that is happening in Darfur. It also shows some good pictures of the life that the Sudan people live in.

The Second Sudanese Civil War

• The Second Sudanese Civil War began in 1983 is considered to be one of the most dangerous wars on the 2oth Century. Was fought between the Northern Arabic people and the Southern non - Arabic people.

• The death toll was the highest since World War II.

• In 1983 Addis Ababa Agreement was cut off by President Gaafar Nimeiry after he imposed the Sharia Law.

• The Sudan People's Liberation Army was founded in 1983 by a guy called John Garang. Was consisted of mostly non - Arabic people fighting against the government to establish a independent Sudan.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Garang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sudanese_Civil_War#Outbreak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addis_Ababa_Agreement_(1972)

The Current Conflict

• The war is being fought over ethnic groups and tribes rather than religious matters as it was in the second Sudanese war.

• One side of the conflict consists of the Janjaweed and the Sudanese military and the other side consists various rebel groups such as the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement.

• This conflict began in 2003 primarily because of the drought, desertification and the overpopulation over the last few decades.

• A Immense amount of casualties, some estimated 50,000 deaths since the beginning of the conflict. Others have estimated 70,000 and a more recent British reports estimates around 300,000 deaths and still others have estimated more.

• Sudan government denys these estimates only estimates around 9,000 deaths.

• 2.5 million have been displaced from their home.
  

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict#Mortality_Figures

Sudan

Sudan is the largest country in Africa and is one of the worlds poorest countries. Sudan sits on a large amount of oil but can not be used because of the on going conflict that is happening in Sudan. Sudan has been split into North Sudan and South Sudan, North being more developed and mostly Muslim and South being full of poverty and is consisted mostly of Christians.

Location: Sudan is located in Africa bordered by the Red Sea, between Eritrea and Egypt.

Capital: Khartoum

Area: Just bigger than 1/4 the size of US

Climate(s): South is tropical and North is more of a desert.

Population: 40,218,456

Ethnic Groups: Black - 52%, Arab - 39%, Beja - 6%, Foreigners - 2%, Others - 1%

Religions: Sunni Muslim - 70%, Christian - 5%, Indigenous beliefs - 25%

Sources: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/su.html