Abstract

Darfur and Development

This article focuses on the array of conflicts in Sudan and the government's role in them. The recent United Nations Commission of Inquiry's report on Darfur may be right or wrong in claiming that the atrocities committed in the region do not amount to genocide. But what matters far more than that designation, or the report's identification of those responsible for the violence, is the fact that the conflict in Darfur continues unabated. Now, as attention is focused on ending the Darfur crisis, there is turbulence in other parts of the country. The main root of all these conflicts is the injustice of the Khartoum government. While that government has grown rich from the oil in the south and the mechanized farming schemes in the east and west, it has systematically and consistently denied the peoples of these regions equal access to wealth and development, including equal access to education, healthcare and economic opportunity. These conflicts are not, as is often depicted, merely racial or cultural.