Media Release: The Tragedy of Darfur
Issued by the Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa.

The announcement by Human Rights Watch yesterday that it has official Sudanese government documents that "illustrate the involvement, at the highest levels, of the
state bureaucracy in the recruitment and arming of militia [in Darfur] and the authorization of their activities that have resulted in crimes against humanity and war crimes" is horrifying but not surprising. The Sudanese government, we believe, carries the blame for the massacres in Darfur from the time the disaster began.
According to human rights organizations, up to 30,000 people have been killed, thousands more raped and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes in Darfur at the hands of marauding government-supported gangs. The ugly campaign has been fueled by bigotry against the Muslim African population of
the area by self-identifying "Arab" militias, the Janjaweed. The problems that led to the current crisis are complex. As a UN report pointed out last year, "in Darfur, where the vast majority of people are Muslims and Arabic-speaking, the distinction between 'Arab' and 'African ' is more cultural than racial." Yet sadly, as the world witnessed in Rwanda, hatred, greed and the thirst for power are stubborn enemies of truth and compassion. Still, the Sudanese government's claims of innocence ring exceedingly hollow.