Sudan, the people, the crisis, the reasonby AnonymousResearch for the 21st Century : Fall 2004 |
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"It’s really very simple, Governor. When people are hungry they die. So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you’re going to get it to these people." Bob Geldof INTRODUCTIONSudan has a history of division and violence. According to some this is not the first “genocide” of this type that has occurred in this country but the second. The first was just ignored. It seems to be that the primary bull steering this war is religious cleansing being done by the Muslims of the North trying to eliminate the non-Muslims of the South. Aside from the in-humane problems here and the ethics, more involved and disgusting is that no one what’s to be involved and even some of the government leaders in Sudan are now under investigation as they continually deny that anything is happening. Topic AnalysisAcademic Disciplines
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Library of Congress Classification numbers
KeywordsIn retrieving relevant material from indexes and databases, I used the following key terms, among others:
Description of my keyword search strategy:In my research I eliminated quite a few subject headings and key words as they just did not prove useful or where just not needed. In fact in this study I found that broader terms provided more information and current events that detailed ones. My primary searched where done under Sudan and genocide either or, or a combination of the two. I did find that the information that I found covered many subject headings, but did not really steer any broader than where I started. Most Important Databases and Periodical IndexesREFERENCE SOURCESOrganizationsWorld Health OrganizationWHO is the United Nations specialized organization for health. The statistics provided review the regions of Africa and Sudan and provide projected mortality information caused both by the war as well as the effect of the war being malnutrition and disease. This article provides statistics for the effects of the war. Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch is a non-profit organization that watches over human rights worldwide. Their primary goal is to stand up against injustice to people from discrimination, war crimes, governments and those in power that abuse their power against the people, as well as to investigate and prosecute if possible those that abuse these rights. They are based out of New York and are the largest human rights organization in the United States.
StatisticsMaps and References Embassy World. “Maps and References". 2001. 9 Oct. 2004. http://www.embassyworld.com. Articles in Reference Books“Sudan, history of the”. Encyclopedia Britannica. 2004. 9 Oct.2004. http://www.britannica.com. Encyclopedia Britannica has been the leader in providing topical and current information since the 18th century. Within this article they relay in-depth information about the people, religion and history of Sudan from the prehistoric to the present. This article is important to my research as it provides history of the country and culture of Sudan. United States. Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook. May, 2004. 9 Oct. 2004. http://www.cia.gov The CIA was established in 1947 and since that time has been
providing people with access to information that has been collected,
combined, processed and then translated into public information. In
this the CIA has collected an abundance of facts on the country of
Sudan varying from background to language to death rate to current
issues. The book contributes most of the need facts about the
country of Sudan. BOOKSRotberg, Robert I & Thomas George Weiss. From massacres to genocide : the media, public policy, and humanitarian crises. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution. 1996. Robert Rotberg and Thomas George Weiss are both prominent authors in the fields of disaster relief, journalism, government policymaking and academia. Rotberg is president of the World Peace Foundation and Weiss is associate director of Brown University’s Watson Institute of International Studies. Rotberg and Weiss explore and expose how the media can make or break a country by bringing more or less emphasis to a crisis and how much they tell the people. Rotberg and Weiss both feel that the media’s treatment of humanitarian crises distorts people’s perceptions. This book contributes clarity to crisis information on Sudan via the media. Zwier, Lawrence J. Sudan: North Against South. Minneapolis, Minn.: Lerner Publications Co., 1999. Lawrence is a journalist that has been studying and writing about the Middle East and African culture and conflicts since 1978. Zwier from his findings feels that the civil war raging in Sudan is caused by the division of the North which is primarily Islamic and the South which is primarily Christian. Zwier’s goal is to educate people on exciting conflicts and current events in hopes that understanding will help find a resolution in the future. This perspective is very important to my research on the possibility that religion is behind the conflict in Sudan. PERIODICAL ARTICLESHentoff, Nat. “The Sudan genocide.” The Village Voice May. 2004: 30. Alt-Press Watch. ProQuest. South Seattle Community College Lib., 01, Nov 2004. http://proquest.umi.com. Nat Hentoff is a nationally syndicated columnist and commentator on the First Amendment on the Bill of Rights and is a writer for The Village Voice. Hentoff, like others, feels that the situation in Sudan is being allowed to continue because no one wants to step in, especially the UN. He also holds Kofi Annan responsible for not doing more to get the UN involved. This article is very helpful in providing facts on the current death toll in Sudan as well as government responses to Sudan. Prince, Zenitha. “50,000 massacred in Sudan; Cry of Sudanese reaches Baltimore.” Afro American. Aug. 2004: A1. Ethnic NewsWatch. ProQuest. Seattle Community Colleges Lib., 01, Nov 2004. http://proquest.umi.com. Zenitha Prince is a former American Journalism Review editorial assistant. She is currently a writer for the Afro American Newspaper which follows and is an activist for African rights. Prince provided the coverage of a rally regarding Sudan with the direction that people need to get better educated on what is happening and ready to “prod” the government into action. This article added more channeled perspective from an African activist point of view on how to find a resolution to the crisis in Sudan. Spencer, Robert. “Jihad in Sudan? What Jihad in Sudan?.” Human Events Aug. 2004: 17. eLibrary. ProQuest. KCLS Lib., 01, Nov 2004. http://elibrary.bigchalk.com. Robert Spencer is a researcher as well as writer who has studied Islam for more than twenty years. He is also the director of “Jihad Watch” a website devoted to the people of Jihad. Robert feels very strongly that what is happening in Sudan is a jihad (holy war). He also feels that the UN and particularly Kofi Annan is to blame. This article contributes an alternate view to the civil war in Sudan. INTERNET SOURCESBotha, Andrea. “Sudan: No genocide here”. Sept. 2004. News24. 08, Nov 2004. Andrea Botha is the editor for News 24. In this article Sudan’s justice minister Khartoum is questioned about the genocide and rape happenings in Darfur. And his reaction was that there was none of that happening. This article provide an important perspective to my treatment of government involvement in the war in Sudan. Reuters. “UN Team Arrives in Sudan to Investigate Genocide Reports.” Nov. 2004. Arab News. 01, Nov 2004. Reuters is a global information company that provides up to date news to other smaller news sources. Reuters was told that the UN has a team in Sudan to investigate the allegations of genocide, even though it is still denied by Khartoum. This investigation is also to find out if Khartoum is directly involved. This article was very information in my perspective on the government’s involvement in the civil war in Sudan. NON-PRINTUnited States of America. US Government. 9 Oct. 2004. http://usa.gov/. REVIEW of my Research ProcessWhen taking on the subject of the current crisis in Sudan I thought it would be fairly easy to find information being that it is such an active topic. Though this proved not to be so. I had to spend some time weeding as expected and developed a kind of narrowed direct and yet still broad search strategy. I stumbled across the word genocide in my first few searches and so I picked it up and ran with it to all of my other found recourses. This proved to be a valuable term in that most of the happening in Sudan have just been classified as genocide and most of the people directly involved are somehow connected to this term, thus to my surprise my primary research was done with two words, Sudan and genocide. Ethnic cleansing, religious cleansing, genocide… there is no reason let alone an excuse for these things. Rape, terrorism, murder, these things we all know are wrong and yet this is what is going on right now and everyday in Sudan. When we are brushing our teeth in the morning, people are fleeing for their lives, are being raped, or are being forced to choose how their children will die by being shot to death or burned alive. These action are in-humane. Mankind is so “advanced” and yet animals don’t even act in this way. There is a major humanitarian as well as ethical crisis happening in Sudan at the moment. To date the death toll is estimated at 70,000 and is expected to hit 1.3 million just do to the malnutrition and disease that will come out of the war. In my research I have found many views on the current events of Sudan including those that seem to think that nothing is happening. These views also came from nationalities from all over the globe including African, Arabic, and Jewish. Being that this event is happening now, I wonder how much of the information available is speculation or interpretation compared to just the facts. According to some sources, this has happened in the past, from that perspective I think the information out now would be more refined and closer to a resolution that is actually is. In my footwork, I found that the internet and periodicals provided much more information on Sudan than any of the other resources I used. | |||||||||||