Events in Darfur
Uploaded by shadow87warrior on Apr 20, 2007
Is the Government of Sudan to Blame for the Events in Darfur?
I. Introduction:
The future of Sudan is uncertain because of the violence of recent years. Its past is consistent with the exploitation of the “New World” by the old. Colonialism left its mark on the country, and finally it gained its independence from Great Britain in 1963. At that time the new government tried to transform the political system that had worked for the British into one that would serve the ethnically diverse country. The main problem with Sudan is no matter how well the government and the minority Christian party worked out their problems the minority party would still feel as if the current system is working against them.
In the years during the Emperor Justinian the country would be “rapidly Christianized” (Embassy) . It had ties to the Coptic Church in Egypt, and then around the year 650C.E. the Muslim conquest overtook the northern half of the country. This would lead to conflicts throughout history between the north and south. The divisions among the religions would allow for the country to be occupied by Turkish forces at the turn of the 19th century, after the fall of the Funj kingdom. “In 1820 Muhammad Ali, the Turkish Pasha of Egypt, sent two military expeditions south and westward into Sudan, capturing Sennar and El Obeid in the following year” (Embassy). When the Turkish state declined from power at the end of the 19th century, it would be the British, pushing from the north down through Egypt that would come to dominate Sudan.
In the 1880’s the northern half of the country came under Anglo-Egyptian control. In 1885, at the Battle of Khartoum , British General Charles George Gordon was killed, resulting in a removal of Egyptian, and therefore, British control over the region. The freedom form Britain would last for some time, until the British decided to return to the area a few years before the turn of the 20th century. In 1899, following the Battle of Omdurman between the Sudanese and Anglo- Egyptian forces , the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was established (Sudan). In theory it was a protectorate of Egypt, but in reality the governor-general was appointed by Egypt with British oversight, effecting giving the control to Britain. To keep the religious differences that now ravage the country, the British governed the colony as two halves, north and south. The...