Darfur Crisis Essay

The Darfur crisis was the first case of genocide in the twenty-first century. The killings of the Darfur crisis began in 2003, and it was carried out by a government-funded Arab Militias called the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed burned villages, murdered, raped, and tortured the civilians of Darfur. A total of 480,000 people were killed and over 2.8 million people were displaced. In 2004 the United States declared the Darfur crisis was an act of genocide. Some people may say that these acts of violence and genocide were caused by grievance or the argument that people act on issues of identity, but I believe the main causes of these acts were driven from greed. It is important to note that both grievance and greed played a role in the Darfur crisis, …show more content…
This flowed into the issues in Darfur, where it remained underdeveloped compared to the rest of the area. This is evidence that the genocide was driven from greed because the Darfur region would not have created the rebel groups, which made them a target by the government; if they had received the resources they needed to develop their region. Also, it was common that the Janjaweed people would loot and steal livestock while they were destroying these villages. This proves that the Janjaweed were not just focused on killing and displacing these people, but also to get something for themselves. Finally, the most important piece of evidence that supports the idea that the main causation of the Darfur crisis was greed is that China tried to block the UN resolutions to help Darfur. China had ties with the Sudanese government because of the oil in Sudan. Sudan became China’s largest oversea provider of oil. China had a strong economic and political partnership with Sudan which helps prove that the Darfur crisis was caused by greed because the government needed to supply the oil to China from the western part of Sudan which was Darfur; therefore, making it essential for the government to displace the people of Darfur to get to the