(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)April 25, 2007

Despite pronouncements from world leaders, resolutions from international bodies and negotiations among the parties involved, genocide continues in the Darfur region of Sudan. The marvels of technology have enabled Google and the United Staes Holocaust Museum to display satellite photographs of the crisis zone with explicating material that make it possible to know what is going on there in real-time. And the humanitarian disaster continues with at least 200,00 people killed and 2.5 million Darfur “Africans” driven from their homes by the infamous state-supported “Janjaweed” militia.

This situation is complex and a long time in the making. Untangling it is not easy. But this is exactly what Gerard Prunier does in the recently revised edition of his book, Darfur: the Ambiguous Genocide. As he explains, at the heart of the crisis is the determination of the present-day Khartoum-based Arab elite to assert its hegemony over the mostly African Muslim farmers of the embattled western region that in pre-colonial times constituted an independent and significant sultanate. The tragedy of Darfur, as Prunier makes clear, was at least twenty years in the making with Arab nationalism, drought, foreign interference and civil conflict across the border in Chad all playing their part in its unfolding.

One matter, perhaps, requires a bit of criticism. Prunier sometimes sounds dismissive in noting the influence of the increasingly vocal advocacy groups and the celebrities who have played a key role in making their voices heard in the arena of world opinion. Without rallies and letter-writing campaigns and the likes of George Clooney, Don Cheadle and Mia Farrow, whose pronouncements have been heard from Washington to Beijing, it is unlikely that there would be any hope at all of resolving the conflict.

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