What allowed the leaders in the civil war between Northern and Southern Sudan to begin peace negotiations? How did the end of the civil war lead to the crisis in Darfur?
What is the difference between the economic situation in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, and the rest of the country? How did this difference lead to the rebellion in Darfur?
What does Janjaweed mean?
What is this group doing in Darfur (in western Sudan) and the neighboring nation of Chad?
How do they support themselves?
How did then Secretary of State Colin Powell characterize the situation in Darfur? What do Sudanese diplomats in the United Nations say about what is happening in Darfur? Why do you think there are different viewpoints?
What makes people like Eric Reed, an American professor, Mukesh Kapila, the British doctor, and actress Mia Farrow devote so much of their lives to the situation in Darfur? How do you view their activism? Explain your response.
Why is China playing such an important role in the Darfur situation? How would you characterize China's role?
What role is the United States government playing in Darfur?
What is the role of organizations like savedarfur.org in the Darfur crisis? Why do you think private organizations are addressing this situation?
Do
you consider what is happening in Darfur to be genocide? Why or why
not? Does the label of genocide matter? Note: The United Nation
defines genocide as: "genocide means any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Source: www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html)
Why do you think it is taking so long for the world to take action in Darfur?