Africa's Age of Death

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For those of you who have heard the word genocide in the news, in the paper, but still don't know exactly what it means, Genocide is the mass killing of a group of people due to their national, ethnic, or religious group by deliberately causing serious bodily and mental harm. These hardships still faced today in parts of Africa, but many countries have had some form of genocide over this "Age of Death". Each time, the rest of the world was too late to act.

Why has the rest of the world always been so late to act? Because it's Africa, poor people, poor countries, also because the very countries we call home have exploited these Genocides for their very own economic gain. In essence Africa gets raped by those causing the genocides, and also by the people who are supposed to stop the genocide.

There was Bosnia in 1992, not Africa but worth mentioning, the organized killing of 200,000 Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) between 1992 - 1995. The killings an ethnic cleansing implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the direct support of the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

Then in 1994 there was Rwanda. In a span of 100 days 937,000 Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were killed by the Hutus. The rate of the killings in Rwanda far exceed any other genocide in world history. What makes this massacre so sad is that before the killings started there was warnings, but most first world countries including the U.S., France, Belgium declined to intervene. The UN's response was also very inadequate.

Now, there is Darfur in Western Sudan. The conflict begin in 2003, while civil war between Muslims and Christians has been plaguing the country since 1993. Between 200,000 - 400,000 people have already lost their lives. The Janjaweed (meaning "devils on horseback") with the backing and support of the Sudanese government are behind the massacre of Sudanese Non-Muslims. The Sudanese government objects to all actions of the UN and claims UN troops would be an invasion, causing the Sudanese military to launch a major offensive in the region of Darfur. While the UN, the U.S., Canada and many other first world countries have claimed the conflict in Darfur as genocide by the Sudanese government, China & Russia still hold back on calling it as genocide. The Chinese & Russians are opposed to any sanctions against Sudan due to the Oil agreements they have with Sudan. Two thirds of the oil sold from Sudan is to China & Russia. So while the number of deaths continue to rise in Darfur, China & Russia turn a blind eye, because they value their oil more than the life of a few hundred thousand Africans.