Darfur: Blueprint for Genocide - Archipielago Libertad

taken away from the v illage to be shot. 35 This mirrors the
pattern of attacks against theNuba in 1992.
Halima, a 13-year-old girl, Breidjing refugee camp, eastern
Chad, July 2004. She had been shot in her left arm in
February 2004. Clearly the bones were fragmented and the
arm left non-functional. Her twin brother was shot in the
head and died. Photo: James M Smith, © Aegis Trust
3.2.2 Use of racist language by the
perpetrators
The use of racist language during attacks is consistently
reported by refugees. This provides evidence that attacks
are driven by a racist ideology, and are not just attacks
against the support base of the two rebel groups.
Aegis was told over and over again by refugees coming
ov er the border to Eastern Chad from Darfur:
15
The Janjaweed want to steal from us, kill us and
destroy us, because we are black.
The US State Department report found that nearly a third
of refugees interviewed reported hearing racial epithets
whilst under attack. Reference to Africans as slaves is a
35 Adam Jones (2004). A compendium of media coverage and
human-rights reportage about gender-selective killings of men and
boys in Darfur, Sudan, http://gendercide.org/darfur01.htm,
[Accessed 11 October 2004].
Section 3: Systematic Actions Amounting to Genocide
racial slur that Northern Sudanese Arabs have used since
the 19 th century, and it has been commonly used by the
Janjaweed. The examples below illustrate the v iolent
hatred in the language used.
You blacks, you have spoilt the country! We are
here to burn you…We will kill your husbands and
sons and we will sleep with you! You will be our
wives!
Every black woman must be killed, even the
children.
The blood of the Blacks runs like water, we take
their goods and we chase them from our area and
our cattle will be in their land. The power of al
Bashir belongs to the Arabs and we will kill you until
the end, you Blacks, we have killed your God. 36
We are the Arabs, we have the priority, you are the
blacks. 37
You are opponents to the regime, we must crush
you. As you are black you are like slaves. 38
3.2.3 Rape and violence against women
Systematic rape is characteristically used as a tool of
genocide – most notably in the past decade during the
Bosnian crisis in the early 1990s and during the genocide
in Rwanda in 1994. The International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda recognised rape as a crime of genocide for the
first time in 1998 in the verdict giv en against Jean-Paul
Akayesu. 39
In the local justicesystem of gacaca in Rwanda, dev eloped
to address crimes of genocide w ithin local communities,
rape is specifically defined as a crime of genocide in the
highest category – category one, the accused being tried
not in the villages but in the conventional courts. 40
36 Amnesty International (2004) Darfur: Rape as a Weapon of War:
Sexual Violence and its Consequences, London, Amnesty
International, (AFR 54/076/2004) p. 14.
The quotation is from a song sung by Hakama (traditional women
singers whose function is to praise male fighters) who have
accompanied the Janjaweed during attacks on villages.
37 Ibid p. 23.
38 Ibid p .12.
39 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1998), “ Historic
Judgement Finds Akayesu Guilty Of Genocide”
http://www.ictr.org/ENGLISH/PRESSREL/1998/138.htm [Accessed
16 November 2004].
40 Victoria Britain (2003). “ Letter from Rwanda”, Global Policy Forum,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/tribunals/rwanda/2003/0901lett
er.htm [Accessed 16 November 2004].