Contesting Exclusion: Uneven Development and the Genesis of the Sudan's Darfur War

Abstract

"The present disastrous situation in Darfur is the outcome of a complex web of underdevelopment, ecological, political, social, and security factors..." (Hamad, Z.M. Mohammed [n.d].) The civil war in the Sudan's Darfur region has been on the world's agenda for quite sometime now. But the solutions to the conflict are far from sight due to the multiplicity of actors and multiple competing interests that are involve. Compounding the volatile military-political situation and its accompanied complex emergencies is that the responses of the international community have been vague and not encourage enough. Additionally, Darfur is not assisted by the "rushed and ungrounded suggestions on how to best support on-going work for peace and how to reach long lasting political solutions" (Norberg and Brune, 2007: 5). The Darfurian crisis, opposing the Government of the Sudan (GoS) and its proxy militia force (the Janjaweed) on the one hand, and the different regional rebel movements championed by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on another hand1, has resulted in the stupendous loss of lives and property. Between February 2003 when the war started and 2009, the conflict had produced hundreds of thousands of deaths, more than 2 million displaced (Liegeois, 2009), while mass raping, gangsterism, etc, are now the 'normal' ways of life in this 'highly unfortunate' region.