canadiancomment

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Turning The Bad Guys Into Another Victim

One has to wonder about the gaul or the ignorance required to twist a situation into something it is not.

While checking out the BBC this morning I came across this classic where Jonah Fisher wastes my precious time by telling me that the Sudanese Arabs are victims of the genocide taking place in Sudan:
It has been a difficult couple of years for the nomads. One man we spoke to has 12 wives. He inherited 10 of them when six of his brothers were killed in a rebel attack.

Nomad on camel with loads of possessions
Nomads are continually on the move to find new grazing

After this meeting, we travelled north to meet another group of nomads.

Strictly speaking they are ex-nomads.

A year-and-a-half ago they were attacked by rebels, lost most of their animals and stopped travelling.

"Everything was taken in attacks by the rebels in 2004. We had large herds of camels, cows, sheep, goat and even donkeys," the group's religious leader Khatir Idriss said.

"We are now three different nomad tribes come here to live together and provide ourselves with some safety."

I asked him if they were armed.

"Some of us who still have some animals have guns so we can protect ourselves," he replied.

And this is the essence of these ex-nomads problems: an Arab on camel or horseback sporting a Kalashnikov has become the symbol of Darfur's evil - the Janjaweed, blamed for driving people from their villages.

If these ex-nomads tried to go to an organised camp they would be seen as the enemy.

Conflict between nomads and farmers has long existed in Darfur. But this war has destroyed any sense of normality for both communities.
Seen as the enemy in an organized camp? Is he serious? Did he ever consider that whenever the Arab nomads get near a refugee camp that they are often riding under the cover of military aircraft?

The conflict in Sudan is so straight-forward that I'm stunned that much of the media is trying to do their best to blur people's perceptions of it. In a nutshell, the Sudanese government is supplying and funding Arab nomads to drive off the Africans. It is basically a small part of a general strategy by African Arabs to drive black Africans further south.

Simple enough, but why is it that not only do you rarely if ever read a story about how the government funds these murderers, but instead we are treated to a story telling us how sorry we should feel for them? Disgusting.

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