Darfur Conflict: Factors, Theories, and International Responses

Running head: DARFUR CONFLICT
DARFUR CONFLICT
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1DARFUR CONFLICT
Sudan is a land which has been influenced by a considerable number of multiple
damaging civil wars. The country has viewed conflicts that from the international perspective
have proved to be as destructive as any interstate war. Sometimes they were more devastating
in terms of war casualties, refugees along with the social and moral values of the country
(Bariagaber, 2016).
This civil war of Darfur in western Sudan illustrates one of the grimmest face of human
society. In this five year long civil war more than two million people were affected for which
the United Nations referred this after effect of the conflict as the world’s worst humanitarian
crisis. The civil war was started against government installations by the attacks of rebel
groups which are the Justice and Equality movement and Sudan Liberation army (Beber,
Roessler & Scacco, 2014). However, as the insurgency characteristics of this conflict reveals
that it was a tribal conflict among the Africans and the Arabs but this explanation however
fails to satisfy the scholars. This essay identifies that factors that played essential role as the
reasons of this conflict. The ethnic abhorrence among the tribes and groups does not satisfy
or justify the reason of the civil war (Kalpakian, 2017). Darfur is one of the implicit examples
that proves that there cannot be a single reason for a war.
The war in Darfur had revealed that there were various factors that ignited the ethnic
hatred among the groups that created this necessary condition where the government could
not escape war hence devastating violence erupted. The close study in this essay reveals that
there were chiefly two reasons that added final eruption were- the utilization of the Janjaweed
Militia in the counterinsurgency movement by the government and the environmental threats
that was continuously affecting the region. Both these reasons played essential role, though in
different way, contributing in dividing the society of Darfur in two poles (Langer &
Demarest, 2017). This worsen the situation of this region and helped generation high level of
violence that featured the civil war.

2DARFUR CONFLICT
Most importantly, this analysis of the conflict has different point of view which goes
beyond the explanation of ethnic hatred though it seemed as well as promoted across the
world. The most important aspect of this war can be the conflict regarding the land
ownership. This is a vital need for achieving peace in Darfur. This essay has implied broader
understanding of such complex issues that affected the peace negotiations (Fjelde &
Hultman, 2014). However, these were ignored during the time of war hence peace
agreements as well as prospects for finding solutions became gradually unrealistic.
The Essay discusses the Darfur conflict in the light of different theroies and proves
the relevance of these theories in the modern real world and the international response to this
conflict. The area of Darfur under Sudan government has grabbed attention of the world for
its mass atrocities and bloodshed since 2003. America and Europe was overwhelmed with an
extraordinary wave of violence and solidarity which were animated by widespread media
coverage as well as vocal advocacy movement. The government of these developed nations
enquired the call for action in order to alleviate the anguish of the sufferers of conflict. Darfur
hosts the most expensive as well as largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world (Keohane
& Martin, 2014). The European Union had deployed its largest military crisis management
mission across the border of Eastern Chad. Darfur conflict is the first situation to which the
UN Security Council had referred to the International Criminal Court. However, it can be
said that world’s most important powers such as the EU, Russia, China, the U.S., the U.K and
African Union are supplementing the joint mediation determinations of the UN. This analysis
derives a series of proposals from various theoretical frameworks and then examines them.
This conflict in Darfur gives birth to different questions such as Why this conflict
attracted the superpowers in the world? Why this particular conflict triggered such attraction
replacing various contemporary crises? In order to clarify the global engagement of this
conflict, different international relationship theories are much helpful. First is the structural

3DARFUR CONFLICT
realism that emphasises the substantial interests and competition among the intervening states
as the pivotal factor of involvement in Darfur. Liberal internationalist and progressive
representative theories interpreted that the international involvement is an attempt for
improvement of international society to build a world order grounded on justice as well as
human rights. The essay opposes realism as it is appropriate to explain why there were no
full-fledged military interference took place at Darfur, whereas theories of world order point
to the prominence of international standards in international reaction to this crisis (Mahmaden
& Mahamoud, 2015). However, both these theories fail to answer this puzzle. Therefore, the
essay involves with the constructivist theory through which, the conflict can be viewed as
consequence of a continuous course of norms cascade which fostered institutionalization of
the international norms relating to the humanitarian intervention. The normative structure of
the world politics, an essential vector of the traits of the states in international realm, recently
changed very much that the exercise of sovereignty incorporates a notion of responsibility
(Maystadt, Calderone & You, 2014).
International responses to the Darfur conflict
After the Independence, the region of Darfur had been chiefly seen as a marginal are
by the Khartoum Government. Therefore, this region suffered a considerable amount of
neglect for its poor transportation and little investment in its education and health sector. This
condition ignited the sentiment of resentment among the local people and they started to arm
themselves in 1990s. The conflict in Darfur, is racial more than religious (OKORO &
OBENI, 2017). The Arabs established Janjaweed militaries with the help of Sudanese army.
On the other side the non-Arab Africans formed Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and
Equality Movement. From January of 2008 to March of 2009, this conflict generated more
than 2,000 violent deaths. Rodolphe Adada, joint head of the UNAU peacekeeping mission,
referred this conflict to be a “low-intensity conflict” (Pugh, Cooper & Turner, 2016).