The Genocide America Forgot

Earlier this month, Sudan’s paramilitary janjaweed forces razed 127 empty villages in Darfur. According to reports in local media, this was their second rampage over the same territory in as many months. However, the Khartoum-backed Arab militiamen were not there to kill this time. All the people in the affected villages were long gone. The latest incursion offers evidence of a much more chilling intent to destroy those who once lived there. Coming to terms with this intent — the crux of determining what is or isn’t genocide under the United Nations Genocide Convention — requires understanding the motivation to extinguish sources of survival, even after targeted communities have fled. It demands considering why perpetrators would go back to irreparably damage wells, reservoirs of lifesaving water in an arid landscape. It asks us to imagine what it means for a genocide to continue, not for 100 days as in Rwanda, but for 10 years.