Darfur is just another symbol of the polarisation that is taking place all over the world. The conflict taking place in Darfur has many interwoven causes. While rooted in structural inequality between the center of the country around the Nile and the 'peripheral' areas such as Darfur, tensions were exacerbated in the last two decades of the twentieth century by a combination of environmental calamity, political opportunism and regional politics. A point of particular confusion has been the characterization of the conflict as one between 'Arab' and 'African' populations, a dichotomy that one historian describes as "both true and false. Wikipedia has more details for you.
Summary: http://trailfire.com/Daisy/trailview/38386
Darfur is just another symbol of the polarisation that is taking place all over the world. The conflict taking place in Darfur has many interwoven causes. While rooted in structural inequality between the center of the country around the Nile and the 'peripheral' areas such as Darfur, tensions were exacerbated in the last two decades of the twentieth century by a combination of environmental calamity, political opportunism and regional politics. A point of particular confusion has been the characterization of the conflict as one between 'Arab' and 'African' populations, a dichotomy that one historian describes as "both true and false. Wikipedia has more details for you.
The scale of the crisis led to warnings of an imminent disaster, with the then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warning that the risk of genocide is frighteningly real in Darfur. The scale of the Janjaweed campaign led to comparisons with the Rwandan Genocide, a parallel hotly denied by the Sudanese government.
