US special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, says that what is occurring in Darfur today is not genocide but apparently it used to be. This is despite his own description of the region as "littered with mass graves". He also states that the Janjaweed militia has been destroying homes and taking the land and animals. He goes on to say:
"Without property in Darfur, you will die,” he said. “You cannot go back to your homes because you have nothing to live off of."
According to the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Article 2)
"genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group"
If we apply his own words to the definition what do we end up with? Genocide, at least in my book.
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