Darfur in War The Politicization of Ethnic Identities?

Abstract

Since early 2003 Darfur has been the site of mounting violence which has led the UN to describe the conflict as currently “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” The US Congress even labelled the conflict a “genocide.” Diverse ethnic groups as well as the government were engaged in violence in the 1980s and 1990s. However, violence has reached a new dimension in the recent war where racism has become the main legitimating discourse of the conflict. The recent history of the conflict suggests, however, that the root causes are socio-economic and political rather than ethnic.