Although labeling the crisis in Darfur has been a controversial issue, the international community needs to define it as genocide and make up for their negligence by taking immediate action.

I.Introduction:
a.Background info: Rebels attacked and fought against the Sudanese government, government and Arab militias (Janjaweed) struck back, more than 2 million refugees subsist in the 147 camps the UN set up, the Government of Sudan says the number of dead is vastly overstated, but the United Nations estimates 450,000 from malnutrition and combat (Murphey)
b.The Sudanese government’s brutal response [to Darfurian rebels], aided by murderous Arab militias, turned into a campaign that killed more than 200,000 people and drove millions from their homes. (Polgreen)
c.The internationally community does not feel obligated to act unless crisis is defined as genocide and plans already proposed continue to fall through

II.Is genocide taking place in Darfur?
a. The mass killing in Darfur is genocide.
i. Definition of Genocide: The use of deliberate systematic measures (as killing, bodily or mental injury, unlivable conditions, prevention of births) calculated to bring about the extermination of a racial, political, or cultural group or to destroy the language, religion, or culture of a group. (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary)
ii. “The attackers were shouting that “the black” had to go, that “the land now belonged to the Arabs.” (Prunier)
iii. So is Darfur a genocide? A US Holocaust Memorial Museum committee and Colin Powell have said it is. So do at least two human rights reports. One French expert, Marc Lavergne, calls it “worse than a genocide” since mass killings are not done out of racial hatred, but because Darfurians are simply “in the way” of Sudan’s plans to control land. (Marquand)
iv. Darfur has spawned a dynamic in which Arabs are killing Africans, and lighter skinned and darker skinned groups are set against eachother. …A confession by a high ranking Sudanese official isn’t needed to prove genocidal intent. It can be shown via a common standard of “practice and pattern” of crime. (Marquand)
b. Many will not label the crisis in Darfur as genocide because it obligates international communities to help.
i. “…The political sensitivity surrounding a genocide charge, which requires nations to intervene under national law, is creating friction. The cases of Rwanda, Bosnia, and now Darfur demonstrate this.” (Marquand)
ii. Is it ethical to wait until the situation can be labeled as genocide for the international community to take action like in Rwanda?
iii. “Yet prosecutors and world courts are even more cautious about leveling the charge, even when it may apply – since it raises a requirement to intervene.” (Marquand)

III.Lack of international help has caused problem to worsen:
a. The international community has failed in protecting Darfur from genocide:
i. “…Powell was declaring that the United States had fulfilled its contractual obligation to “prevent genocide” by referring the matter to the UN in an already drafted security Council resolution-and to a security Council that the United States well knew was paralyzed on Sudan by virtue of veto threats from China and Russia.” (Reeves)
ii. “Over the period 2004-2007, the international community pursued a range of objective for Darfur that included improving security and humanitarian access,… seeking a negotiated peace, dispatching a UN force and punishing those standing in the way of these goals…. Some actions demanded the impossible while others set unrealistic deadlines. Few were followed up…. It is unsurprising that little progress was made.” (Waal)
b. Due to lack of aid, the situation has and will continue to worsen:
i. “The conflict has leaked into Chad, where Darfurian rebels raid refugee camps to kidnap boys to fight and Janjaweed militias attack Chadian villiagers.” He continues in predicting, “If what had seemed to be a clear two-sided conflict continues to devolve into violence, the death toll in a messy regional war could easily balloon into millions.” (Polgreen)
ii. Planting seasons have been missed and food reserves are either destroyed or empty. Humanitarian aid won’t last much longer as the war spreads into Chad. (Reeves)
iii. Reeves also predicts the problems in Darfur to escalate if nations do not intervene, “Hundreds of thousands of people will die among the almost four million human beings the UN now defines as “conflict-affected” and in need of humanitarian assistance.” (Reeves)
c. Action needs to be taken; a solution needs to be found and carried out
i. A three-stage ceasefire has been planned which Waal describes, “ [it consists] of the disengagement of forces, followed by their withdrawal to their respective zones of control… and limited arms control focusing on the monitoring and non-uses of heavy and crew-manned weapons including aircraft.” (Waal)
ii. Disarming the Janjaweed should be a priority of international communities. (Waal)

IV.Conclusion
a. “Certainly Egeland understands, as few in the UN appear to, how dangerous it is that the world has responded to genocide in Darfur by deploying essentially unprotected humanitarian workers. Egeland has pleaded relentlessly, if in vain, for an adequate protection force. He has declared that without adequate protection, humanitarian operations could be suspended at any time, with catastrophic mortality ensuing immediately.” (Reeves)
b. Summary of the paper
c. The genocide in Darfur has been neglected thus continuing to worsen. Waal strongly believes, “The international community has failed to achieve practical solutions that lay within its grasp.” (Waal) It is now time to take action.