U.N. leader: Darfur slaughter triggered by global warming

U.N. leader: Darfur slaughter
triggered by global warming
More violent conflict on horizon
due to climate change, he says

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blames the ethnic and religious violence in Darfur on global warming and insists more conflicts of this kind are coming because of climate change.

"The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change," Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column.

As WND reported in 2004, the U.S. declared the rape, pillaging and slaughter of blacks in western Sudan by the Islamist Khartoum regime and its Arab militia allies genocide. The U.N. has described it as the world's worst current humanitarian crisis, with estimates of over 200,000 dead and more than 2.1 million displaced in four years.

In his column, Ban said U.N. statistics showed rainfall declined some 40 percent over the past two decades, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons.

"This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming," the South Korean diplomat wrote.

"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban wrote.

Ban explained that when Darfur's land was rich, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water. With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing.

"For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all," he wrote. "Fighting broke out."

A U.N. peacekeeping force could stop the fighting, "but what to do about the essential dilemma: the fact that there's no longer enough good land to go around?"

"Any real solution to Darfur's troubles involves sustained economic development," he said.

He suggested using new technologies, genetically modified grains or irrigation, while bettering health, education and sanitation.

Last week, the U.S. announced it will work with its allies to draft a new U.N. Security Council resolution to impose new sanctions on Sudan, expand an arms embargo and prohibit the government from conducting offensive military flights over Darfur.

Some analysts believed the Darfur slaughter essentially is part of the Khartoum regime's effort to Arabize and Islamicize the entire country.

Khartoum fought a 21-year war against the mostly Christian and animist south that ended in 2004, resulting in an estimated 2 million deaths and accusations of genocide.

In Darfur, the African tribes involved are Muslims, but they are not Arab Muslims, and they reject the government's imposition of its brand of radical Islam.