文章基本信息

标题：Racial Targeting of Sexual Violence in Darfur
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作者：John Hagan ; Wenona Rymond-Richmond ; Alberto Palloni 等
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2009
卷号：99
期号：8
页码：1386-1392
DOI：10.2105/AJPH.2008.141119
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：Objectives. We used the Atrocities Documentation Survey to determine whether Sudanese government forces were involved in racially targeting sexual victimization toward ethnically African women in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Methods. The US State Department conducted the survey by interviewing a randomized multistage probability sample of 1136 Darfur refugees at 20 sites in Chad in 2004. For a subset of 932 respondents who had fled from village clusters that accounted for 15 or more respondents per cluster, we used hierarchical linear models to analyze village-level patterns of reported sexual violence. We statistically controlled for individual sexual victimization to remove bias. Results. Respondents reported being subjected to racial epithets associated with sexual victimization significantly more often during combined attacks by Sudanese government forces and Janjaweed militia forces than during separate attacks by either force. Conclusions. Combined attacks by Sudanese government forces and Janjaweed militia forces led to racial epithets being used more often during sexual victimization in Darfur. Our results suggest that the Sudanese government is participating in the use of sexual assault as a racially targeted weapon against ethnically African civilians. Few quantitative studies have examined sexual violence associated with international war crimes, and, to our knowledge, no peer-reviewed studies have examined sexual violence in the Darfur region of western Sudan.^{1 , 2} Two exceptional studies focused on Sierra Leone³ and southern Iraq.⁴ The latter uniquely identifies a government role in rape prior to the American occupation. Quantitative research on international war crimes most often focuses on forced migration and mortality.^{5 , 6} Total estimated mortality in Darfur for a 33-month period from 2003 to 2005 exceeded 200 000; crude mortality rates were 4 to 6 times higher than expected in peace time, and more than 2 million persons in the region have been displaced.⁷ Sexual violence, although present in the region, is rarely reported numerically. A UN inquiry found that “various sources reported widespread rape” in Sudan, and the inquiry warned that “many cases went unreported due to the sensitivity” of the subject.⁸ Sexual violence results in physical harm, reproductive trauma, the communication of sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV), pregnancy, and feelings of helplessness and humiliation that persist as posttraumatic stress disorders.⁹ For example, the sequelae of sexual violence, such as traumatic fistula or incontinence of urine or stool, often leave victims physically traumatized, shamed, and ostracized. In contexts of warfare or societal disintegration, intergroup rape is often used as a means of controlling reproduction and is a powerful weapon for destruction of social groups. The International Criminal Tribunal's verdict in the Jean-Paul Akayesu case in Rwanda identified rape as an “an integral part of the process of destruction” outlawed by the Genocide Convention.¹⁰ Studies of sexual violence are complicated by societal taboos regarding rape. These taboos have not completely silenced advocacy on behalf of rape victims,^{11 , 12} but they do discourage victims from reporting rapes. It has been anecdotally observed, however, that people are more comfortable reporting the rapes of others, and these reports can be cross-validated. In our study, we accounted for these considerations by analyzing central tendencies in reported rape, taking into account individual- and village-level variation and bias. The origin of the Darfur conflict has been traced to rebel attacks on Sudanese government forces in the region in 2003.¹³ However, group polarization in Darfur dates at least as far back as the mid-1980s, when violence began between Arab nomadic herders and non-Arab farmers.¹⁴ Desertification and famine intensified competition over grazing areas and land, which is why the most common crimes involve crops and livestock.¹⁵ Libya's dictatorial leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi, exploited the 1985 famine in Sudan by bringing guns to the Arab herders in Darfur and trying to create an “Arab belt” across sub-Saharan Africa. Another cause of group polarization was the 1986 election of Sadiq al-Mahadi as prime minister of Sudan. Mahadi sought to form an “Arab and Islamic Union.”¹⁶ Gaddafi later adopted a more pan-African foreign policy, and al-Mahadi did not entirely exclude non-Arab groups from his regime, but Omar al-Bashir, who was installed as president of Sudan by a military coup in 1989, more brutally excluded non-Arabs from governance. Bashir's government armed and trained landless Arab pastoralists who were growing more desperate for access to water and pastures. Desertification intensified the dichotomy between nomadic, pastoralist “Arabs” and sedentary, farming “non-Arabs” or “Black Africans.”¹⁷ Although both groups were predominantly Muslim, the Black Africans were less likely to understand or speak Arabic. These contentious differences of livelihood and language were linked to variations in skin tone and defined as racial characteristics.¹⁸ In 2003, Sudanese government forces launched the first of 2 major offensives against rebels in Darfur.¹⁹ In 2004, the US State Department accused Sudan of joining its government military forces with the Arab Janjaweed (“men with guns on horses or camels”) militias to target and carry out genocidal violence against African tribal villages populated by Black Africans.²⁰ Sudanese government forces began bombing Zaghawa villages in north Darfur and subsequently extended ground and bombing attacks to Fur and Masalit villages in west and south Darfur.^{2 (pp9–10)} Fur and Masalit women were especially vulnerable to sexual violence during ground attacks.²¹ Attackers often shouted racial epithets that designated Zaghawa, Fur, and Masalit groups as targets for attacks because they were Black Africans. These epithets were forceful attributions of racial difference intended to cause harm. Such evidence of racially specific intent is at the core of the legal definition of genocide. Judges in the Rwandan Akayesu genocide case decided that “the use of derogatory language toward … the targeted group” provides “sufficient evidence of intent,”^{10 (para 523–524)} and judges in the Bosnian Jelisi genocide case cited “words” and “remarks” as evidence of racial intent.²² We hypothesized that, in the Darfur conflict, Sudanese government forces joined with Arab Janjaweed militia in racially targeting non-Arab Black African villages for violence that included sexual victimization, while at the same time sparing Arab villages from sexual violence.