Isn't the crisis in Darfur about Oil and who controls it?

I can't find the article, but about a year ago I read something about how the whole issue in Darfur boiling down to one group living on the land where the oil is...and another more power group living on the land without the oil.

Now I hear it being described on TV as ethnic cleansing, and that may be part of it, but I hear no mention of oil...am I just remembering something from a dream?

I got the feeling that the crisis was allowed to continue because the people who are doing the persecuting are those who are going to sign on the dotted line with the internation oil companies to start drilling for that oil...

Am I wrong???

the oil seems to be in the south : http://www.sudantribune.com/mot.php3?id_mot=37

I seem to be having a google problem..I pick all the wrong key words or perhaps only those links about the crisis and not the cause are popping up based on my search criteria...

I still use yahoo and put + signs in between the words. That was how I found it.:)

http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon08092004.html

now for the life of me why I couldn't find this earlier!!!

further proof that this problem is just going to get worse until the oil companies get what they want out of the situation.

humans killed each other because of resources. Won't be the last either.

where in the absense of real help from the West that the Chinese will get yet another firm foothold. That is a critisism of the West : not China. If **** was less preoccupied with Iran he might just notice whassup elsewhere.

on "resource wars" - I think it is buried in one of them.

Blood and Oil : The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum by Michael T. Klare

Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict by Michael T. Klare

the cause a weak government went over the top and sanctioned mass murder of civilians. Doesn't matter if there were rebels. You don't kill women & children. EVER!

Probably not.

The onset of the crisis in Darfur dates back to the '90s, before oil reserves were proven or even seriously suspected there. The crisis in the south involved oil, but not in the way you probably would think.

As the crisis in the south was resolved (at least on paper) in 2004, three things happened. First, the south got significant autonomy; second, the central government was able to channel resources away from the struggle in the south and seek to impose its will to a greater degree in the west; third, the rebel groups in the west realized that they would be most likely able to wrangle a similar deal. The first is a reason for the Islamist government to object more strenuously than before, the third for the rebel groups to fight more than before, and the second allowed more fighting by the government-backed groups.

Then, as things heated up, the presence of oil was confirmed in south Darfur. (Remember, Darfur = 'Fur-land', more or less, the dominant ethnic group there are the Fur.)

Both regional problems--plus the budding one in the east--have the same kinds of roots. First, Khartoum thinks it's the important part of the country, and the rest of Sudan exists to funnel resources to Khartoum. Oil in the south = money for Khartoum. Second, Khartoum is Arab, and very conservative; in the '90s they decided that shari'a would be the law of the land. The Christians and animists in the south disliked not only being marginalized, discriminated against because they're not Arab, but also they disliked being made into dhimmis. The Fur aren't exactly dhimmis, but they're certainly not Arab, have been marginalized and ignored, and aren't conservative in their Islam--Khartoum-style shari'a is not what they would have.

Yes, oil is *now* involved, at least in the south--but the problem continues in the north, where oil isn't involved. If the presence of oil doesn't seem to be crucial, then it's probably not. But Khartoum has inked deals--mostly with countries that object to calling what's going on there genocide, because then the deals would be suspended. The US and US companies have pretty much had zip trade with Sudan since the '90s. But the countries that see nothing wrong with genocide have similar records at home, and act pretty much solely in their self-interest; currying favor with other OIC countries is part of that self-interest. The Sa'udis love Khartoum.