Darfur and the Crime of Genocide Book Report
In the book Darfur and the Crime of Genocide by John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond, the authors discuss the atrocities in Darfur from a criminological viewpoint. The book is split up into 8 chapters, all discussing very important topics and issues. The prologue to the book introduces the problems in Darfur by use of a testimony from former Secretary of State Colin Powell before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee calling the massacre in Darfur genocide. From this point on, the book discusses Darfur before the massacre, gives eyewitness accounts and testimonies and gives the arguments government officials used to deny the accusations of genocide. Chapter one – Darfur Crime Scenes – explores, in graphic detail, the firsthand accounts of exactly what happened to refugees in Darfur. The violent murders, rapes and destroying of property are clearly shown from the interviews, charts and data that the research teams in Darfur collected. In chapter two, the authors go back in time and discuss one of the other most famous mass genocides, the holocaust. The history aspect is important information because it helps explain why so many people were against calling Darfur genocide, and would only call it a “crime of crimes” and “a crime against humanity” (Hagan, Rymond-Richmond). The chapter also gives a background in criminology and shows how much early criminologists aided in bringing to justice the criminals of the holocaust and other crimes against humanity. The third chapter discusses how much information the rest of the world did not have about Darfur and it was legitimately going unnoticed in many parts of the world. It was not being reported on, and nothing was getting done. In chapter four, Flip-Flopping on Darfur, the efforts by the rest of the world finally begin to focus on Darfur. It discusses he Atrocities Documentation Survey and what information it gave researches and the rest of the world. The chapter also discusses the disparities that the different