"Famine as a Weapon"

The co-author of the article from Time is known more as an actor. But along with John Prendergast, George Clooney founded the Satellite Sentinel Project, which came across evidence of the Sudanese government bombing its own people. This has led to famine. Thus, the subtitle "It's Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan" is a call for peace.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 8 Unit 3's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Night, First They Came for the Communists, Terrible Things, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Diary of a Young Girl, Elie Wiesel Speech, Do Something!, Wangari Maathai, Freerice.com, Public Service Announcements, Famine as a Weapon
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. militia
    civilians trained as soldiers, not part of the regular army
    Asma, a name we are using for her to help ensure her safety, said the Sudanese government's Antonov planes bombed her village and government soldiers, supported by ethnic militia, chased and killed civilians.
  2. harrowing
    causing extreme distress
    Her subsequent weeklong journey with 50 other women to the refugee camp was harrowing.
  3. regime
    the governing authority of a political unit
    Those left behind in the war zones within Sudan--places like Blue Nile, South Kordofan, Abyei and Darfur--are subject to a regime whose war tactics break every international law on the books.
  4. famine
    a severe shortage of food resulting in starvation and death
    But two war crimes in particular--aerial bombing against civilians and blocking humanitarian aid--are leading to the biggest killer of all: famine.
  5. tactic
    a plan for attaining a particular goal
    The strategy of using starvation as a weapon or means of social control is one of the oldest and most effective tactics of war.
  6. submission
    the act of surrendering power to another
    Around 400 B.C., the Spartans ended the Peloponnesian wars by starving the Greeks into submission in their siege of Athens.
  7. arsenal
    all the weapons and equipment that a country has
    You'd think by the second decade of the 21st century--with the development of international accountability and prevention mechanisms--that the use of starvation would have disappeared from the arsenal of war weapons because it bears too high a cost for the perpetrator.
  8. referendum
    a legislative act referred for approval to a popular vote
    These war tactics are a backdrop to the renewed threat of war between Sudan in the north and South Sudan, which became independent of the Khartoum regime in July after an internationally supported referendum on self-determination.
  9. coup
    a sudden and decisive change of government by force
    After the extraordinary success of South Sudan's peaceful birth four months ago, the Sudan that was left behind has burned as the Khartoum regime has lit every dry bush it can find to see what catches fire, an extension of the divide-and-destroy policy it has successfully pursued to maintain power since a coup in 1989.
  10. embargo
    a government order imposing a trade barrier
    Counterintuitively, sending aid into Sudan by any means necessary--backed by heavy international pressure for humanitarian corridors--might be the best way to compel the regime to lift its aid embargo.
  11. humanitarian
    marked by devotion to popular welfare
    Doing the same today from willing bordering countries is necessary to prevent full-scale famine until Khartoum allows full humanitarian access.
  12. offensive
    for the purpose of attack rather than defense
    At the height of the Darfur killings, the UN Security Council imposed a ban on offensive military flights by the Sudanese government that was never enforced.
  13. enhance
    increase
    Third, peace efforts must be enhanced.
  14. comprehensive
    broad in scope
    Two parallel high-profile diplomatic initiatives--building on existing processes--should focus on a comprehensive peace deal with all the rebelling regions inside Sudan on the one hand, and lasting political and security arrangements between Sudan and South Sudan on the other.
  15. protracted
    relatively long in duration
    Without robust international action, the default option is protracted war both within Sudan and between Sudan and South Sudan.
Created on Tue Sep 15 12:18:16 EDT 2015 (updated Tue Sep 15 13:04:08 EDT 2015)

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