Darfur conflict

This page is about the fight between darfur and the capital of sudan.

The conflict that is taking place in the Darfur has multiple interwoven causes. While rooted in structural inequity between the center of the country around the Nile and the 'peripheral' areas such as Darfur, tensions were exacerbated in the last two decades of the twentieth century by a combination of environmental calamity, political opportunism and regional geopolitics. A point of particular confusion has been the characterization of the conflict as one between 'Arab' and 'African' populations, a dichotomy that one historian describes as "both true and false".^[1]

In the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, the Keira dynasty of the Fur people of the Marrah Mountains established a sultanate with Islam as the state religion, The sultanate was conquered by the Turco-Egyptian force expanding south along the Nile, which was in turn defeated by the Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi. The Mahdist state collapsed under the onslaught of the British force led by Herbert Kitchener, who established an Anglo-Egyptian condominium to rule Sudan. The British allowed Darfur de jure autonomy until 1916 when they invaded and incorporated the region into Sudan.^[2] Within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the bulk of resources were devoted toward Khartoum and Blue Nile Province, leaving the rest of the country relatively undeveloped.

Location of the Fur people within Darfur

During the the Sultanate, the region had developed the demographic structure that would endure for the twentieth century. The agricultural Fur were located in the remnants of the sultanate in the center. Just north of them were the Tunjur, who had ruled before the sultanate. From the northwest came Nilo-Saharan herders, such as the Berti, Zaghawa and Bidayat. The Nubian-speaking Birged and Meidob peoples, also farmers, came from the northeast. To the west lay Dar Masalit; the Masalit had successfully maintained their independence from Dar Fur. Bedouin Arabs came from the far northwest, including the Ta’isha, Rizeigat, Habbaniya, and Beni Halba. While Arabs in the north continued to herd camels, those who ventured south where there was comparatively abundant rainfall mixed with a later migration of Fula speakers and began to herd cattle, forming the Baggara (literally, "those of the cow"),^[3] who settled in the southeast. The agriculturalists settled around predictable water sources, primarily wadis that flooded during the rainy season from June to September, while the Baggara, Zaghawa and other pastoralists are semi-nomadic or transhumant, taking their herds north during the rainy season as the arid landscape turns green and then retreating south as the vegetation withers. Most of the Baggara split their families, one part staying south to cultivate crops and the other taking the herds along regular routes, though occasionally the herders would seek water or grazing rights from a farming community along the route, periodically leading to disputes requiring the mediation of local leaders.^[4] Externally, the inhabitants of the Nile riverine states referred to themselves as the awlad al-beled ("children of the country") in pride over their primary role and referred to the Westerners as awlad al-gharb ("children of the west"), an implicit slur. Meanwhile, "Africans" were pejoratively known as zurga ("Blacks").^[5]

The inhabitants of the Nile Valley, which had received the bulk of British investment, continued the pattern of economic and political marginalization after independence was achieved in 1956. During discussions of the new constitution, disgruntled Darfuri representatives joined with Christian Southerners and Muslims of the Nuba Mountains and eastern hills to denounce "Islamic Constitution" as a thinly veiled attempt by the awlad al-beled to consolidate their dominance of the country. In the 1968 elections, factionalism within the ruling Umma Party led candidates, notably Sadiq al-Mahdi, to try to split off portions of the Darfuri electorate by blaming the region's underdevelopment on either "the Arabs", in the case of appeals to the sedentary peoples, or appealing to the Baggara semi-nomads to support their "fellow" Nile Arabs. This Arab-African dichotomy, which was not an indigenously developed way of perceiving local relations, was exacerbated after Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi became focused on establishing an "Arab belt" across the Sahel and promulgated an ideology of Arab supremacy.^[6] As a result of a sequence of interactions between Sudan, Libya and Chad from the late 1960s through the 1980s, Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry established Darfur as a rear base for the rebel force led by Hissène Habré, which was attempting to overthrow the Chadian government and was also anti-Gaddafi.^[7]

Famine and war

In a longer term cycle, the gradual reduction in annual precipation, coupled with a growing population, had begun a cycle in which increased use of arable land along the southern edge of the Sahara increased the rate of desertification, which in turn increased the use of the remaining arable land. In 1983 and 1984, the rains failed, the government refused to heed warnings of critical crop failure because they feared it would affect the administration's image abroad, and the region was plunged into a horrific famine.^[8] The famine killed an estimated 95,000 Darfuris out of a population of 3.1 million and it was clear that the deaths had been entirely preventable. Nimeiry was overthrown on 5 April 1985 and Sadiq al-Mahdi came out of exile, making a deal with Gaddafi, which he had no intention of honoring, that he would turn over Darfur to Libya if he was supplied with the funds to win the upcoming elections.^[9]

Nimeiry had been heavily supported by the United States and the military junta that had taken power moved quickly to discontinue pro-American policies. Beginning in August 1985, Libya began sending military/humanitarian convoys from Benghazi, including an 800-strong military force that set up base in Al-Fashir and began arming the local Baggara tribes, whom Gaddafi considered to be his local Arab allies. By the time that Libyan relations with the United States had worsened so that American planes bombed Tripoli in April 1986, Libya was providing key logistical and air support to Sudanese offensives against the Sudan People's Liberation Army in the rebel South. Meanwhile, the famine had severely upset the structure of Darfuri society. The farmers had claimed every available bit of land to farm or forage for food, closing off the traditional routes used by the herders. The herders, faced with watching their animals die of starvation in the dessicated landscape, tried to force the routes south open, attacking farmers who tried to block their path and shedding blood.^[10] Darfur was awash in small arms from the various neighboring conflicts and stories spread of herders raiding farming villages for all of their animals or villagers who had armed themselves in self defense.^[11] To Darfuris facing starvation, the dichotomous ideology of African versus Arab began to have explanatory power. Amongst some sedentary "Africans", the ideas that uncaring "Arabs" in Khartoum had let the famine happen and then Darfuri "Arabs" armed by their Libyan allies had attacked "African" farmers began to gain credence. Similarly, semi-nomadic Darfuri "Arabs" began to seriously consider that "Africans" had vindictively tried to punish them for the famine by trying to keep them from pastureland and that perhaps the difference between awlad al-beled and awlad al-gharb was not as great as between Arab and zurga.^[12]

In early 2003, two local rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) — accused the government of oppressing non-Arabs in favor of Arabs. The SLM is generally associated with the Fur and Masalit, while the JEM is associated with the Zaghawa of the northern half of Darfur. In 2004 , the JEM joined the Eastern Front, a group set up in 2004 as an alliance between two eastern tribal rebel groups, the Rashaida tribe's Free Lions and the Beja Congress. The JEM has also been accused of being controlled by Hassan al-Turabi.

Conflict

The conventional point indicated to be the start of the conflict in Darfur was 26 February 2003, when a group calling itself the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF) publically claimed credit for an attack on Golo, the headquarters of Jebel Marra District. However, by this time a full-scale conflict was already raging in Darfur as rebels attacked police stations, army outposts and military convoys and the government was engaged in a massive air and land assault on the rebel stronghold in the Marrah Mountains. The rebels' first military action had been a successful attack on an army garrison on the mountain on 25 February 2002 and the Sudanese government had been aware of a unified rebel movement since an attack on the Golo police station in June 2002. Chroniclers Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, state that the beginning of the rebellion is better dated to 21 July 2001, when a group of Zaghawa and Fur met in Abu Gamra and swore oaths on the Quran to work together to defeat the government-sponsored attacks on their villages.^[13]

On 25 March, the rebels seized the garrison town of Tine along the Chadian border, seizing large amounts of supplies and arms. Despite a threat by President Omar al-Bashir to "unleash" the army, the military had little in reserve. The army was already deployed both to the south, where the Second Sudanese Civil War was drawing to an end, and the east, where rebels sponsored by Eritrea were threatening the newly constructed pipeline from the central oilfields to Port Sudan. The rebel tactic of hit-and-run raids using Toyota Land Cruisers to speed across the semi-desert proved almost impossible for the army, untrained in desert operations, to counter. However, its aerial bombardment of rebel positions on the mountain was devastating.^[14]

In 2004, Chad brokered negotiations in N'Djamena, leading to the April 8 Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement between the Sudanese government and JEM and SLM. A group splintered from the JEM in April — the National Movement for Reform and Development — which did not participate in the April cease-fire talks or agreement. Janjaweed and rebel attacks have continued since the ceasefire. The African Union (AU) formed a Ceasefire Commission (CFC) to monitor observance of the April 8th ceasefire.

The government also had the Janjaweed, armed Baggara herders whom the government had begun directing in the repression of the Masalit uprising in 1996-1999. While not particularly useful in pitched battles, they excelled in attacking civilians and destroying villages. A United Nations observer team reported that non-Arab villages were singled out while Arab villages were left untouched:

The 23 Fur villages in the Shattaya Administrative Unit have been completely depopulated, looted and burnt to the ground (the team observed several such sites driving through the area for two days). Meanwhile, dotted alongside these charred locations are unharmed, populated and functioning Arab settlements. In some locations, the distance between a destroyed Fur village and an Arab village is less than 500 meters.[15]

At 5:30 am on 25 April 2003, a joint SLA-JEM force in 33 Land Cruisers entered al-Fashir and attacked the sleeping garrison. In the next four hours, four Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships, according to the government, (seven according to the rebels) were destroyed on the ground, 75 soldiers, pilots and technicians were killed and 32 were captured, including the commander of the air base, a Major General. The rebels lost nine. The success of the raid was unprecedented in Sudan; in the 20 years of the war in the south, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army had never carried out such an operation.^[16]

Unleashing the Janjaweed (2003)

Internally displaced persons camp

The al-Fashir raid was a turning point both militarily and psychologically. The armed forces had been humiliated by the al-Fashir raid and the government was faced with a difficult strategic situation. The armed forces would clearly need to be retrained and redeployed to fight this new kind of war and there were well-founded concerns about the loyalty of the many Darfurian non-commisioned officers and soldiers in the army. Responsibility for prosecuting the war was given to Sudanese Military Intelligence. Nevertheless, in the middle months of 2003, the rebels won 34 of 38 engagements. In May, the SLA destroyed a battalion at Kutum, killing 500 and taking 300 prisoner and in mid-July, 250 were killed in a second attack on Tine. The SLA began to infiltrate farther east, threatening to extend the war into Kurdufan.

However, at this point the government changed its strategy. Given that the army was being consistently defeated, the war effort depended on three elements: Military Intelligence, the air force, and the Janjaweed, armed Baggara herders whom the government had begun directing in repression of a Masalit uprising in 1996-1999. The janjaweed were put at the center of the new counter-insurgency strategy. Military resources were poured into Darfur and the Janjaweed were outfitted as a paramilitary force, complete with communication equipment and some artillery. The probable results of such a strategy were clear to the military planners; similar strategies undertaken in the Nuba Mountains and around the southern oil fields during the previous decade had resulted in massive human rights violations and forced migrations.^[17]

Destroyed villages as of August 2004 (Source: DigitalGlobe, Inc. and Department of State via USAID)

The better-armed Janjaweed quickly gained the upper hand. By the spring of 2004, several thousand people — mostly from the non-Arab population — had been killed and as many as a million more had been driven from their homes, causing a major humanitarian crisis in the region. The crisis took on an international dimension when over 100,000 refugees poured into neighbouring Chad, pursued by Janjaweed militiamen, who clashed with Chadian government forces along the border. More than 70 militiamen and 10 Chadian soldiers were killed in one gun battle in April.

The scale of the crisis led to warnings of an imminent disaster, with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warning that the risk of genocide is frighteningly real in Darfur. The scale of the Janjaweed campaign led to comparisons with the Rwandan Genocide, a parallel hotly denied by the Sudanese government. Independent observers noted that the tactics, which include dismemberment and killing of noncombatants and even young children and babies, are more akin to the ethnic cleansing used in the Yugoslav Wars but have warned that the region's remoteness means that hundreds of thousands are effectively cut off from aid. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group reported that over 350,000 people could potentially die as a result of starvation and disease. ^[18]

On July 10, Ex-SPLA leader John Garang was sworn in as Sudan's vice-president.^[19] However, on August 1, Garang died in a helicopter crash. His death had long-term implications and, despite improved security, talks between the various rebels in the Darfur region went slowly.

An attack on the Chadian town of Adre near the Sudanese border led to the deaths of three hundred rebels in December 2005. Sudan was blamed for the attack, which was the second in the region in three days. ^[20] The escalating tensions in the region led to the government of Chad declaring its hostility toward Sudan and calling for Chadian citizens to mobilise themselves against the "common enemy". ^[21] (See Chad-Sudan conflict)

On May 5, 2006, the government of Sudan signed an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). However, the agreement was rejected by two other, smaller groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and a rival faction of the SLA. ^[22] The accord was orchestrated by the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, Salim Ahmed Salim (working on behalf of the African Union), AU representatives, and other foreign officials operating in Abuja, Nigeria. The accord calls for the disarmament of the Janjaweed militia, and for the rebel forces to disband and be incorporated into the army. ^[23][24] But the agreement, signed in Abuja, was rejected by a smaller SLM faction and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement.

The Sudanese government has rejected calls for changes to be made to the Darfur peace agreement.

Foreign Minister Lam Akol said there was no question of additions or alterations to the deal signed in Nigeria two months ago.

So far the agreement has failed to win the support of people in Darfur and fighting has continued.

Head of the United Nations mission in Sudan Jan Pronk has warned the deal may collapse without further concessions.

Missed deadlines

Only the Sudanese government seems to think the Darfur peace agreement is working.

Two months after it was signed all of the deadlines for its implementation have been missed and opposition to it in Darfur's camps remains vocal and violent.

Only one of Darfur's rebel movements has signed the deal and in the two months since the ceremony they have carried out a series of attacks on their former rebel allies.

Mr Pronk, along with leading western diplomats, played a key role in pushing the peace agreement through.

Last week he was the first to break ranks and acknowledge that it was not working. Writing on his own website, he said the deal was severely paralysed and needed major additions to bring dissident rebels on board and stop it collapsing.

At a news conference in Khartoum, Sudan's Foreign Minister Lam Akol, said the deal could not be changed.

"This is a peace agreement, it can only be amended according to the articles therein," he said.

"Nobody has the power to amend it and least of all, is Pronk."

Though Mr Pronk is alone in expressing his reservations publicly, the international community is beginning to realise what a frightful mess it is in.

By insisting on this peace deal two months ago, western governments now find themselves aligned with Khartoum trying to force the conflict's many victims to accept a deal they clearly do not want.

Tuesday 1 August 2006 05:30
July 31, 2006 (NEW YORK) — Violent clashes between Sudanese Government forces, allied militias and rebel groups continue to plague the strife-torn Darfur region, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported today, while a UN humanitarian convoy has also been ambushed.
UNMIS reported that the security situation in Darfur’s north and west is particularly volatile, with ongoing clashes over the past three days, a UN spokesperson told journalists at UN Headquarters in New York.

The picture of the boy killed (left) shows what is happening in Darfur. Over two and a half million people, driven from their homes, now face death from starvation and disease as the Government and militias attempt to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching them. The same forces have destroyed the people of Darfur's villages and crops, and poisoned their water supplies, and they continue to murder, rape and terrorize.

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United States Still Pursuing Peace in Darfur, State's Bolton Says

The United States continues to "push hard" to bring relief to the people in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where at least 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been displaced since 2003, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says July 27.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bolton cautiones that even though the United States does "see a way forward, in regard to Darfur,