War in Darfur

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SLA rebels in North Darfur.

The Darfur conflict or the Darfur genocide is an ongoing armed conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, mainly between the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited from local Baggara tribes, and the non-Baggara peoples (mostly land-tilling tribes) of the region. The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, has provided arms and assistance and has participated in joint attacks with the group. The conflict began in February 2003.

Estimates of deaths in the conflict have ranged from 50,000 (World Health Organization, September 2004) to 450,000 (Dr. Eric Reeves, 28 April 2006). Most NGOs use 400,000, a figure from the Coalition for International Justice. The mass media has described the conflict as both "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide." The U.S. Government has described it as genocide, although the United Nations has declined to do so. (See also: List of declarations of genocide in Darfur)

After fighting worsened in July and August 2006, on August 31, 2006, the United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 1706 which called for a new 20,000 UN peacekeeping force to supplant or supplement the 7,000-troop African Union force. Sudan strongly objected to the resolution and, the next day, launched a major offensive in the region. (See also: New Darfur peacekeeping_force)

Historical and population background

See also: Darfur § History

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".

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. 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 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 cultivators who also practiced varying degrees of animal husbandry, such as the Berti and Zaghawa. 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"), 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. 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").

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 the "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. 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.

Famine and war

In a longer term cycle, the gradual reduction in annual precipitation, 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. The famine killed an estimated 95,000 Darfuris out of a population of 3.1 million. 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.

An internally displaced person camp in Darfur

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 desiccated landscape, tried to force the routes south open, attacking farmers who tried to block their path and shedding blood. 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. 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.

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, which is much larger than the JEM, is generally associated with the Fur and Masalit, as well as the Wagi clan of the Zaghawa, while the JEM is associated with the Kobe clan of Zaghawa. 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. On January 20, 2006, SLM declared a merger with the Justice and Equality Movement to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. However, the May of that year, the SLM and JEM were again negotiating as separate entities.

History of the conflict, 2003-2006

The starting point of the conflict in Darfur is typically said to be 26 February 2003, when a group calling itself the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF) publically claimed credit for an attack on Golu, the headquarters of Jebel Marra District. Even prior to this attack, however, a conflict had erupted in Darfur, as rebels had already attacked police stations, army outposts and military convoys, and the government had engaged in a massive air and land assault on the rebel stronghold in the Marra Mountains. The rebels' first military action was 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 defend against government-sponsored attacks on their villages.

On 25 March, the rebels seized the garrison town of Tine along the Chadian border, seizing large quantities 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 region proved almost impossible for the army, untrained in desert operations, to counter. However, its aerial bombardment of rebel positions on the mountain was devastating.

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.

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-commissioned 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 prisoners 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 Kordofan.

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 displacements.

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. 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.

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

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 putative ceasefire.

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 in May 2004 that over 350,000 people could potentially die as a result of starvation and disease.

On 10 July 2005, Ex-SPLA leader John Garang was sworn in as Sudan's vice-president. However, on 30 July 2005, 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. 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". (See Chad-Sudan conflict)

May Agreement (2006)

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. 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.

July-August 2006

During July and August 2006, fighting had been renewed, "threatening to shut down the world's largest aid operation" as international aid organizations considered leaving due to attacks against their personnel. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for bringing a force of 17,000 international peacekeepers to the region in order to replace the African Union force of 7,000.

File:Darfur-old-woman.jpg

Internally displaced women in North Darfur.

On August 18, the deputy head of the UN Peacekeeping Forces, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hedi Annabi, warned during a private meeting that Sudan appears to be undertaking preparations for a major military offensive in the region. The warning came a day after UN Commission on Human Rights special investigator Sima Samar stated that Sudan's efforts in the region remains poor despite the May Agreement. On August 19, Sudan reiterated its opposition to replacing the 7,000 AU force with a 17,000 UN one, resulting in the US issuing a "threat" to Sudan over the "potential consequences" of this position.

On August 24, Sudan rejected attending a UNSC meeting to explain its plan of sending 10,000 Sudanese soldiers to Darfur instead of the proposed 20,000 UN peacekeeping force. The UNSC announced it will hold the meeting despite Sudan's refusal to attend. Also on August 24, the International Rescue Committee reported that hundreds of women were raped and sexually assaulted around the Kalma refugee camp during the last several weeks. On August 25, the head of the US State Department's Bureau of African Affairs, Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer, warned that the region faces a security crisis unless the proposed UN peacekeeping force is allowed to deploy.

On August 26, two days before the UNSC meeting, and on the day Frazer was due to arrive in Khartum, Paul Salopek, a US National Geographic Magazine journalist appeared in court in Darfur facing charges of espionage; he was later released after direct negotiation with President al-Bashir. [1] This came a month after Tomo Kriznar, a Slovenian presidential envoy, was sentenced to two years for spying.

New peacekeeping force

Main article: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1706

On August 31, the UNSC approved a resolution to send a new peacekeeping force of 20,000 to the region. Sudan has expressed strong opposition to the resolution. On September 1, AU officials reported that Sudan has launched a major offensive in Darfur. According to the AU, over 20 people were killed and 1,000 were displaced during clashes that began ealier in the week. On September 5, Sudan has asked the AU force in Darfur to leave the region by the end of the month, adding that "they have no right to transfer this assignment to the United Nations or any other party. This right rests with the government of Sudan." On September 4, in a move not viewed as surprising, Chad's president Idriss Déby voiced support for the new UN peacekeeping force. The AU, whose peacekeeping force mandate expires on September 30, has confirmed that they will do so. The next day, however, a senior US State Department official who declined to be identified, told reporters that the AU force might remain in the region past the deadline, citing this possibility as a "viable, live option."

On September 8, head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, said the Darfur faces a "humanitarian catastrophe." On September 12, Sudan's European Union envoy Pekka Haavisto claimed that the Sudanese army is "bombing civilians in Darfur" . A World Food Program official reported that food aid has been cut off from at least 355,000 people in the region. UN Secretery-General Kofi Annan told the UNSC that the "the tragedy in Darfur has reached a critical moment. It merits this council's closest attention and urgent action."

On September 14, the leader of the now defunct Sudan Liberation Movement, currently Senior Assistant to the President of the Republic and Chairman of the Regional Interim Authority of Darfur, Minni Minnawi, stated that he does not object to the new UN peacekeeping force, thereby breaking ranks with the Sudanese government who consider such a deployment to be an act of Western invasion. Minnawi claimed that the AU force "can do nothing because the AU mandate is very limited."

Oil in Dafur?

Some commentators have suggested that the real reason for the Dafur conflict relates t the presence of oil in the region. George Galloway has proposed that: · the African Peace Force is being withdrawn becauswe of pressure from Blair-Bush · they then wish to introduce NATO forces into the region · this is all because of the presence of oil in the region.

(Source: TalkSport radio, 8-8.30pm on 17 september 2006)

Among links supporting the above are the following: [2]

International response (2003-2004)

The Save Darfur Coalition advocacy group coordinated a large rally in Washington, D.C. in April 2006

Main article: International response to the Darfur conflict

International attention to the Darfur conflict largely began with reports by the advocacy organizations Amnesty International in July 2003 and the International Crisis Group in December 2003. However, widespread media coverage did not start until the outgoing United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, called Darfur the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis" in March 2004. A movement advocating for humanitarian intervention has emerged in several countries since then.

Gérard Prunier, a scholar specializing in African conflicts, argues that the world's most powerful countries have largely limited their response to expressions of concern and demands that the United Nations take action. The UN, lacking both the funding and military support of the wealthy countries, has left the African Union to deploy a token force without a mandate to protect civilians. In the lack of foreign political will to address the political and economic structures that underlie the conflict, the international community has defined the Darfur conflict in humanitarian assistance terms and debated the "genocide" label.

Genocide claims

On September 18, 2004, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1564, which called for a Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to assess the Sudanese conflict. The UN report released on January 31, 2005 stated that while there were mass murders and rapes, they could not label it as genocide because "genocidal intent appears to be missing".

In 2005, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) introduced the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, which calls on the United States to take a more active role in stopping the genocide, encourages NATO participation, and endorses a Chapter VII mandate for a UN mission in Darfur. The bill was passed by the House and Senate and as of August 2006 is in conference committee. In August 2006, the Genocide Intervention Network released a Darfur scorecard, rating each member of Congress on legislation relating to the conflict.

Deaths

Accurate numbers of dead have been difficult to estimate, partly because the Sudanese government places formidable obstacles in front of journalists attempting to cover the conflict.

In September 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated there had been 50,000 deaths in Darfur since the beginning of the conflict, an 18-month period, mostly due to starvation. An updated estimate the following month put the number of deaths for the 6-month period from March to October 2004 due to starvation and disease at 70,000. These figures were criticized, because they only considered short periods and didn't include violent deaths. A more recent British Parliamentary Report has estimated that over 300,000 people have died, and others have estimated even more.

In March 2005, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland estimated that 10,000 were dying each month excluding deaths due to ethnic violence. An estimated 2 million people had at that time been displaced from their homes, mostly seeking refuge in camps in Darfur's major towns. Two hundred thousand had fled to neighboring Chad.

In an April 2005 report, the most comprehensive statistical analysis to date, the Coalition for International Justice estimated that 400,000 people in Darfur had died since the conflict began, a figure most humanitarian and human rights groups now use.

On 28 April 2006, Dr. Eric Reeves argued that "extant data, in aggregate, strongly suggest that total excess mortality in Darfur, over the course of more than three years of deadly conflict, now significantly exceeds 450,000," but this has not been independently verified.

References

• Flint, Julie and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A Short History of a Long War, Zed Books, London March 2006, ISBN 1-84277-697-5
• Prunier, Gérard, Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide, Cornell University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8014-4450-0

Works on the background conditions of the crisis

• de Waal, Alex, Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, Oxford University Press, USA, (Revised 2005, first published 1989), ISBN 0-19-518163-8
• Johnson, Douglas H., The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars, Indiana University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-253-21584-6

See also

• History of Sudan, for a broader view of the events that have caused the current conflict
• Chad-Sudan conflict

Bibliography and external links

Main article: Bibliography of the Darfur conflict