Darfur Brief

When one turns on the evening news or opens up a newspaper they are bound to hear or read a piece dealing with the conflict in Darfur. Many people around the world are upset as to what they see as an uninhibited genocide in the region. But many more are benighted to how the conflict came to be, who is fighting, and what courses of action are being pursued in Darfur. The answers to these points are deeply rooted and complex which lends to the problem that there is no simple solution to this crisis.
To fully understand the situation in Darfur, one must understand the broader historical and geo-political context of the region. Darfur is a geographically large region that lies in the western part of Sudan, sharing a border with Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic. Darfur itself is divided into three states: South Darfur, West Darfur, and North Darfur. Nyala, El Geneina, and El Fashir are the capitals of each state respectively. Much of the population lives in relatively small villages made up of only a limited number of families. The economies of all three states are based on subsistence farming and cattle herding .

The problems of the current conflict in Darfur can not simply be collocated together under one root cause. There is a spectrum of reasons why Darfur is an dilemma in the status quo. Empirically, the situation in Darfur began to escalate when two rebel groups in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), organized in 2001 against the Khartoum government of Sudan. Both rebel groups cited similar grievances for their rebellion: socio-economic and political marginalization of Darfur and its people(s) . The two movements secured support/membership mainly from three tribes: the Fur, the Massalit, and the Zaghawa.

In 2003, both rebel groups began attacks on local police offices and government stations containing property and weapons. The Sudanese government, thinking little of the attacks, continued positioning their limited military forces elsewhere. In conjunction, talks of Chad’s involvement in the crisis came to surface. The Sudanese government accused the government of Chad of covertly assisting the rebel groups. Chad’s president, Idress Deby, denied such a claim. The rebel groups continued to mobilize their attacks towards installations in Kutum, Tine, and the military airfield in El Fashir. It is in El Fashir where several military aircraft were destroyed and many soldiers were killed. The Sudanese government was taken aback by the strength of the attacks and were forced to withdraw from Darfur due to their overstretched military stationed in South Sudan .

The Sudanese government, realizing its army did not carry the strength to oppose the resistance, began making deals with local tribes to assist in fighting the rebels. Tribal leaders were paid in relation to how many people they were able to provide. The majority of those who responded were Arab tribes without a homeland, escaping the desertification, and wishing to settle in the area. These recruits were to be known as the “Janjaweed,” a term signifying an armed bandit on a horse or camel .
The earliest attempt to end the conflict occurred in August 2003 when the President of Chad forged a meeting between the Government and the rebel groups. The JEM refused any involvement due to claims of Chad’s bias. On September 3, 2003 an agreement was met and hostilities were to be ceased for 45 days. Subsequent talks were allotted in Ethiopia and Nigeria under the mediation of the African Union (AU). In November 2004, the Government, SLM/A, and the JEM signed in Protocols which allowed for an improvement of the humanitarian problem and enhanced the security in the region .

The AU also has been playing a role in monitoring the ceasefire by establishing the Cease-Fire Commission in Darfur. But there has been some criticism that the AU has been slow to respond to the crisis . Also, unfortunately, the AU mission does not contain the mandate to protect civilians, but more than 5,000 troops from nations such Rwanda and Gabon are tasked in protecting the monitors stationed there. It is this lack of enforcement mechanisms plus the logistical and financial problems of AU that have led many analysts to believe the AU’s presence has been overall ineffectual . Brigadier General Ephraim Rurangwa, the AU’s deputy force commander states, “The troops that are here are not enough on the ground, they don’t have enough equipment and that’s why they’re not operating effectively –we have to try and protect civilians but we don’t have enough personnel for that.”

To help ease the AU’s burden, an agreement was signed in November 2007 that allowed for a number of UN peacekeepers to help assist. This has been come to be know as a “hybrid force.” One of the key factors in the UN deciding to become more involved was a change of heart from China. China is a major buyer of Sudanese oil and did not want to hurt relations with Sudan who needs the money for arms and infrastructure . China changed its attitude with preventing a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Sudan itself was resistant of UN troops coming in, stating the force needed to be made up of Africans only. But with 17,000 troops stationed in the Congo this task would be difficult

On January 9, 2005, both the government of Sudan and various rebel groups signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Kenya. The signing of the agreement ended the 21 year old civil war between the North and South and allowed for a six year Interim Period. In the end of the period, the people of the South will hold a referendum to see if they are willing to secede. This brought hope to many, including Colin Powell from the U.S., this will help ease tensions in Darfur.

But one of the impediments to a peace process being brokered for Darfur is the number of different factions involved. Originally two major rebel groups were involved but those went on to split up. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLM/A) was led by ethnic Furs but split in November 2005 along tribal lines. The split was between Minni Arkou Minnawi (an ethnic Zaghawa who controlled the military arm) and Abdel Wahid Mohamed Ahmed el Nur (an ethnic Fur who controlled the political wing). The SLM/A-Minni faction was the only group to sign the 2006 Darfur peace agreement, out of which Minni gained a role as an advisor to the president (fears of a sell-out emerged). The SLM/A-Unity Faction has been blamed for much of the most recent violence, including an attack on an AU base in which 10 soldiers were killed .

The second group, the JEM, also broke into different splinter groups. JEM was founded by Darfuri Muslims and was led by Khalil Ibrahim Muhammad who wrote The Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in the Sudan. The most significant splinter group from JEM is the National Movement for Reform and Development (NMRD) which broke away in 2004. Tek, the leader of NMRD, is on the UN sanctions list for alleged war crimes.
One of the more pressing issues is whether the crisis in Darfur constitutes genocide. The latest numbers show that an estimated 200,000 people of died and two million people displaced in Darfur. The problem pits 30 ethnic groups, which fall into two major categories, African and Arab, against each other. People accuse the Arab based government of the North of mass murdering the African people of Darfur. Critics such as Makau Mutua say that “race - not religion – is the fundamental fault line.” But many other sources point out that both communities are Muslim, and years of intermarriages have made such racial distinctions impossible . According to the World Food Programme’s Greg Barrow, the crisis in Darfur is often portrayed as a simple conflict between Arabs and Africans but the reality on the ground is much more complex . It is this conclusion that led the UN, with much controversy, to report in 2005 that the situation in Darfur could not be a case of genocide. The UN Commission found “the Government of Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide;” going on to state “the crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing.”
On that same note as previously mentioned the UN states:

The various tribes that have been the object of attacks and killings do not appear to make up ethnic groups distinct from the ethnic group to which persons or militias that attack them belong. They speak the same language (Arabic) and embrace the same religion (Muslim). In, addition, also due to the high measure of intermarriage, they can hardly be distinguished in their outward physical appearance from the members of tribes that allegedly attacked them.

Even though the UN did not find acts of genocide, the organization still found many serious violations of international human rights amounting to crimes under international law .
The judgment in the 2005 UN report was far from what many people and governments believed. The US House of Representatives and Senate unanimously passed resolutions declaring the crisis in Darfur to be genocide. Former Secretary Powell has stated that “genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the Government of Sudan and Janjaweed bear responsibility – and that genocide may still be occurring.”

Today, there still are ongoing talks about what must be done to save the region. But as the government of Sudan continues to stall and rebel groups continue to splinter, the citizens of Darfur will continue to bear the violence and pain of one of the worst conflicts in Africa to date.