Darfur
By Arab Media Watch director Victor Kattan
People and Territory
Darfur in Arabic means the “home of the Fur”. The Fur are a black African Muslim people who inhabit Darfur. Their society is highly traditional, governed by village elders. They live a sedentary lifestyle and cultivate millet, a type of cereal crop.
The majority speak a Nilo-Sahara language (the language of the Nubians), though some speak Arabic. According to a 1983 census, their population numbered 500,000. The Fur inhabit the south-central region of Darfur, with some living in neighbouring Chad.
The Fur lifestyle has led to conflict with the nomadic Baggara cattle-herders of the region concerning access to water and grazing land, particularly in Darfur’s central Jebal Marra mountains, where the best agricultural land is found.
The Baggara are a bedouin people inhabiting Africa from Lake Chad to the Nile. They are cattle-herders, migrating seasonally between grazing lands in the wet season and river areas in the dry season. They are Muslim and speak the Shuwa dialect of Arabic.
Darfur is a vast region (493,180km2) in the far west of Sudan bordering the Central African Republic, Chad and Libya. It is split into three states: Gharb Darfur (West Darfur), Janub Darfur (South Darfur) and Shamal Darfur (North Darfur). The Fur inhabit all three states.
Most of the conflict is currently taking place in West Darfur (on the border with Chad), which has a population of approximately 1.5 million people. The population of the whole of Darfur is estimated to be around 6 million.
Origins of the Conflict
Relations between the various tribes have been tense during much of Darfur’s history. It was a centre of slave trade when the Fur kingdom exported Africans from other parts of Sudan as slaves to the Arab world.
The tribes have differing economic needs: the Fur, Bami, Tama, Jebel, Aranga and Masaalit tribes are primarily sedentary farmers, while the Rhezeghat and Zaghawa tribes are primarily nomadic herdsmen. This brought them into conflict over access to land and water, especially because Darfur is semi-arid (apart from the area around the Jabal Marra mountains, where the Fur live).
For centuries Darfur was a kingdom (c. 1650-1917). In the 19th century it revolted against British and Egyptian rule, and even fought the Mahdi, the self-proclaimed leader of Sudan whose rule Darfurians also disliked, and a state of almost constant warfare ended in the gradual retirement of the Mahdi’s forces from Darfur.
During the First World War the Sultan of Darfur, Ali Dinar, sided with the Ottoman Empire and declared war against the British. The revolt was quickly crushed, the sultan was killed and Darfur was incorporated into Sudan.
In 2003, Darfur became the scene of a bloody rebellion when two rebel groups - the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement - accused Sudan’s government of pursuing policies of marginalisation, racial discrimination, exclusion, exploitation, and divisiveness which they claimed disrupted the peaceful coexistence between Darfur’s diverse tribal communities.
The people of Darfur have resented Sudan’s central government ever since it abolished the tribal system of dispute resolution in the 1970s and 80s. It had been customary for Darfur tribes to solve their differences through traditional law, especially the many disputes which occur between nomadic tribes and sedentary tribes such as murders and incidents relating to cattle stealing, which can develop into inter-tribal conflicts.
But after the changes, local leaders were chosen on the basis of their political loyalty to Khartoum, rather than their standing in the community. These people were often financed and strengthened through the state’s security apparatus. This meant that when Khartoum had to step in to resolve traditional conflicts, it was no longer seen as an impartial arbitrator.
In May 2000, thousands of copies of the Black Book appeared in mosques and other public places in Khartoum. According to the manuscript, Sudan’s post-independence administrations have been dominated by three tribes, all from the Nile valley north of Khartoum, which only represent about 5% of Sudan’s population according to the official census.
The Black Book argues that these three tribes have held 47-70% of cabinet positions since 1956, and the presidency up until today. Persons from the north are also reportedly overwhelmingly dominant in the military hierarchy, the judiciary and the provincial administration. According to the Black Book, those leaders have attempted to impose a uniform Arab and Islamic culture on one of the continent’s most heterogeneous societies.
For more info on the Black Book, visit the JEM’s website.
Inter-tribal conflict was further aggravated by increased access to weapons, through channels with Chad and Libya in particular. Libya aspired to have a friendly ruler in Chad, and attempts to contain Libya’s ambitions in the region led foreign governments (allegedly Eritrea and Chad) to pour arms into Darfur (Libya occupied and annexed the Aouzou Strip, a 70,000 km2 area of northern Chad adjacent to the southern Libyan border, from 1980-1987).
In addition, several Chadian armed rebellions were launched from Darfur. The conflict in south Sudan also had its impact in Darfur through easier access to weapons - the SLM is influenced in terms of agenda and structure by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement from south Sudan. As a consequence, each major tribe, as well as some villages, began to organise militias and village defence groups.
Further reading:
The Black Book history of Darfur
Libyan intervention in Chad, 1980-1987
Arms flow to Sudan’s Darfur despite arms embargo - UN
The Current Conflict
The roots of the current conflict result from desertification, the availability of modern weapons, deep layers relating to identity, governance, and the emergence of armed rebel movements which enjoy popular support amongst certain tribes.
In February 2003, the JEM – associated with bedouin people of north Darfur such as the Zaghawa – and the SLM – associated with the Fur and Masaalit people – attacked Sudanese government forces and installations. The government, which was caught by surprise, had very few troops in the region (as most of them had been deployed to the south), and many of the lower and middle-ranking officers in the Sudanese army are actually from Darfur.
Its response was to mount a campaign of aerial bombardment allegedly supported by ground attacks by an Arab militia called the Janjaweed (which means men on horseback), comprised of fighters from the Baggara people in West Darfur. The Sudanese government denies any connection to them, calling them “thieves and gangsters.”
However, according to paragraphs 67-69 of the Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General:
“From available evidence and a variety of sources including the Government itself, it is apparent that faced with a military threat from two rebel movements and combined with a serious deficit in terms of military capabilities on the ground in Darfur, the Government called upon local tribes to assist in the fighting against the rebels. In this way, it exploited the existing tensions between different tribes … In response to the Government’s call, mostly Arab nomadic tribes without a traditional homeland and wishing to settle, given the encroaching desertification, responded to the call. They perhaps found in this an opportunity to be allotted land. One senior government official involved in the recruitment informed the Commission that tribal leaders were paid in terms of grants and gifts on the basis of their recruitment efforts and how many persons they provided … These new ‘recruits’ were to become what the civilian population and others would refer to as the ‘Janjaweed’ …”
It has become customary to refer to the Darfur conflict as one between “Arabs” and “blacks”, but it is difficult to physically distinguish the two groups: both are black, speak Arabic, and are Muslim. One must be extremely careful in classifying the conflict in such simple terms, as it is not one between races but tribal affiliations (see the AMW document “In Darfur, it is not as black and white as black vs. Arab,” in the Sudan background section). As Nigerian academic L.A. Fabunmi notes:
“… the admixture of various groups of Africans, Arabs and even Europeans has been going on for a long time through marriage or concubinage. As a result, the Sudanese are a blend of all these groups of humanity. There may not be anything approximating to what race or tribe enthusiasts call ‘pure types’. For many of the people commonly referred to as Arabs are in fact Negroid physically, e.g. the Baggarra and the Islamic people of Darfur. Also, among the ‘black-skinned’ peoples are individuals displaying some Caucasian features; this is so even as far south as Northern Nigeria, particularly among Fulanis.”
See The Sudan in Anglo-Egyptian Relations: A Case Study in Power Politics 1800 -1956, (London: Longmans 1960) at p. 8.
Human Rights Violations
Both sides have been accused of serious human rights violations, including mass killing, looting and rape. By the spring of 2004, several thousand people had been killed, and as many as a million more had been driven from their homes.
This humanitarian crisis took on a wider 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 2004.
In July 2004, the African Union and the European Union sent monitors to observe the ceasefire agreement signed on 8 April 2004 between Khartoum and the rebels.
However, Human Rights Watch said the signing of this agreement made little difference to the situation on the ground. It accussed Khartoum of incorporating the Janjaweed “into police and other security forces that could be used to secure proposed ‘safe areas’ for displaced civilians”.
On 23 July 2004, the US Senate and House of Representatives passed a joint resolution declaring the armed conflict in Darfur to be “genocide”. It called on the Bush administration to lead an international effort to put a stop to it. On 30 July 2004, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1556 under Chapter VII of the Charter. Paragraph 6 of that resolution:
“Demands that the Government of Sudan fulfill its commitments to disarm the Janjaweed militias and apprehend and bring to justice Janjaweed leaders and their associates who have incited and carried out human rights and international humanitarian law violations and other atrocities, and further requests the Secretary-General to report in 30 days, and monthly thereafter, to the Council on the progress or lack thereof by the Government of Sudan on this matter and expresses its intention to consider further actions, including measures as provided for in Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations on the Government of Sudan, in the event of non-compliance.”
Thirty days later, the secretary-general reported that some of the measures taken by the government of Sudan in accordance with the Joint Communiqué and the Darfur Plan of Action, had resulted in some progress such as “the improvement of security in certain parts of Darfur, the deployment of additional police and the beginning of disarmament, the lifting of access restrictions for humanitarian relief, the commitment to a no forced returns policy and the establishment of human rights monitoring and investigations” (paras. 60).
However, the Secretary-General found that Khartoum had not met its obligation to stop attacks against civilians (paras. 61 & 62):
“… no concrete steps have been taken to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders or the perpetrators of these attacks, allowing the violations of human rights and the basic laws of war to continue in a climate of impunity. After 18 months of conflict and 30 days after the adoption of resolution 1556 (2004), the Government of Sudan has not been able to resolve the crisis in Darfur, and has not met some of the core commitments it has made … The displaced have been terrorized and traumatized, and have lost confidence in the authorities. The increasing level of animosity between different communities and tribes within Darfur has gone hand in hand with a breakdown of traditional mechanisms to resolve differences. The process of reconciliation and of rebuilding the confidence of the people of Darfur in each other and in the Government will take time, patience and, above all, the prospect of a peaceful potential solution to the conflict.”
On 9 September 2004, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared to the US Senate that genocide was occurring in Darfur, for which he blamed the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed. This position was strongly rejected by Sudanese Foreign Minister Najib Abdul Wahab. The UN, like the AU and EU, have not declared the conflict to be an act of genocide.
On 18 September 2004, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1564, pressuring the Sudanese government to act urgently to improve the situation by threatening the possibility of “taking additional measures as contemplated in Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations, such as actions to affect Sudan’s petroleum sector and the Government of Sudan or individual members of the Government of Sudan” in the event of continued noncompliance with resolution 1556 or refusal to accept the expansion of AU peacekeepers. In the wake of this resolution, the peacekeeper force was to be expanded to 4,500 troops.
Have Acts of Genocide Occurred?
UN resolution 1564 requested the secretary-general to “rapidly establish” a Commission of Inquiry to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Darfur “by all parties,” and to determine whether or not acts of genocide have occurred. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 provides in Article 8 that:
“Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide.”
On 25 January 2005, the report of the International Commission of Inquiry was delivered to the secretary-general. In order to determine whether genocide had taken place, the Commission had to determine whether there was (a) criminal intent required for the underlying offence (killing, causing serious bodily harm etc.) and (b) the intent to detroy in whole or in part a group as such.
The Commission would also have to show that such crimes did in fact take place (i.e. there must be both the intent and the guilty act for it to qualify as a crime). To find the Sudanese government guilty of genocide, the Commission would have to show it intended its actions to bring about the destruction of a particular national or ethnic group.
On the question of genocidal intent, the Commission found that some elements emerging from the facts – including the scale of atrocities and the systematic nature of the attacks, killing, displacement and rape, as well as racially motivated statements by perpetrators that have targeted members of the African tribes only – could be indicative of genocidal intent.
However, it concluded that “there are other more indicative elements that show the lack of genocidal intent” (para. 513). The Commission found that:
“The fact that in a number of villages attacked and burned by both militias and Government forces the attackers refrained from exterminating the whole population that had not fled, but instead selectively killed groups of young men, is an important element … This case clearly shows that the intent of the attackers was not to destroy an ethnic group as such, or part of the group. Instead, the intention was to murder all those men they considered as rebels, as well as forcibly expel the whole population so as to vacate the villages and prevent rebels from hiding among, or getting support from, the local population” (paras. 513 and 514).
The Commission found that persons forcibly displaced from their homes were collected in Internally Displaced Persons camps. It noted that:
“… the populations surviving attacks on villages are not killed outright, so as to eradicate the group; they are rather forced to abandon their homes and live together in areas selected by the Government.”
While this attitude of the Sudanese government may be held to be in breach of international legal standards on human rights and international criminal law rules, the Commission found that “it is not indicative of any intention to annihilate the group” (para. 515). It elaborated:
“This is all the more true because the living conditions in those camps, although open to strong criticism on many grounds, do not seem to be calculated to bring about the extinction of the ethnic group to which the IDPs belong. Suffice it to note that the Government of Sudan generally allows humanitarian organizations to help the population in camps by providing food, clean water, medicines and logistical assistance (construction of hospitals, cooking facilities, latrines, etc.)”
The Commission therefore concluded that:
“… the Government of Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide” (para. 518).
However, it did not rule out the possibility that “in some instances single individuals, including Government officials, may entertain a genocidal intent …” (para. 520). If this was the case, “it would be for a competent court to make such a determination on a case by case basis.” The Commission was at pains to stress that its finding that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities:
“… should not be taken as in any way detracting from, or belittling, the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. As stated above genocide is not necessarily the most serious international crime. Depending upon the circumstances, such international offences as crimes against humanity or large scale war crimes may be no less serious and heinous than genocide. This is exactly what happened in Darfur, where massive atrocities were perpetrated on a very large scale, and have so far gone unpunished.”
The Commission identified 51 individuals responsible for the violation of human rights, and recommended immediate trial at the International Criminal Court.
On 7 March, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke to the Security Council requesting that the peacekeeping force in Darfur be increased to support the 2,000 African Union troops already deployed there.
A resolution for the deployment of an additional 10,000 peacekeepers was delayed by the failure of the Council to agree on the mechanism to be used to try war criminals, and the application and extent of sanctions.
The Bush administration opposes the International Criminal Court established in The Hague to try persons for the most serious international crimes (crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide). It has signed a number of agreements with countires not to send US personnel implicated in such crimes to the ICC. Instead, Washington has proposed that the war crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, be used to try persons implicated in atrocities in Darfur.
On 29 March 2005, the Security Council passed resolution 1591, strengthening the arms embargo and imposing an asset freeze and travel ban on those deemed responsible for the atrocities in Darfur.
On 31 March 2005 the Council, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, in resolution 1593 decided “to refer the situation in Darfur since 1 July 2002 to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.” It further decided:
“… that the Government of Sudan and all other parties to the conflict in Darfur, shall cooperate fully with and provide any necessary assistance to the Court and the Prosecutor pursuant to this resolution and, while recognizing that States not party to the Rome Statute have no obligation under the Statute, urges all States and concerned regional and other international organizations to cooperate fully.”
On 5 April 2005, the UN secretary-general’s spokesman Fred Eckhard confirmed that Kofi Annan was to hand the ICC names of suspected Darfur criminals. Branding the resolution demanding prosecution in The Hague of 51 named suspects, including senior officials, a violation of its sovereignty, Khartoum insisted its own courts were competent to try them. President Omar al-Bashir swore:
Thrice in the name of Almighty Allah that I shall never hand any Sudanese national to a foreign court.”
Despite this international pressure, it was reported in the LA Times (29 April 2005) barely four weeks after the UN Security Council passed resolution 1593, that Sudan has emerged as a “surprisingly valuable ally of the CIA.”
Amid reports of increased cooperation between Washington and Khartoum in the ‘war on terror’, a marked toning down of the Bush administration’s criticisms of Sudan became apparent. Washington stopped calling the Darfur conflict genocide, and claimed that UN death toll estimates may be too high.
Recent Developments
By July 2005, it was claimed by the commander of the African Union peacekeeping force that security in Darfur was improving. It was alleged that there had been no major conflicts since January, and the number of attacks on villages had been dropping. More troops were due to arrive in the coming months, expecting to reach a total of 7,000 by September.
In keeping with a decision by the Peace and Security Council – the organ of the AU in charge of enforcing its decisions – Nigeria sent a battalion of 680 troops on 13 July 2005. Rwanda also agreed to send a battalion of troops, as did Senegal, Gambia, Kenya and South Africa. Canada provided 105 armoured vehicles, training and maintenance assistance, and personal protective equipment in support of the AU mission in Sudan according to a report in the Sudan Tribune.
On 15 September, a series of AU-mediated talks began in Abuja, Nigeria. Representatives of the Sudanese government and the two major rebel groups participated in the talks, but the Sudan Liberation Movement faction refused to be present. According to a BBC reporter, the SLM “will not recognise anything agreed at the talks.”
Violence continued in Darfur throughout the fall of 2005 between the government and rebels. In November 2005, attacks on AU peacekeepers by rebels led Khartoum to approve the depolyment of 105 Grizzly armoured personnel carriers donated by Canada to aid the peacekeepers.
On 3 February 2006, as the US began its month-long presidency of the UN Security Council, the US offered a motion to begin plans to send UN peacekeepers to Darfur. The Council agreed unanimously to begin the planning process to send the troops, with a final decision to come later. It called for a 12,000-20,000 troop presence in Darfur, with the 7,000 AU troops already there being given new weapons and incorporated into the UN mission. Furthermore, they would have a greater mandate to protect civilians. Nevertheless, difficulties were expected to arise in finding states willing to contribute troops to the UN mission. Although the US offered the motion, it was not expected to contribute troops. Also, al-Bashir has stated his opposition to UN peacekeepers in Sudan.
Peace Deal
On 6 May 2006, a peace deal was agreed between Sudan and the SLM. The main highlights are as follows:
- It creates a temporary regional government for Darfur in which the rebels will take part.
- The Janjaweed militia is to be disbanded, and the rebels are to be incorporated into the security forces.
- A popular referendum is to take place by July 2010 to decide whether to establish Darfur as a unitary region with a single government.
- The rebels will be allocated 12 seats (out of 400, though only 275 seats are elected by popular vote) in the National Assembly in Khartoum.
- The agreement awards the rebels one state governor of Darfur, and two deputy state governors.
- It creates a fund for Darfur reconstruction and development.
- It establishes a commission to work with the UN to help refugees and displaced persons return to their homes.
- It creates a commission to provide compensation to victims of the conflict.
There was not complete agreement, however, as the JEM and a splinter faction of the SLM rejected the deal, though one of the rebels is reconsidering its position.
Further reading
British Embassy, Khartoum
Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
Wikipedia