While the violence in Darfur is undoubtedly appalling, many in the media do a disservice to their audiences and the people of the Sudanese region by consistently and incorrectly portraying the conflict as a simple case of black vs Arab.
Arab Media Watch chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi has compiled a list of quotes from independent experts and sources on the ground that shatters this myth.
"Darfur's four-year-long conflict...has claimed the lives of at least 200,000 people and forced nearly three million from their homes. What began as a rebellion by three non-Arab tribes against perceived marginalisation by the Arab-dominated Khartoum government has escalated into a complex multi-layered conflict...There are Arabs fighting alongside the rebels and Africans siding with the government. Arab tribes are fighting other Arab tribes - some are even fighting themselves. Desertification has increased tensions, between everybody, as tribes fight to gain control over precious water points. If it was ever as simple to describe the conflict as a 'genocide' of black Africans by an Arab government - and few analysts in Sudan believe it was - it certainly is not now. Sudan's government is arming any group that is prepared to attack anyone connected with the rebels, be they African or Arab. In some cases they have even armed both sides of the same mini-conflict. It is less about ethnic cleansing and more about power."
Steve Bloomfield, The Independent, 30 April 2007
"...there are also displaced Arab communities, whose villages were attacked by African groups, and who are victims of inter-African ethnic fighting."
"There are even parts of South Darfur where the WFP currently cannot work because of a dangerous traditional conflict between rival Arab groups."
Greg Barrow, World Food Programme
"The conflict is being presented in many ways as Arab vs. African. That's very troubling."
"It doesn't have to do with any inherent animosity between Arabs and Africans."
"Muslims and non-Muslims, Arabs and Africans, people with different languages, have lived together in the past and can live together. But the autocratic central government coupled with competition over local resources can exacerbate ethnic and religious differences that were never very salient before."
Janet Ewald, associate professor of history at Duke University and author of a book on the Sudan, "Soldiers, Traders, and Slaves: State Formation and Economic Transformation in the Greater Nile Valley."
"...all parties involved in the Darfur conflict - whether they are referred to as 'Arab' or as 'African' - are equally indigenous and equally black."
"From the cultural point of view, one can be both African and Arab."
"The implication that these are two different races, one indigenous and the other not, is dangerous."
Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Columbia, New York.
"The statistics show the appalling futility of the international response to the Darfur conflict - not a conflict that ranges Arab against African, as journalistic shorthand would have it, but one that pits the government of Sudan and allied militias and mercenaries against the vast majority of Darfurians - African and Arab. (It cannot be stated too often that the majority of Arab tribes in Darfur have refused to join the government war in Darfur, despite blandishments, threats and inducements that range from sacks filled with cash to cars to development programs and homes in the capital, Khartoum.)"
"In Darfur, the Rizeigat, Beni Halba, Habbaniya, Taaisha, Mahariya, Beni Hussein, Misseriya and Maaliya tribes, to name only some of Darfur's Arab tribes, have all chosen either to cast their lot in with their African neighbors or to endeavor to remain neutral."
Julie Flint, researcher and co-author of a Human Rights Watch report: "Darfur Destroyed."
"Characterising the Darfur war as 'Arabs' versus 'Africans' obscures the reality. Darfur's Arabs are black, indigenous, African and Muslim - just like Darfur's non-Arabs."
"Most of Darfur's Arabs remain uninvolved in the conflict."
"...all Darfurians - Arab and non-Arab alike - profoundly distrust a government in Khartoum that has brought them nothing but trouble."
Alex de Waal, director of Justice Africa (London) and author of "Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984-5," published by Oxford University Press.
"...the conflict belies the popular myth that the country is divided along ethnic lines, between an Arab Muslim north and a Christian or animist, black south. In Darfur, where the vast majority of people are Muslims and Arabic-speaking, the distinction between 'Arab' and 'African' is more cultural than racial."
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
"Media reports from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday said Sudanese police and army forces had been deployed in Southern Darfur to prevent further clashes between two Arab tribes, the Rizayqat and Ma'aliyah, after the latest outbreak of violence at the weekend."
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
"Centuries of intermarriage has rendered the two groups physically indistinguishable."
Carter Dougherty, The Observer
"The question is how does race or ethnicity fit in. For generations, race itself has not been all that significant in Darfurian society."
"People regularly referred to themselves by their tribe affiliation, and rarely as just 'Arab' or 'African'."
Somini Sengupta, New York Times