Author: Robbert Woltering
In a matter of weeks the Sudanese province of Darfur has risen to political prominence on a global scale. Despite the massive media attention to the conflict, misunderstandings persist and important questions remain unanswered.
For decades a civil war raged in South Sudan, killing an estimated two million people and displacing millions more. This conflict only received media attention when an internationally brokered peace deal was at hand (something which only came about after promises of South Sudanese oil reserves saw the light of day). By contrast, the Darfur crisis seems to have been catapulted into the limelight shortly after its outburst. Never before was an African country in crisis visited by so many top politicians. The UN Secretary-General, the US Secretary of State and the German Foreign Minister, to name but a few, have set foot on Sudanese soil in the past weeks.
The Darfur war is often reduced to a conflict between Arabs and Africans, but reality is rather more complex. The present conflict in Darfur erupted first in 2003, when two local groups in the Darfur region took up arms against government military installations. The Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) declared their discontent with the way the central government in Khartoum neglected the province, and demanded proper attention and funds. In addition, the Darfurians were also worried about the peace negotiations between the Southern rebels and the central government. It appeared to them that these two parties were sharing the spoils of the country between them, leaving little to nothing for other regions such as Darfur.
Various ethnicities are represented in the SLA and the JEM, but all are speakers of Nilotic languages, and hail from sedentary farming communities. For a long time, the sedentary Nilotics of Darfur were subjected to attacks by marauding horsemen, nomads of various local tribes who speak the Darfurian Arabic dialect. They are the Janjaweed. The violence was a result of a disturbed relationship between the nomadic and the farming populations of Darfur. In the past, nomads and farmers cooperated in efforts to work the land and keep the soil fertile. Hower, due to prolonged drought, the quality of the soil in Darfur is deteriorating and land and water resources are dwindling. This has strained the relations between farmers and nomads. Many nomads are no longer allowed to let their camels graze on the land. To the nomads, this is more than an economic crisis. Tribes that fail to find pastures for their cattle, face an end to their very existence as nomads. They would have to give up their way of life and their culture. What they are facing is nothing less than what one should call ‘cultural genocide’, by force of Mother Nature. [1] Small surprise that many of the Janjaweed come from the most marginalised nomadic tribes.
The government of president Omar al-Bashir is mainly composed of Arab Northerners, and for many years it was generally understood that it condoned or supported the Janjaweed. Soon after the uprising by the SLA and the JEM, Khartoum decided to let the Janjaweed do its fighting. So far, the government authorities have been denying most of the damaging reports. They continue to insist that the Janjaweed are not under their control, that the humanitarian crisis is not as serious as people make it out to be, and that they are trying to help the people of Darfur as best they can. At least until very recently, all this was almost certainly not true. Reports from humanitarian workers (in particular Human Rights Watch) and refugees suggest that the government has instructed the Janjaweed and has given them aerial support on their raids into Darfur villages.
So is this genocide? Washington deems it so, the United Nations and Europe are still not sure. International law defines genocide as ‘… acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a .. ethnical, .. or religious group …’. Do the Janjaweed want to annihilate their farming compatriots? The incomprehensible sadness of the conflict is such that if they do, their motivation for it lies in the fact that they are faced with a ‘genocide’ of their own. While the Sudanese government has provided support to the Janjaweed, it is quite unlikely that the Sudanese government would really support a genocide. It appears that the Janjaweed are indeed not entirely controlled by Khartoum. But that is exactly the point of counter-insurgency by proxy war-fare: the rebellion is opposed, while Khartoum can always claim it is not responsible for the way in which it is done.[2]
Going beyond the internal complexities, the neighbouring countries of Chad and Libya are involved. Libya has a history of meddling with the internal affairs of both Chad and Sudan. It has invaded Chad in the late eighties, and it has supported rebels there. In Sudan, however, Libya has more or less toed the line of the Sudanese government. It appears that a part of the Janjaweed have a Libyan history, notably experience in Libyan military training camps. Those same military camps have been used to train Chadian rebels. It is known that the Janjaweed have already crossed the border into Chad regularly, and there are rumours that they have been trying to revive local Chadian rebel groups. This puts the president of Chad in a most delicate position Given his weak power base there is good reason to fear a (Libyan inspired) Chadian uprising against him. But here, it is not clear as to who would benefit from a government crisis in Chad. It is unlikely that Khadafi, busily orchestrating his acceptance by the peace loving nations, would risk his rising prominence by cooking up death and destruction among his neighbours. If we dismiss the theory that the colonel is clinically insane it is more likely that Khadafi has simply lost control of his militiamen.
Enter the World
So why does the world bother with this curious conflict? Or, better put, why does the Western world bother with it? (The Arab world in general, probably too busy with internal issues as well as Iraq, has barely entered the scene) An explanation for this attention is hard to come by. It has been suggested by the International Crisis Group (ICG) that the US in particular has Rwanda and Somalia in mind. There, by doing nothing (in Rwanda) or doing too little, too late (in Somalia), the US lost face in the eyes of the world as well as the American public. The ICG suggests that the US is trying to stop further bloodshed, in order to prevent its image from being tarnished again. Elsewhere, it has been suggested that the US, together with the UK, are trying to show off their benevolence. Darfur is effectively and exclusively portrayed as a humanitarian crisis, never as a conflict connected to economic interests. Acting there may brush up an image of the US and the UK as champions of human rights. This sounds plausible, but this use of Darfur is rather limited. Internationally, the biggest problem for the US and the UK is that they are perceived by many to be anti-Islam. In the conflict of Darfur, both parties are Muslim, so those who view the Anglo-Saxons as anti-Islam, are unlikely to change their mind.
The US and European countries have been involved with Sudan over the North-South conflict. Whereas the US so far only has political involvements, European countries have entered Sudan on an economic footing. French and German companies have contracts running in the Sudan. France is in the oil and hydraulics business, whereas Germany is set to build a railway running from South Sudan to Mombassa, Kenya. Sudan’s oil reserves are expected to be very worthwhile, and American companies are aware of this. The US would like to jump the bandwagon, but is hampered by lobbies from the Christian right. The Christian right have been campaigning fiercely against the Sudanese government. The government is (at least in name) Islamic fundamentalist, whereas many of the Sudanese are Christian or Animist. This partly explains the war between the North and the South, and completely explains the antagonism of the Christian right against Khartoum. The peace deal between the North and the South is unsatisfying for the Christian right, because it leaves the Khartoum regime in place. Now that the war in Darfur has erupted, they see a second chance for pitting Washington against Khartoum. This may explain for some of Washington’s attention to the conflict and the harsh words against Khartoum. But even without the Christian right, the US stands to lose much if it allows the Darfur crisis to persist. First, it may disrupt the entire peace deal between North and South, and second, it will make it impossible to remove the economic restrictions to American oil companies eager to deal with Sudan.
Economic ties can also explain for the difference in the American and the European approaches. The US has no ties at present, and is thus free to use harsh language against Khartoum. The EU, on the other hand, has already invested in Sudan, which explains for its more careful handling of the Sudanese government.
[1] The term cultural genocide or ethnocide is often used to denote the cultural deprivation of an ethnic group. In other words, ethnocide occurs “when an ethnic group is no longer able to live and develop in its unique way"
[2] One confusing piece of information concerns the alleged role played by the Sudanese political dinosaur Hasan al-Turabi. He is the former leader of the National Islamic Front (NIF), the Islamist governing party. Contrary to what is often stated, he is not the man behind the recent uprising in Darfur. He has been out of grace with the government since the late nineties. His name comes up in this conflict merely because one of the Darfur rebel groups chose to give him moral support in the quarrel between him and the government.
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