Sudan & Darfur: Then, Now and ...

Summary: This post is as distilled a version of the conflict in Darfur as I can adequately produce without trimming critical detail. Genocide, despite vows of the developed world to act, continues today. Take copious notes and bare witness.

Darfur is an area in Western Sudan, the largest country in Africa and 10th largest in the world. Most of the Western world has had little reason to pay much attention to the hot, arid nation through the middle of which runs the grand Nile. My earliest exposure to the Sudan came in the early 90s when, during my avid basketball card collecting, I came across the massive center for the Philadelphia 76'ers, Manute Bol. At 7'7" and only 200 lbs, Bol was unlike any other human being I'd ever seen; a giant with skin so dark it seemed he was always in the shadows. Beyond Bol, Osama Bin Laden spent five years in the Sudan after his departure/expulsion from Saudi Arabia in 1991; under international sanctions, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden back to Saudi Arabia provided that the government pardon him; a condition the Saudis refused.

Sudan has a long and utterly fascinating history of influence and conflict. As with any place, history adds rich detail to the comprehension of current events, but I shall leave most of it for your own private study. One intriguing fact: in the North of Sudan, researchers found what is thought to be the world's oldest evidence of warfare dating back to the 12th millennium B.C.

Skipping 12,000 years of history, we fast-forward to the 7th century A.D. when the well-established split between northern and southern Sudan came to be and led to not one, but two vicious and bloody civil wars.

The source of the divide between North and South can be traced, in part, to religious influence. If asked what religion features prominently in Sudan, many would likely say Islam. Despite this being true, Islam didn't arrive in Sudan until around 651 A.D. when the governor of Egypt raided northern Sudan and, not finding much of value, continued towards the Red Sea; an area rich in gold and emeralds. Subsequent to the discovery of riches, an influx of Arab miners began as well as a transition of the economic structure to feudalism. Slavery became a critical aspect of the economy and a shameful piece of Sudanese culture. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the British, French, Belgians and Egyptians all laid claim to various areas of Sudan and led numerous missions to back up their claims.

Due to the size and ecological hostility of Sudan, most of the activity of foreigners occurred in the North leaving the semi-nomadic tribes in the South relatively uninfluenced. This aspect becomes critically important after 1898 when the British, through concessions from the Belgians and French, essentially ruled the entire of the Sudan (though their influence was limited in the South).

In 1943, the British began preparing the North for self-rule by dividing the area into six provinces. Three years later in 1946, the British reversed this decision and announced that the North and South would be ruled under one government situated in Khartoum in the northern part of the country. On top of the vast geographic separation from Khartoum and while most of the bureaucrats and politicians from the South had been trained in English, the new government's official language was to be Arabic. Of the 800 governmental positions vacated by the British in 1953, 4 were given to southerners. This neglect and unfair treatment of the South brought about the first civil war.

Though there is much information about the first civil war, which began in 1955 and continued for 17 years, I shall not cover it here. While it undoubtedly influenced the climate and saw the first calls for southern secession, it is the 2nd civil war that offers more insight into the Sudan of today.

In 1989, and with the backing of the same Islamic fundamentalist party (NIF) who had protected Bin Laden during his time in the Sudan, a coup brought to power a military junta that, unlike previous coalition governments, was wholly unwilling to compromise with the South. The leader of the coup was then Colonel Omar Hassan Al-Bashir who immediately made himself not only a General, but President, Chief of State, Prime Minister and Chief of the Armed Forces. In 1991, Bashir's government introduced a new penal code based on Shar'ia law which included amputations and stonings as punishment. This, however, is only the beginning of the horrors seen in the 1990s.

On the pretext of fighting the southern rebels, the National Islamic government of the Sudan deployed its regular armed forces as well as its militia to attack and raid villages in the South and the Nuba Mountains and take cattle and slaves. Food and supply shipments were systematically shut off by the North. Along with an estimated 2M civilians killed since 1983, over 200,000 southern women and children are thought to have been taken as slaves. The strife and following lack of investment in the South has led to what human rights organizations call a "lost generation" which lacks educational opportunities, access to basic health care services, and has few prospects for productive employment. In 2002, the U.S. accused Sudan of genocide for acts committed during the civil war.

In 2003, as international aid poured in, a second conflict was beginning; one which would grip the world's attention and bring about more mass killings of civilians in Sudan. Much like in Rwanda in 1994 where over 800,000 people were killed and with an estimated 400,000 more Sudanese dead, governments and various groups argued back and forth over whether a genocide was occurring. World leaders chastised the Sudanese government and evoked ineffective sanctions while the world asked, pleaded and demonstrated en masse for immediate action. To this day, it has not come. The following is the story of Darfur.

Situated in Western Sudan, Darfur covers an area comparable to the State of Texas. From the 14th century, Darfur saw foreign invasions similar to those seen in northern Sudan including a Turko-Egyptian invasion which was quashed by Muhammad Ahmad's Islamic Mahdist rule. In 1898, a British Field Commander worth checking out named Herbert Kitchener ended Mahdist rule and brought about an Anglo-Egyptian co-dominium which would rule all of Sudan until 1955 when Sudan was granted independence (see above). In the face of disproportionate development and support of the Nile Valley, disenfranchised Darfuris were preyed upon by various political groups and factionalism took root.

After independence, three major groups inhabited Darfur: camel herders in the North, Arab cattle herders known as the Baggara in the East and South, and sedentery farmers known as the Fur in the central region (Darfur means "land of the Fur"). Beyond their lifestyles, the Baggara and Fur are markedly similar. Both have similar physical features and both practice Islam. In the late 1960s, periods of severe drought forced the camel herders and Baggara into the more fertile central region of the Fur. As competition for access to water and pasture intensified, small-scale raids turned into persistent battles among the different groups. Numerous attempts to create a peace failed.

Early in 2003, two local rebel groups known as the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM or SLA) accused Khartoum of oppressing non-Arabs. While the actual date of the beginning of the conflict varies by source (some as early as 2001), a commonly observed early major event was the raid on Al-Fashir in the southern part of Sudan. In the early morning hours of April 25th, 2003, a joint JEM-SLA force raided a government garrison and destroyed a number (4 or 7 depending on source) of bombers and gunships as well killing 75 soldiers, pilots and technicians and capturing another 32 including a Major General. The raid was a massive victory and unlike anything accomplished by another foe of Khartoum, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the 17-year civil war in the South. Khartoum had been completed surprised by the attack and was embarrassed.

During the middle months of 2003, the rebel groups used hit-and-run techniques to continue to strike at government installations winning 34 of 38 engagements. In the face of these numerous defeats, which added to the embarrassment and threatened control of Sudan, Khartoum altered its strategy from direct confrontation with the rebels to systematic attacks on the civilian populations from which the rebels came. The new approach added the use of the air force and a group of armed Baggara herders known as the Janjaweed (roughly translated, it means "devil on horseback") against non-Arab civilians. Note: Various other groups also inhabit Darfur and have been targeted by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias.

Equipped by Khartoum with communication equipment and some artillery and with no rules of engagement, around 20,000 Janjaweed quickly and viciously lashed back at non-Arab villages while ignoring Arab villages. By the spring of 2004, thousands had been killed and over 1M Darfuris had been driven from their homes; their wells poisoned, crops uprooted, fruit trees cut down and their villages burned to the ground. Upwards of 100,000 Darfuris fled across the eastern border of neighboring Chad chased by members of the Janjaweed who clashed with Chadian forces at the border. Beyond more traditional means of violence, the Janjaweed have used rape as a weapon. Culturally in the region, raped women are considered unclean, and are ostracized. Women are even raped in open, public places to increase humiliation for them and their families.

The fleeing Darfuris have congregated in over 100 camps in both Darfur and Chad. These overcrowded camps for displaced persons are now home to more than two million people. They face serious shortages of sanitary facilities, medical supplies and, at times, even food and water. The threat of waterborne disease including cholera and dysentery adds an additional horrible element to an already hugely challenging life in these camps.

And so it has continued, amidst negotiations and sanctions, two-faced politics and private interests for three long years. The African Union has 7,000 poorly equipped and underfunded troops in the region; most accounts detail that they can do little but record atrocities and have little capacity to effect much, if any, protection for civilians. In late 2005, the A.U. said they had plans to increase the size of the force to 12,000 by spring 2006; the force remains at 7,000 poorly equipped and underfunded troops whose leaders are saying they cannot fund them much longer.

Just today, the government of Sudan has agreed to a much larger U.N. peacekeeping force to be deployed to Darfur. Al-Bashir had previously categorically ruled out such a force and his agreement to this latest U.N./A.U. force is contingent on all troops being from Africa. U.N. officials say this will make fielding the force difficult, but beyond the difficulty Al-Bashir and the NIF have a long history of reneging on agreements; this force may be actively delayed until hundreds of thousands more are dead.

Today, Omar Al-Bashir is still the President of the Sudan and despite being head of state during two separate mass killings which have left over half a million Sudanese dead, is still being engaged in diplomatic conversations as well as receiving political and military support from countries including China and Russia. The U.N. has passed 16 resolutions on the Sudan. The New York Times reported that 'a confidential United Nations report says the government of Sudan is flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions and painting Sudanese military planes white to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft.

Quite simply, the A.U. is ill-equipped, under-funded and sadly incapable of ending the killing. The structure of the U.N. security council (as well as its historical pattern of failing to protect civilians from genocide) means that China can use its veto power to squash "overly-aggressive" resolutions. President Bush, in the face of all the evidence, on April 18th of this year threatened only sanctions. European leaders have also failed to bring an end to the violence.

What is absolutely, inarguably, completely and shamefully clear is that our leaders have the ability to stop the killing in Darfur.

They are simply choosing not to.

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Image courtesy of America Abroad Media. Various sources including Wikipedia, BBC, SaveDarfur.org, Africana by Robert Fay and a very good article by Dr. Eric Reeves. His site is a fantastic resource for research and commentary on U.S. and international responses to the crisis.