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GENOCIDE IN THE LAND OF THE NILE

The Sudan is one of those places that briefly made the headlines in the 19th century when General Gordon and a small garrison faced the onslaught of the Whirling Dervish and The Mardi [the chosen one]. The battle at Khartoum marked the death of General Gordon who was known for his Christian beliefs and the small cane that he was never seen without. The Mardi was by today’s measure, the leader of a vast army intent upon driving the invader [The British whom they regarded as “Unbelievers”] from their land. General Gordon was beheaded and his head displayed upon a spike against the wishes of the Mardi because it fulfilled a prophecy that would result in the defeat of the Mardi and his army. Lord Kitchener later defeated the Mardi in a campaign lasting several months. The name Sudan is taken from the Arabic “Bilad as-sudan or “Land of the blacks” and the northern part of Sudan was once the home of Arab slave traders. Tucked away on the north east coast of Africa it is the largest country on the continent, it is a country that does not command the headlines of modern newspapers on a regular basis but recently it has become more prominent for two reasons.

The first is a “Ceasefire” negotiation that has been in progress for a long time in the southern Sudanese city of Juba. The southern border of The Sudan is shared with The Central African Republic, The Democratic republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia and a war has been raging across the area for nearly twenty years. The war has been prosecuted by “The Lords Resistance Army”[LRA] led by Joseph Kony against the Ugandan government and has in that time driven more than two million people from their homes in Uganda. Twenty thousand children have been kidnapped by the LRA and forced to fight in the war with a great many being taken into child prostitution and sex slavery to raise funds for the cause. The LRA have been active in southern Sudan, northern Kenya and Democratic Congo resulting in killing, looting and mass rapes. The LRA have also attacked UN humanitarian relief organisations on a regular basis.
The negotiations have been hampered by a predictable stumbling block, accountability. The UN who brokered the ceasefire talks maintain that five senior commanders of the LRA must answer charges of war crimes and arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court [ICC] but Kony denies any responsibility for the twenty year reign of terror of the LRA. The deadline for the conclusion of the negotiations was September 12th but that has now passed without a statement of intent. The Ugandan government has offered an amnesty to all of the LRA but initially excluded Kony from the amnesty.
They have now extended the same terms to Kony and the senior commander that was offered to the other ranks but the ICC is insisting that they face trial. Ugandans just want it to stop, at any price that will bring peace.
Until recently Sudan was thought to be the LRA’s chief sponsor because the LRA frequently mounted attacks against Sudan’s home grown rebel factions but successes elsewhere in Sudan against rebel forces has meant that the LRA has become a luxury that Sudan can no longer afford and now they favour the eradication of the LRA.

The second reason for Sudan’s prominence in the media is a growing humanitarian crisis in the west of Sudan where the Darfur region borders the Sahara. The north of Sudan is predominantly of Arab descent and Muslim whilst the south is of African descent and mainly Christian. The “Political power” lies with the Arab sector of the population who seem committed to the imposition of a totally Islamic state to the point of exclusion or eradication of any Christian and therefore “African” influence. The south of the country which is overwhelmingly “African” has been racked by war and conflict for many years by several “Militias” which included the LRA funded and given aid and succour by Khartoum as a means of displacing the inhabitants of the Christian south without soiling Arab hands in the process.

Darfur has been the scene of bitter fighting for more than three years leaving in excess of half a million dead and over two million driven from their homes. Many of the refugees now live in camps for displaced persons in either Chad or Sudan and 3.5 million people are now reliant upon international aid for their survival.
In early 2003 two rebel groups in the Darfur region began a campaign to compel the Sudanese government to address the underdevelopment and political marginalisation of the Darfur region. The reasons thought to be behind such deprivations were largely a problem of land, grazing rights and water.
The Darfur region is an agricultural area given to farmers but every year nomadic Arab tribes come to the area driven by the need to find grazing for their flocks and water. Successive droughts over the last decade has forced the Arab tribesmen south to the Darfur region earlier each year putting an intolerable pressure upon local resources, some time ago an agreement with the tribesmen was reached that was intended to ease the problem. The agreement restricted the tribesmen’s migration to the Darfur until after February 28th each year. The droughts are becoming more frequent and more severe and the agreement has become a memory and is persistently ignored by the tribesmen depriving the farmers of the Darfur of the precious resources of water and grazing.

The people of the Darfur are of three main ethnic groups The Fur; The Masalit and The Zaghawa and all three groups are now Muslim but they are black African Muslims and not Arab Muslims.

The two rebel groups in the area are drawn from the Fur; Masalit and Zaghawa and fall into two factions, The Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement [SLA/SLM] and the Justice and Equality Movement [JEM] both object to the marginalisation of the Darfur and the hidden support the Sudanese government is giving to nomadic Arab interests at their expense.
They have been fighting the Sudanese regular army since 2003 that are bound by certain “Rules of war” but the army is regularly assisted by mounted Arab tribesmen of a nomadic origin called the “Janjaweed” who are not. The Janjaweed often attack civilian populations of The Fur; The Masalit and the Zaghawa but the Sudanese government maintain that they have no control over the Janjaweed and claim that they are another “Rebel force” whom they intend to deal with.

However, the Sudanese army have never engaged the Janjaweed on the contrary they have assisted in their operations and where the Janjaweed initiate an action against the civilian population of the Darfur the attacks are preceded by a bombing/strafing run by Sudanese air force planes. The attacks are usually followed by Mass murder, rapes and tortures of their victims and where the Janjaweed have initiated an attack and are joined later by the Sudanese army they leave the scenes of their crimes together in the same trucks.
The Sudanese government maintain that they do not control Janjaweed.
There has been an “American interest” in The Sudan since 2001 when it was discovered that Usama bin Laden had set up a training camp in the country prior to the attacks upon the World Trade Center and that interest has recognised the problems of the Darfur region but so far has done little to stop the carnage of hundreds of villages being burnt down, the rapes, assaults and murders of their inhabitants on a scale that can only be described as wholesale genocide. The British government is well aware of the situation in its former colony but so far have done very little to stop it.

The African Union sent troops to the Darfur to protect the civilian population but they have been told to leave by the end of September and their under funding means that they will be forced to comply. The Sudanese government maintain that when the African Union troops leave the Sudanese army will replace them in the Darfur but international opinion hold that if past experience is evidence of intent the Genocide will not stop but shift up a gear and increase.

Antonio Guterres, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR]
on a tour of Chad and Sudan described what he saw as “The biggest and most complex humanitarian crisis on Earth”. In 2006, no more than 6 weeks ago Jan Egeland [UNHCR] assessed the crisis in Darfur as “ Going from real bad to catastrophic” The peace agreements have been ignored and the violence is increasing preventing the people returning to their land and stopping the relief agencies saving whatever life is left there.

The UN under international pressure are considering a “peace keeping” force but such a force will not guarantee the safety of civilians just as it did not in Bosnia nor in Rwanda where genocides took place whilst the UN forces were in place.

The Sudanese government continues to deny any involvement with the Janjaweed whist permitting their regular armed forces to participate in joint operations. The word “Jihad” is frequently used by the Janjaweed and the Sudanese government but the situation in Darfur tarnishes the ideals of Islam and the tears of Allah will surely wash the word from the memory of man if this continues.

It is by now indisputable that the intent of the Sudanese government is not benevolent toward its Darfur citizens, that this conflict has little to do with political expediency or a power struggle between rival forces nor is it a “Range war” over water rights or land though that was surely how it began.

The inescapable conclusion that must be drawn from the conflict is that this is a “Race War” and will not stop until the “Black African Sudanese” leaves the country that the Arab Sudanese call “The Land of Blacks”.[bilad as-sudan].

JP

Posted: September 20, 2006

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