US Aid Chief: Land, grazing rights complicate Darfur issues

UNITED NATIONS, June 28, 2005 (AP) — The conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region will not be settled until disputes over land ownership and animal grazing rights are resolved, the U.S. aid chief said.

Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development who has been visiting Sudan for many years, said Monday that the Darfur conflict is being fueled by an ideological clash as well as a fight over available land, which pits the rights of farmers against the right of nomads to move their animal herds around.

Darfur’s violence began in February 2003, after two newly emerged rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the allied Justice and Equality Movement, rose up against the Arab-dominated government in a fight for more power and resources.

The Sudanese government responded by unleashing Arab tribal militias against the region’s non-Arab African farmers. The Janjaweed, as the militias are known, are accused of targeting civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson.

“What’s happened now is the Africans have lost most of their land, and the (nomadic) herders have taken over whole villages,” Natsios said. “They’ve burned the villages down, and instead of being farming communities they are all animal herds, and many of the animals are looted from the Africans.”

“So you have to deal with the ownership of the animal herds -I would say several million head of animals have been looted from the Africans,” he told several reporters at a briefing.

Ownership of the land also has to be returned to the African tribes that lost it, Natsios said.

“Unless we deal with the land issue, and the grazing rights issue in Darfur, there isn’t going to be a resolution of the political stalemate,” he warned.

Natsios said he plans to make another trip to Sudan, with U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Zoellick, but he refused to disclose the dates.