Deep divisions threaten SudanIntervention could unleash unpredictable events

Harry Sterling, Winnipeg Free Press.

APPALLED by the mass killings and devastation inflicted on the people of Darfur in northwestern Sudan, many governments understandably have called for international intervention to prevent the systematic genocide of Darfur’s black population purportedly being carried out by pro-government Arab militia, the janjaweed.

There have been demands for sanctions against the government of President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum and the deployment of troops to protect the hundreds of thousands of refugees now jammed into rain-drenched tent cities where hundreds of children and adults die daily from starvation and disease.

But while the international community believes it has a moral and legal obligation under international law to intervene to prevent crimes against humanity or genocide, it’s imperative outside nations have a realistic understanding of the unpredictable events that could be unleashed following an intervention, especially after the bloodshed and anarchy engulfing Iraq.

Authorities

The fact Sudanese authorities have explicitly stated they would not accept the intervention of foreign troops and would retaliate, makes it all the more important there be a clear awareness of the volatile history of the Sudan and what this means for those choosing to become involved there.

No country understands this better than Britain. One of Britain’s proudest generals paid a ghastly price for underestimating the dangers posed to outsiders in the Sudan, Africa’s largest nation.

Two days before a relief column could save him in 1885, General Charles Gordon was killed by Islamic forces in Khartoum, his head then impaled on a pole for several days for all to see. The gruesome killing of General Gordon and his besieged garrison at Khartoum stunned the world’s then greatest power, strengthening its determination to defeat Sudan’s Islamic nationalists. It eventually did, resulting in British-Egyptian rule over Sudan until its 1956 independence.

But despite independence, the Sudan eventually plunged into violence once again, a long bloody civil war between the north’s dominant Arab Muslim majority and their ostensible countrymen in the nation’s southern region, peopled predominantly by non-Muslim Africans, mostly animists or Christians.

However, after 20 years of fighting, a tentative peace agreement was finally achieved in May, hopefully ending the conflict in the south that reportedly cost two million lives, leaving the south devastated.

But fighting had also broken out in Darfur last year when two black Muslim groups rebelled against the dominance of the Arab elite. That conflict escalated dramatically when the janjaweed — with prospects of occupying the blacks’ land — were given a free hand to put down the rebellion, resulting in entire villages razed to the ground, their inhabitants slaughtered and raped, countless tens of thousands fleeing for their lives.

The fighting of the past two decades is simply the latest stage in a conflict going back over 500 years, the struggle of non-Muslim Africans — and now even Muslim Africans — to free themselves from those who’ve oppressed and enslaved them since the 14th or 15th century

Black Sudanese are keenly aware Arab northerners traditionally viewed them as fit to be little more than servants or outright slaves. Hundreds of years before Europeans showed up in Africa, Sudanese Arab slave traders were systematically capturing Africans within what is now Sudan and neighbouring lands. Thousands were shipped throughout the Middle East. A key factor contributing to General Gordon’s own end was his attempt to stamp out the slave trade.

In contemporary times, slave raids, ghazzus, allegedly continued. In May of 1994, the Catholic bishop of southern Sudan, Macram Max Gassis, told a conference that southerners were being captured and sold for as little as $15 US.

Report

A special report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in the mid- 1990s documented the well-organized abduction of southern women and children, later sold as chattels in the north or shipped abroad.

Although the Arab-Islamic leadership in Khartoum was never prepared to have Sudan become a secular state, the recent peace agreement finally recognizes the right of southerners to be governed by non-Sharia legal codes. Another key agreement was a 50-50 split of oil revenues.

Sudan’s 33-million population, including those from Darfur, theoretically stand to benefit if burdensome military expenditures are re-directed into economic development programs. With a per capita annual income of only $340 US, the Sudan is one of the world’s poorest nations. Only about 40 per cent of males can read and write and fewer than 10 per cent of females.

Support

Although outside nations obviously support reconciliation between the two sides, the lessons learned from such flash-points as Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya, make it clear the heavy hand of history makes reconciliation extremely difficult. Even the presence of foreign peacekeepers to protect refugees and ensure humanitarian aid reaches them won’t resolve the differences dividing Sudanese.

Such deep divisions are not easily overcome in a unitary state where one group, the Arabs, traditionally dominated an African minority, especially not when the former enslaved the latter for centuries. The atrocities committed by the janjaweed, with the alleged complicity of the government, aren’t going to be forgotten by either the southerners or the populace of Darfur.

Whether the two communities can ever bridge the chasm separating them will determine the future course of Sudan.