Darfour is also a cause

By Hazem Saghieh, Al-Hayat

LONDON, April 27, 2004 — The United Nations Commission for Human Rights has asked of the Khartoum government to obliterate the Janjawid militias in Darfour. It did not accuse the government of direct involvement; as did Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Doctors Without Borders, amongst others. It did not do that because of Arab pressures.

The Arabs should not have exerted pressure. What Darfour is witnessing is a major crime, in every sense of the word. While we await the outcome of the next round of negotiations in Chad, these are some of the issues at hand: the fronts that are fighting against the Arab Janjawid militias, supported by Khartoum, do not demand the separation of the three western provinces. They ask for a fairer distribution of resources and investments and a bigger role in the political decision-making. Yet, the confrontations, which are more like invasions, have so far killed 10 to 30,000, the rape of hundreds of women, the kidnapping of hundreds of women and children and the torching of 300 villages, in addition to the displacement of one million, one tenth of whom have settled in Chad. The UN has spoken about the suffering of those refugees and considered it the “worst human crisis in the world.” Their camps lack potable water and acceptable sanitary conditions, which raises fears that it might cause the outbreak of epidemics such as Cholera. Furthermore, 120 children are dying, of each thousand born, should we call them martyrs?

The world was awaiting a peace agreement in the south when suddenly the government and its militias struck in the west, taking advantage of what it considered a suitable situation. The displaced have described how the attacks start with air strikes, prior to the emergence of the Arab militias, on their camels and horses, aiming to kill, rape, and steal. The UN commission responsible for distributing humanitarian aid has accused Khartoum of conspiring with the militias’ ethnic cleansing.

This massacre, which exploded on the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda massacres, has its origins. Darfour, whose inhabitants number 3.5 million, and is suffering from drought and desertification as well as governmental negligence, is not an example of Arab tolerance of non-Arabs, even if they were Muslims. It remained an independent Sultanate until the Anglo-Egyptian forces joined it to Sudan in 1917. As in Iraq, the central government supported by the colonial power ignored periphery minorities. This was reflected not just on the distribution of investments but also on educational curricula which “taught” Darfourians to despise their traditions and qualities deeming them “primitive” as well as “teaching” the southerners to despise their religions.

Although educated Darforians joined the opposition parties in Khartoum, yet religious and nationalist fundamentalism expelled them from those and brought them back to their strict Darfourian identity. Darfourians, being the most stable farmers in the central province, have held on to their identity in face of the tribes that were supported by Khartoum and other forces. During the struggle between Libya and Chad, Gadhafi, when he was still an Arab nationalist, was keen to create an Arab “passageway” to central Africa through Darfour, while Hussein Hibri was arming the Darforians. When the drought of the 1980s came about, and the subsequent struggle for water and farmland, an alliance of 27 Arab tribes was formed against Darforians, declaring war against them. In response to Jaafar Numairi’s encouragement, who was in alliance with the Islamists, Darfour created its own militia and established a link with the “Popular Liberation Army” in the south. The result of these confrontations was the killing of 5,000 Darforians and 400 Arabs and the displacement of tens of thousands in addition to the destruction of 40,000 homes.

Completing and escalating an old legacy, the system of “rescue” drafted and armed the Janjawid. Had it not been for international organizations and the European and Kofi Annan’s talk of a possible military intervention, we would not have even heard of them. We Arabs belittle its importance and claim that it is the “fabrication of Western media” thinking that we are bolstering our position in Palestine and Iraq with silence on this intensifying massacre in Sudan, or thinking that perhaps “causes” must not bear that name if the enemy in it is the self? the egocentric and malevolent self.