No meeting of minds on Darfur
By David White
AL-FASHIR, western Sudan, June 09, 2004 (Financial Times) — If you are looking for information about the emergency facing more than 1m people in western Sudan, the local authorities are not necessarily the best place to go.
That is what Hilary Benn, Britain’s international development secretary, found when he set off on a 24 hour-trip into Darfur, the vast, neglected region where a year of vicious war has made about a fifth of the population homeless.
In South Darfur, one of the three states that make up the region, the local authority comes in a lieutenant-general’s green uniform with four rows of ribbons on the chest and a beaming smile that grows rapidly more forced as the visit progresses.
This is Adam Hamid Musa, the appointed state governor, and he brings with him a full team of state ministers to back up his version of events.
South Darfur, he tells the visitors, was one of the richest, safest and most secure places in Sudan until January, when groups of rebels started attacking police stations and other targets. Pushing his beret back to scratch his forehead, he describes how refugees have come in from West and North Darfur, swelling the number accommodated in his state?s 14 camps to 180,000.
But, he is asked, is this not the result of attacks by government-allied Arab militias rather than the rebels? At the camps Mr Benn is to visit near the South Darfur capital, Nyala, and at Al-Fashir in North Darfur (where Mr Benn’s official contacts are rather more satisfactory), the testimony is all about attacks by the mounted ‘janjaweed’ militias, government forces, or both.
The governor grimaces, places one side of his face in his hand, and insists that here will be no security “unless we stop the rebel activity”.
One of his officials helpfully intercedes to explain that this remark should be taken as extending to “any outlaws”, including the janjaweed. The governor yields to this, but says the janjaweed are just young people organising themselves to defend property.
According to official records, 85 villages in the state have been destroyed. And who is supplying weapons to the janjaweed? Mr Benn asks bluntly. There is a ripple of laughter from the other side of the table. That question again. How naive these people are! Arms, the governor patiently explains, are available all over the place. The neighbouring territories of Chad, the Central African Republic and southern Sudan have all had wars. “Right now in Nyala, you can go and buy arms. Illegally, of course.”
Since the atmosphere of the conversation does not seem to be brightening, the UK team proposes calling it a day and going on to visit a nearby camp. At this point matters get
worse. The governor wants Mr Benn to go first to another camp, where an attack by rebels was reported a few weeks ago. The visitors should see both sides, he insists.
The British ambassador, William Patey, puts his foot down. He has already heard a lot about this camp. What he does not spell out is that outside observers found the evidence about this attack just too well-staged. No, the minister will go straight to the other camp.
The altercation spoils the feast that has been laid on for the guests, who rush through the array of delicacies in a few minutes without stopping for tea. For the hosts, it obviously seems that the visitors are not only following a biased policy, but are rude as well.
Until now, Britain – alongside the US – was open to criticism for its ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Sudan as the country moved towards a settlement in its other, larger and longer war in the south and as the crisis in Darfur got worse. But there is little sign of that now.
Afterwards, Mr Benn searches carefully for the most diplomatic phrase to describe his hosts. “I think they were astonishingly complacent,” he says.