Militia chief scorns slaughter charge
Janjaweed leader hits back at accusation of ethnic cleansing in western Sudan
By Jeevan Vasagar, The Guardian
KHARTOUM, July 16, 2004 — Janjaweed is not a name. It is a curse. To the militia’s victims the Arabic word has come to mean devil on horseback, but the chief “devil” accused of bringing devastation to Sudan sits not on horseback but in a plush armchair in his family residence in Khartoum.
Dressed in a crisp white robe and prayer cap, Musa Hilal patted his nephew’s head and offered sweet pastries.
“The rebels stayed near civilians and war has its consequences, bullets fly,” Mr Hilal, 43, said in his first interview with a British newspaper.
He is alleged to be the most senior field commander of the Janjaweed, the Arab militia whose campaign of murder and rape has driven more than a million black African villagers from their homes in the western region of Darfur.
Witnesses have identified him as the coordinator of attacks in which civilians have been massacred and raped in front of their families, and their villages burned.
Little is known about the horse and camel-borne militias responsible for what the UN has described as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”. Until now, their leadership has remained secretive.
Mr Hilal, who heads the US state department’s list of suspected war criminals in Darfur, is a tall man with an athletic physique, a neatly trimmed moustache and a piercing stare. He is the chieftain of a camel-herding Arab clan in north Darfur with three wives and 13 children.
Despite intense international pressure on Sudan to rein in the Janjaweed, he told the Guardian his fighters would not be disarmed until the rebellion in Darfur was over.
“As far as we as a tribe are concerned, whenever we feel the situation is completely secure and the ceasefire is being respected, we will hand in our weapons.
“Whenever the government is undertaking to gather arms from all the factions and the tribes, we will hand ours in. The reality is that this is a country where everyone has weapons.”
Mr Hilal, who spoke in classical Arabic, scorned the epithet Janjaweed.
“The people who were armed from among our people, through habit they were on camelback and horseback,” he said.
“The rebels spread the word Janjaweed as if it were an organisation. As a political group there is no specific concept called Janjaweed … It means nothing, but has been used to mean everything.”
He said that, at the prompting of the government, he raised a militia from his clan to fight the rebellion which broke out in Darfur last year. “The government was putting forward a programme of arming for all the people. I called our sons and told them to become armed.
“Our sons acquiesced and joined the Border Intelligence [a paramilitary force]. Some went into the Popular Defence Force [another militia].”
Mr Hilal said he was a political leader and not a fighter: “As a sheikh, I would never become a soldier, but I will not deny I called my tribe to arms.”
The Guardian has established from witnesses in the town of Tawilah in north Darfur, which was attacked in February, that Mr Hilal has commanded Janjaweed forces in the field.
Saddiq Ismail, 45, a retired teacher in the town, said Mr Hilal had arrived by helicopter, accompanied on the ground by five Landcruisers and gunmen on horses and camels. “Musa Hilal was dressed in military uniform. He was directing his men. He is the leader and gave all the orders,” Mr Ismail said. UN officials who arrived a few days later established that at least 67 civilians had been executed. Sixteen girls had been abducted and a number of women had been publicly raped.
But Mr Hilal said his clan had suffered from “acts of banditry”, from a neighbouring African tribe, the Zaghawa, who stole their camels and murdered young men. He said the rebellion in Darfur was “narrow and tribal and ethnic”.
“The Zaghawa started to go to the Fur and other African tribes to join together against the other Arab tribes and incited hatred against the Arab tribes,” he said. “They formed a collective of the tribes of the blacks, the Zurgha, against the Arabs.”
Human rights groups and the UN confirm there was tit-for-tat violence in the run-up to the outbreak of the rebellion and the two rebel movements drew mainly on Darfur’s African groups.
But the rebels have primarily targeted the military and police, while the government and their Janjaweed allies have tried to drive out an ethnic group. Mr Hilal denied ethnic cleansing: “These claims of ethnic cleansing are not true. No one can wipe out an ethnicity.”
But the Guardian has spoken to a deserter from a training camp run by Mr Hilal, who said the Janjaweed commander whipped up racial hatred among his fighters. When the recruits first arrived in the camp, at Mistriyah in north Darfur, Mr Hilal made a speech in which he told them that all Africans were their enemies.
“Musa Hilal said: ‘Zurgha [blacks] always support the rebels. We should defeat the rebels,'” said the deserter, Mustafa Yusuf, 18. Mr Yusuf also witnessed Mr Hilal leading troops into battle. “Musa Hilal led the troops. He was in the Landcruisers, and there were people on horses,” he said.
His account, which has also been given to UN officials, confirmed the Janjaweed received government backing.
In addition to Mr Hilal, he identified an army officer, Abdel Wahid, as a leader in the camp. Mr Wahid is believed to have helped the Janjaweed obtain weapons. Most of the men in the camp rode on horses and camels, but there were also eight Landcruisers mounted with machine guns; evidence the Janjaweed had substantial government support.
Refugee witnesses have also told human rights groups that the Janjaweed attacks were backed up by bombing from helicopter gunships.
Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, who has called for the Janjaweed to be disbanded, has also put pressure on the Sudanese government to arrest Mr Hilal and six other tribal chieftains suspected of war crimes. But there is scepticism that the regime will act against its agents.
Frank Smith, Sudan campaigner for Amnesty International, said: “The government … have put nothing in place. They are conducting no official investigation and there are no moves to arrest any of the Janjaweed leaders.”
In Darfur, the war goes on. The Janjaweed surround and terrorise the refugee camps, where more than a million refugees are in tent cities where they face hunger and epidemics. Meanwhile, the rebel movements have survived and hold on to territory despite the devastation of their communities.
In Khartoum Mr Hilal showed no fear of being arrested. There were no bodyguards and no security checks at the gates of the walled compound.
When the interview concluded, he was relaxed enough to joke about the Janjaweed with the Guardian’s photographer.
Ushering her out of the path of a reversing car, he said: “If you don’t get out of the way, the Americans will say the Janjaweed killed you.”
? The names of some interviewees have been changed.