Sudan needs a new order
Editorial, The Jordan Times
August 10, 2004 — The Darfur crisis has already taken a heavy toll on human lives and caused about a million people to flee the war-torn area to Chad, seeking sanctuary.
What fuelled the armed conflict is the simmering crisis between Arab and non-Arab peoples who have lived in the area rather peacefully for many decades. Although the two communities are Muslims, they are of different ethnic groups.
In 2003, the long-smouldering conflict between the two peoples erupted rather violently, with armed clashes between nomadic Arab tribes and two Darfur rebel groups. The so-called Janjaweed entered the fray and started their own campaign of military attacks against non-Arab Sudanese people.
It is presently estimated that no less than 50,000 non-Arab Sudanese lost their lives. No doubt, a big number of Arab Sudanese have also been killed during the fighting.
The Arab League has intervened in the wake of the intervention by the UN Security Council, in a bid to forestall any application of sanctions against Khartoum. The organisation has also called for the disarmament of the outlaw militias and went as far as calling for the trial of all those implicated in the commission of genocide and other grave human rights violations.
The Darfur conflict is not the first of its kind to have affected Sudan. There has been continuous conflict in the south of the country between Muslim and non-Muslim populations for many decades. Thousands of people on both sides lost their lives in the conflict in the south before it was contained and brought to a peaceful resolution in recent times.
Now, the conflict rages in the west of the country between Arab and non-Arab Sudanese. Unfortunately, because of its demographic composition, Sudan remains a victim of either ethnic or religious rivalries and conflicts. This means the country needs a new order, especially in its constitutional framework, to deal with all these lingering ethnic and religious dimensions of the Sudanese conflicts.
Anything short of that would leave the country prey to other cycles of conflicts.