Situation in Sudan’s Darfur is “worse than Rwanda”: rebel SLA leader

By Katharine Houreld

LONDON, Oct 14, 2004 (The Washington Times) — Minni Minawi does not look like a warlord. The former primary school teacher is a slender, soft-spoken Sudanese, in a grey pinstripe suit that would blend in at any Georgetown dinner party. One of his aides wears socks bearing the logo of an English soccer team.

Members of Sudan Liberation Army ride on a truck at Ashma village 30 km (19 miles) from Nyala, south Darfur, October 6, 2004

Yet the 34-year-old Mr. Minawi is the military leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), one of two rebel factions locked in a ferocious battle with the government in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. Clashes between the largely black African Darfur rebels and government-backed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed also threaten to derail U.S.-backed peace negotiations between Khartoum and the oil-rich south, which has been racked by a separate civil war for 21 years.

Mr. Minawi was in London this week for talks with the British officials aimed at ending a conflict that the United Nations estimates has killed 50,000 people and that the Bush administration has officially designated a “genocide.”

Darfur “is worse than Rwanda,” said Mr. Minawi, referring to the notorious 1994 ethnic killing spree in the Central African country.

“This is not only killing, but starving, displacing, disease and poverty. The militias are targeting our water sources,” added Mr. Minawi, whose own father is in a refugee camp on the border between Sudan and Chad.

The youngest of 10 children, Mr. Minawi has not seen his family since the conflict began. “After I became involved with the [Sudan Liberation Army], the police arrested my father and brother and tortured them. They were civilians. They knew nothing. So it is better for me not to see my family.”

Mr. Minawi’s London trip was aimed at getting British government officials to classify the violence in Darfur as genocide, which would legally oblige them to take steps to prevent it. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in August officially designated the situation as genocide, and the Sudanese conflict was brought up in the first U.S. presidential debate late last month.

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry said he agreed with the Bush administration’s decision to label Darfur a genocide, but said he would be ready to give additional financial, logistical support to a small group of African Union (AU) monitors who have been sent to the region.

The Massachusetts senator said Mr. Bush’s military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan had left U.S. forces overtaxed and unable to respond to crises such as Darfur.

Mr. Bush also seemed to rule out sending U.S. troops to Darfur, although the Sudanese government said Sunday it could accept up to 4,000 cease-fire monitors.

Currently, a contingent of 350 monitors, six of them American, are patrolling an area the size of Texas. The Sudanese government has fiercely resisted transforming the mission of the AU force from monitoring to peacekeeping.

The U.S. genocide designation “is a clever move politically,” said Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs. “It signals to the U.N. that America cares about Sudan without committing them to any action. It courts the African-American vote, and it grabs headlines during the election campaign.”

Despite the stakes involved, Mr. Minawi has tried to make his aims sound as moderate as his suit.

“I am 100 percent Sudanese. To fight for the independence of Darfur is not logical,” he said, his aides nodding in silent agreement.

“We want an end to setting civilian areas on fire and the discrimination by the central government. We want a fairer distribution of the oil revenues. We do not hate the Arab tribes. Some of them are even fighting alongside us.”

The Sudan Liberation Army was formed in May 2001, when Mr. Minawi and two friends sent a letter to the government protesting human rights abuses in Darfur. When the government tried to arrest the signatories, they resisted.

“At our first fight, in August 2001, we had 18 fighters and 10 guns against the police,” recalled Mr. Minawi. “Now we have about 30,000 men.”

Their arms come from neighboring Chad and from captured government soldiers. Mr. Minawi said the SLA has captured tanks and anti-aircraft guns that they have mounted on pickup trucks.

The fight has not been easy.

One of Mr. Minawi’s childhood friends, Abdullah Bakir, was wounded by a helicopter gunship while leading an attack last January. “I got to him before he died. He was a very good person, a brave man,” said Mr. Minawi simply. “His first child was born two months later.”

The rebel leader expressed confidence that the international community will be forced to intervene in Darfur. When asked what the SLA would do if no assistance arrives, he only repeated, “This is genocide, and the international community must help.”

One possibility for the Darfur insurgents is an alliance with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) under rebel leader John Garang in the country’s south. Although Mr. Minawi denied that his fighters had any formal links with the SPLA, a joint offensive would stretch the government’s resources and strengthen the bargaining power of both groups.

“Some people who fought in the south fight with us, and some of our people fought in the south,” Mr. Minawi acknowledged.
Both of the anti-government groups are in the umbrella National Democratic Alliance. The second major Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, does not belong to the alliance.

An alliance with the southerners would increase the SLA’s ability to strike oil installations, Khartoum’s economic lifeline

“Oil is a war material for the government, and whatever we attack is government property. The oil does not benefit the Sudanese people,” said Mr. Minawi.

Although American and British firms are banned from investing in Sudan, the African nation produces 345,000 barrels of oil per day, a figure projected to rise to 500,000 barrels by the end of 2005. One of Sudan’s main customers is China, whose appetite for oil is a key factor in driving up world prices.

“Sudan produces sweet, light crude, which is the most sought-after type of oil,” said Washington-based analyst Roger Diwan. “Because the industry is operating without much spare capacity, even a small disruption is enough to spook the market and drive oil prices higher.”