Good and bad news
Sudan's forthcoming peace agreement in the South might be overshadowed by growing strife in the West, Eva Dadrian reports from Darfur
Sudan's 20-year-long civil war between the northern government and southern rebels seems to be drawing to a close, but a new conflict is raging in Darfur, Western Sudan. The fighting, primarily along ethnic lines, could undermine any peace deal that is between only the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the South.
Already, more than 600,000 people have fled from their destroyed villages and have taken refuge in other towns in makeshift camps under trees with almost no food, water or shelter. Militias and government planes conduct regular attacks, while aid workers have been banned from the camps on security grounds.
In Sudan's Other Wars, a report published last June by the International Crisis Group (ICG), David Mozersky warns that any agreement under IGAD that deals "exclusively with the issues of the South is liable to fall apart during implementation, as the marginalised areas of Sudan pose a serious problem for peacemaking and the demands of these communities must be adequately addressed by the IGAD process."
The Sudanese government may now be content to negotiate with the SPLA/M, but crushing the rebellion in Darfur has become the top priority for General Omar Al-Bashir's government. Since last February, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) a local group supported by most tribal communities in the province is increasing its pressure on Khartoum. It has called for an "understanding" with other opposition forces fighting the government and has allied this week with the Beja Congress, the main armed opposition group in Eastern Sudan.
Darfur province is a war zone, with tremendous suffering inflicted by militias supported by elements within the government. Their brutal raids on the indigenous inhabitants have contributed to desperate conditions. The situation on the ground has been steadily deteriorating since last February, when the newly-formed Darfur Liberation Front -- which later changed its name to the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) -- took up arms, claiming the Khartoum government had "introduced policies of marginalisation, racial discrimination and exploitation that had disrupted the peaceful coexistence between the region's African sedentary and Arab nomad communities".
This is a war for survival, whereby the two communities compete for land and water resources. But the nomads have aligned themselves with armed militia groups, known as janjaweed, who are driving the farmers from their land, pushing them towards urban centres and/or to the arid, desolate parts of the region. Today, as part of its response to bring the region under its control, Khartoum appears to have given free reign to the nomadic militias. These armed groups roam the region, terrorising the local population, which is accused of sympathising with the SLM/A.
In an unprecedented move, Osman Youssef Kibir, the governor of North Darfur, last August confirmed that civilians in his province were executed by militiamen acting in the name of the government, although he denied that the government bore any responsibility for their acts.
Pastoralism and farming have historically been and remain the most viable economic sectors. But now, with grain supplies and cattle looted, agricultural land devastated, homes burnt and mills destroyed, there is no hope for an easy reconstruction. Land has long been at the heart of the conflict between the black Africans and the Arabs in and around Darfur. Inter-tribal fighting over pasture and water resources has been part of normal life among nomadic tribes in Darfur for generations.
During British colonial rule, the conflicts were solved through the local tribal administration. The agreement reached was for pastoralists to move into the grazing areas with their cattle, sheep and camels only after farmers had harvested their fields. But at independence, the local tribal administration was dismantled, never to be replaced. During the 1986-89 premiership of Sadiq Al-Mahdi, now the leader of the Umma Party, the problem resurfaced when the Baggara, the nomadic tribes of the region, were given weapons to "defend" themselves.
This was exacerbated by an inflow of arms from unstable neighbouring countries, ie Chad and the Central African Republic. The easy availability of weapons in those countries, is enabling tribal groups, militias, dissident and rebel groups, as well as ordinary civilians to gain access to small arms. However, in this particular instance, local politicians as well as the central government in Khartoum have fuelled the rivalry between farming settlers and semi-nomadic communities.
The government has come under serious criticism from humanitarian and human rights organisations about attacks on civilian targets and the deteriorating security situation in Darfur.
Fighting around the town of Kutum in August, caused over 10,000 people to flee their homes and seek refuge in Al-Fasher, the regional capital some 90 kilometres away. Their arrival in the town was confirmed by the government Humanitarian Relief Agency. However the agency did not mention that the military governor of Al-Fasher turned the refugees away, fearing that their presence would provoke unrest against the authorities.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) more than 90,000 Sudanese have crossed the border into Chad where the agency have just set up camps. The figures published by the UN speak for themselves. In North Darfur, 20 per cent of villages have been burned and looted. This has forced some 150,000 people to flee towards the towns of Korma and Kebkabiya, where over 58 per cent of children under five were recently found to be malnourished. The UN agency has appealed for $16 million for the project while the World Food Programme has called for $11 million for emergency relief.
Negotiations in neighbouring Chad seeking to end the conflict in Darfur have collapsed, local authorities have imposed a curfew in Al-Fasher, Nyala and Geneina. The borders are officially closed and no one is allowed into the region. Furthermore, Amnesty International (AI) in London has received reports that scores of people suspected of supporting the armed opposition are being arrested by the military or the national security forces in Khartoum, Nyala, Geneina and other towns in Darfur and are being held without charges at detention centres in Darfur. Reports have also reached AI that some have been held in the infamous Kober prison in Khartoum. The international human rights organisation fears that they may be at risk of torture or ill treatment, as they are being held incommunicado.
Sudan may be an up-and-coming oil producer at the rate of 330,000 barrels per day, but the oil bonanza is still relatively small and had only begun in 1999. The country remains underdeveloped with very poor health services, education and communications infrastructure. Neglected by successive governments, Darfur, in the far western corner of the country, is by far one of the most underdeveloped regions. There are the urban centres of Al-Fasher, Nyala and Geneina, but the large majority of the people live in villages or hamlets where neither health services nor formal education are available.
Much of the tension in Darfur results from the same issues that led Southern Sudan to take up arms back in 1983 -- a central government that exploits local resources, imposes its cultural beliefs on diverse populations and consistently plays off local tribes and ethnic groups against each other for short- term tactical gain. The SLA complains that the government in Khartoum, like all its predecessors, is dominated by the northern Arab elite and has ignored their needs. They argue that Darfur too should be offered a slice of a power-sharing deal. But government officials have made it clear that the peace deal for the South cannot be applied to the West.
The tragedy of Darfur could have a powerful impact on the rest of Sudan as well. In the Naivasha talks, with 95 per cent of the disputed issues related to the Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile areas resolved, there are concerns that these regions, feeling abandoned by the SPLA, could ally with the rebel movement in Darfur.
The White House, eager to finalise the Naivasha talks between the Sudanese government and the SPLA in this election year, has finally turned its attention to the conflict in Darfur. A team of officials was dispatched to assess the situation on the border. According to Washington, the team has been looking into the possibility of sending aid to rebel-held areas in Darfur, even if it meant going against Khartoum's wishes.
"Just as this peace process (Naivasha) is coming to fruition, you have this burgeoning crisis in Darfur," said Roger P Winter, an assistant administrator for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) who was part of the delegation. "It calls into question the sincerity of the government. They can't be good guys in the south and do what they're doing in Darfur."
