[allAfrica.com] [celtel.com] Racism And Nature: Roots of Darfur Crisis New Vision (Kampala) ANALYSIS August 2, 2004 Posted to the web August 2, 2004 By Alex De Waal Kampala In addition to the 1.2 million displaced people in refugee camps in Sudan and Chad, hundreds of thousands are struggling to survive in their homes in the vast areas held by rebel movements fighting against the Government. They are far from any TV cameras, comfort of aid agencies and surviving as their parents and grandparents did, through hardiness and skill. Where a foreigner sees a wasteland of sand and mountain, a rural woman sees landscape replete with wild grasses, berries and roots. The most ubiquitous of these is a berry known as mukheit, which grows on a small bush. It looks like a big pale pea, is toxic and must be soaked in water for three days to be edible. Even then, it tastes sour, but is nutritious, and in season now. During the drought-famine of 1984-85, perhaps two million people survived on mukheit, often for months. It was a bigger factor in survival than food aid. It was common to see women foraging on the remotest hills, children strapped to their backs, gathering this unappetising, but life-preserving crop. Then there's difra, a wild grass that grows across the desert-edge plateaux. It can be harvested in August, and up to 80 more species known to every grandmother. Mukheit keeps adults alive, but isn't enough for children. During the 1980s famine, infectious diseases and lack of weaning foods killed about 75,000 children. As the world becomes aware of this invisible disaster, aid agencies will demand access across the front lines and will need an international protection force. The Darfur war erupted early last year, when armed movements, Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), began a rebellion against the Government for being neglected. In response, government mobilised, armed and directed a militia, Janjaweed ('rabble' or 'outlaws' in local dialect), using scorched earth, massacre and starvation as cheap counter-insurgency weapons. The UN has described Darfur as 'the world's worst humanitarian crisis'. On 23 July, the US Congress described it as 'genocide'. The British government is considering sending in 5,000 troops. Characterising the Darfur war as 'Arabs' versus 'Africans' obscures a complicated reality. Darfur's Arabs are black, indigenous, African and Muslim, just like Darfur's non-Arabs, hailing from the Fur, Masalit, Zaghawa and many smaller tribes. Until recently, Darfurians used the term 'Arab' in its ancient sense of 'bedouin'. Arabic-speaking nomads are distinct from the inheritors of the Arab culture of the Nile. 'Arabism' in Darfur is a political ideology, recently imported, after colonel Gadaffi nurtured dreams of an 'Arab belt' across Africa, and recruited Chadian Arabs, Darfurians and west African Tuaregs to spearhead his invasion of Chad in the 1980s. He failed, but the legacy of arms, militia organisation and Arab supremacist ideology lives on. Many Janjaweed hail from the Chadian Arab groups mobilised during those days. Most of Darfur's Arabs remain uninvolved in the conflict, but racist ideology appeals to many, who are poor and frustrated. Since 1987, there have been recurrent clashes between the Arab militias and village self-defence groups. Their roots were local conflicts over land and water, especially in the wake of droughts, made worse by the absence of an effective Police force for 20 years. The last intertribal conference met in 1989, but its recommendations were never implemented. Law and order has continuously broken down, and government has played a game of divide-and-rule, usually favouring the better-armed Arabs. In response, the non-Arab groups have mobilised, adopting the label 'African', which helps to gain solidarity with the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), a ticket to sympathy in the West. The Darfur conflict erupted when peace negotiations between Khartoum and the SPLA, on an end to the 20-year-old war in southern Sudan, entered the final stage. Some observers have speculated that the rebellion was launched because SPLA won its concessions by dint of armed struggle, thereby encouraging discontented Sudanese to copy. There's an element of truth and a danger that the Beja of eastern Sudan will also re-ignite their dormant insurrection. Even more than southern Sudan, Darfur has been neglected, having the fewest schools and hospitals in Sudan. In 1991, the SPLA sent an armed force to Darfur to foment resistance: it failed, and an entire cadre of leftist leadership was neutralised as a result. SLA leaders have emerged from this debacle. Meanwhile, the Islamic government tried to neutralise complaints of neglect by playing the religion card. Darfur's Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa tribes are well-known for their Muslim piety, and were attracted by the idea of being enfranchised through their Muslim faith. But this proved another hollow promise, and when the Sudanese Islamist movement split four years ago, most Darfurian Islamists went into opposition, some of them forming the JEM. After the first round of mediation by the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a week ago, elements of a settlement are coming into focus. The first is removing obstacles to relief operations then enforcing the ceasefire, agreed by the parties in the Chadian capital of Ndjamena in April, but flouted, far more egregiously by government and the Janjaweed. For hungry villagers, the ceasefire is a survival issue, as their skill at harvesting wild foods has no value if they are confined to camps by fear of rape, mutilation or murder. The African Union, headed by the former Mali President, Alpha Konare, has put 24 ceasefire monitors on the ground, to oversee the Ndjamena agreement and 300 African troops are on their way to ensure that the monitors are safe. Providing security to civilians will need a far larger and more robust force. Even before the insurrection, Darfur was a province in arms. Every nomadic clan has automatic weapons, because there has been no effective Police force for the past 20 years. President Omer al-Bashir recently promised to disarm the Janjaweed, placing himself in a corner. There's overwhelming evidence, circumstantial and documentary, that Khartoum supplied the militia with arms, logistics and air support. But it doesn't follow that it can so easily rein them in. Janjaweed camps can be identified and militiamen cantonised there. This demands a tough surveillance regime, overseen by international forces. But the armed Bedouin cannot be encamped: they rely on their herds for livelihood and hence need to move and are too many and scattered to disarm. In fact, 'disarmament' is a misnomer. What will work is community-based regulation of armaments, gradually squeezing out bandits and criminals. What to do with the Chadian Arabs is a tricky issue and the fact that all Darfurians, Arab and non-Arab alike, profoundly distrust government that has brought them only trouble. Arms control can work only when there is scaffolding of a provincial administration and political settlement. Another issue is human rights: investigating claims of genocide and who's responsible. It is best parked with an international commission, perhaps a special investigator from the International Criminal Court. Currently, the sides are far apart, their public language is one of mutual recrimination. The rebels, who drop their simplistic 'African' versus 'Arab' terminology as soon as they get into details, have no desire to purge Darfur of its indigenous black Arabs. The demands, for equitable development, land rights, infrastructure and local democracy are reasonable. Formulae for provincial autonomy are also negotiable. National issues are more difficult, settling Darfur's grievances means revisiting many of the Naivasha formulae, which were drafted on a simplified north-south dichotomy. For example, senior government jobs have been divided between the ruling Congress Party and the SPLA: who will make concessions to allow Darfur its fair share? Nonetheless, by implementing the Naivasha agreement and bringing SPLA leader John Garang to Khartoum as vice president, the Darfur process can be speeded. Garang aspires to represent a coalition of Sudan's non-Arabs, including Darfurians, and it will be politically impossible for him to endorse a war in Darfur. Darfurians immediate needs cannot wait for negotiations to mature. A British brigade could make a formidable difference to the situation. It could escort aid supplies into rebel-held areas and provide aerial surveillance, logistics and back-up to ceasefire monitoring, helping to give Darfurian villagers the confidence to pick up their lives.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2004 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================