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| The Darfur region is inhabited by the African tribes of Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa communities
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As
Arab leaders mulled over the mere idea of holding a face-saving summit
in Tunis, a gargantuan humanitarian crisis was rapidly unfolding under
their noses in
the Darfur region in western Sudan. Twenty-two deaf ears were turned
towards the catastrophe, which includes
malnutrition, rape, genocide, famine and destruction of an ecological
system to
name a few.
The
summit also coincided with the International Day of Biological Diversity, on May
22, and as far as Darfur
is concerned “diversity” is the last thing on the minds of those committing
the ethnic cleansing in the region.
What
IS going on in Darfur
?
A
crisis that started over a fight over pastures and resources in the late 1980s
metamorphosed into one of the worst cases of ethnic cleansing and man-made
famine.
Known
locally as the “zurga” (or blacks), the Darfur
region is inhabited by the African tribes of Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa
communities. They have been the victims of “indiscriminate aerial bombardment,
militia and army raiding and denial of humanitarian assistance” by the
Janjaweed, an Arab militia closely linked to the Sudanese government, said the
Human Rights Report issued in April 2004 under the title Darfur In Flames:
Atrocities in Western Sudan.[1] According to the report, around a million
Darfurians have been “forced to flee their homes in the past 14 months”.
The
region under conflict has three main ecological bands: “desert in the north,
which is part of the Sahara and the least densely populated and most
ecologically fragile zone; a central, fertile belt which includes the Jebel
Marra mountains and is the richest agriculturally; and the southern zone, which,
although more stable than the north, is also prone to drought and sensitive to
fluctuations in rainfall.”[2]
The
conflict is between the agriculturalists who belong to non-Arab ethnic groups
(the “Zurga” or blacks) and the pastoralists who are mainly from Arab
descent who live in the northern area. The Zurga tribes include groups such as
the Fur, Masaalit, Tama, Tunjur, Bergid, and Berti, who live and farm in the
central zone. The pastoralists include nomadic and semi-nomadic camel herding
tribes.[3]
“Pastoralists
from the north, including the northern Rizeigat, Mahariya, Zaghawa, and others,
typically migrate south in search of water sources and grazing in the dry season
(typically November through April). Beginning in the mid-1980s, when much of the
Sahel
region was hit by recurrent episodes of drought and increasing desertification,
the southern migration of the Arab pastoralists provoked land disputes with
agricultural communities.”[4]
During
these disputes, clashes would get bloodier and the Sudanese government would
favor the Arabs (the pastoralists). The Sadiq El Mahdi Government
(1986-89)
developed the policy of arming Arab militias from Darfur
and Kordofan known as “muraheleen.” These were used as a counterinsurgency
force against the rebels of the area.[5]
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| Water sources have been destroyed or buried and wells have been bulldozed. |
Today
forces called the “Janjaweed” (Arab militias allied to the Sudanese
Government) are given complete backup and impunity by the Government, that pays
its arms and uniforms to commit the atrocities and to quell two insurgency
groups in Darfur that are perceived as a threat to the regime in Sudan: the
Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM).[6]
“While
many of the abuses are committed by the Janjaweed, the Sudanese Government is
complicit in these abuses and holds the highest degree of responsibility for
pursuing a military policy that has resulted in the commission of crimes against
humanity,” said the report.
The
situation in Darfur
“is beyond description”, according to Gamal Adam, a PhD candidate in the
Anthropology Department of York University in Canada and an expert in Sudanese affairs.
“Elderly
people and children under 5 years of age are dying in large numbers everyday of
famine and famine-related diseases. Water sources were destroyed or buried,”
said Adam in an interview with IslamOnline.net, adding that wells were sometimes
bulldozed.
As
a result, more than 110,000 Darfurians have fled across the border to
Chad and nearly 750,000 people are internally displaced within the
region.
Chad itself has inhabitants of the Zaghawa, Masaalit and Arab ethnic
groups involved
in the conflict.
Speaking
to IslamOnline.net, Awatef Mustafa, lecturer at the Ahdaf University in Sudan
said that while it may be “too early to predict the long-term implications of
the conflict on either the internally displaced persons (IDPs), the refugees or
the host populations in the areas they have fled to” there will always be the
problem of food shortages and “dependency on food aid will be an ongoing
problem.”
Because
of the fact that the farming community is fleeing for their lives, it is highly
likely that this year’s harvest will be severely affected. “There are
increasing signs that Darfur could face a man-made famine if no intervention
takes place, adding thousands of lives of men, women and children to the unknown
number of victims the Government of Sudan has already destroyed.”[7]
Mustafa
added that the farming conditions are so bad in Darfur that even if “the
displaced were able to return to their farms immediately to benefit from the
current planting season, they would still be dependent on food aid until the end
of 2004 as reported by the World Food Programme (WFP). If, on the other hand,
this year’s April to June planting season is missed, the next harvest of
staples like millet and sorghum will not be available until the end of 2005,”
she added.
Among
the organizations that have been active in providing relief in the crisis-struck
region, is Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders). According to
recent releases issued by the organization, MSF currently has 22 international
volunteers and 46 national staff in Darfur. In addition, the organization is active with refugees across the border in Chad.
“In Birak, MSF is running a Health Center and a mobile clinic, which carries out consultations at
Koulongo refugee camp.
The team performs 500 new consultations each week. The main health problems are
diarrhea, severe respiratory infections, conjunctivitis, intestinal parasites,
gastritis and urinary infections,” the organization said, adding that in Iriba
some cases of meningitis have been found early March and that the epidemic
threshold has been reached. [8] More than 1000 people a day are being vaccinated
by MSF in conjunction with the local health authorities and the Red Cross.
In
addition to the famine, civilians are being raped, assaulted and abducted by the
Janjaweed. Attempts to make the villages uninhabitable include destroying “key
village assets, such as water points and mills,” said the Human Rights Watch
report, adding that even underground granaries were dug up and destroyed. [9]
“For obvious reasons, cutting off all sources of food and water to civilians
in their homes will inevitably lead to their displacement - or starvation.”[10]
The
report included accounts of destroyed mango trees, and camels that were allowed
by the Janjaweed in the fields in order for the crops to be consumed quickly.
The Janjaweed also threw bodies in the wells in order to contaminate them and
make it impossible for them to be used by the villagers.
As
they flee their homes, the residents of the villages are looted and abused at
Janjaweed checkpoints by Janjaweed militias themselves and are even attacked
after they reach larger towns in
Darfur
. [11]
Hair-raising
accounts of sexual assault and rape have been reported despite the social stigma
of women not wanting to identify themselves as rape victims in Sudanese and
Chadian cultures. “Incidents of rape appear to have increased over the past
six months, part of the ever-increasing brutality of attacks.” [12]
Denying
Humanitarian Access
The
Sudanese government, for four months, from October 2003 to January 2004,
obstructed international assistance to displaced civilians in Darfur
and provided no assistance of its own. [13]
Despite
the government’s promises to open access to humanitarian organizations by
February 16, the UN says - according to a report published by the International
Crisis Group in March 2004 - that it only has access to 25-30 percent of the
persons in need. [14]
Could
we be witnessing another Rwanda
: genocide with the silent blessings of the international community? Mustafa
disagrees. “I do not think it is the case, as the international community,
mainly the UN Humanitarian Committee and the Sudan Government are aware of the
situation and are trying their best to work urgently to alleviate the crisis,”
she said.
However, Adam seems to think otherwise. “Indeed the silence of the
international community on what is happening in Darfur
reminds us of what happened in Rwanda ten years ago. It is a pity that it has been stated in several occasions that
the world will never experience again what had happened in Rwanda.”
Media
Blackout
Yet,
it is not sufficient that the humanitarian committee in the UN knows
about the
situation. There seems to be a media blackout that is overshadowed by
other, no
less shocking news items such as the prisoners’ abuse in Iraq and the
escalating crisis in the Palestinian territories. The Sudanese
Government too has done its share to hide the conflict from the world.
On
November 24, 2003
, the independent (arguably) Khartoum
Monitor and on December 3, 2003
Al Ayam newspapers were banned for criticizing the situation. On December 17,
the Al Jazeera Khartoum office was shut down. “Travel restrictions have
kept foreigners, including relief workers, away from the fighting. Activists who
tried to alert the international community have been subjected to preventive
detention.”[15]
Arab
Silence
 |
| Despite the government’s
promises to open access to humanitarian organizations by February 16, the
UN says that it only has access to 25-30 percent of the persons in need |
In
an open letter directed to Arab leaders published on May 19 on
Sudaneseonline.com, intellectuals from Darfur questioned Arab silence, drawing
resemblance to situations in Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, Bosnia and the Gujarat in
India adding: “Muslims in all these places are being killed and no one in any
Arab or Islamic country does anything positive until Allah makes the non-Muslims
move to their rescue.” [16]
“The
Arab World is always silent, as in the case of what is happening in Palestine and
Iraq ! The Arab relief organizations have started to move (e.g. United Arab Emirates
and Kuwait) after the UN Humanitarian Committee sent an appeal to those
organizations to provide help,” said Mustafa.
The reason behind the Arab world’s silence, according to Adam, is that people
in those countries “know very little about Sudan let alone about Darfur
and consequently they believe in the misleading information which the Sudanese
Government agencies present. Moreover, the culture of NGOs and civil society is
not fully-grown in the Arab world and therefore the absence of Arab relief
organizations from Darfur
is based on the lack of such culture.”
Yet to remain silent is to become an accomplice in the catastrophe. The Sudanese
president, Omar Al Bashir, said he could not attend the Arab summit citing
“internal reasons”.[17] Would the catastrophe in Darfur
qualify to be one of those? Perhaps.
1
Darfur in Flames:
Atrocities in western Sudan. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, APRIL 2004, VOL. 16, NO. 5
(A), pg. 1
2
Ibid, pg. 8
3
Ibid, pg. 8
4
Ibid, pg. 9
5
Ibid, pg. 9
6
Ibid, pg. 10
7
Ibid, pg. 3
8
Catastrophic
Conditions for Sudanese Refugees in Chad, MSF, May 11
9
Darfur
in Flames, pg. 14
10
Ibid, pg. 16
11
Ibid, pg. 14
12
Ibid, pg. 29
13
Ibid, pg. 35
14
Darfur rising:
Sudan’s new crisis. International Crisis Group,
March 25, 2004
, pg. 3
15
Ibid, pg. 20
16
http://www.sudaneseonline.com/anews/may19-93616.html
17
Al Bashir
Apologizes for not attending Arab (Arabic)
*
Lamya Tawfik has a master’s degree in Journalism & Mass
Communication with a specialization in Children’s Media Education from the
American
University
in
Cairo
(AUC). She also works as a reporter for AUC’s publications, and as a
part-time lecturer at the Faculty of Mass Communication in the Modern Sciences
and
Arts
University
in
Cairo
. She has previously worked as a news editor at Islam Online. You can reach her
at lamyatawfik@islam-online.net
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