Blood Lines in the Sand

“If you don’ t protect the people of Darfur today, never again will we believe you when you visit Rwanda’ s mass graves, look us in the eye and say ‘Never Again.’”

-Freddy Umutanuha, as quoted by Peter Beinart in his Time Magazine column ‘How to save Darfur.’

The Jewish persecution; the systematic slaughter of the Armenians perpetrated by the young Turks of the Ottoman Empire; the 100 day Rwandan horror… following such atrocities, the international community, time and time again, has solemnly sworn “Never Again”. “Never Again”, as powerful as it may sound wrapped contextually in the aftermath of such carnage, is known today as nothing more than a diplomatic ‘line in the sand’ in lieu of real, tangible ultimatums. Unremarkably, such soft-liner threat responses to crimes against humanity live up to their expectations of being washed away repeatedly, just as waves manage to effortlessly obliterate lines drawn on a sandy beach.

Unfortunately, even while we stand idly by and witness what could be another potential Rwanda, it seems that the concerns of the Powers That be today revolve not around instant decisive actions, but around mindless protocol and tentative wagging of the UN finger. As we fight over what does, and does not constitute genocide, millions in Sudan have been displaced while hundreds of thousands have been killed and continue to die thanks in part to global indifference. Obviously, it is important to be able to identify particular warning signs and sound conventions must be developed so that we may target, stop, and punish genocidaires for their crimes. Before we can do this, however, a consensus must be reached. Genocide, in accordance with Resolution 260 (III) A, adopted by the UN general Assembly, is defined as “acts committed with intention to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group….”

What is it about this conflict, as with the Rwandan genocide, that produces such widespread hesitation among those in power to move in and forcibly stop the atrocities? It is the ‘Gorilla in our Midst’- the distractive method used by genocidaires to cover up genocide with the facade of war and group conflict. The genocide in Darfur is taking place under the cover of a war between the government of Sudan and their militias, and various rebel groups; the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda took place under the cover of a civil war. It is in the interest of the genocidal regime to create a distractive war-and conflict context, ultimately taking attention away from the heinous nature of their murderous agenda. Let it be known and understood by all that war is a tool used by genocidaires - war/conflict are not a cause of genocide, nor does it simply “escalate” to such eliminationist campaigns. At its most basic, it is a situation of cold, calculated, preplanned murder - that, certainly, is not war. This civil-war facade which could be seen at the surface of the Rwandan situation was precisely the reason why UN Assistance Mission to Rwanda refused to ‘take sides’ and stuck rigidly to their principles of neutrality, impartiality, and explicit consent of parties involved. Looking back, we can see that this neutral, impartial refusal to take action certainly did Rwanda a lot of good.

That being said, it is still important to understand the conflict itself and preliminaries. Julie Flint and Alex De Waal’s book, Darfur - A Short History of a Long War, though a very informative read, would most likely be somewhat dense for the average reader with little-to-no knowledge on the history of the conflict in Darfur. Chiefly, the authors’ objective was to detail and outline the history of tribal violence in Sudan, and the poor handling of this violence by the Sudanese government. The preface starts off speaking of John Garang’s (Sudanese vice-president, and former Sudan People’s Liberation Army leader) death - something very unfortunate, considering that his place in the Khartoum government would have helped to lessen [at least] the aggression and violence sponsored by the government itself. Although the introduction did overall end off on a hopeful note (as opposed to an ominous tone, which one would expect in the case of Darfur and what we’ve seen of talks surrounding it so far), they never quite touch upon how this peace and freedom for the people would be achieved.

Starting from chapter 1, De Waal and Flint outline the region in detailed specificity, going literally from the ground up. We learn of the origins for this conflict, ongoing from generation to generation, stoking the fire for all-out warfare. The book outlines how the conflict itself is based on the division of groups along tribal lines of ethnoancestry, leading to the emergence of 40-90 ethnic/tribal groups from the Darfur state during and after its expansion southwards. As the book states, the conflict itself is an ongoing struggle that has, in a strange way, come to define origin. To quote an example on page 9: “To this day, many Abbala Arabs explain their involvement in the current conflict in terms of this 250 year old search for land, granted to the Baggara but denied to them.” After its peak in the 19th century, after much displacement and defeat, drought and famine, Ali Dinar was never quite able to restore the sultanate back to its original glory. As we learn, much of that forced displacement left land claims up for dispute to this day. Something I was unaware of but learnt from the book was that, “British policy was deliberately to restrict education to the sons of chiefs, so their authority would not be challenged by better-schooled Sudanese administrators or merchants.”

Going further into the book, we learn of the Khartoum’s brilliant strategy of using not only Military intelligence and aerial force to attack civilians, but of their ‘clever’ use of Arab militias opportunistically during the two-decade long civil war between the North and South. We learn of the commanding but just Sheikh Hilal Abdalla, and his well-known son Musa Hilal - the incredibly powerful leader of the Janjaweed whose vicious militia is supported by government backing to this day. The Janjaweed’s cry for world attention was finally heard in 2004 world over, as they wreaked havoc in Tawila - killing, pillaging, and raping their way through. Hilal’s goal, admittedly, was to “empty [Darfur] of African tribes.” Even after hundreds of thousands perished from the brutalities inflicted by militiamen and their violent activities, the Janjaweed remain government protected, and discriminatory violence against the Fur, zaghawa and Masalit continue to grow.

“Confident of the impunity afforded him by the government… Hilal has amused himself by playing word games while his men burn Darfur.” He is very vocal about the fact that he takes great pride in being “appointed” by the government to fight rebels. Eventually though, after some laughable pressure asserted by the international community once world attention finally turned towards Darfur, the Khartoum government signed agreements which consolidated their plans to disarm all militias in late 2004. Obviously then, Janjaweed attacks on civilians thus increased as fighting between rebel armies and the government went down. It has been said that between 700 - 2000 villages were destroyed.

The Khartoum regime’s only promise of disarming the militias has been so blatantly disregarded, that talks with the government at this time seem somewhat pointless. That aside, however, even after world attention was turned to Darfur and what the UN described as a “nightmare of violence and abuse”, the international community’s response to this horror has still been pathetic, relative to what it should be.

It would be wonderful if powerful countries like the US and UK would think seriously about the idea of sanctions, or “smart” sanctions as they’re called - being placed on certain influential members of the Khartoum regime. As it is clearly not in their interest, they wave the matter off in a very ironic and hypocritical decision that shows that their “war on terror” agenda clearly only applies to areas that suit their specific geopolitical needs. Without such powerful support and backing, the African Union will obviously never be able to protect Darfur’ s civilians instead of their mandated 120 member group for ceasefire monitoring. Thanks in part to international indifference, the Janjaweed and Sudanese regime continue to rape, pillage,  and terrorize Darfur to ruin.

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