World Affairs
World view - Lindsey Hilsum holds out a slim hope for Dafur
Published 09 August 2004
There is something to be done in Darfur. The problem is that we are so addicted to quick-fix scenarios that we think a diplomatic solution which may take years to achieve is no good
In physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In diplomacy, the consequences of action are less easy to measure, but inevitable just the same. So it is that in Sudan, peace leads to war. The fighting in the western region of Darfur is partly a reaction to the US-led diplomacy that has brought an end to the 25-year-old conflict between the government in Khartoum and rebels in the southern region of the country.
In retrospect, it seems obvious. War is the only way to force your grievances into the consciousness of the world. The non-Arab people of Darfur, in western Sudan, had been marginalised and impoverished for years, just as the southerners had been, but - unlike the southerners - had not resorted to violence. Then they saw the southern rebels being promised political power and potential wealth as a reward for laying down their arms. Two new rebel movements were born - the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) - fighting for the oppressed people of Darfur.
The counter-insurgency tactics of the Sudan government in Darfur mirror its 20-year campaign in the south, which left millions dead or displaced. A proxy force was recruited to complete the job that soldiers couldn't manage alone. In the south the militia was called the Murahaliin; members were armed by the government (as the now-notorious Janjawiid militia in Darfur has been) and, in the 1980s and 1990s, they carried out a campaign of rape, ethnic cleansing and terror. The anthropologist John Ryle points out that what is happening in Darfur is not so much "Rwanda in slow motion" as "southern Sudan speeded up".
In the south, non-Arab people were resisting the Arab government in Khartoum. In Darfur, by contrast, everyone felt marginalised, Arabs and non-Arabs alike. Moreover, both communities were Muslim. But instead of uniting against the government elite, they turned on each other. Since the mid-1980s, drought and social change have led to conflict over resources in Darfur; so the government found willing militia recruits among the Arabs there.
To outsiders, the violence might seem senseless, but there is a logic to it. The government needs to crush rebel groups, because it sees potential threats on all sides. No longer driven by Islamist ideology, its main purpose is simply to stay in power. Alex de Waal of the campaign group Justice Africa, who has studied Sudan for two decades, describes the policy in Darfur as "the routine cruelty of a security cabal . . . genocide by force of habit". As ever, the world sees a humanitarian crisis - children covered in flies, forced into insanitary camps - but a real solution has to be political.
The one-size-fits-all template of economic measures advocated by the New Statesman editorial last week will not help Sudan. As a Sudanese proverb has it: "Commitment without scholarship is deaf." Analysis may lead to paralysis - the moment you start to think about Sudan, it seems overwhelmingly complex. But inaction need not be the result. After all, two years of sustained diplomatic pressure did force the southern rebels and the Khartoum government to talk.
The Americans got involved because the Christian lobby saw the southerners as victims of an Islamist government, and the State Department wanted to discourage Sudan from drifting back to Islamist extremism. The political will was there and it can be mustered again.
But last week's UN Security Council resolution was watered down, and the Sudan government given another 30 days to disarm the Janjawiid before the council would "consider further measures" - a euphemism for sanctions. The Chinese - who have built three arms factories in Sudan in return for oil concessions - are reluctant to pressure their friends in Khartoum. The French also have oil interests and the Russians are selling arms.
International pressure is mounting none the less. In the short term, it should be possible to get troops - probably from the African Union - at least to protect the displaced people's camps.
Peace talks between the rebels and the government provide the only hope of a long-term solution, similar to the one so painstakingly worked out in the south. This will not end Sudan's troubles. You may not want to hear this, but there are small rebel groups in eastern Sudan as well. The Beja people - characterised by Rudyard Kipling as the "fuzzy-wuzzies" because of their woolly hair - have also been subjugated and impoverished by Khartoum.
In January, the rebel group Beja Congress, based in Eritrea, announced an alliance with the SLA in Darfur. If a deal in the south is followed by a deal in the west, it will have a knock-on effect in the east. Maybe this time we'll be ready, before thousands more are forced to flee their homes.
Lindsey Hilsum is international editor for Channel 4 News
Observations, page 14
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