Category: Sudan

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A host of factions

As the Darfur peace talks continued, even without the key rebel leaders, the Herald Tribune takes note of the fact that hoping to bring both “sides” of this conflict together is an utter misnomer. The fact is, the rebel groups themselves have fractured and splintered into so many different factions that it’s almost impossible to tell who should be at the negotiating table.

It’s not easy being a Darfurian rebel, especially if you’re a member of the B team. Instead of being praised for coming here in the interests of peace, as the world begged them to do, they have been gaped at, criticized for being ineffective and dogged by questions about where the big guys are, like Abdel Wahid el-Nur, a founding father of Darfur’s rebellion, and Khalil Ibrahim, the commander of one of the strongest rebel armies, both of whom are boycotting the talks.

But the reality that international negotiators are beginning to grudgingly accept is that the rebels here in Sirte, Libya’s government center, represent the facts on the ground. After years of fragmentation and isolation, Darfur’s resistance movements have broken down into a fractious bunch of men, many of whom have never met before, who hail from different corners of the land and who belong to different tribes and command their own little armies.

According to the United Nations best estimate, the rebels have fractured from two main groups into twenty-eight separate causes. This recent Libyan attempt at peace talks only managed to bring seven of those leaders to the table.

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Darfur “quarrel over a camel”

During a televised discussion with students at Cambridge University, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said that the violence in Darfur was nothing more than a “quarrel over a camel.”

“You might laugh if I say that the main reason of this issue is a camel,” he said.

“Africa has thousands of issues – they are about water, about grass – and Africa is divided into 50 countries, and the tribes are divided amongst so many countries, although they belong to each other.

“The problem we are having now is that we politicise such problems between tribes.”

He said that in Darfur the issue had been politicised because “there are super powers who are interested in oil and other things”.

He also said that the crisis had been prolonged by international aid agencies because the local population increasingly depended on the support it received and, therefore, wanted the conflict to continue.

Ironically, there are a number of valid points in Gaddafi’s argument, despite the fact that he over-simplifies the entire conflict, and adds his own political spin to the issue. Nonetheless, he is correct in that these sorts of disputes used to be handled by local, tribal leaders before they were ever given a chance to escalate out of control.

Unfortunately, when the government of Sudan began arming forces to propagate the conflict, the violence turned from a local issue into a regional (and thus humanitarian) concern.

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Systematic rape continues in Darfur

A new report by the United Nations Office for Human Rights implicates Sudanese military forces and allied militia groups (Janjaweed) in the capture and rape of fifty women. According to the latest release, the women were taken to a government facility where they were held for a month and repeatedly abused.

Women in Darfur are also at risk of sexual violence outside the context of large attacks. Women risk being raped if they leave their camp for internally displaced people to search for firewood. In some areas, the current African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) has provided “firewood patrols” to accompany groups of women once or twice a week as they gather firewood. But these patrols have often been ineffective due to poor organization, lack of resources, and lack of communication with the people who benefit from the patrols.

As Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, pointed out, the upcoming UN/AU peacekeepers need the authority to intervene in such situations.

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Khalifa dies in accident

Majzoub al-Khalifa, an advisor to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, died in a car accident, along with his brother, on his way to Shendi.

Khalifa graduated from Khartoum university’s faculty of medicine in 1976. He had previously held the positions of governor of Khartoum and agriculture minister.

Known for his gruff manner, he was energetic, large of stature and said to be one of Bashir’s close inner circle.

Sometimes called a “thug” by his critics, he was blunt and to the point in his diplomatic dealings.

The United Nations paid tribute to Khalifa on Wednesday, offering its condolences to his family.

Khalifa was one of the point men on the 2006 Darfur Peace Accord. Unfortunately, with only one of the various rebel factions involved, and a lack of interest in stopping the bloodshed on the part of the government, the violence has continued unabated.

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Aid worker killed in Sudan

Even though Sudan recently agreed (on paper) to accept a mixed UN/AU force into the Darfur region, the violence in the western part of the country has continued unabated. Reuters reports this morning that an aid worker for the NGO ACT-Caritas was killed near the DP camps in Zalingei, bringing the total number of deaths in the area to five.

“This killing follows a spate of attacks in the camps around Zalingei,” the charity said in a statement on 19 June. “Since the beginning of June, five camp residents have been shot and killed, huts have been set on fire, people have been beaten, and women assaulted almost daily. Hijackings of vehicles belonging to the UN and other international organisations also continue.”

Adam Adam, a guard and pump operator at a water point in Khamsa Degaig camp for internally displaced persons in Zalingei, was shot on 17 June. He was one of the local leaders in the camp.

“The incident was witnessed by three women on their way to the water point,” ACT-Caritas noted. “People in the camp tried to react, but the attackers fired shots into the crowd, dispersing them and allowing the gunmen to escape.”

According to the NGO, security in and around Zalingei, where about 100,000 people are camped, has continued to deteriorate over the past year yet people keep arriving every day.

This recent spate of violence against NGOs and displacement camps follows closely behind an announcement that Oxfam would be ceasing its operations in the Gereida region.