Pre-conflict Sudan

Sudan is Africa's largest country, with land equivalent to one fourth of the United States and a population of 41 million people. The population is extremely diverse, with 19 ethnic groups and 134 different languages. Since gaining independence from the U.K. in 1956, Sudan has been ruled by military regimes favoring Islamic-oriented governments. The capital, Khartoum is largely Arab and became increasingly influenced by radical Islamist ideologies such as those of Osama Bin-Laden (to whom the government gave refuge starting in 1991).

Sudan has a long history of political upheaval and civil war. The country was embroiled in two prolonged, brutal civil wars during most of the second half of the 20th century. These conflicts were rooted in northern economic, political, and social domination by the more radicalized Arab northern Sudanese of the largely non-Muslim, non-Arab southern Sudanese. The first civil war ended in 1972 and caused the death of approximately 500,000 people. In 1983 the second civil war erupted in response to the imposition of Sharia law (sacred Muslim law), sparking renewed conflict between North and South.

Southern Sudan is overwhelmingly rural and black and much less accessible than the north. It was marginalized in the 19th century under the reign of the Ottoman Turks, again under the British overlords during much of the 20 th century, and now by Khartoum in the north. Today, southern Sudan has a severe lack of schools, hospitals, and modern infrastructure.

With the discovery of oil in 1978 by Chevron, the traditional competition for water at the fringes of the Sahara was transformed into quite a different struggle. The Arab-dominated government in Khartoum redrew Sudan's jurisdictional boundaries to exclude the oil reserves from southern Sudan's jurisdiction, thus stoking the flames of the North/South conflict.

Today, Sudanese oil yields $2 billion in annual revenue, and just a fraction of the oil is tapped. Oil has been exported only since 1999. These reserves have been exploited by China, Russia, Canada and Sweden but were off limits to the US because of a 1997 Executive Order by President Clinton, which banned the US from operating in Sudan until the civil war ended. Many believe that the desire of the US to seek the benefits of Sudan's oil reserves was a significant driver of the US to bring the second civil war to an end.

Religion may also have played a significant role in influencing the US, under the new administration of George W. Bush, to take on the difficult task of negotiating peace between northern and southern Sudan. Many believe the victimization of southern Sudanese Christians - over 2 million of whom were killed during the 20-year second civil war - led to widespread pressure on the Bush administration by evangelical Christian groups, a key constituency in his power base.

Peace talks gained momentum in 2002-04 with the signing of several accords. In 2002, George Bush signed the Sudan Peace Act, which authorized $200 million in humanitarian aid to the region, including money earmarked for African Union peacekeeping forces. Ultimately the North and South of Sudan signed a ceasefire agreement in April 2004, purportedly ending the civil war (Darfur was not a party to this cease-fire agreement). The U.S. government rewarded the parties who signed the ceasefire agreement with substantial foreign aid.

To its credit, the agreement made delivery of Khartoum's share contingent upon the government acting appropriately towards the southern Darfuris, as it became apparent that genocide was occurring in Southern Darfur. The impending settlement of the North/South civil war, and the resulting benefits that would flow from that settlement to North and South Sudan underscored the marginalization of Darfur, and caused consternation on the part of many Darfuris.

The second civil war and famine-related effects resulted in more than 4 million people being displaced and an estimated 2 million deaths over a period of two decades.

Precursors to Darfur Conflict

The conflict that is taking place in the Darfur has multiple interwoven causes. While rooted in structural inequity between the center of the country around the Nile and the 'peripheral' areas such as Darfur, tensions were exacerbated in the last two decades of the twentieth century by a combination of environmental calamity, political opportunism and regional geopolitics.

Darfur is itself a very diverse place, made up of over 90 tribes and countless sub clans. It is situated in western Sudan and covers an area the size of France (or Texas), with a pre-conflict population of 6 million people. Darfur was an independent sultanate until it was incorporated into the rest of Sudan by British forces in 1916; however, it never received nearly the level of investment and development that Eastern Sudan and the Nile river valley did under British rule. This marginalization continued under the string of central Sudanese governments that followed independence in 1956.

While the conflict in Darfur is most frequently described as one between distinct "Arab" and "non-Arab" (or "African") tribes, the more accurate distinction between population groups in Darfur is not only ethnic, but also economic. The incredibly arid north of Darfur, populated mainly by tribes claiming "Arab" descent, developed an economy based on nomadic cattle- and camel-herding. The more arable south, where the majority of the population traces "non-Arab" (i.e., "African") descent, developed a subsistence farming economy. Centuries of intermarriage and slave trading have blurred the lines between distinguishing physical ethnic characteristics, but for the most part this economic division remains.

Starting in the 1980s, competition for land intensified, and nomadic and farming tribes began to polarize along ethnic lines. Once a relatively peaceful and often symbiotic relationship between the two lifestyles, the spread of the desert, regional drought and the resulting famine in the 1980s There was a regional drought and resulting famine -- much of the arable land became desert. This decrease in arable land caused the Arab nomads from North Darfur to spill increasingly into the southern farmlands where the non-Arab Black Muslims lived and worked the land. The nomadic Northerners were in search of better pastures for their livestock, while the Southern farmers moved to extend their farms to land traditionally used by Northern nomads. This caused an obvious conflict.

During the 1980's, drought and famine and the spread of the deserts caused increased competition for land, severely upsetting the structure of Darfuri society. The farmers had claimed every available bit of land to farm or forage for food, closing off the traditional routes used by the herders. The herders, faced with watching their animals die of starvation in the desiccated landscape, tried to force the routes south open, attacking farmers who attempted to block their paths. Darfur was awash in small arms from the various neighboring conflicts. Stories spread of herders raiding farming villages for all of their animals and of villagers who had armed themselves in self defense.

To Darfuris facing starvation, the dichotomous ideology of African versus Arab began to have explanatory power. Amongst some sedentary "Africans", the ideas that uncaring "Arabs" in Khartoum had let the famine happen and then Darfuri "Arabs" armed by their Libyan allies had attacked "African" farmers began to gain credence. Similarly, semi-nomadic Darfuri "Arabs" began to seriously consider that "Africans" had vindictively tried to punish them for the famine by trying to keep them from pastureland.

For a number of years Darfur was the scene of sporadic clashes between Black farming communities such as the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, on the one hand, and Arab nomadic groups on the other. These clashes lead to many deaths and to the destruction and looting of homes. The government blamed competition over scarce resources for the clashes, and in fact, did nothing to try to resolve the problems in Darfur.

In 2002-2004, the Darfuri leaders were excluded from the US backed peace talks, as they were generally seen as irrelevant in the context of the Civil War and its disposition. The proposed settlement agreement would ostensibly bring great economic development into Sudan, but none of the opportunity would benefit the people of Darfur, who were the poorest in all of Sudan. The southern Darfuri leaders demanded political reform and economic assistance, but to no avail.

Conflict Break-outs

In February 2003 a new armed opposition group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) took up arms against the government, because of what they perceived as (1) the lack of government protection for their people and (2) the marginalization and underdevelopment of the region of South Darfur. The support base of this armed group came mainly from the agricultural groups in the region. Shortly afterwards another armed group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) emerged.

The conventional explanation of the event which precipitated the conflict in Darfur entails the public claiming of credit by a group called the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF) for an attack on Golo, a Khartoum government post on February 23, 2003. However, by this time a full-scale conflict was already raging in Darfur. After significant clashes between the Darfuri rebel actions on the one hand and Khartoum troop and aerial assaults on the other, Khartoum decided that it had suffered enough humiliation at the hands of the Darfuri rebel movement. A rebel raid in al-Fashir was a turning point both militarily and psychologically, as Khartoum armed forces had been humiliated by the al-Fashir raid. The rebels had "won" too many engagements and had succeeded in killing too many of Khartoum's soldiers.

Government Responds with Genocide

In early 2003, the Khartoum government had had enough of the Darfuri rebels, and decided to change its strategy. Given that the army was being consistently defeated, the Janjaweed (armed Baggara herders whom the government had begun directing in repression of a Masalit uprising in 1996-1999) were put at the center of the new counter-insurgency strategy. Military resources were poured into Darfur and the Janjaweed were outfitted as a paramilitary force, complete with communication equipment and some artillery. The probable results of such a strategy were clear to the military planners; similar strategies undertaken in the Nuba Mountains and around the southern oil fields during the previous decade had resulted in massive human rights violations and forced migrations.

Khartoum armed and gave free rein to the Janjaweed ("devil on horseback") who took to attacking villages, killing, raping and abducting people, and destroying homes and other property, including water sources and looting livestock. At times government troops also attacked villages alongside the Janjaweed, and government aircraft have been bombing villages sometimes just before Janjaweed attacks, suggesting that these attacks were coordinated. The links between the Sudanese armed forces and the Janjaweed are incontrovertible; the Janjaweed, for example, are now wearing uniforms provided by the army.

The Janjaweed have established a pattern of using racial slurs, such as "abeed" ("slave"), and employing other tactics such as the castration of males, gang-raping and branding of women, and destruction of civilian food and water resources. In 2004 Colin Powell was the first to openly pronounce this a genocide. Estimates put the number of dead at over 400,000 with 5,000-10,000 more dying monthly. And the situation for the survivors is abysmal. Forced to flee from their burnt villages, the UN estimates that there are now two million internally displaced people in Darfur mostly in towns and camps, often in very poor conditions, while more than 200,000 have crossed the border into Chad.

In early 2006 there were reported to be approximately 180 refugee camps in Darfur, of which only approximately 85 were reachable by aid organizations. The refugee camps are unhealthy for several reasons. There is disease, which easily spreads from one physically weak refugee to another. There is little water; little sanitation, and inadequate access to health care. Therefore, there is constant concern about avoiding epidemics within any one camp. In addition to disease, the people must forage for food. Eighty-five percent (85%) of the refugees' diet is from wild food: wild plants and wild animals. Due to the concentrated number of refugees, there is an increasing scarcity of food. In addition, if the girls or women leave the camps to forage for food or firewood, they are subject to attack, rape, enslavement and murder by the roving Janjaweed.

Ineffective Peace Agreement and Worsening Situation

On 5 May 2006 a peace agreement was signed between the Sudanese government and one faction of the SLA. The agreement fundamentally failed to address the grievances that began the conflict and in addition Khartoum has failed to make good on its commitment to disarm the Janjaweed who continue to attack Darfuris, even following them across the border, attacking refugee camps in Chad. Four International NGO's,-Care, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam International and World Vision - said the situation had worsened since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement in May by the Sudanese government and one faction of the Sudanese Liberation Movement. They issued a joint statement calling July the deadliest month for humanitarian workers after eight were killed. Meanwhile, Mr. Kingibe, African Union (AU) ambassador to Darfur, has reported that rebel groups have infiltrated refugee camps to fight the relentless Janjaweed.

On 16 May 2006 the UN Security Council agreed to send UN peace-keeping forces to Darfur to help AU troops with the implementation of the peace agreement. The UN, however, continues to seek the Khartoum government's consent, despite its stubborn unwillingness to permit U.N. forces with any meaningful mandate to enter.

Up to now, the AU has not been able to effectively protect civilians from attacks by armed groups (some of whom are government sponsored), and attacks are continuing with impunity.

For Jewish World Watch's quarterly updates on the situation in Darfur, click here.