Darfur: New force faces morass of enmities in a hostile landscape
Jonathan Clayton: Analysis
Clan loyalties and tribal affiliations long ago ceased to offer protection in Darfur, Sudan's vast western province, where village has turned upon village, neighbour against neighbour, Muslim against Muslim.
In the past seven days alone, at least 50 people have been killed in clashes between rival Arab tribes in the western part of an area that is larger than France. The violence marked the seventh time since February that a supposed truce has been violated.
The fighting, like that now taking place in most of Darfur, centred on ancient rivalries over water, grazing rights and dowries. A void created by the absence of any responsible government and an incompetent African Union peace mission has now been filled by centuries-old disputes settled with 21st-century weapons.
The Rzigat Aballa Arabs previously formed the backbone of the dreaded Janjawid militia. Khartoum unleashed them initially on the area in 2003 to quash a rebellion by the black African majority that resented rule by the Arab-dominated Government. The African tribes, also Muslims, represent about 90 per cent of the 6.5 million population.
The Rzigat Aballa have been fighting the Torjum – with whom they allied briefly – for months over tribal lands west of Nyala, one of Darfur's main towns.
Sudanese newspapers reported that the latest fighting began on July 25 when a group of Rzigat Aballa tribesmen fell on a band of Torjum. More than 25 people were killed in the ensuing fighting, which a tribal chief said flared again a few days later when Aballa men were attacked from four directions. The fighting lasted all day and killed at least 34 people.
Fighting across the province, which has only a handful of roads, has now become so localised that it would take battalions of well-armed peacekeepers to quell. The rebels at the heart of the rebellion splintered into several factions, based on ethnicity, in 2006 and turned on one another. Some made deals with former Arab tribes and resorted to banditry. Black Africans from the Zaghawa and Fur tribes, historic rivals who united to demand more autonomy from the Arab-dominated Government in Khartoum, began fighting each other. One group even entered government after a Western-supported peace deal and then turned on its old allies.
The new United Nations/African Union force, urged by Gordon Brown, must enter this morass. It will be made up virtually entirely of African nations, possibly supported by troops from the usual developing countries that make up such missions – Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Morocco.
They will be operating in one of the world's most remote and inaccessible areas, characterised by immense historical complexity. Half the population of Darfur, which is centred on the volcanic Jebel Marra massif, belong to the Fur tribe. The rest are divided among more than 15 different ethnic and linguistic groups, some nomadic cattle herders, some settled peasant farmers. All are Sunni Muslims. Political analysts say that only a mission with the capability to intervene forcefully and with great determination has any hope of success. Even then, they emphasise that it has to be accompanied by a renewed effort to obtain a political settlement.
The crisis in Darfur – where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and more than a million made homeless – has spilt over into Chad, home to many of the same sedentary African and marauding Arab tribes. Last year it led to fighting in the capital.
"Peace will remain elusive unless the international community coordinates better to surmount obstacles, including the ruling party's pursuit of military victory and increasing rebel divisions," a recent report from the think-tank International Crisis Group said.
Sudan experts give warning that the failure to end the insecurity and violence in Darfur could now threaten the 2005 peace deal that ended the separate civil war in the country between the Muslim north and Christian south. "Although all sides in Darfur are Muslim, there are other tensions which are being reflected in the south, where factionalism is also taking hold. The Darfur disease could easily spread as the same problems – such as an absence of representation, which created it – exist elsewhere," one said recently.
4.2 million people depend on the world's largest aid operation
2.5 million have abandoned their homes to escape violence
200,000 are believed to have died in the conflict and from disease and malnutrition. About 9,000 deaths are acknowledged by the Khartoum Government
8 aid convoys attacked in the past week
Sources: ReliefWeek; UN World food Programme; USAid
* From The Times, August 1, 2007
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