A historical reading of the conflict process in Darfur
Adel Abdel Ati
2004/7/31
An overview of the Darfur region
Darfur under English rule and during the National Era
Environmental degradation in Darfur and tribal conflicts
Central governments offer Darfur as a sacrifice for their regional and global interests
Armed looting, lack of security, policies of neglect, and iron fists
The rescue system and the escalation of the crisis in Darfur
The armed opposition in Darfur and the threat of civil war
The conflict in Darfur: a struggle over resources, not a struggle of identity
An overview of the Darfur region
The Darfur region is located in the far west of Sudan, between latitudes 10-16 degrees north and longitudes 22-27 degrees east. Its total area reaches 160,000 square miles, equivalent to the area of France. Its western borders constitute Sudan’s external borders with several countries, including Egypt (before the region’s borders were demarcated), Libya, Chad, and the Central African Republic.
The population of the Darfur region believes in Islam. The region is inhabited by various tribal, racial and ethnic groups, amounting to 170 ethnic groups according to some, the most important of which are the Fur, from which the region takes its name, and the Arab Baggara tribes such as the Rizeigat, Beni Halba and Ma’alia, and the Zaghawa, Medob, Masalit, Tanjur, Dajo, Qamar, Hamitic, etc., as well as the Arab Abbala tribes such as the Mahriya, Zaydia, Mhamid, etc., and many of these groups intersect with their extensions in neighboring countries, Especially Chad and the Central African Republic.
Independent kingdoms existed in the Darfur region in the past, the most important of which was the Fur Sultanate, which continued to exist since the fifteenth century AD, and disappeared in the second half of the nineteenth century, under Turkish and Mahdist pressure. Then it was resurrected in the year 1898 at the hands of Sultan Ali Dinar, and continued to exist until 1917, when it was defeated as a result of English military superiority. The Darfur region was thus the last region to be included in Sudan under occupation. The English took control of most parts of the country in 1898.
The climate of Darfur, whose climate is divided between desert and semi-desert in the north, poor savanna in the center, and rich savanna in the south, is characterized by the fact that it contains multiple valleys and waterways, and different plain and mountainous terrain, including the highest plateau in Sudan, which is the plateau called Jebel Marra, which reaches a height of three thousand meters.
The people of Darfur generally work in pastoralism and agriculture, and productive activities are almost distributed regionally and tribally into ecological-ethnic units, as the residents of the northern part of the region from Arab tribes work in herding camels (Abbala), while the residents of the central sector from the Fur and other settled non-Arab tribes work in agriculture, while residents of the southern regions from Arab tribes work in herding cows (Baqqara).
Darfur under English rule and during the National Era
The Darfur region has been distinguished throughout history by the presence of political unity, expressed by the federal state of the Fur Sultanate. A social and cultural environment was formed in the region that distinguished it from the rest of Sudan, despite the different ethnic origins of its population, the large migration movements inside and outside the region, and the different pattern of economic activities in it.
English colonialism dealt with caution with the Darfur region, marginalized it to a large extent, and practiced in parts of it the policy of closed areas, for fear of the spread of the revolutionary spirit and inherent independent tendencies in Darfur, which were expressed by the revolution of Al-Faki Abdullah Al-Sahini in 1921, the uprisings that followed, and Darfur’s loyalty to the struggling Mahdavi legacy. This revolutionary spirit was expressed in Darfur by declaring Sudan's independence from the city of Idd al-Ghanam (Idd al-Fursan), through the person of the national fighter, Mr. Abdel-Rahman Dabke.
As for the post-colonial era, it was characterized by similar neglect and marginalization of the region, its citizens, and their issues, as successive governments did not care about establishing infrastructure in Darfur (building roads, providing electrical power, digging water wells, etc.), nor did they care about expanding education, nor providing health and veterinary services, etc. In this, the military governments did not differ from the civilian ones, including the various governments of the Umma Party, which has the overwhelming majority in the region, and to which Darfur has continued to provide political and military support over the decades.
In all of this, the citizens of Darfur relied on themselves, through their traditional productive activities in the fields of pastoralism and agriculture, and managed their affairs and disputes through native administrations, with all their advantages and disadvantages, and educated some of their children through their savings and self-effort, while the state completely abandoned its duties towards them.
On the other hand, the citizens of Darfur contributed positively to all national and social activity, as they participated in the struggle against dictatorships, such as the dictatorship of Abboud, which the people of the region resisted, whether with the support of the Umma Party, or through the Sony organization, the Darfur Renaissance Front, or the Mayo dictatorship, which the people of Darfur recorded the brightest lines in resisting from the beginning, through the participation of their sons in the movement of the martyr Muhammad Nur Saad, and the involvement of the entire region in the Darfur uprising in the 1980-1981, or other contributions.
Darfur also had a major contribution to the Sudanese national income, national product, and export revenues, as the region contributes with important cash crops, the revenues and surplus of which are returned to the central treasury, such as sesame, gum arabic, hibiscus, and watermelon seeds, in addition to its important contribution to livestock, as well as the contribution to petroleum products extracted in the region.
The reality of backwardness and marginalization that Darfur suffered from during the National Era, and which negatively affected its citizens of various tribal origins and in all regions of Darfur, is primarily responsible for the failed and selfish military and civil elites who ruled Sudan, mostly descending from the central Nile regions, who dominated the central governments, controlled the state apparatus, and used it as a source of wealth accumulation and monopoly of power.
Among these elites, the leadership of the sectarian Family Umma Party bears direct responsibility, which, given Darfur’s history of struggle and support for them, and the historical connection of the people of the region to the Ansar sect and the Umma Party, is supposed to find greater interest in them than the leadership of that party, so their reward for it was the punishment of Sinmar. Some Darfur leaders who have positioned themselves as a vehicle for various sectarian and ideological parties and military regimes also bear responsibility, using them as a cat's claw in their policies hostile to the citizens of Darfur.
Environmental degradation in Darfur and tribal conflicts
The clear neglect of successive governments for the region's issues, the lack of any development vision for them, and the nihilistic response to the reality of environmental deterioration in Darfur, which is part of the general environmental deterioration in the Sahel region, linked to the steady increase in the number of population, livestock and animals, led to a serious environmental and political catastrophe that struck the Darfur region, starting in the early seventies of the last century, and continues to this day.
This environmental deterioration, which was caused by natural phenomena such as drought and desertification, which there were no programs to overcome and reduce, as well as the lack of good management of the scarce available resources, and the neglect, erosion or absence of institutions concerned with environmental protection and resource development, such as programs for protecting forests and vegetation, soil protection, etc., meteorological institutions, groundwater exploitation, land reclamation, etc., led to the citizen of Darfur facing nature in isolation and with weak tools, so it was inevitable He is defeated.
This led to large-scale migrations from the regions of North Darfur, from pastoral tribes, to the regions of Central and South Darfur, which led to a large population concentration in an area with limited environmental and production capabilities. This led to a similar deterioration of resources in those areas, resulting from pastoral and agricultural stress, overgrazing, cutting of wood, destruction of vegetation, etc.
In light of this situation, ethnic and tribal conflicts exploded between different groups, throughout the seventies, eighties, and nineties of the last century. Not a year passed without them exploding in one or another region of Darfur, where there was a search and conflict over limited resources, between groups searching for water, pasture, and land for their individuals and herds.
In all of this, these conflicts did not take on a racist character, but rather took place either between pastoral groups and agricultural groups, or between various pastoral groups, and to the same extent that they took place between non-Arab and Arab groups, they also took place between Arab groups among themselves, or between different non-Arab groups.
In all of this, the central state played a negative role, and just as it did not make any efforts to develop the infrastructure and protect the region from the effects of the environmental disaster, it did not intervene to contain the tribal conflicts, but rather left the matter of resolving them to the tribal and local leaders, who were doing their best to resolve these conflicts according to local custom, but the continued environmental deterioration and the weakness of resources were the main cause of the conflict, which those civil leaders did not have the ability to solve in a radical way.
Central governments offer Darfur as a sacrifice for their regional and global interests
As if all of this was not enough, the central governments brought Darfur into the fray of regional and global conflicts, and made it a crossing and a backyard for the various forces contributing to the conflicts in the west of the region, that is, in the Libyan Jamahiriya, the State of Chad, and the Central African Republic.
The government of Field Marshal Nimeiry directly intervened in the Chadian-Chadian and Chadian-Libyan conflict in implementation of global plans in which the Darfurian or Sudanese citizen in general had no interest. It supported the forces of Commander Hissein Habré, and helped him reach power in Chad, and in the war against Libya afterward. Thus, it positioned itself as one of the parties to the conflict, and brought Darfur into the holocaust of the bitter Chadian conflicts.
After the collapse of Field Marshal Numeiri’s regime, the government of Sadiq al-Mahdi changed its alliances and moved to support Libya, in order to repay some of its old and new debts to Colonel Gaddafi, including his support for the Umma Party in the seventies, and his support for the Umma Party’s electoral campaign in 1986. It opened the Darfur region to the multinational Islamic Legion forces loyal to Libya, as well as to the forces of the Chadian leader Ben Omar, and other forces, armies and militias.
As for the Salvation regime, it supported the forces of Commander Idriss Deby, and played a major role in supporting him and providing him with protection and depth in the Darfur region until he succeeded in overthrowing President Hissein Habre and assuming power in Chad in the early nineties.
These irresponsible interventions, and allowing foreign armies to enter the region, move in it, strike from it, and flee to it, led to the availability in the region of huge quantities of modern weapons, which were available from the remnants of every defeated army, and to strengthening the tendencies of the culture of war and fighting in Darfur, and to pushing entire tribes from Darfur into the Holocaust of the conflict in Chad in support of this or that party.
The central governments, instead of closing the western borders and protecting them strongly, taking a balanced position on the parties to the Chadian conflicts, and distancing themselves from interfering in the affairs of other countries, have agreed to become a paw for the regional and global powers, in their cold and hot wars, and to use the Darfur region in all of this, offering it as a sacrifice for their narrow and non-national interests, and pushing its citizens into choices that they did not choose, and that are not consistent with their real interests or desires.
Armed looting, lack of security, policies of neglect, and iron fists
The escalating environmental collapse, the migration of many tribes from their traditional areas, the disintegration that took place in the tribal institution, especially after entire tribes moved to live in the cities, the widespread availability of weapons, and the entry of foreign elements into the region from the remnants of various Chadian and African forces to Darfur, all of this led to the emergence of the phenomenon of armed looting as a means of making a living and a new way of life.
The phenomenon of armed robbery, which relies on the legacy of the old Hambata regime, but is devoid of all Hambata ethics, has spread. It is practiced by elements devoid of their tribal groups, supported by elements from outside the region, to practice their transgressions with cruelty and violence against the oppressed Darfurian citizen. There may be elements from Arab, non-Arab and mixed tribes, from agricultural and pastoral tribes, and from expatriate and local elements, and they were in no way a phenomenon linked to a specific tribe, as some racists and biased people wanted to go away.
In the face of the well-armed armed robbery gangs, the practice of their members in martial arts, the central government’s weak interest in security in the region, and its neglect of the police forces, the armed robbery gangs began to grow in strength with the dawn of each new day, and they were winning many of their battles in front of the police, and it turned into a serious security disaster that threatens the entire region, its roads, and the movement of goods and travelers in it.
The government of Sadiq al-Mahdi ignored this phenomenon, even when it addressed it. It looked at it in isolation from the comprehensive crisis in Darfur, and did not present any comprehensive programs to restore security in Darfur, fight the phenomenon and its roots, and dry up the sources of weapons in Darfur in response to its regional interests, and it paid the price for what was provided to it, past and present.
The Salvation Authority, for its part, decided to resort to the iron-fist method, so it sent its man, known as “Al-Tayeb Sikha,” to solve the security problem in Darfur, using blind, brute force, without any social and cultural programs or cooperation with the civil and civil forces in the region. His policy was bound to end in failure, and armed looting and insecurity to remain prevalent in Darfur.
On the other hand, Al-Inqah deliberately accused certain tribes of practicing armed robbery, in response to its claims and racist biases, as if an entire tribe could be a gang. The Salvation Army has also described all attempts to rise up against it in Darfur, and all the seeds of political opposition to it there, as armed robbery gangs, thus blurring the boundaries between the political conflict and the security conflict, and corrupting the concept of reform.
The rescue system and the escalation of the crisis in Darfur
The rescue regime contributed greatly to the exacerbation of the crisis in Darfur, and at its hands Darfur faced the harshest forms of suffering, turmoil and destruction, which is comparable only to the devastation achieved after the defeat of Sultan Ibrahim Qard at the hands of Zubayr Pasha in 1874 and the collapse of the Sultanate, the devastation that befell Darfur in the days of the Mahdism, the wars and the emptying that took place of Darfur and its population at that time, and other periods.
The Islamist organization was active in Darfur before it came to power with its military coup in 1989, where it participated in a major role in the events in Darfur, from the position of opposition and government, intervening in tribal conflicts with a clear bias towards the Arab tribes, and supporting the Arab gathering there, in order to expand its influence in Darfur, and create a foothold there. The rescue strategies in Darfur were characterized by contradiction, even though they were all harmful to the region and its citizens. The rescue strategies intended to weaken the region and its inhabitants. It was intended to cut off the northern part of the region and annex it to the Northern Region. It also divided Darfur into three states (regions), and then it also divided it into governorates that did not take into account the administrative legacy of the region throughout history.
The Salvation Army also sought to break and weaken the traditional leadership and civil administration in Darfur, and replaced them with intermediate and new leaderships affiliated with it, on the basis that the traditional leadership is affiliated with the Umma Party. It also brought in many senior leaders from outside the region, from its cadres known for violence and arrogance, and in light of the lack of any interest in the development of Darfur or the issues of its citizens.
On the other hand, the Salvation Army also sought to absorb Darfur into its expansionist war project, by exploiting the people of the region in its war in South Sudan. It formed the Popular Defense Forces and the Knights’ militias and supported the Arab tribes of South Darfur and the Marahil militias so that the Popular Movement would fight for them in the contact areas, in continuation of the failed policy of Sadiq al-Mahdi. The Islamists from Darfur played a dirty role in establishing this war project and its leaders and using their families in it.
On the other hand, Ingaz ignored tribal conflicts, and at times took the side of one tribe or group of tribes against another, and remained silent about the policy of mass killing and displacement that took place against the Fur, Masalit, etc. tribes, in its effort to break down the traditional structure in Darfur, weaken the Umma Party, and keep the people of Darfur busy with themselves so that they do not demand their legitimate rights to development and to govern themselves and their country.
Ingaz also dealt in a purely military manner with the issue of armed looting, and tried to place its responsibility on the shoulders of certain groups, in clear antagonism to them. Even in this area, Ingaz did not provide sufficient intention and abundant capabilities to fight the phenomenon and achieve security in Darfur, despite its hype about security and restoring the state’s prestige, etc., because all of this does not fall within its planned programs for Darfur.
We can now easily say that the rescue strategy towards Darfur was based on completely removing the state from its tasks in building and rehabilitating the infrastructure and addressing the environmental crisis in the region, on breaking traditional relations in Darfur, on entrenching itself behind certain leaders and tribes, against the other part of the population of Darfur, on spreading a culture of war and violence in Darfur, and on exploiting the people of Darfur and their religious tendencies as a military, security and political reserve against its opponents from the Popular Movement and other opposition forces.
The armed opposition in Darfur and the threat of civil war
The armed opposition broke out in Darfur against the regime, after the arming of the tribes and the conflicts between them reached their maximum, and when the policies of ethnic cleansing of certain tribes continued, and after the misery, meanness, and flaw of the “rescue” program for Darfur was exposed, and under the influence of the experience of the armed opposition in the south, and the activity of a number of political forces that wanted to drag Darfur into conflict with the regime. The Daoud Yahya Boulad movement in the early nineties was an early attempt at this opposition, although it was harmed by its direct connection to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, and its establishment at a time when the rescue program against Darfur had not been revealed, nor was there a division in the ruling rescue authority, in which most Darfur Islamists stood against Al-Bashir's wing - Ali Othman and with Al-Turabi's wing - Alaa Al-Hajj.
In early 2003, fighting broke out in the form of a political rebellion against the regime, led by three main forces in Jebel Marra, Karnoi and Arqu. The forces of Jebel Marra and Karnoi - Wadi Howar - united within the framework of the Sudan Liberation Movement, while the government succeeded in including the rebel Janjaweed forces in Arqu to its side.
The armed opposition is criticized for its dispersion and the efforts of all parties to gain partisan gains from it. The Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement were founded, and they competed in the military field and achieved the percentage of victories for them, while the Federal Party tried for a long time to win the opposition to its side. Parties from the Umma Party and the Popular Congress also intervened in the conflict, creating a state of political confusion and confusion that hindered the unity of the Darfur rifle against the regime.
On the other hand, the rescuers moved directly to the counterattack, where they launched a sweeping political attack on the rebellion and its leaders, attracting to their side one of its important segments, the “Janjaweed,” and then they began to win over some Arab leaders and militias to include them on the side of the regime, in the direction of transforming the conflict into a civil war in Darfur, instead of it being a struggle for all Darfuris against them and their policies.
The weakness of the political discourse of the Darfuri opposition movements, the ethnic and tribal isolation of some of them, the occurrence of some opposition movements in violations against civilians, the standing of the Turabi party playing from behind behind one of them, and the lack of coordination with any other armed opposition forces in the east or south when the fighting broke out, gave the Salvation Government the opportunity, time and justifications to adopt and implement its policy based on the principle of divide and rule, aiming to sever the historical ties between the tribes in Darfur, and aiming to drown Darfur is in a sea of blood.
The tribal conflicts over the limited resources in Darfur have been transformed by the ruling regimes and the propaganda of the Popular Movement and various adventurous forces into an ethnic and cultural conflict, and the armed opposition that was launched against the regime, as a result of the regime’s hateful strategy and the mistakes of the revolutionaries, has turned into a tribal and ethnic entrenchment, opening the door to the outbreak of a comprehensive civil and ethnic war in Darfur.
The toll of the armed conflict in Darfur over a year and a half is quite horrific. Tens of thousands of citizens were killed, hundreds of villages and villages were burned, more than a million citizens were displaced inside and outside Darfur, dozens of water wells, agricultural lands and orchards were destroyed, crops, livestock and property were looted, everyone was armed, and the militias began wreaking havoc, in light of the active and fundamental participation in this series of destruction and sabotage by the Khartoum government.
The conflict in Darfur: a struggle over resources, not a struggle of identity
The conflict in Darfur in its entirety is a conflict over scarce resources. These resources are constantly decreasing, in light of the large increase in the population and the number of grazing animals, including camels and cattle. The region, according to various studies, had passed the stage of environmental balance at the end of the seventies, and traditional forms of agriculture and grazing, especially in light of the reality of drought and increasing desertification, are no longer able to be practiced without complete destruction of the environment and endless conflicts over water resources and constantly impoverished land.
The various central governments, starting from the government of Field Marshal Numeiri and passing through the governments of Sadiq al-Mahdi and ending with the current Salvation Government, have ignored the escalating environmental deterioration in the region - and in other regions of Sudan - and instead of solving the problem within the framework of programs to confront environmental deterioration, develop resources and introduce new economic activities and new production techniques, they focused on the manifestations of the crisis, which are the issues of armed robbery and tribal warfare, which are inherent results. The environmental, economic and demographic crisis in Darfur.
Conflicts in Darfur have existed since ancient times, but under conditions of environmental balance, they were limited and were resolved through traditional tools and leaders and systems of compensation and blood money. Relations were good between the various ethnic groups of Darfur, supported by mixed marriage and intertwined relationships between leaders and citizens, in practices of ethnic tolerance that are not known in the rest of the regions of Sudan.
The attempts to transform the conflict now into an ethnic conflict between the non-Arab and Arab tribes of Darfur, or an identity conflict between Sudan’s Africanism or its Arabism. This miserable and false conflict, which some are trying to resolve militarily in Darfur and with the hands of the Darfurians, express political and cognitive short-sightedness and ignorance of the facts on the ground, and does not provide any contribution to the radical solution to the crisis, which lies in the development of resources and the reconstruction of the region.
The various extremist and backward organizations, such as the so-called Arab group in Darfur, the Quraish organization, and the organizations that call for Negro-African entrenchment, are recording wrong readings of the crisis, and will work to escalate it and turn it into a holocaust and ethnic liquidation, similar to what happened in Rwanda. It is worth noting that the idea of most of these extremist organizations came from outside Darfur, and they find support mainly from non-Darfurian forces, whether some wings of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, or the racist, fascist wing of the Arabized northern elite.
The correct solution lies in the unity of the people of Darfur, and the common struggle among its citizens to develop, properly manage and diversify the region’s resources, confront the escalating environmental degradation, and stimulate the initiative of the region’s residents to work, produce, save and invest, as well as in achieving social peace, which makes all of this possible. At the political level, it seems important to extract the right of the citizens of the regions to administer their regions themselves, and to contribute fairly to the administration of the entire Sudanese nation, on an equal footing with other citizens from the various regions.
A vision for the new Sudan project