Genocide and Peacekeeping in Darfur

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Table of Contents

International relations and response
Peacekeeping efforts
Conclusion
References

Darfur is one of the regions of the biggest African country, Sudan which attained its independence in 1956 from Egypt and the UK. Located in the war-torn region of Africa, and bordered by Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, and Uganda (UCDP, p. 105). These neighboring states have at least experienced one form of conflict, either interstate or intrastate in the last half of the century (106). With an estimated population of bout 37 million, a completely heterogeneous state in terms of religion, ethnicity, and language, Sudan has experienced some of the longest conflicts in African and world history (Flint, p. 142). The north that is comprised of the Darfur region is Muslim Arab dominated, while the south is predominantly Christian with both regions having multiple ethnic groups (p. 144). The Khartoum government is dominated by the Northern region elites, who have traditionally fought for power, creating a series of wars and conflicts with unstable governments which are never in control of the entire vast nation (de Waal, p. 20). The few elites at the center of the nation are extremely wealthy, in contrast to the exceedingly poor marginalized regions at the far-flung corners of the nation, comprising Darfur. Sudan has suffered numerous domestic conflicts and many one-sided conflicts that are basically supported by the government either directly or indirectly (US Department of State). In an effort to contain the rebellions, the Khartoum Governments have over the years funded the militias to fight off the rebels (Human Rights Watch 2002). The militias have been responsible for several gross violations of human rights both Darfur and the south.

Darfur, located in the Western region of Sudan, has a population estimated to be 6 million (US Department of State, 2004). The present conflict in Darfur began in the year 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement /Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) disagreed with the Government of Sudan (Azzain, p. 7). Even though observers concur that communal conflicts have existed in this region for decades, the communities living in Darfur also complain that the central government based in Khartoum has also stayed for so long that they need a change (Varshney, p. 309). The rebellion and the response from the government’s backed ethnic militias in 2003 have brought the defining moments for the Darfurians’ lives. The rebels have been fighting for the resources that they claim the successive central governments have been harvesting yet have decided to marginalize them at the expense of their Arab counterparts (310). The Khartoum governments have been arming Arab militias to execute atrocities, genocide, in an effort to contain the rebels. However, according to Human Rights Watch report (2002), the war in Darfur is more complex than what people see at phase value. The report elaborates the division between the ethnic groups of Darfurians, where the dominant Fur ethnic group and other African ethnic groups comprised of Zaghawa and Masalit combining forces to form groups of rebels fighting the central government dominated by the Arabs. In this region, it is an issue being an Arab or an African, with such an identity classifying one whether he or she is a pro or anti-government, or just as the dominant occupation. Azzain (3) states that the present Darfur disaster is “a result of interlinked communal conflicts, conflicts between different regional elites and periphery-center conflicts”. He further elaborates that the “differing but the entangled” conflicts and of course the insufficient understanding between the parties have complicated the solution to the problem (5). The war conflict that is mainly due to resource scramble has most of the time assumed a political dimension, with no specific Sudanese Government taking any serious initiative to protect and safeguard the livelihood for the Darfur people (8). Experts have also pointed out drought as another issue that has aggravated the whole war, pointing out the difference between the neighboring Kenya, where despite the drought in many regions, has adopted zero-grazing in response to the reducing land space for nomadic culture.

The present government of the National Islamic Front (NIF) headed by Omar el-Bashir as the president came to power in 1989 through a coup. According to Human Rights Watch (2002), General Bashir’s televised speech after the coup stated that the reason for the coup was “to save the country from rotten political parties”. This has generated series of arguments and conflicts, with this government trying to survive at all costs at the expense of conflict resolution.

International relations and response

The Darfur crisis is one of its kind conflicts that have generated so much international response at different levels. Some responses have been in the form of a mass movement like the one in the United States known as the “Save Darfur Coalition” (Human Rights Watch, 2002). United Nations has been working round the clock in an effort to bring the situation in Darfur to control, with peacekeeping attempts to save the lives of the violence victims. This they have done through political approach negotiations to allow the UN peacekeepers deployed in the region. The passage of the resolution was seen as a breakthrough in that the high breed peacekeepers would be deployed to improve the humanitarian efforts in the region (de Waal, p. 20).

However, these efforts by the UN are undermined by the way major western states relationship with the government of Khartoum. United States declared the atrocities committed in Darfur to be genocide (US Department of State, 2004). This coupled with the counterterrorism campaign that the United States is fronting has complicated the overall peacekeeping efforts by the United Nations (Diplomats, 2007). Many people in the United States are traditional supporters of the more Christian south of Sudan. The Washington government believes that Sudan has very crucial information about Al-Qaeda creating a mixed interest. The most valuable export for Sudan is oil with China leading the pack of major buyers of this oil (Kamal, p. 106).China buys a third of this oil export (107). According to New York Times report, much of the revenue got from the oil is spent on the weapon market which China is the leading supplier (UCDP, p. 28). By the year 2001, the weapons headed to Sudan from China were valued at $1 million, and this number has significantly increased to $23 million by the year 2005 (29). China has also given Khartoum government technical assistance through the building of the arms factory by the use of technology transfer. This is despite the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1556 that prohibited all states from selling and supplying weapons to Darfur (31). But this did not improve any situation since it was realized that the weapons used in Darfur came from Khartoum, noting that the embargo only prohibited weapon supply to Darfur and not any other place. The countries surrounding Sudan are not left out in this complex relationship. The neighboring countries like Chad have their interests too in this conflict. The conflict in Darfur is said to have spread mainly in Chad and the Central African Republic, with Chad, believed to be siding with the Khartoum government instead of the Darfur rebels, who are said to be against the present Chad government since the anti-government groups in Chad are said to be fighting from their base at Darfur (UCDP 2008). These are just but highlights of a few notable relationships between the Darfur conflict and the international community

Peacekeeping efforts

The most pressing need in Darfur was to protect the Darfur civilians and to ensure stability. This need still stands to date despite the unwillingness of the Khartoum government and the unclear intention of the international community who have been accused of playing partisan politics in the peace effort by the Sudanese government (Kamal, p. 22)). According to the United Nations report on Darfur, the numbers killed in the war have hit more than 450,000, and those affected are about 4.2 million.

In response to the need to save lives in Darfur, the international community through United Nations passed a resolution dubbed, UN Resolution 1769 in August 2006 to provide the much-needed momentum for peacekeeping (Azzain, p. 32). The passing of the resolution saw the deployment of around 26,000 peacekeepers (33). Before this resolution, there were already 7000 African Union peacekeepers in the region (36) According to Jean-Marie, Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations, the first elements of peacekeeping were going on well until the political obstacles and the complications with the hybrid force. The Khartoum government expressed reservation for some of the components of the peacekeepers, insisting that the western troops should not be part of the contingent. However, Sudan had made some efforts to meet its responsibility of deploying the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) (Kamal, p. 109), in line with chapter 7 of the United Nation Charter that offer provision for “necessary action” to offer protection to the mission, the humanitarian groups, and civilians (110).

The efforts in bringing Darfur stability back have been enormous, but have faced numerous challenges unexpectedly. Despite the pledges by the international community to support the peacekeeping process, the peacekeeping contingent has been underfinanced and this has jeopardized their chances of successfully launching operations in this volatile region (Kamal, p. 22). Some of the inefficiencies are blamed on the inaccessibility of some of the areas with no infrastructures to facilitate operation (46). This has seen difficulties in accessing some regions when the new wave of conflicts erupts, putting evacuation and relief efforts in confusion.

Unfortunately, Resolution 1769 is limited in its mandate since it only gives the UNAMID mandate to “monitor” illegal arms movements in the Darfur region, making it difficult to take any further action in case one party fails to comply with the agreements (UCDP, 2008). The many efforts to return the more than 2.5 million displaced persons have been difficult. The land seized by the well-armed Arab militias has been the real contention, with many of them settling on this land unabated and it is not possible to do the land redistribution without the contribution of Khartoum (UCDP.2008). Furthermore, this does not fall under the mandate of UNAMID, and the fact that the traditional land rights in Darfur were organized in such a way to accommodate both the pastoralists and the farmers (Kamal, p. 111). Experts advise that no amount of attempt to bring lasting peace in Darfur will succeed unless complete disarmament and the demobilization of the militias and rebel groups is achieved (Varshney, p. 27). They say that after the disarmament, the renegotiation where the local scholars and elders are involved will be the best alternative.

The peace process in this region has grown much complicated with sometimes Government of Sudan discrediting the international community and the humanitarian organizations, accusing them of working with the rebels (Varshney, p. 29). However, observers see this from a different perspective, saying that this is a strategic way of turning the local people against the international community. For example, the alleged taking of blood from 60 women in Khor Baraanga village was leveled on by an international humanitarian organization by the government. In this region, it is a great offense to take anybody’s blood away as this is considered a taboo (Flint, p. 148). This has been seen as the real impediment to the peace process in Darfur. Such accusations are considered as a way of diverting the local people’s attention from the actual problem and that they (the government) uses such tactics to make the local community rebel against the aid workers, whom they don’t want out of the region.

When the then UN Secretary-General Dr. Kofi Annan suggested the use of hybrid peacekeeping force for Darfur, he intended to make the process of peacebuilding kick off with the main purpose of convincing the Sudan government to accept the non-African peacekeepers (Human Rights Watch, 2002). This proposal became somehow successful despite facing some challenges that were not anticipated. The Sudan government accepted the proposal and pledged support despite the fact that such a hybrid force has never been used anywhere in the peacekeeping history, and the fact that it is being tried in Sudan has raised so many questions as to its capacity to augment itself into a viable peacekeeping force (Varshney, p. 31). War analysts argue that the reason why many western countries with the technical capacity to support the peacekeeping groups are due to their lack of confidence in the hybrid approach, doubting the ability of the command and the structure of control. This lack of confidence may be justified by the fact that the forces have two different centers of power, with each group reporting to their headquarters. The other challenge relies upon the composition of the force considering the fact that the resolution agreed that it should mainly be composed of African peacekeepers. It was not well defined which countries would really send their troops to compose the UNAMID and the government of Sudan has used this loophole to restrict some troops from other countries. For example, the refusal by the government of Sudan to accept engineers from Norway and Sweden, accusing them of coming to spy over Sudan, was a big blow to the UNAMID efforts.

It became apparent that even the locals as well as the rebels were opposed to the idea of majority peacekeepers being African. The argument they presented was that it is easier to bribe African troops from poor African states than troops from the west. According to Adam Mahmoud, a member of the Fur Consultative Council, “the government is laughing at the international community when it comes to UNAMID since they (government) feel that they can decide on anything they want”. Abdallah Khamees of URF puts it vividly, “the mandate of UNAMID is not very clear and that UN is only consulting with the government and not also with the movements as it should” (Human Rights Watch, 2002). By this Abdallah is referring to such issues as where the UNAMID should be deployed, which practically should be decided by the rebels

Other than the barriers from the government and the local rebels in the successful deployment of the UNAMID troops, the parent countries of the deployed troops have also contributed considerably to the drawbacks associated with this failure (Flint, p. 149). No particular country has really contributed the indispensable helicopter, despite the bad terrain that makes road transport impossible during the conflicts (Azzain 24) This fact was emphasized by the present UN Secretary-General who clarified that UNAMID needs more helicopters, about 18 transport helicopters, and 6 light attack ones so as the force can protect their own troops, and the civilians (UCDP, 2008). Many of these countries argue that they already have their helicopters deployed in other warring countries like Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But many observers refute this claim saying that most of these countries are just not sure of the viability of the hybrid system of peacekeeping and thus fear that they are highly likely to lose their helicopters in the peace process. Analysts continue to observe that the problem comes in when the helicopters are used, it would involve fighting against either the government-backed militias or the rebels to retreat away from the civilians-protected regions (UCDP 2008). This means that if they are helicopters from western countries, they will be viewed as imperialists considering the history of colonialism. Still, if it is an African country helicopter, it’s the argument of Africa fighting Africa or as some people refer to it, “African shooting African” (Diplomats, 2007).

The war in Sudan’s Darfur is a very complex issue that must be seen in terms of how it is handled with care. It is apparent that currently, the whole attempt to bring peace in this region has not achieved much success due to numerous issues I have highlighted. First, it requires the whole participation of the international community, which would see a multilateral approach implemented. This is because historically, multilateralism has effectively worked in Sudan more than unilateralism. However, the more viable multilateralism is completely lacking currently, making success in the peace process a mirage. Experts also argue that when it comes to a complex situation like the Darfur one, some form of constructive enforcement by the international community has worked in the past, and therefore would be more viable when combined with serious commitments. This can be done by creating a situation where both parties are made to believe that commitment to the peace process will be less costly as compared to the continued fight

Conclusion

The Darfur conflict is complex in nature and it’s associated with communal conflicts, elite conflicts, as well as center-periphery conflict. As Varshney (310) States, the solution lies with an effort to understand all these types of conflicts and how they interconnect. It, therefore, requires more research in the future to develop a more constructive understanding of this conflict. This is because Sudan as a country has experienced conflicts in virtually all its corners, i.e. west, south, east, and north and therefore a more advance research h on how these conflicts interrelate would be a good beginning.

References

Diplomats (2007) Different diplomats, interviewed 2007, Khartoum
Kamal el-Din (2007) “Islam and Islamism in Darfur” in de Waal (ed) War in Darfur and the Search for Peace p. 105
US Department of State (2004) “Documenting Atrocities in Darfur”
UCDP (2008) Web.
Mohamed, Adam Azzain (2007) “Evaluating the Darfur Peace Agreement – A call for an Alternative Approach to Crises Management”, conference paper presented at the Peace Agreement Programme African Review Workshop 2007
de Waal (2007) “Sudan: the Turbulent State” in de Waal (ed) War in Darfur and the Search for Peace p. 20
Varshney, 2002. Communal conflicts can be defined as events where (a) there is violence, and (b) two or more communally identified groups confront each other or members of the other group at some point during the violence, 309)
Flint, Julie(2007) Darfur´s armed Movements in de Waal (ed) War in Darfur and the Search for Peace p. 142
Human Rights Watch (2002) “Biography of Hassan al-Turabi” Web.
New York Times (2006-10-24) “War in Sudan? Not Where the Oil Wealth Flows” and AP (2007-11-28) “China won’t tolerate threats to Darfur peacekeepers”

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Genocide and Peacekeeping in Darfur

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