Darfur Dateline

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Darfur Dateline - November 2006

In Darfur one the great human travesties is taking place. Radical Arab Muslims are killing black African Muslims as ethnic cleansing is taking place abetted by the Government of Sudan (GOS). In western Sudan a region known as Darfur, or place of the Fur tribe, finds the Sahara Desert creeping southward creating a vast arid region as it approaches Sudan’s second largest city, Nyala of over two million, which is in the middle of Darfur. Darfur is the size of France with a population of four million and its main inhabitants are members of the black African Fur tribe who farm and keep livestock. These people are very poor, scratching out a very meager living from the dry earth, growing sorghum and various seeds. In the northern part of Darfur, nomadic Arabs from different tribes have been pressured south because of their need to provide forage for their animals and good water. In the past, these nomadic warriors have been hired out as paid soldiers, so they have broad experience in warfare. These nomads as a group were given the name of Janjaweed. The Government in Khartoum (GOS) has sided with the Arabs in disputes with the Fur tribe to the extent that some of the Fur tribe banded together and overran some military posts. It is at this time that our story starts. It is 2003. The GOS is deeply involved with the majority of its armed forces matching up with the SPLA (Sudans People Liberation Army) in the struggle between North and South further east, Muslim against Christian, brown against black and Arab against African that has consumed the country for over 20 years. It is important to know the GOS strategy in this genocide as it is mirrored by the ethnic cleansing in Darfur:

Direct killing

Civilian displacement from water and food

Rape

School children in New Sereif Refugee camp outside of Nyala, Darfur, Sudan

Prior to this time the GOS had little economic or military resources to wage the additional war in Darfur so they turned to the Janjaweed for help. The mission that the Janjaweed was given by the GOS was to quell the uprising. They were given weapons, ammunition, money and free rein. The result was horrific. Where at times the Arabs had intermarried into the Fur tribe, now the lines between Arab and black became a chasm of incredible wideness. Instead of putting down a small rebellion, the Janjaweed took it on themselves to remove the black Africans from the northern area. Mosques were burned as well as Korans, villages burned and men, woman and children killed as well as their herds taken, women were raped with the epitaph “We will create a brown race”, and bodies dumped into open wells poisoning them. The civilians with no protection fled. Many into Chad, camps around Nyala, camps in the south, they fled with a terror. The women that were raped are now considered outcasts by their families as they are deemed unclean. The same for the children they produce. If it was not for the refugee camps they would not survive. When you displace a poor farmer from their wells and meager food, they die. This is a far more efficient way to kill then by direct murder. The lowest estimate by organizations stationed in the area are that 200,000 have died and 2,000,000 have been displaced. When the Janjaweed are spread too thin the GOS forces in trucks, gunships, jets (2) and Antonov bombers rain death upon the civilians. A hospital worker from Nyala told me that at 5:30 in the morning the planes would leave with a huge roar from the airstrip in Nyala returning within the hour. At 3, 4 and 5pm the wounded would pour into the hospitals. This went on every day and it is still going on. Then there would be another wave of refugees entering the refugee camps flanking Nyala. There are 7000 African Union troops in Darfur to be peacekeepers, but they do nothing, their mission is not clear, their leadership poor, morale among soldiers is low. The impact they have to keep the peace is non-existent. When they foray out to attack the rebels they are beaten and run. They find it easier to placate the GOS then to keep peace. So it continues into November 2006. Meanwhile the United Nations is powerless to take action. It says that crimes against humanity are going on but stop short of calling it ethnic cleansing. The US calls it genocide and Great Britain deplores the situation but the rest of the world remains mute, unwilling to take action. Churches, Mosques, Temples wave their hands at the situation but again do not place themselves on the line to pressure a stop to the killing. The world has not grown up, meanwhile the farmers of Fur are dying with their families.

School teacher in the New Sereif Refugee Camp. She is Muslim and African

The Trip

I wanted to take a trip that would take me into Darfur from Khartoum and then to a refugee camp on the southern edge of Darfur via the south from Lokichoggia on the Sudanese border with Kenya. The western media is not welcome in Khartoum, so many journalists who want a story enter Darfur from Chad illegally, usually with very dangerous and poor results. Generally journalists, if they are permitted into the country, are restricted to a 25 mile area around Khartoum. Since I had just had a book published called Africa, The Holocausts of Rwanda and Sudan by UNM Press in the spring of 2006, which was quite critical of the GOS, I did not think the Khartoum government would let me into Darfur. So it was with trepidation when Richard Niemeyer, a cousin of mine who is a medical doctor, asked me if I wanted to go into Darfur via Khartoum. He had created hospitals in the north and south and had friends in the GOS at all levels. He had cleared the trip with his friends and they knew who I was, as they had quite a dossier of my life. Since I had planned a trip into south Darfur via southern Sudan, I decided to combine the trips into one, giving me a broad picture of the whole area at one time. Abdel Azim met us in Kampala, Uganda. He an important Imam in the United States and has doctorates from several Universities in the United States. He arranged for the Embassy of Sudan in Uganda to provide us a Sudanese visa. When we flew into Khartoum we were greeted with great hospitality. Ali Karti is the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Sudan who welcomed us into Sudan. He provided us a plane to travel to Darfur and the Deputy Governor of South Darfur took us around Nyala showing us the new water works as well as the markets in the dusty adobe city. Then we went to the New Sereif refugee camp. I was permitted to take pictures at all locations. What I saw was a large undeveloped city with very little infrastructure. I saw a peaceful city under Islamic leadership. I also saw a great deal of military loading up to be shipped to new locations, mostly African Union troops. So the picture that I received was a peaceful dusty Sudanese city yet the number and size of the refugee camps spoke of the problems of ethnic cleansing. When I returned to Khartoum, I flew to Nairobi in Kenya and then to Lokichoggia on the Kenya-Sudan border. From there I flew in an old Russian Antonov 32 cargo plane with a plane loaded with food, a vehicle, and well drilling material provided by Persecution Project Foundation to Jach, a refugee camp just south of Darfur. After a bumpy landing on a dirt runway we were greeted by many very emaciated refugees. Farmers from Fur. Persecution Project had dug some wells, but now only one was working. Where at one time 5000 refugees had originally relocated here, when the wells were dug and working, 10000 additional refugees came to the camp. Since the wells were not operational the camp had again dropped to 8000. Water is critical here. The camp had not had a shipment of food since September so there was great joy in seeing the plane arrive. The pain that the ethnic cleansing caused was very apparent in Jach.

A school child in the New Sereif Refugee Camp outside Nyala, Darfur

Overview

It is November 2006. The attacks by the Janjaweed and the GOS continue unabated. Pressure by the United Nations, Great Britain and the US calling for a UN peace keeping force to stop the ethnic cleansing have been resisted by the GOS. A prime reason is the fear by the Sudan leadership, with the army generals and Janjaweed leadership that War Crimes Against Humanity will be lodged against them in the World Court. A failed peace accord between the rebel factions and the GOS has only resulted in a splinter rebel group SLM led by Minni Minawi to join the government forces and creating more conflict on the farmers of Fur. The LRA, a treacherous army destabilizing the Uganda, Sudan, and Chad borders has signed a peace accord. Its leader Joseph Koni has been indicted for War Crimes. Inside northern Sudan the people believe President Al-Bashir, who says that the struggle in Darfur is between tribes with some 10,000 dead. Many Sudanese leaders do not correlate the sanctions imposed on Sudan by the United Nations with the genocide that has kept this country on the top of the despotic government list in the world. Oil money is pouring into Khartoum and the city is showing this economic muscle. China, Sudan’s recent economic partner as well as advocate in the UN, is moving into the sanction void, creating legitimacy to Sudan’s political and economic direction. Meanwhile innocent men, women and children die in Darfur the victims of a world who has forgotten them or can not muster up the will to stop the carnage.