Darfur Rising: Sudan's New Crisis
Nairobi/Brussels |
25 Mar 2004
The steadily worsening, ethnically polarising conflict in Darfur now seriously threatens peace and stability throughout Sudan and in neighbouring Chad.
Darfur Rising: Sudan's New Crisis
,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines how the rapid onset of war in the western region of Darfur - now one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with thousands dead and some 830,000 uprooted from their homes - endangers the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) peace talks between the government and the insurgent Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA).
"Sudan, where prospects for peace had begun to look so promising in 2003, has become a potential horror story in 2004", says John Prendergast, Special Adviser to the President at ICG. "The IGAD talks in Naivasha, Kenya, must not be allowed to deadlock, and a parallel process needs to begin to address both the humanitarian and political crises in Darfur".
Open warfare erupted in Darfur in early 2003 when two loosely allied rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked military installations. Rebels in Darfur have not been participants in the IGAD peace talks, and they decided to fight lest decisions on power and wealth-sharing for the entire country be taken without them.
The rebels also took up arms to protect their communities against a twenty-year campaign by government-backed militias recruited among groups of Arab extraction in Darfur and Chad. These "Janjaweed" militias have, over the past year, received greatly increased government support to clear civilians from areas considered disloyal. Militia attacks and a scorched-earth government offensive have led to massive displacement, indiscriminate killings, looting and mass rape - resulting in the depopulation of entire areas inhabited by the Fur, Zaghawa, Massaleit, and other smaller groups of African origin. The Khartoum regime has acted with impunity in Darfur, confident that the international community will not react decisively for fear of harming prospects at the IGAD talks.
It has taken more than a year of war in the region for the international community to begin to realise that the Darfur crisis requires its full engagement. Having invested so much in Sudan's peace, the U.S., the UK, and other interested countries have a responsibility to ensure that the Darfur conflict is addressed, in order to give the IGAD process a real chance for success. Talks open soon in Ndjamena between the government of Sudan and the two rebels groups about a humanitarian ceasefire, but it is essential that the parties also discuss the political issues behind the conflict.
"The international community must make the Sudanese government realise it can no longer be treated as a partner in the peace process if Darfur continues to burn", says Stephen Ellis, Africa Director of ICG.