The crisis in Darfur is, by now, well-known to most people around the globe. With over 200,000 people dead and over 2 million people displaced from their homes, the conflict has gained the attention of the entire world. However, Darfur was already on the radar of countries like China and the United States long before the fighting broke out that has since torn apart the region. In fact, Sudan has been an area of interest for many countries thanks to it being rich in oil and mineral resources. Also, both the U.S. and China have been pumping oil from Sudan to their respective markets–The U.S. since 1979 and China since the 1990s.
The importance of Sudan has skyrocketed in recent years since the amount of oil that remains in the Middle East is already fairly well known and other smaller resources have already been tapped and are drying up as I write. The likelihood of new reserve discoveries in Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, for example, is fairly low, but much of Africa is uncharted and untapped.
In 1945, the U.S. State Department declared that Middle East oil was “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the great material prizes in world history” (source). I don’t think it takes much to apply this rhetoric to Sudan and other areas of Africa, especially since the land is still ripe with potential for big players like China and the United States.
The U.S. Department of Energy agrees. It has produced studies projecting that oil production out of Africa would rise at an incredible rate over the next two decades and openly cites the increasing strategic importance of Africa within the framework of U.S. interests (source).
With that background laid, let us get back to the region that currently holds the attention of the world: Darfur due to the atrocities that have been taking place there for the last 5 years.
The basics: Sudan is a country located in north-eastern Africa. Darfur is the northwestern region inside Sudan. The people of Darfur have long had very little say or control in the happenings of their own country and government, they have felt neglected, and have often rallied for succession from Sudan. To this end, groups of rebels formed over the years and began carrying out actions against the government forces. In 2003, a formal rebellion began, and in response, the government bombed Darfur and sent its militia, the Janaweed, to quell the region, which it did and has continued to do today with extreme gusto.
The central “players” in the feud are the Janjaweed–as mentioned above, these are a government-backed and superiorly outfitted militia. They are considered to be responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in Darfur. When the story first broke, the ties between the Janjaweed soldiers and the government were denied, but it’s quite clear now that the Janjaweed have enjoyed lavish support from the Sudanese government, enabling them to carry out some of the worst atrocities of the conflict. On the other side of the fence is the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) which has at times fractured into many sub-groups, reformed and re-assimilated this smaller groups under the SLA banner. Janjaweed militias have the support of the government. Similarly, the rebel forces have had help from its neighbor, Chad.
As with most genocidal conflicts in the world, there is an ethnic component to the killing though it’s not strictly based on distinctions between race or skin pigmentation in this case. The targets of the government-supported cleansing are mostly Black Africans and Muslim subsistence farmers. In contrast, those running the government of Sudan and enlisted as Janjaweed fighters are mostly of Arab descent.
That said, the lines of division aren’t as clear as they may seem. African and Arab identities are often mixed in Sudan since in many instances you can’t look at the color of a person’s skin and instantly know into what category he or she fits. Instead, the designation seems to have more to do with the description of one’s wealth, occupation, family background or even affiliation with the government.
…[R]ebels have described themselves as Africans fighting an Arab government. Ethnic slurs used by both sides in recent atrocities have riven communities that once lived together and intermarried. …Mahjoub Mohamed Saleh, editor of Sudan’s independent Al-Ayam newspaper [writes,] ‘The bottom line is that tribes have intermarried forever in Darfur. Men even have one so-called Arab wife and one so-called African. Tribes started labeling themselves this way several decades ago for political reasons’ (source).
So, while most media outlets have pegged this conflict as a genocide or a battle between ethnic groups or, if they’re really remiss in their duties as reporters, labeled it a religious feud, the reasons for the violence in Darfur are far more nuanced, yet political factors, including a desire for autonomy on one hand and maintaining control through the use of force on the other seem a bit more accurate.
Since this post acts as just a “primer” on Darfur, hopefully dispelling a few myths that have been floating about the ethos, I’ll end it here. I’ll continue my thoughts in my next post by returning to what matters most… the interactions of my country with Darfur and specifically its actions and rhetoric with respect to the current crisis.
