Egypt State Information Service - 24th issue spring 2007

Hundreds of villages have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people have died as a direct or indirect result of the conflict. Many more have become internally displaced persons (ID Ps) within Darfur, or refugees in Chad. The United Nations' Darfur Humanitarian Profile, published in September 2005, estimated that around 3.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, 47 percent of whom constituted resident populations: "The number of ID Ps continues to slightly decline as new verifications are carried out, and has dropped below 1.8 million for the first time since February 2005. While there are reports of ID Ps returning to farm their land, it remains uncertain whether this is a permanent phenomenon. Overall, it can be expected that the number of ID Ps will remain largely unvaried until the preparation of the next agricultural season, in early 2006."2

In total 51 % of households are now cultivating against 35% in 2004. The good conditions also enabled some ID Ps who settled close to their areas of origin to temporarily move back to their area and cultivate."3 As of September 2005 there were 184 fixed health centres in Darfur with an additional 36 mobile centres. Fourteen primary health care centres were opened from May to August 2005: "75% of accessible hospitals had been rehabilitated, providing free access to 70% of the ID Ps and conflict affected population."4 Much of this had been possible because of a ceasefire - albeit one repeatedly violated - that has been in place since 2004.

As of January 2005 the humanitarian crisis had started to ease. In its 2004 year-end report, the Office of the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Co-ordinator for the Sudan, reported that the 90-day humanitarian action plan, from June to August 2004, has been a success. It further reported that "by 31 December 2004 the humanitarian situation for most of the 2.2 million people affected is stabilized... The catastrophic mortality figures predicted by some quarters have not been materialised". The United Nations reported that a June 2005 mortality survey showed that "the crude mortality rate was 0.8 deaths per 10,000 people per day in all three states of Darfur." This was "below the critical threshold of one death per 10,000 people per day. A year earlier, a similar survey showed crude mortality rates three times higher."6 This. improvement was the resuer of an unprecedented effort by the international community, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations.

The UN reported that the number of aid workers had increased from 200 in March 2004 to 8,500 by the end of 2004.7 The UN confirmed that in September 2005 the number of humanitarian workers in Darfur had grown further to around 13,500 and that they were working for 81 NGOs and 13 UN agencies.s In January 2005, the World Health Organisation confirmed that food and health access, water supply and sanitation services were making a significant difference in addressing the crisis.9

All these achievements were subsequently endangered by an escalation in rebel ceasefire violations, including attacks on aid workers, humanitarian convoys and government forces. The BBC noted that "after eight months of relative calm and improving security, the situation in Darfur is deteriorating once again. Banditry and attacks on aid convoys are increasing and the finger of blame is being firmly pointed at the SLA, Darfur's main rebel movement... The African Union said the rebels' provocative banditry and lack of cooperation was casting doubt over their commitment to negotiations."lo The rebels subsequently also murdered several African Union peacekeepers.11

At the end of January 2005, the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur reported back to the UN Secretary-General, stating that while there had been serious violations of human rights in the course of the war in Darfur, allegations of genocide were unfounded. on From recommendations made by the UN Commission, the UN Security Council called upon the International Criminal Court to investigate human rights abuses in Darfur.The Sudanese national commission of inquiry into human rights

evidence from hundreds of witnesses. The national commission also found that there was no evidence to support allegations of genocide in Darfur. The commission found that there had been grave violations of human rights and recommended the establishment of a judicial commission to investigate, indict and try those responsible for crimes in Darfur. It also recommended the setting up of compensation and administrative commissions to assist with reconciliation within Darfur.14

African Union-sponsored peace talks have made some progress with the signing of several humanitarian and ceasefire protocols including a declaration of principles - signed eventually in July 2005 - outlining the framework for a political settlement of the conflict. This progress was in the face of considerable difficulties. Alex de Waal and Julie Flint, long-time critics of the Khartoum government, have noted, for example, that because of rebel shortcomings" [b]y the end of [2004] there had not been a single day's discussion about a framework for a political settlement.. .In the AU's conference chambers, SLA delegates rage at the government, but don't articulate a political agenda."15 And all this while the very people on whose behalf they claimed to be fighting live precarious lives

in displaced peoples' camps along Darfur in the face of growing international donor fatigue.16 This rebel indifference to the suffering of Darfurians continued well into 2005. In late November, the UN stated that the rebels were still blocking peace talks and the African Union threatened to impose sanctions on them because of their obstructionism.

The role of the African Union in peace-keeping and civilian protection within Darfur has been crucial. By October 2005, the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS), established by ceasefire protocols signed by all parties to the conflict in April 2004, has deployed 6,171 military personnel and 1,586 police officers in Darfur.AMIS has also been supported logistically by NATO.

The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005, ending the long-running civil war between the Government of Sudan and the rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), also provided considerable political space within which all sides to the Darfur crisis could push for a

peaceful solution to the conflict, as well as suggesting a possible model. 20 The new government of national unity in Sudan, bringing together Sudan's former north-south combatants, restated its commitment to peace talks.21 Southern Sudan's new leadership respresented in the of Sudanese First Vice President (and President of an autonomous Government of Southern Sudan), SPLA leader Salva Kiir Mayardit, committed itself to work for peace in DarfurY In September 2005, Sudan's new foreign minister, SPLA politician Dr Lam Akol, outlined a new plan to end the Darfur conflictY While the new government of national unity has been welcomed internationall, the Darfur rebels have chosen to attack Sudan's new government In early October, VicePresident Kiir urged the international community to press the Darfur rebels to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Despite all the media coverage, there are still a number of essentially unanswered questions concerning the Darfur crisis. An example of such questions is triggered the systematic outbreak of violence, in Darfur in February 2003? This question is closely related to understanding the dynamics of the conflict. Asecond question is: what sustains the conflict? A third question concerned with whether any of the parties are dragging their feet in the peace process; and, if so, why? A fourth question is related to the real position as regard to humanitarian access to Darfur? A fifth question asks the extent to which flawed interpretations and questionable projections of the crisis - and particularly civil war - would hinder both reconciliation and peace-building efforts, while at the same time skewing and adversely influence international opinion. And, of course, slemming on from this question, is the credibility of claims of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

The Darfur region, divided into the states of North, South and West Darfur, is the western-most part of Sudan. Darfur's 160,000 square miles make up one fifth of Sudan. It is an expanse of desert in the north through to savannah in the south. Geographically, it is made up of a plateau some 2,000 to 3,000 feet above sea-level. The volcanic Jebel Marra Mountain runs north and south

Arabised" Groups consists of tribes that speak very little Arabic, for example, the Massaleit, some sections of the Zaghawa, the Berti, the Mima, the Tama, and the Kanein. A linguistically based analysis would categorise as "African" those whose mother-languages belong to the Nilo-Saharan language group

Darfur is an ecologically fragile area which had already Witressed growing and often armed - conflicts over natural resources between some 80 tribes and clans loosely divided between nomadic and sedentary communities. Sudanist academicans such as Richard Lobban and Rex O'Fahey have stated: "This conflict has emerged at the present in the context of persistent ecological crises of increased desertification and lack of production and limited grazing lands among the pastoralist and agricultural peoples." Professor Fahey noted that desertification accelerated by droughts led to pressure on water and grazing resources... Desertification and drought had forced a number of tribal migrations from the 1970s onwards and by the late 1980s, as noted by Darfurian writer Ismail Abakr Ahmed, "the migrant groups increased in numbers, and in the absence of social harmony, tribal factions developed and culminated in violent conflicts.

These inter-tribal and intra-tribal conflicts, some between nomadic communities and farmers, and some within nomadic and farming communities themselves, were a feature from the late 1950s onwards. The following are some of the armed tribal conflicts that have taken place within Darfur since independence: 1957, Meidob against Kababish caused by mutual raiding for camels and disputed territorial access; 1968, Rezeigat against Ma' aliyah, caused by disputed access and livestock theft; 1969, Zaghawa against northern Rezeigat, caused by disputed access to pasture and water and livestock theft; 1974, Zaghawa against Birgid, caused by disputed access to farming land and livestock theft; 1976, Beni Helba against northern Rezeigat, caused by disputed access to pasture and water and livestock theft; 1980, northern Rezeigat against Beni Helba, Birgid, Dajo, and Fur, caused by disputed access to pasture and water and livestock theft; 1980, Taisha against Salamat, caused by disputed access to pasture and water and livestock theft; 1982, Kababish and Khawabeer against Meidob, Berti and Zeiyadiya, caused by disputed access to pasture and water

and livestock theft; 1984, Missairiya against Rezeigat, caused by disputed access to pasture and water and livestock theft; 1987, Gimir and Mararit against Fellata, caused by disputed access to pasture and water and livestock theft; 1989, the Fur of Kabkabiya against the Zaghawa, over disputed territorial access and livestock theft; 1989, the Fur against various Arab tribes, caused by disputed territorial access and political conflict; and 1989, Gimir against Zaghawa, caused by disputed territorial access and livestock theft.Six of these thirteen conflicts erupted between Arab nomadic communities: four of the conflicts were between non - Arab parties who were both non-Arab. All of these were serious armed conflicts, sometimes involving thousands of tribesmen, with combatants increasingly well armed with automatic weapons and vehicles. As is also apparent from the tribes involved, the violence was both within and across ethnic divides. The Sudanese national commission documented 36 major inter and intra- tribal conflicts from 1932-2001.

John Ryle has noted: "Low-level fighting among communities in western Sudan (all of which are Muslim) has been endemic since the late 1980s, when a war broke out between the Arabs and the Fur, two of the ethnic groups involved in the present conflict." Much of this violence also had cross-border implications, with affected communities, such as the Salamat, often straddling the Sudan-Chad frontier. From 1983-87, as some northern Darfur tribes moved south into the central farming belt because of the drought, the Zaghawa and Ma'aliyah came into armed conflict with the Fur communities. This conflict and others involving the Fur led to thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of displaced Darfurians and the destruction of thousands of homes. this was settled by a government-mediated intertribal conference in 1989. The 1990s were marked by three distinct conflicts. In 1990 the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army unsuccessfully tried to start an insurgency, led by the Fur activist Daud Bolad, amongst non-Arab communities; in 1996 there was a long-running conflict between the Rezeigat and the Zaghawa; and from 1997-99 there was fighting in western Darfur between the Massaleit and some Arab tribes. The SPLA-inspired insurgency was defeated within a matter of months and, generally speaking, inter-tribal conferences and conciliation, ajaweed and mutamarat al sulh, settled most of the other disputes.

of small arms and the example of militia raiding and looting in Kordofan and the south, have encouraged banditry, acts of armed robbery and general insecurity." The simple fact is that all these factors existed well before 2003. An insurgency amongst "African" tribes had been tried and had failed; tribal conflicts had come and gone; ecological factors had been there for some time; the region was awash with weapons. What was it that made the key difference in sparking and fanning the war in 2003? What was it that turned limited, lowintensity conflicts between the pastoral and arable farming groups in Darfur into a well-organised, well-armed and well-resourced insurrection? Why was it that for the first time ever warring tribes in Darfur had systematically attacked and killed soldiers and policemen - historically seen as arbiters within regional conflicts?

whom does it benefit? Khartoum certainly has not benefited. Several years of painstaking diplomacy, together with the peace talks which culminated in the end of the civil war in the south, had brought Sudan to the verge of normalising its relations with the international community. To somehow believe that the Sudanese government Would set out to destroy all that work by recklessly embarking on "genocide" in Darfur just as it was poised to rejoin the community of nations would be naive.

This a point is raised by French academic, and well-known Khartoum critic, Gerard Prunier: "[G]enocide began to be mentioned as an explanation [for events in Darfur] in early 2004 by more militant members of the international community... This hypothesis.. .failed to explain why Khartoum would have picked such an obviously wrong moment." The Zaghawa and Fur communities have similarly not benefited, having borne the brunt of a ruthless insurgency and counter-insurgency and vicious intra-rebel and intratribal violence.

The close involvement, both in the preparations for the insurgency, and then in the war itself, of veteran anti-government Islamist politicians such as Dr Hassan Turabi - an Islamist extremist sidelined in 1999 by the Khartoum government - and paramilitaries drawn from his party, the Popular Congress, is evident. These forces have used Darfur as a battlefield on which to wage war against the Khartoum government - and ironically were, in large part, the same people who ruthlessly put down the attempted