GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Why Peacekeeping Forces Come Up Short

by Fred Copley

The latest news from Darfur is that the truce has been broken and the Washington and African Union-sponsored peace deal is now in jeopardy. Although a genuine cessation of hostilities is the most desirable immediate outcome, this disruption provides an opportunity to rethink the following points:

(1) Does the peace deal even addresses Darfur’s root problems?

(2) Did the peace deal ever have a chance to succeed, given both its limited aims and the insufficient and non-committal financial and material support provided to the African Union effort?

If the proposed UN peacekeeping effort is to do any better than the AU, it should reexamine the causes of this situation and ensure that it takes them carefully into account.

The AU force has been so drastically underfunded that it has not posed a significant threat to the three armed groups involved in this war: the genocidal Janjaweed Arab forces, the Sudanese government forces that work alongside and by means of the Janjaweed and the various rebel forces who fight back. AU forces have been unable to protect civilians from Janjaweed attacks, and some forces recently have now been captured and stripped of their weapons by rebel soldiers.

If the AU force were sufficiently larger and better equipped, perhaps they could enforce an effective cease-fire and compel the opposing parties towards a substantial agreement. The AU’s problem, however, is perhaps not merely its weakness, but also its mission. The UN force would likely have better funding and larger numbers than the AU force, but if it regards its task as the quelling of imminent hostility and overlooks the fundamental problems in this conflict, peace will remain a pipe dream.

The very idea of a peacekeeping force suggests that a cessation of open violence is the only desired outcome. It suggests that one takes no side and places no blame, or, at least, it regards these as secondary considerations. This view is insufficient if, by overlooking the causes of violence, it allows them to smolder until they once again erupt brightly enough to capture international attention.

The Darfur conflict cannot be understood as the conflict of two equally antagonistic forces. On one side are rebels, who are divided into several groups and are by no means blameless in this war. For the most part, these rebels have the long-range goal of ending their marginalization and achieving equal representation within Sudan. They share this goal with the rebels in southern Sudan and with other marginalized groups in the country.

Darfur was once an independent sultanate that for centuries gave home to African and Arab peoples who interacted peacefully and in mutually beneficial ways. Ever since Britain brought Darfur into Sudan in 1916, the province has faced political marginalization. If there is to be lasting peace, Sudan’s problem with political representation, in which a small clique of elite tribes dominates and excludes the majority of the country, must be resolved.

A peace deal that fails to readjust the relations between Darfur and Khartoum will not lead to peace. One model for a comprehensive step in the right direction is the peace agreement that the government reached with the southern Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, offering them a role in government and a degree of regional autonomy.

The rebels also have the short-term goal of protecting their villages from Janjaweed attacks that can be both quantitatively and qualitatively characterized as genocidal. The goal of these militias has been to alter the balance of population in Darfur in favor of Arab tribes. To this end, they have burned the villages of the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa tribes, raping women and murdering many people. They have destroyed crops and livestock.

Although ultimately serving the purposes of the government in Khartoum that armed them, these militias are also serving their own ideology of Arab supremacy, guided by the Gaddafi-inspired Arab Gathering movement (see footnote). Here again, although the rebels are not blameless, it makes no sense to equate the violence of the Janjaweed with the self-defense of the rebels. A true peace agreement must include, at a minimum, the disarmament and disbanding of the Janjaweed and the empowerment of the rebels.

Peace in Darfur requires that changes be made, not just signatures on paper. Indeed, there is no reason why a “peace” that does not give the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa tribes a greater share of power and autonomy, and that does not end the largely unchecked devastation that the Janjaweed and government forces have inflicted on them, would not lead to further, although perhaps less visible, genocide. One important rebel group that has so far refused to agree to the peace treaty is called the Justice and Equality Movement. If the international community is serious about ending this crisis, it should add justice and equality, alongside peace, to its list of priorities.

Footnote: Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A Short History of A Long War (London:  Zed Books, 2005), 49-57.

(Image from flickr.)