Darfur Week of August 29, 2008

Al-Jazeera TV w/ Sud. Rebel’s Advisor on Hijacked Plane – on board leaders from Land Commission
This is a short interview between Al-Jazeera and Abd-al-Aziz Uthman, an advisor to the SLM. The interviewer asked Uthman what he thinks the motive was for the hijacking. Uthman refused to speculate. Uthman did however note that there were a minimum of three of their leaders were onboard: the president of the Darfur Land Commission (Rahman), the leader of the Darfur Authority and also King Al-Malik. All were involved in a Land Commission workshop in Nyala.
Sudanese Forces Amass Again at Darfur Camp after Deadly Raid
The Kalma camp is facing renewed attacks by Sudanese authorities. Authorities claim that it is the base for Darfur’s rebels and want to confiscate all smuggled weapons. The spokesperson for the displaced people living in the camps, Hussein Abu Sharati, states that the camp was surrounded at dawn on Monday with Sudanese security forces. The spokesperson has dismissed the government’s statements and said, “This is a plan orchestrated at the highest levels of government…Al-Bashir had promised last year to make the Darfur displaced go home before the UNAMID forces arrive in Darfur.” Ahmed Abdel Shafie, an SLA commander, said that Khartoum wants the IDPs to be disbanded to “push the conflict under the carpet after the ICC move.”
Darfur runner wins Sudan’s first Olympic medal
Sudan has participated in the Olympics for nearly 50 years and has never brought home a medal. Until now. After sending nine athletes to Beijing, a Darfur native, Ismail Ahmed Ismail, won the country’s first medal, a silver in the men’s 800 meter race. Al-Sahafa, a Sudanese daily, headlined the story as “an unprecedented achievement.” Sudanese newspapers were in agreement. Ismail grew up in Khartoum, although his family is from western Darfur. I can’t find words to express my joy. “This is an achievement for my country first and then for me,” Ismail said in the Sudan Media Center.
Misseria and Rizeigat clash over claims to water in remote part of South Darfur
Two Arab nomadic tribes, the Misseria and Rizeigat had a fatal clash last week in Abu Gabra as a result of tensions over claims to water in remote parts of South Darfur. According to members of the both tribes, approximately 55 Misseria were killed and 65 Rizeigat are casualties. The dispute began months ago over access to a reservoir. A senior Rizeigat tribesman, Mohamed Issa, blames the lack of security forces. Both tribes maintain that elders are working toward restoring good relations.
Excerpt from ’TEARS OF THE DESERT: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur’

This is an excerpt from Halima Bashir that describes a beautiful relationship with her father, her naming ceremony as a member of the Zaghawa tribe and a brutal rape she endured and live to tell about. It is a must read.
Janjaweed Militiamen Gang-Rape 3 Darfur Women: IDP Spokesperson
A group of Janjaweed militiamen gang-raped three women at the Kalma camp in South Darfur. The victims’ names are Tayba Adam Al-Tahir (15 years old), Aicha Youssef (17 years old) and Kaltouma Salih (55 years old). This is according to the spokesperson of Darfur displaced and refugees at the camp, Hussein Abu-Sharati. The spokesperson said that no action was taken after an Egyptian officer of the AU-UNAMID mission with the UN was notified.
This article leads me to mention a meeting with Al-Bashir and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. The result of that meeting was “Laws Without Justice: An Assessment of Sudanese Laws Affecting Survivors of Rape.” The report is available at Refugees International. It is an in-depth look at Sudanese laws that affect rape victims. I recommend reading it. One important aspect of the law can be seen in the fact that victims of rape need to deal with the fact that rape is defined as adultery (zina).
From the Refugees International Report:

“Rape victims have strong reasons not to subject themselves to even the possibility of being charged with zina since the penalties for this crime are extraordinarily harsh. Unmarried women convicted of zina receive one hundred lashes; married women are sentenced to death by stoning.”

My Perspective:
Low intensity conflict has reared its head continually. Within it, amongst Darfurians the prevalent feeling is fear, insecurity, anger – not a context for peace. Darfur’s low intensity conflict has crept onto the world’s stage and harnessed it like a plague does an unwitting population wondering how it is possible that no vaccine exists. Like a syndrome of abuse where an abusive parent justifies its abuse onto the next generation for having been abused, the low intensity conflict has become a deliberate acceptance of abusive behavior – perpetuated by the denial among factions and tribes involved in the conflict and those who have bore witness. The psychology of terrorizing and of punishing people for their opposition to being destroyed is the context in Darfur. Not a context for peace; it is a context for injustice.
In 2005, a context for peace was called for and documents brought to the attention of newspaper readers that gave proof that the Khartoum government was acting against the interests of Darfurians. Few people are aware of a document that Nicholas Kristof wrote about in his op-ed piece “The Secret Genocide Archive,” published in the NY Times on February 23, 2005. In that article, Mr. Kristof mentions a document that was seized from a janjaweed official that is a direct call to action to the janjaweed to conduct genocide.
Quote from Kristof’s op-ed:

“Dated last August, the document calls for the “execution of all directives from the president of the republic” and is directed to regional commanders and security officials.
“Change the demography of Darfur and make it void of African tribes,” the document urges. It encourages “killing, burning villages and farms, terrorizing people, confiscating property from members of African tribes and forcing them from Darfur.”
It’s worth being skeptical of any document because forgeries are possible. But the African Union believes this document to be authentic. I also consulted a variety of experts on Sudan and shared it with some of them, and the consensus was that it appears to be real.”

This same op-ed is quoted in the Brookings Institution/Bern University report, “Protecting Two Million Internally Displaced: The Successes and Shortcomings of the African Union in Darfur,” by William G. O’Neill and Violette Cassis (November 2005).
Additionally, according to Eric Reeves who measured the success of the African Union by calling it a failure in his 2005 review, “Ghosts of Rwanda: The Failure of the African Union in Darfur,” many such documents are in the possession of the AU, Human Rights Watch and Darfuris.
The same Brookings reports notes that:

“Some fear that the government plans to remove the farmers of Darfur from their land forever. A Sudanese law that allows the government to take over land that has been abandoned for more than a year has never been applied before in Darfur. If this law is applied, millions could lose their land and fuel a cycle of revenge and violence, plus permanent dependence on international charity. This would cement the ethnic cleansing that a UN official maintains was the primary objective of the Khartoum government.”

It has been clear for years that the target of any successful attempt should be stopping the janjaweed with no hesitation to end the insecurity in the region.
How can former US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoelick, now the eleventh president of the World Bank, maintain in such an immobilizing way that “It’s a tribal war. And frankly I don’t think foreign forces want to get in the middle of a tribal war of Sudanese. I don’t think we can clean it up because it’s not just a question of ending violence, it’s a question of creating the context for peace.” How can that be acceptable given international norms on human rights and good governance and the responsibilities of the international community? It’s not except for possibly nationalists and people who want to breed inaction and dismiss human interests in the world as ‘not our problem.’ I agree with Eric Reeves that both questions that Robert Zoelick has posed are critical tasks that need to be implemented. All missions in Darfur must lend themselves toward the achievement of these goals. Throwing our hands up in tribal conflicts is two beats short of a heart.
Today, we have to recover what is acceptable for people to live with dignity and to ask of the community at large to bring back the rhetoric of decent living. We have to reestablish a philosophy that demands that the rhetoric of anger, projected self-loathing and generational hate that doesn’t allow people to live full creative and self-determined lives be challenged. To allow dehumanization to become status quo, is to live in a time that doesn’t reward people for improving human existence on this planet.
In modern day societies, people are given the means to address those who harm them. They can go to court, they can seek mediation or arbitration, they can talk to advocates, they can call victim hotlines, and they can call the local authorities. Laws change in societies. They are as living and breathing as people in my opinion. Without new laws, without amendments to laws that no longer represent the people, the laws that govern the land become unfitting to the times that they are in. They are shelved in the archives of humankind’s libraries for newer laws and their implementation to incorporate posterity so that groups of people do not feel unrepresented.
In a different part of the world, tribal disputes have been settled and indigenous people have gained ground on preserving their own needs and interests. One recent example, particularly regarding indigenous tribes’ land use, is in Taiwan. In January 2007, Premier Su Tseng-chang announced that the Council of Indigenous Peoples would buy back land from Taiwan Sugar that originally belonged to indigenous tribes.
Darfurians have been allowed to own and distribute the land according to tribal customs while the rest of Sudan is governed by land-tenure law written in 1984. The DPA reviewed Sudan’s land laws, by acknowledging the recognition and protection of tribal land ownership rights and historical rights to land, which was a government concession. The DPA looked at how to decrease tensions arising from competition between farmers and herders for access to pasture and water. It also discussed that there are inconsistencies between customary land tenure and major development projects, even while giving precedence to tribal authority over land. The DPA set up the Darfur Land Commission which gave legal standing to tribes. However, according to Alex de Waal, major criticism of the DPA on tribal land ownership includes that not all interests were present to make their case, and that distinctions were not made between hakura and tribal dar . Hakura is a land granted awarded by the Sultan to an individual. Dar is homeland awarded to a tribe for administrative purposes by the colonial authorities. I agree with Alex de Waal’s argument in “Land in the DPA: A False Agreement?” that the communities needed to themselves participate in defining land tenure requirements, based on their actual livelihoods.
Victims in Darfur should be provided the opportunity for redress first and foremost from all those involved in various missions in the area. Community outreach efforts to battle the injustices should be made by the AU, UNAMID, human rights organizations, the Sudanese courts, the ICC and the international community and should include steps toward maintaining and creating a context for peace and ending the violence.