Thoughts on Yesterday's Rebel Attempt to Topple Khartoum

In recent weeks there has been an alarming spike in the violence in Darfur with government bombings in north Darfur where a school and marketplace were attacked leaving more than a dozen civilian dead and many more wounded. Among the those killed were 6 school children. The international community was further outraged when the government refused to permit UN aircraft to transport the wounded to a medical facility. After nearly 2 days, the seriously wounded children, including a little girl with a broken back were put in a car and driven about 8 hours over rough roads to an MSF clinic.

This week the rebel group JEM led by Khalil Ibrahim left the remote Darfur region -- moving in a convoy of some 700 vehicles from the Chad borderland toward the capital itself. That they actually reached the suburb area of Omdurman -- just across the Nile bridge from Khartoum is unprecedented and remarkable. No casualties have been announced yet but terrified residents reported heavy artillery fire. In the capital a curfew was imposed, and residents were ordered to remain indoors while armored vehicles and helicopters headed for Omdurman.

The Government of Sudan claim their army has defeated the rebels and accuses Chadian President Idris Deby of backing the coup attempt, an accusation Deby denies.

I am struggling to understand this -- and its possible consequences. I find it baffling that JEM attempted this assault which they could not possibly have pulled off without massive, spontaneous backing from within -- which did not happen. When the best hope for peace in Darfur ultimately lies at a conference table, it is dispiriting but not surprising to read that government officials are now saying they will refuse to negotiate with any representative from the JEM. It would seem that this latest development has pushed the possibilities for a peace process even further from the table.

On the other hand -- since there is no peace process on the horizon, perhaps this could actually stimulate the calls for a political process.

Miafarrow.org

Comments

[Tharsis]

The government in Khartoum was born in a coup d'Etat, and is likely to go out the same way. Having fighting in Omdurman (akin to having anti-government militias here raid and claim a take-over of Alexandria, Virginia) indicates to me that the Khartoum government is a lot weaker than people thought, without a doubt has suffered a huge loss of face, and may be on its way out. It is also clear that, while no one knows what is going on in Dafur, no one knows what is going on in Khartoum, either.

[LiamR]

I appreciate Ms. Farrow writing this post, but my impression from reading it is simply that nobody really knows what is going on in Darfur and Sudan. Considering the scale of human suffering that has continued for a ridiculously long time It's impossible to not get angry. I'm angry at the Sudanese government, of course, but my greatest frustration is with our own government. We spend billions on "intelligence" agencies and technologies and we can't predict a single thing in the "developing" world. Even if we didn't care about anyone outside our borders, pure self-interest should be inspiration enough to at least observe what is happening to the masses in impoverished and stagnating nations.

Farrow's post effectively states that with the chaos, brutality, and pettiness of this war, we need to remember the most vulnerable victims, such as wounded children, whose suffering is compounded daily through the boneheaded actions, or lack of action, from those in power. Where is American leadership in this situation? Has our nation become so emasculated under this neocon administration that we cannot bear pressure on the tyrants and perpetrators?

The lack of American and Western action on the part of the people of Darfur should shame us for generations.

[demigod]

Well, we used to have a State Department staffed with experienced professionals who actually knew something about the world, and they could advise the Administration how to deal with crises like this. However, the Republicans have no interest is this, they have stacked the State Department with ideologues who only know how to kow tow to the Neocons, who see what they want to see. Starving, abused civilian masses are only in the way of the "We/They" mentality. Plus, they're Muslims, so who cares, right ?

[mbjesq]

Things do not bode well for the future of American intervention. I take as my augur an experience two weeks ago, addressing a class of third- and fourth-year history majors at California State University, Sonoma concerning the nature of the conflict in Darfur and my experience working on a project in the IDP camps there.

In a class of forty students, only one raised a hand when I asked at the outset "How many of you know anything about the conflict in Darfur?" Slightly more than half the class had "heard the name 'Darfur'". When asked to tell her classmates where Darfur is, the woman I called on could only reply with the vague, unsure question, "Africa?"

The questions during the talk were even more profoundly ignorant. One woman, seeing slides of the thatch village dwellings asked, "If they live in such primitive conditions, how do they make the guns they use to fight with?"

How can we expect American policy to change when this represents the state of our educated young adults -- people whose only mission, as students, is to be curious and intellectually engaged in the world in which they live?

MBJ
www.memestream.org

[demigod]

Unfortunately, most students are only curious about the size of their paychecks when they graduate. Intellectual engagement with the world is soooooo '60s. Ask these students to locate Iraq on a map. They can't do it, and Americans are dying there. Ask them how many Americans have died. They can't tell you. Neither can their parents. You aren't supposed to ask.

[mbjesq]

Certainly the lack of Western action has been shameful. The US certainly had sound reasons not to include the nascent Darfurian opposition groups within the North-South peace talks, commenced by Senator Danforth in 2002, even leaving aside the government of Sudan's opposition to the Darfurian request. But the US was well aware of the reaction (rebel attacks on the military camp in El Fasher in February of 2003) and outrageous counter-reaction (aerial bombing of villages and commencement of the genocidal retribution by the government) this exclusion provoked. The US had too much invested in the North-South negotiations to "risk" alienating Khartoum by challenging its conduct in Darfur.

But the non-Western element in the active neglect of Darfur has been even more outrageous. China's oil gluttony and utterly amoral foreign policy is, very nearly, single-handedly responsible for delaying and frustrating the mission of the African Union peacekeeping troops in Darfur -- eventually authorized under United Nations Charter, Chapter Seven -- and for keeping it emasculated, ineffectual and untenable.

MBJ
www.memestream.org

[mbjesq]

Liam raises a number of important issues. Let me address them in three parts (because of HuffPo's comment length restrictions.

It is not exactly true that no one knows what's going on in Darfur. It is that things have become increasingly complex and infinitely harder to resolve as the conflict has been allowed to drag on. This was always going to be a somewhat difficult peace to achieve -- at least from the time that the government of Sudan released Sheikh Musa Hilal from prison and began using Janjaweed surrogates against the villages of Dafur in the spring of 2003, thereby requiring that any peace process entail an awkward, three-cornered agreement. But the Chaidan participation since 2005 (tit-for-tat, given Khartoum's longstanding support of Chadian insurgents and quite unresolved, notwithstanding the 2006 Tripoli Agreement), the growing fractionalization among rebel groups, and the rise in warlordism among power-seduced rebel leaders makes even the structure of peace talks difficult to envisage.

The growing intractability is the second pernicious element in the equation of delay. You correctly identify the first -- and speak for all of us -- when you express your outrage that the genocide has been allowed to persist for five unforgivable years.

MBJ
www.memestream.org

[Synoia]

"When the best hope for peace in Darfur ultimately lies at a conference table"

Clearly, the rebels do not agree. And this approach works so well in Africa, let's see, Biafra, Nigeria oil wealh used well in the Delta, Mugabe in Zim, Eriteria - really, Egypt, Oh yes, Zuma in ZA, LAMO!!!

Could you name one or two places in Africa this "negotiating" works?

While I'd like to agree with your sentiments, Dafur happened because the cenral Government would NOT spread the wealth from the mineral extraction - all too common in Africa...

[stringer]

Always enjoy your thoughtful pieces, Ms. Farrow and thank you for your continued involvement in this cause.

Also congratulations on making TIme Magazine's 100 Most Influential People List!

Disagree with you slightly. JEM is doing what they must do (and we both know they're not perfect.) As much as I decry violence, there comes a time when it is necessary to fight in order to get your message out. As you admitted negotiations have essentially broken down, Bashar's government is stalling for time, and world attention has turned away. The only way to reverse this situation, unfortunately, is to attack. Then and only then can you get back to the negotiating table

This will make the U.N. take notice. Now whether they have the guts to actually step in, loosen the rules on the African Union peacekeeping forces already there, and actually do something is another question. But first you must get their attention again.

[Bigmo]

I wonder where is the Janjaweed everybody was talking about. No doubt the government of Khartoum as many governements led by a military junta only understands violence and wants to rule with an iron fist. But Mia like many others painted this conflict as an Arab versus African conflict and in doing so gave the regime of Khartoum its biggets gift. The regime was able to then say to the Arabs that this is all lies and propaganda and now that the conflict is now increasingly seen as a proxy war between Chad and Sudan, the relief agency are now seen as biased and dishonest.

The policy of trying to recruit evangelicans and pro Israel lobbyist for the cause of Darfur has weakened the West and its credibility. This conflict is about distribution of resources and fair representation, it has nothing to do with the Janjaweed. It was presented this way so the Israel lobbyist and evangelicals and then accuse the Arabs of racism. And the Darfurians are paying the price. US foreign policy can never be honest and frank.