The current genocide in Darfur is but the latest atrocity orchestrated by the Sudan Government of strongman Brigadier Omar Hassan Ahman al-Bashir. Of course, no-one is calling it ‘genocide’ for to do so is to necessitate immediate action under the Treaty on Genocide, which the United States and so many other powers signed. This was a major factor in the tardy Western response in Rwanda. Thousands will die while the wheels of diplomacy slowly grind and a despotic regime may yet survive.

Sudan is one of the largest countries in Africa, 2.5 million kilometres squared, with a population of some thirty-nine million. Until recently, it was an impoverished nation, with few resources other than the Nile. Much of the country is sand dunes. In the southwest, the Darfur massif rise to over 3,000 metres.

Darfur is an impoverished, long-neglected province in western Sudan. Northern Darfur is largely desert scrubland, the home of migratory camel herders. The oases and hills of western and southern Darfur have long been the home of subsistence farmers. Both groups are made up of numerous tribes. In normal times, farmers and pastoralists live in a symbiotic relationship of mutual dependence, exchanging grain for animal products. However, the drought in the early 1980s led to clashes over waterholes and grazing as pastoralists brought their animals south into the farming districts.
The pastoralists see themselves as ‘Arabs’ and look down upon the sedentary farmers as lesser peoples or ‘Blacks’ (Zurug). The peasants, for their part, see themselves as the original ‘owners’ of the land. In truth, both are indistinguishably black, both are Muslim and many of the peasant groups speak Arabic to the point where they no longer use their indigenous languages. However, clashes between the two groups have led to a hardening of stereotypes and ethnic exclusiveness.

The recurrent civil wars in the neighbouring state of Chad, and the thirty-year civil war between successive Islamic governments in Khartoum and the largely Christian and animist rebels in southern Sudan, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), means the country is awash with guns. In the unsettled poverty of Darfur, most men carry arms and petty disputes can easily escalate to murder.

Guns are also an important cultural symbol among pastoralists of Darfur, an assertion of masculine pride. The collapse of the pastoral economy under pressure of drought and erosion of terms of trade has threatened their traditional way of life. Claim to authority over sedentary farmers is an assertion of their place in Darfur, a projection of their self-image.
Shortly after the present regime of Brigadier al-Bashir came to power in 1989, the Governor of Darfur, Brigadier el-Tayeb Ibrahim Kheir, initiated ethnic cleansing against the Nuba peoples to the east, accusing them of siding with the SPLA. As in the current genocide, Islamic fundamentalist militia, supported by the Government, undertook much of the killing.
The military rulers sought to legitimise their seizure of authority by siding with the National Islamic Front (NIF), led by Hassan el-Turabi. Members of the NIF were brought into Cabinet. However, in the 1990s, following the diplomatic disaster over Sudan’s support for Iraq in the first Gulf War and the need to strike a deal with the rebels in the south, the military split with the NIF. In December 2000, al-Bashir was elected President in a so-called ‘election’ boycotted by all the opposition parties.

The driving force behind peace with the SPLA was the potential wealth from exploitation of oil and natural gas. Unfortunately, the oil fields lay across the battle-lines in southern Sudan, with a long and vulnerable pipeline from the upper Nile fields to Port Sudan. Neither side could exploit the oil without the co-operation of the other. It was the oil companies, with the backing of the United States, that helped stitch up a deal whereby the Government of Sudan promised the south a division of the revenue as well as greater autonomy and permission for a referendum on self-determination at some future date. The region that was left out of the division of spoils was Darfur.

The economy of Sudan has suffered from steady erosion of its terms of trade. Since the colonial period, cotton and sugar-cane have been major exports. When Sudan tried to diversify away from cotton into foodstuffs for the Middle East market, they encountered opposition from the World Bank. By the time the World Bank was won over, much of the best land was in the hands of absentee Saudi landlords. Wealthy local Jellaba merchants have become increasingly important as absentee landlords in regions such as Darfur, putting additional pressure on peasants and pastoralists. Meanwhile, oil exports have dwarfed everything, rising from 12,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 1998 to over 345,000 bpd in June 2004. Production is expected to exceed 500,000 bpd by the end of 2005.

In 1997, the United States imposed sanctions on Sudan, prohibiting any American investment in the Sudan oil industry, although US oil companies have been operating through foreign subsidiaries. However, since the Bush administration came to power, sanctions were eased — in the interest of greater Sudanese co-operation in the war against terrorism.
The Darfur rebels — the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) — took up arms in an attempt to get a seat at the negotiating table. The al-Bashir Government was not only reluctant to sacrifice any additional share of revenue, it saw the move as a challenge to its authority and an opportunity to reassert its power — an object lesson for others.

The NIF fragmented after falling out with al-Bashir, but the Government has been effective in mobilising the Darfur remnant, playing upon the ‘racial’ divisions in Darfur. The pastoral-based Janjaweed (‘horsemen’) were encouraged to live out their cultural fantasies against the peasants. Human rights abuses in the developing world seem to follow oil companies like a spectre. The Government clearly thought it could get away with it. It was to prove a gross miscalculation.
For all the huffing and puffing of Colin Powell, the real pressure on the Sudanese Government has come from the African Union (AU) and its Chairman, Alpha Oumar Konare, the dynamic former President of Mali, and the head of the AU Peace and Security Council, Sam Ibok. Unlike the ineffectual former Organisation of African Unity, the AU has shown it is prepared to challenge national sovereignty and intervene if necessary. The AU has approached Nigeria and Rwanda for troops to protect its observer mission and called upon the British and Dutch for logistical support. The AU has also threatened to deploy a fully armed ‘peace-keeping’ (or what sounds more like a ‘peace- enforcement’) mission to force the Janjaweed militia to surrender their arms.

The United States has lost all credibility in the Islamic world. The high-profile diplomacy by Secretary of State Powell only puts unnecessary pressure on the few Arab allies America still has. US-sponsored Security Council sanctions will probably be ineffective and merely muddy the waters, though they may play to an American domestic audience in an election year.

The British, as the former colonial power, also have to take a sideline position, for all Tony Blair’s bravado. They will serve best by providing focused logistical military support and humanitarian aid.

Non-African and non-Islamic states probably ought to adopt an unfamiliar secondary role, supporting the AU and Chad, which has become a refuge for victims fleeing Darfur. The Chadian camps have been attacked by Janjaweed militia and need protection. Such conflicts would not bring non-African troops into direct confrontation with the Sudanese army. Chad also needs humanitarian assistance to support the refugees.

Australia, like its other ‘Allies of the Willing’, needs to take a considered approach — involving logistical support and humanitarian aid to the refugee camps, particularly in neighbouring Chad, and a supportive role in consultation with the African Union — thereby broadening its diplomatic contacts in the Indian Ocean Rim and Africa more generally.

Dr David Dorward is head of the African Research Centre at LaTrobe University.