Abstract
The emergence of a deteriorating economy in 2012 and 2013 brought about intensified fighting between diverse Arab tribes over land as well as resources in Central, North and South Darfur. Nearly 300,000 people were displaced within the first five months of 2013 only, a figure which outweighs the number recorded from 2010 to 2012. About 200,000 refugees fled the region to neighbouring Chad alone. Also, about 350,000 people in the region died as a result of starvation, violence, and diseases. From 2003 to 2005, more than 2,000 villages were destroyed, while about 500,000 people were killed. The means of livelihood of the people were equally destroyed as the farmers were disconnected from their means of livelihood, a situation that led to malnutrition and hunger. Unfortunately, conflict resolution and management techniques adopted in resolving the conflicts at the national level did not take care of the root causes of the conflict, which are located at contradictions. The aim of the paper is to analyse the effects of the 2003 Darfur conflict on the security of the people of Darfur. Data for the paper was collected from textbooks, journals, and internet materials and analysed using the narrative-analytic method. It was recommended, among other things, that the government of Sudan should urgently address the issue of marginalisation of non-Arabs in resource distribution in the country.
Key Words: Arabs, civil war, conflict, displacement, security, security implications.
Introduction
The spate of killings and destruction of properties of the people of Darfur assumed disastrous levels from 2003 to 2004, as the conflict resulted in the displacement of many people in the conflict areas. The major strategy of the conflict was deliberate displacement of the people. Starting from 2003, nearly half of the population in the distressed areas have been compulsorily displaced, with many of them moving from neighbouring states to Darfur. In 2006 and 2011, peace agreements were entered into, but the conflicts continued unabated (Oguone & Ezeibe, 2014).
In 2014, the character as well as the strategy of the violence in Darfur changed when the Sudanese government carried out a major offensive attack against the JEM and a splinter group of SLM/A led by Minni Minawi. This attack brought about an increase in the intensity of fighting in Darfur, leading to the loss of more lives and properties among the civilian population that was not witnessed from 2003 to 2004 (Joshua & Olerenwaju, 2017). Essentially, the conflict in Darfur has resulted in the death of over 300,000 people, while about 3,000,000 were displaced, with 2,600,000 of them internally displaced and 350,000 fleeing to the neighbouring state of Chad (International Refugee Rights Initiative, 2016).
A number of measures were adopted at the national level to resolve and manage the Darfur conflict, but such measures focused on tackling the “behaviour” of actors manifested as communications, actions and physical violence without theoretically discerning and solving the root causes of the conflict relating to injustice in the distribution of resources in Darfur, which was skewed against the non-Arab tribes. In view of the foregoing, this paper is geared towards analysis of the Darfur conflicts with a view to understanding their security implications on the wellbeing of the Darfurians. To achieve this, the paper is divided into a review of literature on security and conflict; structural conflict theory; a brief history of Darfur conflicts; actors involved in Darfur conflicts and their perspectives; structural and proximate causes of Darfur conflicts; dynamics of interactions among different causes of Darfur conflicts; implications of Darfur conflicts on the wellbeing of Darfurians; management and resolution of Darfur conflicts; conclusion and recommendations.
History of Darfur Conflicts
The name “Darfur” is derived from “dafur”, which is an Arabic word for “land of the Fur”. Traditionally, Darfur was an Islamic sultanate which was located in the western parts of Sudan. Before 1916, the Fur were the ruling ethnic nationality in Sudan, and they started converting to Islam as far back as the 1300s. Islam was declared a state religion with the establishment of the Darfur Sultanate in 1956. Even with many conflicts in Sudan, including the Anglo-Egyptian occupation of Sudan in 1898, and before being totally subjugated by the British in 1916, the Darfur Sultanate remained independent. Darfur is comprised of about 80 diverse tribes as well as ethnic nationalities divided between sedentary communities and nomads. The rebels appear to be drawn largely from 3 communities of the Fur, the Zaghawa and the Massalit tribes. However, the indigenous peoples of Darfur, comprising of the Fur and many other ethnic nationalities as well as the Arabs, have comparatively distinct identities; they largely related well until resources became scarce, and then ethnicity and race became a factor in the conflict (Reliefweb, 2005).
Essentially, the people of Darfur suffered largely from the famine of 1984-1985, which brought about a major loss of cropland as well as overall resources. The foregoing prepared the grounds for conflicts often between diverse racial groups. While the conflicts took place throughout the 1990s, physical violence swiftly escalated after two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equity Movement (JEM), carried out attacks on military bases as well as police stations in Darfur. Since the membership of the SLM/A and JEM largely consisted of non-Arab tribes such as the Zanghawa, the Fur, and the Massalit in the west, while the state is mainly governed by Arab Muslims, the conflict soon took ethnic as well as racial overtones (Evans, 2009).
Actors Involved in Darfur Conflicts
Some of the actors in the conflict were pastoralists and sedentary farmers. Pastoralist nomadism is the major means of livelihood for many Darfurians. One of the major cattle-herding groups in Darfur is the Arabic-speaking Baqqara, who are scattered between the Korodofa and Darfur Provinces (Sikainga, 2009). The pastoralists needed more land for rearing their animals in the areas originally occupied by the sedentary farmers. On the other hand, the sedentary farmers needed more land for crop production due to threats posed by climate change.
Other actors in the Darfur conflict were the government of Omar al-Bashir, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), and the Justice and Equity Movement (JEM). Also, the Janjaweed is another actor in the Darfur conflict. The membership of the SLM/A and JEM largely consisted of non-Arab tribes such as the Zanghawa, the Fur, and the Massalit in the west who wanted regime change, while the membership of the Janjaweed is comprised of mainly Arab-Muslims who wanted perpetuation of the existing order so as to have more grazing land for their animals as well as maintenance of the existing power configuration in the country. The Janjaweed was armed and backed by the government against the SLM/A and JEM (Evans, 2009). The government wanted to suppress the resistance by the non-Arabs and maintain the existing order as against the regime change clamoured for by the non-Arabs.
Proximate and Structural Causes of the Darfur Conflicts
One of the structural causes of the Darfur conflict is the diversity of the people of Darfur. The western part of Darfur is populated by many ethnic nationalities, such as Zaghawas, Furs, Baggaras, Tunjurs, Fallatas, and Massalits, among others. The naming of Darfur after Fur, which is connected with the Arabic word “dar”, meaning home, and “Fur”, the name of the major ethnic group that has lived in the area since pre-modern epochs, contributed to preparing an enabling atmosphere for the conflict. Therefore, Darfur means the home of the Furs, even though the country is comprised of a heterogeneous population or many other ethnic nationalities. The Arabs in Darfur are not natives because they settled there later. The prominent cultural difference between Arabs and native Africans is nomadism. Africans are known as settled farmers, while the Arabs are known as nomadic shepherds of goats and camels. The Furs belong to the Nilo-Saharan language family, and they are Muslims. The majority of them are farmers. The people that comprise the Masalit ethnic nationality are farmers too, but the two groups were largely influenced by the conflict because many of their villages were destroyed, making them join the rebels. The Tunjures are also like the Furs and Masalits because they are also settled farmers. Also, many of them were killed or had their properties destroyed in the conflict. On the other hand, Baggaras are nomads who settled down in Darfur because of good natural conditions consistent with the type of life they live. They originally formed part of the Arab population that migrated from the north, but they got married to the native Africans and became assimilated. Moreover, Zaghawaras are known as semi-nomads because of their long travel through the desert towards the border with Libya. The tribe sells herds of camels as well as salt. They live on the border with Chad, where many of them sought refuge after ground attacks on them during the war (Danielova, 2014).
In addition, the SLM/A and the JEM started a major offensive targeted against the government of Sudan, resulting in the capture of a number of government installations, including the El Fasher Airport. The two rebel groups had the support of the SLM/A, which is another major rebel group fighting in the western part of the country during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The rebels scored high points against the government during the early days of the attack because the government forces were already overstretched between fighting the SPLA in the south as well as fighting the Eritrean-sponsored rebels in the east. In response to the foregoing, the government forces began aerial bombardment of Darfur while, at the same time, enlisting the support of a nomadic militia group, the Janjaweed, which the government began arming in 1985. Another structural cause of the conflict is that instead of the government of Sudan directly attacking the rebel forces, it launched blanket attacks at the non-Arabs (settled farmers) by draining the sea regardless of whether they were rebel forces or civilians (International Center for the Responsibility to Protect, 2016).
The government used the Janjaweed militias to attack the villages largely populated by African Masalit, Fur and Zaghawa people, where the SLM/A and JEM largely draw their support from. Although the foregoing Africans are largely Muslims, they also practise a form of religion that is infused with sefism and animism and that was held in contempt by the Arab Islamic government in Khartoum. Therefore, the conflict in Darfur could equally be perceived as a combination of efforts aimed at converting Muslims who are perceived as going astray by driving them off the land (Zissis, 2006).
The conflict in Darfur is a combination of political, environmental and economic factors. The environmental degradation as well as competition over dwindling natural resources played and continues to play a pivotal role in Darfur. The Darfur region is comprised of many climatic zones. While the southern part of the country lies within the rich Savannah, which receives an adequate amount of rainfall, the central part of the region is a plateau where the mountain of Jabel Marra dominates the landscape. The northern part of Sudan is a desert, which extends all the way to the Libyan and Egyptian borders. Crop farming is the major economic activity of the majority of the population, but cultivation of land largely depends on rainfall as well as on soil fertility, making the population vulnerable to climatic changes and natural disasters. In the 1980s and 1990s, drought and desertification, as well as population growth, combined to produce a dangerous decline in food production and widespread famine. Also, at the heart of the competition over resources is the question of land ownership. Over the years, the land tenure system has changed, leading to an increase in intercommunal tensions. In the Fur kingdom, local ownership of land was based on the Hakura system, which came from the Arabic ‘Hikr’, which means ‘ownership’. The system allows each group to be given a Hakura or Dar, which was regarded as the property of the entire community. The local chief was the sole custodian of the Dar and allocated the same to the people for the purpose of cultivation, and belonging to a Dar was an integral part of a person’s identity. At the same time, successive chiefs allocated lands to influential members of the community for private owners. Under the British colonial rule, the land tenure system was modified to suit the indirect rule system known as native administration. During this epoch, each chief was allocated different territories to administer for administrative convenience. The local chiefs were equally given the authority to allocate land to the residents. During the post-colonial epoch, the system of land tenure as well as native administration underwent major changes. The post-independence Sudanese rulers perceived native administration as an archaic system that was part of the colonial legacy and slowly dismantled it. The policy, most importantly, brought about erosion of the local chief’s authority. The changes to the land tenure system drastically reduced the ability of local chiefs to settle inter-communal conflicts (Sikainga, 2009).
The nomads were not part of the Hakura system; hence, the nomads had to rely on customary rights to wander and pasture their animals in areas largely dominated by farmers. The movement of the nomads between northern and southern parts of the region was facilitated through specific arrangements for animal routes by the leaders of both the nomads and the farmers, but such arrangements were scrutinised by the government. The system worked for decades but was dismantled by the drought of the 1980s. With the deterioration of climate change, the maturity date of crop harvests became uncertain, and this made many farmers gradually embrace animal husbandry and needed grazing land. At the same time, the pastoralists were equally feeling the effects of the drought, as grazing land in the northern part of Darfur had largely shrunk. Confronted with the foregoing, camel nomads insisted on maintaining the traditional arrangement, which became one of the major factors that drove the clashes (Sikainga, 2009).
With respect to the proximate causes of the conflict, in some parts of South Kordofan and Blue Nile States, armed rebel groups were fighting for more autonomy for their religion and tribe as well as for regime change. Starting from 2003, former President Al-Bashir as well as Sudanese forces carried out genocide against several non-Arab, rebel tribes in Darfur. Therefore, the conflict in Darfur started in 2003 when non-Arabs rebelled against the Arab-led government. Nevertheless, Darfur had traditionally experienced conflicts between nomadic herdsmen and sedentary farmers. Also, after the secession of South Sudan in 2011, some pro-southern rebel groups remained in Sudan and continued to clash with the Sudanese army, leading to the displacement of about 900,000 people in the South Kordofan border region (Project Ploughshares, 2017).
Dynamics of Interactions among Different Causes of Darfur Conflicts
The conflict started between African farmers and Arabic nomads over limited resources in the Darfur region following a prolonged drought in 1983. With the Muslim government in the north fighting a civil war with rebels in the Christian/animist south, there was a perception of attacks by the government on the non-Arabs. Also, the funding of Janjaweeds by the government of Sudan to fight rebels inflamed Arab-African tensions in Darfur. In other words, Omar al-Bashir transformed a competition for scarce resources into large-scale violent confrontations which were fuelled by extreme ethnic and racial overtones. This triggered the February 2003 Darfur conflicts which came almost immediately after the government started peace negotiations to resolve the civil war with South Sudan. The conflict made a loosely aligned SLM/A and JEM rebels attack government targets in central Darfur, demanding autonomy (Zissis, 2006).
The conflict in Sudan occurred on at least three fronts. In the Darfur area of Western Sudan, rebels fought to overthrow former President Omar al-Bashir. Tribal clashes were equally commonplace. In the border areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, rebel groups fought for regime change and sometimes engaged in ethnic killings. The capital of Sudan, Khartoum, did not experience much physical violence starting from 2003, but the area was replete with patches of protests and police brutality over the government’s cut on fuel subsidy. The public as well as opposition groups in Khartoum were equally frustrated with the regime of Omar al-Bashir (1989-2017) over serious financial indiscipline (Project Ploughshares, 2017).
Unlike the Second Sudanese Civil War in the South, the conflict in Darfur was not characterised by religious dimensions because grievances emanated from a mixture of ethnic and economic tensions rather than from religious acrimony. Also, the regime of al-Bashir used Arab networks to extend its control over the country through the use of identity politics in the mobilisation of support, hence causing more schism among diverse ethnic nationalities in the country. The feelings that came from the foregoing were worsened by the policies of government, which appeared to discriminate against non-Arabs as well as divide Darfur into three different regions in order to break the unity existing amongst Darfur tribes. Members of marginalised Fur and Zaghawa tribes formed rebel groups to challenge the contradictions occasioned by structural violence by the al-Bashir administration against the Darfur tribes (International Center for Responsibility to Protect, 2016).
Over the years, the dynamics of the Darfur conflicts have changed. A dwindling economy in 2012 and 2013 brought about increased fighting between diverse Arab tribes over land and resources in Central, North and South Darfur. About 300,000 people were displaced within the first five months of 2013 alone, a number that outweighs the figure recorded from 2010 to 2012. Following the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan lost the majority of its oil revenues. With the dwindling of the country’s economy exemplified by rising inflation and massive unemployment, there emerges an increase in discontent within Sudan’s paramilitary forces, the Central Reserve Police (CRP), Border Guards (BG), and Popular Defence Forces (PDF) (Tran, 2014).
Darfur Conflicts and Its Implications for the Wellbeing of Darfurians
Since the commencement of the conflict in Darfur, nearly 2 million Darfurians, representing one-third of the region’s population, have been internally displaced as a consequence of the systematic destruction of their villages. Also, about 200,000 refugees have fled the region to neighbouring Chad, hence impinging on their fundamental human rights. About 350,000 people in the region have died as a result of violence, starvation and diseases, which largely affected their health security and food security. Sexual violence was commonplace, as rape was systematically used as a weapon of warfare (Zissis, 2006). Between 2003 and 2005, more than 2,000 villages were destroyed, while about 500,000 people were killed (Evans, 2009).
In 2013, the Sudanese government launched the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), many of whom were members of the Janjaweed, who actively carried out genocide against the people of Darfur. This further led to massive displacement of the people from their homes. A major ground and aerial offensive by the government of Sudan led to an increase in the number of casualties and displaced people (Jewish World Watch, 2019).
The conflict in Darfur had serious security implications for the Darfurians. Apart from the number of people killed and displaced in the conflict, the means of livelihood of the people were equally destroyed. Since the main occupation in Darfur is pastoralism and sedentary agriculture, the farmers were disconnected from their means of livelihood, leading to hunger and malnutrition. Disease arising from rape is likely to have negative implications on the reproductive health of the victims in Darfur. Since security means freedom from fear and want, the Darfur conflict brought poverty and fear to the Darfurians, hence affecting their security.
Injustice arising from the distribution of limited resources that had the approval of al-Bashir’s government further posed a threat to the security of the people. The exploitation and violence meted out on the non-Arabs, who are largely sedentary farmers, by pastoralists, who are largely Arabs backed by Bashir’s regime, is a serious security concern since it is rooted in structural violence. Therefore, the Darfur conflict has negative security implications for the people of Darfur.
Management and Resolution of Darfur Conflicts
The management of the Darfur conflict did not address the root causes of the conflict, which are contradictions arising from injustice in the distribution of land resources in Darfur. The government, instead of addressing the issue of injustice in the distribution of land between the pastoralists and sedentary farmers, supported the pastoralists against the sedentary farmers on the basis of ethnicity. Also at the national level, al-Bashir was charged with corruption and money laundering, which were not adequate in solving the root causes of the conflict (Jewish World Watch, 2019).
The foregoing conflict management and conflict resolution strategies adopted in Darfur conflicts did not touch on the root causes of the conflict which were injustice in the distribution of land resources and demand for regime change by non-Arabs (largely sedentary farmers). The conflict resolution strategies adopted in resolving the Darfur conflicts focused on neutralising physical violence and actions (behaviour), but that was made more ineffective by structural violence perpetuated against the non-Arabs by the al-Bashir regime.
Conclusion
The study has been an attempt to analyse the Darfur conflict that started in 2003 with a view to determining and analysing the implications of the conflict on the wellbeing of Darfurians. Focusing on state-level analysis, it was discovered that the 2003 Darfur conflicts, contrary to the views of some scholars, emanated from a contest or struggle over limited land resources brought about by prolonged drought. The conflict was dynamic in nature because it started as a struggle between pastoralists and sedentary farmers over land resources but was given ethnic colouration when al-Bashir supported and backed the Arab militia group, Janjaweed, against the non-Arab SLM/A and JEM. The conflict resulted in wanton destruction of lives and properties of the people of Darfur, hence posing a huge security threat to their wellbeing. The conflict resolution and management techniques adopted at the national level did not address the fundamental issues in the conflict, which are injustice in resource distribution, desire for regime change arising from exclusion of non-Arabs from assuming the office of president (turn/order), and the position of non-Arab tribes in the country. In view of the foregoing, it is concluded that unless the fundamental issues in the conflict are addressed, the security or wellbeing of Darfurians will continue to be under threat.
Recommendations
- Recruitment into the military in Sudan should be based on merit and balance to ensure that power is evenly distributed between Arabs and non-Arab tribes in the country in order to avoid intimidation of one group by another group.
- Members of rebel groups that participated in the conflict should be de-radicalised and reintegrated into the society to avoid resurgence of the conflict in the near future.
- The government of Sudan should urgently address the issue of marginalisation of non-Arabs in resource distribution in the country.
- The government should ensure through constitutional provisions that all ethnic nationalities in Sudan are given equal opportunities to carry out economic production.
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