OPINION PIECE

No Good Guys, Only Victims

Children recounting stories of their murdered family members. Women tearfully describing their brutal rapes. Whole villages being burnt to the ground as the government-supported Janjaweed follow their policy of “ethnic cleansing.”

These are just a few of the images we’ve come to associate with Darfur over the past five years. After the issue was first thrust into the limelight, celebrities such as George Clooney and Angelina Jolie have taken up the cause, and non-profit organizations such as CARE and Save Darfur have advocated the end of the Arab-dominated government.

But that was at the beginning when the situation was clear-cut and well-defined. The Arab government was attacking the black African civilians solely based on their ethnicity. It was clear who the enemy was.

But the situation has changed and things are not so simple.

As Tim Carney, former U.S. ambassador to Sudan, said, “Those who immediately act in outrage and indignation [towards the situation in Darfur] many times fail to take into account the current complexity of Sudan.”

The Janjaweed hasn’t changed drastically and they continue to rape, pillage and burn. But the sad truth is that the Darfur “genocide” has devolved into an all out war where the “good guys” aren’t necessarily good and our preconceived notions about the tribal conflict don’t work anymore. With the many black African rebel groups emerging who have self-serving interests, the only innocent people are the victimized civilians, both Black and Arab. The shift from genocide to war means that we cannot do what we’ve done in the past and separate good from evil by racial lines.

Identifying the obstacles to peace is the first step to achieving it. This change in Darfur means that getting rid of the Khartoum government will not be enough to stop the actual conflict. If we want peace in Darfur, we will have to invest much more in peacekeepers on the ground to stop the chaos.

One reason for this shift to actual war is that warring factions are constantly changing their alliances and friendships, and most are not interested in peace.

“The rebel groups are fractured,” said Pamela Fierst, representative of the U.S. Department of State. “This is creating an environment that goes from bad to worse.”

While the rebel groups have split into dozens of competing factions, the main umbrella group is the Sudan Liberation Army (SLM). One faction is headed by Minni Mannawi of the war-like Zaghawa Tribe. However, the other faction headed by Abdulwahid Mohamed Nour of the Fur tribe, the largest ethnic tribe in Darfur, has the largest support from local Darfurians.

Another major group is the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a hard-core Islamist group that is only interested in toppling Omar Hassan Al Bashir’s comparatively moderate regime and creating an Islamist state. At the start of 2006, JEM and SLM tried to merge, but within months, their conflicting interests made them separate.

Between these three factions, only Minni Mannawi’s group signed the Darfur Peace Agreement in May 2006, making the agreement essentially ineffective in bringing peace to the volatile country. Mannawi is now despised by most Darfurians since he is seen as “selling out” the Khartoum Government (he was appointed as a top Sudanese official in the Darfur region by the government, which makes people wonder what his motivations for signing the Peace Agreement really were).

These shifts of alliances and the conflicts that erupt between the different factions hinder any peace processes that might be attempted.

“You can't have a peace process until [the opposition groups] sort themselves out,” says Sudan expert Alex de Waal in Time Magazine. “They'll want to prove themselves on the battlefield before they get serious about peace.”

Another problem – one that is potentially more serious – is the feeling of disenfranchisement amongst Sudanese citizens that in many ways adds to this violent conflict.

“The problem is that many groups of people feel marginalized,” said Fierst. “They don’t get representation. So of course they become angry and act out their frustrations.”

For example, according to Sam Dealey of Time Magazine, African rebels, angry with the oppressive Arab government, attacked the village of Kebkabiya—a village consisting of mostly innocent Arab civilians – with the kind of brutality usually associated with the Khartoum regime.

Even members of the Janjaweed are angry that the government has not provided them with adequate compensation, and some are even turning against the government, making it even more difficult to distinguish between the good and bad guys. As a result of this confusion, skirmishes between different tribes and groups of people has increased and innocent Arab and African civilians are the ones who suffer.

This ambiguity makes finding a quick solution almost impossible. If the international community really wishes for a stop to violence in Darfur, it must renew attempts at a more effective peace agreement that addresses the complaints of different tribes and ethnic groups. More peacekeepers must be deployed to the Sudan to stop the vicious cycle of violence where the angry and victimized join this seemingly unstoppable war. But above all, the different rebel groups and even those in the government must realize a common interest in peace.