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DAFUR: the open sore of a continent
By Obi Nwakanma
Reprint from The Vanguard Online Edition
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Another human tragedy is playing out in western Sudan. It is the
tragedy of Dafur. The conflict in the Sudan has been described
as genocide. But we shall return to this. However, let me point
out that what we see in Dafur is another example of how Africans
are made victims of an expansionist, and brutal external
marauders who have historically taken advantage of the inherent
pacifism, and some might even say indolence, of the Negroid
people.
Many Africans have focused singularly on the effects of the
European conquest and colonisation of Africa. And Africans have
often forgotten that the history of Africa is the history of
double penetration: one from the East, and the other from the
West.
Although each form of these violent penetrations of Africa
remains the central basis of its historical instability, but a
close study shows, that the Eastern –– that is Arab -
penetration of Africa in the last one thousand years remains the
most violent.
The Arab conquest of Africa which has been examined by key
African scholars - Chinweizu for instance –– when it is taken
into account has been the most vicious. It rose with the sword,
and it continues, with the belligerent Arab worldview that the
Black African is a kaffir, a slave, one not even worth more than
camel dung. This worldview is the primary idea that has governed
relations between the Arab-led government of Sudan, and the
indigenous African population.
The Arabs have come to dominate the Sudan, and have consigned
the indigenous Negroid population to the lowliest status,
treating them as slaves, from a tradition which began as the
Arabs moved into this stretch of Africa, which was once the site
of Nubia, the great African civilization. Sudan has been mired
in civil conflict, with the Christians rallying behind the John
Garang led Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, SPLA, fighting for
control of the South from the Arabs of the North.
Generally, Sudan has remained in a flux for most of its modern
era. It was conquered by Egypt in 1821, which unified the
northern part until the rise of the Mahdi, Muhammadu Ibn Abdalla
who led a campaign of colonial resistance against the
Anglo-Egyptian alliance with his party of the Ansas. This group
remains the basis of the Umma party in Sudan to date led by
descendants of the Mahdi.
The Mahdist movement in Sudan incidentally was happening about
the same time as Uthman dan Fodio was declaring himself Caliph
in Sokoto. Anyway, Lord Kitchener eventually crushed the Mahdist
resistance, and the British established a joint authority with
the Egyptians until 1956 when it was granted independence.
Incidentally, Nigeria’s last colonial governor-general had
served in the Sudan, as did many of the British colonial
officers who also came to work in Nigeria.
So in fact, there are too many things, even aside from the
cultural links to Nubia from which many Nigerian groups emerged,
that Sudan and Nigeria have in common. The difference is that
Nigeria did not, and does not have to endure the Arab menace,
although what is happening in Sudan ought to be an eye opener to
the threat of Arab racist objectives in Africa. The Arabs in
Sudan view that country as an Arab Islamic state, irrespective
of the wishes of the majority of the Negroid people, especially
in the South of Sudan, around the Kodorfan.
The Arabs reneging of the agreement to create a federal union
following the ceding of power led to the first Southern mutiny
in Torit, and to the long civil war which has continued to date,
with the only respite following the short-lived 1972 peace
accord. Sudan remains at war, and the war is endless because the
Arab Muslim population in the North is unwilling to grant the
Black Negroid population its humanity.
In 1983, Jafaar El-Niemery imposed the Sharia law, and the
Southern resistance led by John Garang indicates the futility of
a state religious policy, although the current government of
Omar el Bashir continues, and has even exacerbated the
atrocities against the black population.
In 1998, the Newsweek magazine broke the story of slavery in
Sudan, and this led to an international outcry. Very few
governments in Africa reacted. No state in Africa called El-Bashir’s
government to account. No African country withdrew its legation
from Khartoum. The Organization of African Unity did not respond
to these revelations.
Yet daily, the black African population is subjected to the
worst forms of indignity including slavery in places like Sudan
and Mauritania, by an Arab population. No other people or
society could endure or tolerate this open sore, at this stage
of human development. But by all accounts, the government in
Khartoum is apparently made of a barbaric group intent on
perpetuating the subjugation and further decimation of the black
African population. That is the meaning of the tragedy that is
unfolding in Dafur. It is genocide because of its pattern of
operation.
Dafur is ethnic cleansing; it is a racist, state sponsored
violence targeted towards the elimination of a particular racial
and ethnic group. The Arab government of President Omar el-Bashir
had armed and sponsored Sudanese troops and Arab militiamen
called the Janjaweed to attack and destroy the pastoralist Fur,
Massalit and Zagharwa group of the Negroid people found in
Western Sudan. A low intensity war had started in April 2003
over what has been described as a struggle over land and
resources, and by March 2004 thousands of displaced people in
Dafur were seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
The Janjaweed entered villages and killed thousands of people,
while an estimated one million black people have fled their
homes from attacks by the Arab militia or Janjaweed.
They killed the men, and systematically raped the women with the
purpose, according to reports, of impregnating them. In fact,
according to a recent Human Rights watch report, “rape appears
to be a feature of most of the attacks in Dafur.” Even the
concept of “Moslem brotherhood” here has been put to rest
because the people of Dafur whom the Arab Moslems kill, are
almost all Sufi Moslems, and therein is the irony: it speaks to
the singular truth that the Arab conquest of Africa is a
continuous objective which rides on the false back of Islamic
brotherhood; it is nothing but a racist movement, one whose
implication is emphasized with this situation in which Arab
Muslim militias kill and rape the black African Muslims of Dafur,
whom they call slaves. This continuous violation of the rights
of the black people is the open sore of a continent which must
be healed with adequate strategic action.
The genocide in Dafur resembles so much of the atrocities that
took place in Biafra from 1967-1968, especially the massacres in
places like Asaba and Onitsha by a brutal, ill-trained horde
armed by the Nigerian government to exterminate the Igbo.
While the rest of the world was mealy-mouthing about whether
genocide was taking place or not in Biafra, and the Gowon
government was covering up a vast scale of atrocities, over
three million people were dying, many of them children and
women, denied even the comfort of a morsel in death. The same
silence pervaded the genocide in Rwanda. Luckily, international
attention has been directed to the Dafur situation with the
recent visit by US secretary of state, Colin Powell, and United
Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. The UN has described what
is going on in Dafur as the worst humanitarian crisis in the
world.
“The ruined villages, the camps overflowing with women and
children, the fear of the people, should be a clear warning to
us all –– without action, the brutalities already inflicted on
the civilian population of Dafur could prelude an even greater
humanitarian catastrophe –– a catastrophe that could destabilize
the region.” That is Kofi Annan’s damning report. Perhaps, that
was why the African Union summoned a response in its meeting
last week at Addis Ababa. But the AU came short of declaring
Dafur genocide.
They chose to deploy 300 African troops to Dafur, principally to
protect the humanitarian observers who would be moving into the
region. They also demanded from the el-Bashir’s government to
arrest and prosecute the Arab militiamen –– the Janjaweed –– for
the atrocities. Nothing will of course come out of this, for the
el-Bashir government is complicit. But I personally agree with
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda who is quoted as saying “I think
there is the need to create a big force and go and deal with the
problem. The thing is to protect the people who are targeted,
not observers. That is what we will be prepared for in our
contribution.” Nothing less is called for."
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