DAFUR: the open sore of a continent

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.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/columns/c311072004.html