Mick Hartley

To date the Arabs of Darfur have largely stayed out of the conflict between the government-backed forces and the rebels, but this may be changing according to Julie Flint in Lebanon’s Daily Star:

This month, as Janjaweed violence raged uncontrolled, the lion bared its teeth – at the government. Seven months after the government and Minni Minawi’s Zaghawa-led faction of the SLA signed a peace agreement that all other factions rejected, Darfur’s first Arab rebel group announced itself with an attack on a government garrison in South Darfur state, the only one of Darfur’s three states that has an Arab majority. The new group, the Popular Forces Army, said it would liaise with the rebels still fighting the government “until all demands of Darfur and other marginalized parts of the Sudan are fully realized.” It denounced the Janjaweed as “a minority of mercenaries and hired individuals” who “do not represent Darfur Arabs and do not embody their heritage, courage and sacrifice for peace and justice.”

Arabs constitute approximately a third of Darfur’s population of 7 million and are no less neglected and marginalized than the non-Arab tribes who form the backbone of the rebel movements. Although the conflict in Darfur is popularly depicted as a war between “Arabs” and “Africans,” it is estimated that no more than 20,000 Darfurian Arabs have joined forces with the government, motivated as much by the promise of a salary and loot as by any fuddled notions of Arab supremacy. Despite strong identification with the rebels’ demands, most Arab tribes have attempted to toe a middle line, dissuaded from joining the rebels by their descent into tribalism and by a noxious government propaganda campaign that accused Minawi’s Zaghawa of plotting to establish a “Greater Zaghawa State” on the more fertile lands of others.

The Popular Forces Army is led by two members of the Rizeigat tribe, Darfur’s largest Arab tribe, who have opened a channel of communication to the third SLA faction – known both as the Group of Nineteen and SLA Unity. In the months since the Abuja peace process ended, SLA Unity has dealt the government a series of stunning battlefield defeats and is suddenly the single strongest rebel force on the ground in Darfur. Its success has undoubtedly been one the factors that has propelled some Arabs off the fence.