Mick Hartley

More evidence that it just isn’t that simple any more in Darfur, if it ever was:

Muhammad Ali Adam comes from one of the most feared tribes in south Darfur, the Arab Falata. As a Janjawid fighter he helped his militia to rape, loot and murder its way through village after village. Yet he is among a growing number of Arab gunmen switching sides as they grow disillusioned with the Khartoum Government.

“If I remember the actions which we did, I feel very sorry and sometimes I cry,” he said, sipping sweet, black tea with half a dozen of his new comrades from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), deep inside Jebel Mara, the mountainous stronghold of the anti-Khartoum rebels.

Once they would have tried to kill each other.

Commander Adam, with his dark tan and Khartoum-issued, Chinese-made Kalashnikov, cuts an unlikely figure as a rebel commander. Yet he now ventures regularly into the hillside town of Gorolang Baje – home to the Fur people that gave Darfur its name – to take orders from his new superiors, who used to be his foes.

His presence here is a sign that the widely accepted view of the Darfur conflict is breaking down. No longer is it a case of rebels drawn from the black, farming tribes pitted against an Arab-dominated Government and their light-skinned Janjawid allies.

Defections such as that of Commander Adam have eased fighting in some parts of Darfur. But the increasingly complex picture makes prospects of a resolution even more difficult, according to analysts.

China, meanwhile, is slowly coming round:

China responded yesterday to increasing international criticism of its close friendship with Sudan, appointing a special representative for African affairs whose first task will be to focus on the Darfur crisis.

It is the second time in a week that China has taken action in Sudan that marks a shift from Beijing’s policy of not interfering in the affairs of another nation. Chinese leaders have been stung by criticism that Beijing’s failure to do more could jeopardise its prestige during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.