Mick Hartley

According to Julie Flint, the most significant recent development in Darfur is the defection of Arab militias disillusioned by their treatment by the Khartoum regime:

To understand the importance of what is happening in Darfur today, rewind to October 2002 and the first big government-Janjaweed attack on the central Jebel Marra mountain, four months before the Darfur rebels declared themselves. Shartai Suliman Hassaballa, the longest-serving chief of the Fur tribe in Jebel Marra, remembers it well: “On 10 October 2002, the Janjaweed attacked Kidingeer and killed 30 civilians, including three of my brothers. They were led by Juma Dogolo of the Awlad Mansour tribe, an immoral, uneducated man who was nobody until the government gave him weapons.”

Exactly five years later, in October this year, Juma Dogolo’s nephew led the strongest Arab militia of South Darfur – arguably of all Darfur – out of an alliance with the government and into alliance with the rebels of Jebel Marra. With him he took brand-new vehicles, Thuraya telephones, heavy weapons and, reportedly, millions of dollars given him by the government as the price of participation in its latest offensive. Mohammad Hamdan Dogolo, “Hemeti,” had been responsible for security around Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, and the government was in no doubt about the importance of his mutiny: Three weeks ago, it unleashed the air force against him.

Arab militias – the so-called Janjaweed – are the lynchpin of the government’s war in Darfur. Without them, the war would soon be over. The regular army is poorly motivated, poorly trained and demoralized by a series of crushing defeats. Its officer class dislikes the partnership with the Janjaweed and the abuses that have characterized it, for which the International Criminal Court (ICC) is now pressing charges.

When rebellion first broke out in Darfur, the government had no difficulty in raising Arab militias to fight. The camel-herding Abbala Arabs especially were some of the poorest and most vulnerable of Darfur’s citizens, their herds decimated first by drought and then by raids by their Zaghawa neighbors, especially in the run-up to rebellion. But the war has destroyed the economy of Darfur and separated communities whose livelihoods were interdependent, to the detriment of Arabs and non-Arabs. As the firestorm of 2003-2004 abated and the war took on a life of its own, the government began to treat with contempt those who had answered its call to arms and were now demanding recompense. It was even whispered that Khartoum might hand some over to the ICC, to save its own skin.

When Hemeti mutinied, he cited the double betrayal of the Abbala Arabs: broken promises to provide their nomadic communities with health, veterinary services, schools and water, and unfulfilled commitments to pay militia salaries and give compensation for war dead. […]

One of the main challenges facing the Sudan government and the international community in 2008 will be how to respond to moves like Hemeti’s. The government may be able to buy a measure of Arab support in the short term, but Darfur’s Arabs are making clear that they are no longer willing to be Khartoum’s cannon fodder and the Janjaweed drain seems likely to continue. The international community, too, has some hard choices to make…