Darfur: The good guys ain't so good neither

What a mess.
...
Sudan's government last month agreed to a peace accord pledging to disarm Arab janjaweed militias and resettle displaced civilians. By contrast, Darfur's black rebels, who are touted by the wristband crowd as freedom fighters, rejected the deal because it did not give them full regional control. Put simply, the rebels were willing to let genocide continue against their own people rather than compromise their demand for power.

International mediators were shamefaced. They had presented the plan as take it or leave it, to compel Khartoum's acceptance. But now the ostensible representatives of the victims were balking. Embarrassed American officials were forced to ask Sudan for further concessions beyond the ultimatum that it had already accepted.

Fortunately, Khartoum again acquiesced. But two of Darfur's three main rebel groups still rejected peace. Frustrated American negotiators accentuated the positive — the strongest rebel group did sign — and expressed hope that the dissenters would soon join.

But that hope was crushed last week when the rebels viciously turned on each other. As this newspaper reported, "The rebels have unleashed a tide of violence against the very civilians they once joined forces to protect."..

In light of janjaweed atrocities, it is natural to romanticize the other side as freedom fighters. But Darfur's rebels do not deserve that title. They took up arms not to stop genocide — which erupted only after they rebelled — but to gain tribal domination.

The strongest faction, representing the minority Zaghawa tribe, signed the sweetened peace deal in hopes of legitimizing its claim to control Darfur. But that claim is vehemently opposed by rebels representing the larger Fur tribe. Such internecine disputes only recently hit the headlines, but the rebels have long wasted resources fighting each other rather than protecting their people...

Update: Two of the rebel groups continue to refuse to sign the peace agreement.

Two Darfur rebel groups refused on Thursday [May 30] to sign a peace deal ahead of a deadline set by the African Union to end the three-year-old conflict that has killed tens of thousands in Sudan's remote west...

Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur, the other SLA faction leader, is in the Kenyan capital Nairobi but his group said he would not sign unless changes or additions were made to the text, conditions which the AU and Sudan's government reject...

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) leader Khalil Ibrahim, in last-minute talks with Slovenian President Janez Drnovsek, said the deal was not acceptable...

Mark C.

Posted by markc at May 31, 2006 05:38 PM