DISASTER IN DARFUR - UCSB Department of History - University of ...

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10 marginalization, racial discrimination, exclusion, exploitation, and divisiveness,” the objectives of the SLM are: a united democratic Sudan…predicated on full acknowledgment of Sudan’s ethnic, cultural, social, and political diversity. Viable unity must be therefore ultimately based on the right of self-determination….The fundamental imperatives of a viable unity are an economy and political system that address the uneven development and marginalization that have plagued the country since independence….Religion and politics…must be kept in their respective domains, with religion belonging to the personal domain and the state in the public domain….SPLM/A firmly opposes…the Khartoum Government’s policies of using some Arab tribes…to achieve its hegemonic devices that are detrimental both to Arabs and non-Arabs….[Consequently], the brutal oppression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide sponsored by the Khartoum Government [have]left the people of Darfur with no other option but to resort to popular political and military resistance for the purpose of our survival. [The Sudan Liberation Movement and Sudan Liberation Army (SLM/SLA) Political Declaration] Within a few days the government security committee in western Darfur opened negotiations with the SLM, for the armed forces of the Sudan were insufficient and unprepared to fight a major insurgency in the West or isolate the insurgent’s camps in the Jabal Marra massive. The SLM presented five demands including an amnesty for the rebels and a pledge to implement development projects in Darfur under a fragile ceasefire that soon collapsed on 18 March when Arab militias assassinated near Geneina a respected Massalit leader, Shaykh Saleh Dakoro, followed two days later by helicopter gunships that destroyed much of Karnoi. The SLA retaliated on the 25 March, seized the strategic town of Tine on the Chad frontier, and captured large stocks of arms and equipment from its garrison. Thereafter, fighting raged throughout Western Darfur State in which the victories of the Sudan Liberation Army dramatically revealed the inadequacy and incompetence of the Sudan army. The best the Government of Sudan (GoS) could do was to blame the revolt
11 on “gangsters” and “highwaymen.” On Friday 25 April an SLA force consisting of thirty-three technicals staged a hit-and-run attack at the airport outside El Fasher, now capital of the Northern Darfur State, destroying helicopters, Antonov bombers, occupying army headquarters, and capturing air force Major General Ibrahim Bushra, . At the same time another SLA unit captured four tanks in clashes outside of Kutum seventy-five miles north of El Fasher. Ten days later the SLA captured Colonel Mubarak Muhammad al- Saraj, chief of intelligence for public security in Aynshiro north of Jabal Marra. In the attack on El Fasher the Sudan Liberation Army was joined by Darfurians from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in what many in Darfur have called the “Opposition Forces.” There was little difference in the goals of these two resistance movements except the JEM “has come to rally all the peoples from the various regions of the Sudan into a broad based and inclusive Movment,” not just Darfur. [“The Battle for al Fashir,” Press Release No. 5, Movement for Justice and Equality] Fighting now raged widely throughout Darfur. In late May the SLA north of Kutum destroyed a Sudanese battalion killing 500 and taking 300 prisoners. In mid-July they attacked Tine again leaving 250 soldiers dead. On 1 August they captured Kutum inflicting heavy casualties on the garrison before retiring after four days. The response to these victories by the GoS was to continue its denials that there was a resistance movement and rearm and unleash their Arab militias to rescue the army. Ironically this new war in the West provided the Islamist regime with new opportunities for its preservation. As the most unpopular regime in the history of the independent Sudan the government was now able to weaken any potential opposition by exploiting ethnic divisions, branding the insurgency as an African attempt to rid Darfur of the “Arab race” whose dominance was the very
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DISASTER IN DARFUR - UCSB Department of History - University of ...

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