Page 87 - History of War - Issue 18-15

Fighters belonging
to the Justice BRIEFING
and Equality
Movement atop
their war machine,
a pickup truck.
The RPG-7 slung
over the door is a The war in
quick anti-vehicle
countermeasure
Darfur

A desperate regime seeks to control Sudan’s
resources with a policy of extermination. Their

actions led to the most pitiless conflict of our time
WORDS MIGUEL MIRANDA

n April 2015, His Excellency Field Marshal government celebrated by displaying captured
Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, Sudan’s trucks in Nyala. Fresh from his electoral win,
Iperpetual head of state, announced his al-Bashir personally visited the city to gloat over
victory in the latest national election. He this rare triumph against the JEM, the enduring
won 94 per cent of the vote and marked the thorn in his side. But despite his exultation, the
occasion with a fi ery speech denouncing reality was that the whole of Darfur remained
his enemies. More than two decades since a wasteland – a wasteland that he and his
overthrowing Sudan’s only elected leader, the henchmen created.
Oxford-educated Islamist Prime Minister Sadiq The region known as Darfur owes its name
al-Mahdi, al-Bashir had a new term to chart his to the predominant Fur tribe, just one among
country’s future. the multitudinous communities who reside in
Whether al-Bashir’s win bodes well for Sudan the vast expanse of Sudan’s western frontier
is moot. The previous 26 years of his rule have bordering Chad. Journalists are prone to
been an unmitigated disaster. The successful describe it as being “as large as France” and
1989 coup d’etat that swept him into power a place where sedentary Africans coexist with
with the blessing of the National Islamic Front Arab nomads. Either statement is true to a
(NIF) meant he assumed the presidency by certain extent. Yet once its recent history is
default, leaving him responsible for endorsing examined, it becomes clear that what befell
an Islamist constitution and waging a Darfur from 2003 until the present is a man-
protracted civil war in the southern provinces. made disaster inspired by a twisted world
Neither initiative achieved desirable results. view. A geographical behemoth that claimed
Sudan’s vaunted oil wealth disappeared on 9 the lower half of the Nile river, the western
July 2011, when South Sudan’s independence shore of the Red Sea and its own corner of
took the most productive fi elds away from the vast Sahara desert, ever since gaining
Khartoum. But since 2009, al-Bashir has independence in 1956, Sudan has been at
been an accused war criminal. Rebel armies odds with itself.
defi ed him in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Never mind the limitless bounty of its farm
South Kordofan. Worst of all, weeks before the lands, its eternal pastures or the untapped
elections, the most persistent resistance group minerals under its soil. Since its First Civil
in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement War from 1955 until 1972 and the 23-year
(JEM), launched an offensive reminiscent of long Second Civil War that ended with the
their 2008 push towards Khartoum – the first Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2005, Sudan
time al-Bashir’s stronghold was threatened. only brought torment and dispossession to its
Hundreds of pickup trucks armed with people. This was intentional, because Sudan is
machine guns and multiple rocket launchers twice cursed.
struck out for Nyala, the capital of Southern First, power is centred in Khartoum, the
Darfur State. It took the combined strength of sprawling capital near the confl uence of the
regular units of the Sudanese Armed Forces Blue Nile and the White Nile. It was founded in
(SAF) and local paramilitaries to blunt the 1821 by the 19th-century Egyptian statesman
JEM’s advance. After days of brutal fighting, Muhammad Ali Pasha as the jewel of his army’s
the group’s convoys were scattered and the African conquests.

THE 1821 1885 1898
Muhammad Ali Pasha,
Khartoum is overrun by the
FIGHT TO absolute ruler of Egypt, sends fanatical Mahdi army after a Lord General Herbert Kitchener
and the Anglo-Egyptian Nile
Expeditionary Force occupy
his superbly equipped and
CONTROL European-trained army to invade year-long siege. Major General Khartoum and impose the British-
Charles George ‘Chinese’
Gordon is killed in battle,
Egyptian Condominium to secure
the Sudan. This marks the
DARFUR beginning of Arab domination in having fought to the death two established and fl ourishes in Sudan.
the Nile river. The cotton industry is
the territory’s domestic politics.
days shy of his 52nd birthday.
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