Social Science Research Council

I came across SPLA-2 while in the Nuba Mountains in April. Al Bulola had just been visiting senior SPLA commanders, in South Sudan and in South Kodofan, claiming that he had 40,000 men ready to join the movement and looking for logistical support. The SPLA’s high military command in Juba had never heard [...]

After working on Darfur since 2002, it was sobering to revisit the Nuba Mountains in April. My last visit, for the arba’iin of Commander Yousif Kuwa in May 2001, was cut short when eight government columns attacked the village where the mourning ceremony was being held. Yousif Kuwa’s successor, Abdel Aziz al Hilu, succeeded [...]

In the debate over the ICC, and the indictments the Chief Prosecutor has promised for this month, my concerns are primarily factual: the depiction of the present conflict by Luis Moreno Ocampo, and the fears of many, including some of the best-informed and most experienced international jurists, that he risks damaging his case and the [...]

In the wake of JEM’s attack on Omdurman, a number of correspondents have urged closer, critical examination of the rebel movements. This is long overdue. In the last few weeks, the “movements”—more often than not, shifting collections of commanders rather than organised groups with clear platforms and principles—have continued to give proof that [...]

Picking up Alex’s question about the calculations of the JEM leadership, I believe this was a serious attempt at regime change—however over-ambitious or foolhardy it may now seem. JEM has said openly ever since it refused to sign the DPA that it has a new policy and that policy is regime change. In [...]

Six days after the aerial attack on Shigeg Karo, UNAMID has finally spoken out, in a press release that raises more questions than it answers. A verification team visited Shigeg Karo on Thursday—a full four days after the bombing, taking nothing to assist the wounded still remaining there—and confirmed the market was “completely burned”. [...]

In this post, Julie Flint reports on the Sudan government’s ongoing onslaught on Arab leaders in Darfur who are in rebellion against Khartoum.

Towards the end of the Abuja talks, an Arab intellectual sympathetic to the Darfur rebels remarked: ‘Ninety percent of the Arabs of Darfur are neutral so far. We cannot continue like this if there if no agreement. We may take a role.’ Eighteen months later they are, slowly but surely, in many ways. In recent weeks the Sudan government has begun responding with predictable force-aerial bombardment, ground attack, arrests of family members. This entry details the current fierce conflict between the Sudan government and two Arab groups–the Sudan Revolutionary Forces led by a young principled Arab leader, Anwar Adam Khater, and a Janjawiid militia force under the command of Mohamed Hamdan Hemeti, which switched sides recently.

Posted on behalf of Julie Flint.

Two questions about the original posting about the attack on the AMIS base in Haskanita:

1. The attackers have been "clearly identified" as rebels. Clearly identified by whom? And what makes the identification "clear"? I very much doubt that AMIS personnel in Haskanita had much interaction with the mass of rebels in Haskanita, and the evidence I have seen suggests that no rebel leaders participated in the attack. As one investigator says, those who did were "some way down the food chain".

2. The attack was "clearly planned and premeditated". I think evidence is needed to support this statement. I personally do not have it. One of those inside the base during the attack has said that the men who attacked the base were "very drunk". They "ransacked and looted EVERYTHING"¦ They took all the food, fuel, vehicles, ransacked the clinic." This does not suggest a "clearly planned" attack. It suggests a drunken rampage.