Social Science Research Council

The war for Chad is not over. It is likely to become more bloody and involve a wider humanitarian disaster before any solutions can be grasped. The next week will be critical for the future of the country–and for the wider region, including Darfur, as well.
Last weekend’s battle in the Chadian capital N’djamena came as [...]

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.

Overview
1. The crisis in the CPA unfolded with a speed that was both unexpected and alarming. At the time of writing, the SPLM and NCP have patched up their differences. But the repercussions of the crisis will continue in Sudanese politics for some time.
2. The crisis has revealed and accelerated underlying political trends. The major dimensions [...]

Moments of crisis are also moments of opportunity. Sudan at the present has all the dimensions of an imminent crisis that could unravel the major achievements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the uncertain progress towards democracy.
The sharpest manifestation of the crisis is the SPLM’s suspension of its participation in the Government of National Unity, [...]

War in Darfur and the Search for Peace is a collection of 15 essays by six Sudanese and eleven non-Sudanese scholars and specialists, published in September 2007 by Harvard University Press. This is the first of two postings that provides an outline of the origins of the book, its significance, and some of the main threads of the argument. This posting focuses on the "turbulent state" framework for understanding Sudan’s persistent dysfunction.

The last few weeks have seen the first significant armed hostilities between the Sudan government and rebel forces since October 2006. What is the significance of this?
The latest round of fighting began with a joint JEM/SLA-Unity military operation in Adila, south-east Darfur, which was followed by a rebel incursion into Kordofan and an army/airforce attack [...]

Today, Julie Flint and I had an op-ed piece in the Washington Post. Though it was headlined “In Darfur, From Genocide to Anarchy,” we would have preferred “Darfur: Simple, It Isn’t.” I’ve included the full text here and invite your comments.

Last week, Dr Majzoub al Khalifa Ahmed, advisor to the President of Sudan, was killed in a car accident on the road to his hometown, Shendi, on the Nile north of Khartoum. His brother also died. I express my condolences to his family, who are mourning the death of the two men.
Majzoub was in charge [...]

What motivates the Sudan government? This conundrum faces activists and policymakers as they grapple with Darfur.

One view is that the government’s agenda is primarily ideological—to impose a monolithic Arab and Islamic identity on a diverse country—and that it pursues this agenda with ruthless consistency.

A second view is that it’s only interested in power. The Islamists who were purged from the government in 1999-2000 argue this. One of them said, if the Prophet Mohammed turned up on the streets of Khartoum today, the government would send him away saying he has no business being there.

And there’s a third view, which is that the government consists of multiple competing power centers, and that most of its policies are incoherent or dysfunctional.

In the spring of 2004, at the height of the brutal offensives by the Sudanese army and airforce and Janjawiid militia in Darfur, I wrote an article entitled "Counterinsurgency on the Cheap." In it, I wrote,

"this is not the genocidal campaign of a government at the height of its ideological hubris, as the 1992 jihad against the Nuba was, or coldly determined to secure natural resources, as when it sought to clear the oilfields of southern Sudan of their troublesome inhabitants. This is the routine cruelty of a security cabal, its humanity withered by years in power: it is genocide by force of habit."

more on “Darfur: Necessary Knowledge for Effective Action” …