Sudan's Darfur conflict now pits government-backed non-Arab militias against other non-Arabs, Small Arms Survey says
LONDON (AlertNet) - Darfur's conflict has moved largely unnoticed into a new phase with the Khartoum government increasingly relying on non-Arab militias to attack civilians and rebels in the east of the troubled region, a report says.
Darfur has been plagued by violence since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government in protest at what they said was Khartoum's marginalisation of the remote region.
The government responded by sending troops and allied Arab tribes to quash the uprising, unleashing fighting that the United Nations estimates has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Although several parts of Darfur have become more peaceful since 2009, a "new" war in eastern Darfur which erupted in late 2010 and early 2011 has pitted non-Arab groups against other non-Arabs, a report by the Swiss-based Small Arms Survey said.
It said government-backed militias drawn from small, previously marginalised non-Arab groups - including the Bergid, Berti and Tunjur - were being deployed against Zaghawa rebel groups and communities. The violence has forced a fresh wave of displacement with up to 70,000 people fleeing their homes.
Claudio Gramizzi, one of the report's co-authors, attributed the government's shift in strategy to the disillusionment of Arab militias that had once fought for Khartoum.
"They're not very satisfied with the way Khartoum has brought them into the conflict and has disappeared," Gramizzi told AlertNet by telephone from Italy.
"They feel they've been betrayed in terms of the payback they should have received and they did receive."
Gramizzi, who served until 2011 as an arms expert and consultant on the U.N. Panel of Experts in Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan, said the new non-Arab Popular Defence Forces had been trained and equipped by the Sudanese army in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur.
The report also noted the increasing involvement of Darfur rebels in the conflict in South Kordofan - a state bordering newly independent South Sudan - since the end of last year.
Gramizzi said the Darfuri Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in particular had been engaged in fighting alongside another rebel group, the SPLM-N.
The groups are part of an alliance of rebels from several regions in Sudan, which was formed last year. Their aim is to topple the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is facing a rise in popular protests.
The rebels say their border regions have been left underdeveloped and marginalised by an Arab elite in Khartoum.
Sudan has said it is determined to restore order to the territories and accuses its old foe South Sudan of backing the insurgents, something Juba denies.
"There might be the beginnings of a dynamic where there is some level of coordination and the capacity to keep several fronts open and active all over the Sudan, which is part of the strategy of this new platform," Gramizzi said.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
