AFRICA/SUDAN - What lies behind the name Darfur, behind the people in flight? Why are these endless kilometres of sand provoking massacres, raping and famine?

Thursday, 8 July 2004

Rome (Fides Service)- It is unthinkable that a local dispute between farmers and shepherds, found in many parts of the world, can in a year turn into genocide of civilians. How can a government treat its own people so ferociously? This is how Comboni missionary Father Giovanni Battista Antonini, with long years of experience in Sudan, comments the conflict in the western Sudan region of Darfur, in a conversation with Fides. “Darfur has always been a very poor region without resources or infrastructures” Father Antonini said. “The local people the Fur (which gave the region the name of “Darfur” in Arabic “home of the Fur”) are mainly farmers. Over the years other peoples, mainly Arab shepherds from other parts of Sudan settled here. Now and again there were disputes between the Fur farmers and the “foreign” shepherds for control of water holes and the little fertile land. These disputes were settled with traditional methods of tribal mediation”.
But besides ethnic tension there is also a serious political conflict: “I Fur have always accused the central government of neglecting their region, denying it means of development ” Father Antonini said. “There are no roads, no hospitals. This led to the formation of these two guerrilla movements which oppose the government”
“I cannot say who finances these movements. It is true that it is not difficult to find arms in this region since the end of the civil war in neighbouring Chad in the early 1990s ” Father Antonini told Fides. “Some years ago I saw Kalashnikov guns being sold cheaply”.
“The government’s reaction to the rebellion in Darfur has been ferocious. The latent conflict between farmers and shepherds was manipulated into an open war” the missionary said. “The Arab shepherds were organised in the terrifying Janjaweed horseback guerrillas which, with the support of fighter helicopters and army aircraft, systematically attack those villages where the people support the rebellion”.
“I wonder why the response has been so ferocious. Darfur is very poor, it has no strategic resources. What is the reason for all this violence? What is more this conflict could undermine the peace agreement for southern Sudan” Father Antonini said. “To complete the picture it should be said that the two rebel movements in Darfur, are politically connected with the opposition of the Beja people living on the Red Sea coast, from the border with Egypt to the border with Eritrea. Also the Beja, a people known already in Roman times, accuse Khartoum of neglecting them and doing nothing for their development. Another ferocious war could break out here”.
“One of Sudan’s most deep lying problems derives from the diffidence of outlying peoples with regard to ethnic groups in the Nile Valley who have always governed the country” the missionary recalled. “Regimes and ideologies change but the ruling class has always come from these ethnic groups. Conflicts like the one in Darfur originate in this context”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 8/7/2004 righe 41 parole 522)


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