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As the international community congratulates the Khartoum regime for signing a peace agreement with the rebel group Justice and Equality Movement ( JEM , p. 18305 ) innocent civilians in Darfur are being killed as part of a ruthless counterinsurgency campaign by the Khartoum regime, reported the Boston Globe . The assaults are mainly in the mountainous region of Jebel Marra, where genocidal violence first exploded eight years ago. Khartoum is once again deploying combat aircraft as well as Janjaweed militia forces. Many reports confirm the brutal nature of attacks on civilians, chiefly those from the Fur tribe—the largest in Darfur and the primary target of Khartoum’s counter‐insurgency war. Although supposedly targeting the fragmented Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction led by Abdel Wahid al‐Nur , the attacks are clearly bent on razing entire villages, destroying a way of life. Estimates of civilian casualties exceed 400. The French medical aid organisation Medecins sans frontières ( MSF ) estimates that 100,000 civilians have been displaced by recent violence, which has compelled the organisation to evacuate its personnel, leaving thousands of vulnerable Darfuri without humanitarian assistance. JEM’s leader, Khalil Ibrahim , has played an ugly role in Sudan’s recent history. He was an eager member of Khartoum’s National Islamic Front (NIF) in the 1990s, embraced its radical Islamism, and engaged in military campaigns in southern Sudan as part of the paramilitary Popular Defence Force. The peace agreement with JEM, which excluded other factions and Darfuri civil society, is little more than a promise of further negotiations between the movement and the regime. Khartoum sees the ceasefire as applying exclusively with JEM. Thus intra‐factional fighting within the SLA became an opportunity for Khartoum’s conquest of a region that had long been impregnable. Confident that the militarily powerful JEM had been neutralised, the regime accelerated its campaign, and has received no rebuke from the international community. US President Barack Obama , so forceful about Darfur during his campaign, has appointed a special envoy, Scott Gration , who has yet to pressurise the regime to halt its military campaign. Without a fundamental shift in US policy, hundreds of thousands of Darfuri lives are at increased risk. (Boston Globe 26/3)
Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series – Wiley
Published: May 1, 2010
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