14 September 2004
Genocide "Embedded" in Sudan's War Strategy, Garang Says
Rebel leader imparts new vision for Sudan that respects all "tribes"
By Jim Fisher-ThompsonWashington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Sudanese rebel leader John Garang says the violence by government- supported militias called Jingaweit in Darfur is the logical conclusion to a method of waging civil war that has genocide at its very core.
Garang, chairman of the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which has waged a bloody struggle against the Khartoum regime, told a September 10 round table sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), "The seeds of genocide are embedded in the [Khartoum] government's counter-insurgency strategy. What is happening in Darfur is the same thing that has happened in southern Sudan for the last 21 years."
According to the United Nations, as many as 50,000 people have been killed and more than a million others displaced in the Darfur region in what Secretary of State Colin Powell recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was an ongoing pattern of genocide tolerated by the Khartoum regime. The war -- pitting mainly black Christian southerners against the Arab-dominated north -- has resulted in more than two million deaths since the early 1980s.
Garang said, "A lot of emphasis has been put on the Jingaweit," which has become "a household word here in the United States and in many countries. But I want to submit that the problem is not [solely] the Jingaweit. Yes, the Jingaweit are the killers. And in that sense they are the problem. They are a tool in the hands of the [Khartoum] government. The problem in Darfur is the government's counter-insurgency strategy."
He explained: "Counter-insurgency is a legitimate weapon in war but it is unique. You recruit individuals from the constituency of the insurgents because they know the local languages, the terrain, and the local cultures. You then form counter-insurgency units who are deployed alongside regular government troops."
In Sudan, Garang said, "the government has taken counter-insurgency several steps further by recruiting not just individuals from the constituency of the insurgents," but also recruiting whole tribes or whole ethnic groups to fight other ethnic groups that are against the government.
"This is what happened in Rwanda," Garang said. In 1994, "the Hutus were used by the [Juvénal] Habyarimana government to fight moderate Hutus and Tutsis and eliminate them. In Darfur this is the same thing, where the government is using elements of Arab tribes" to murder and rape mainly black, non-Arab Muslims.
"And so you end up with people fighting people instead of an army fighting an army, and that indeed is the basis of genocide," he emphasized.
Sharing his vision of a peaceful Sudan based on mutual respect and power sharing, Garang said: "I challenge those in Khartoum who say Sudan is just an Islamic Arab state. Yes, Islam is part of our culture. We are proud of it. We have an element of Arab culture in us, but that's not all of Sudan."
Garang said he yearned for a Sudan where "nobody is above me and I'm not above anybody else." And therefore, "This is the basis of the new Sudan: recognition of all the countries [regions] and all the tribes" on an equal basis before the law and in government.
In order to implement a U.S.-facilitated framework peace agreement that is being negotiated between Khartoum and the SPLM, Garang suggested a "neutral force" that would be composed of 10,000 government troops, 10,000 from the SPLA and 10,000 from the African Union (AU).
"Otherwise," he said, "leaving security in the hands of the [Khartoum] government and a few AU monitors or peackeepers ... in an area like Darfur that is as large as France can really do nothing. You really need a robust force and that force can be foreign," Garang concluded.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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