Not on Our Watch (9 page)

‘We ain’t in Kansas anymore.’ John as Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
now.

‘But I’m from Missouri.’

‘And we ain’t there either.’

Driving into the camp, we are immediately mobbed by kids. I don’t know what I expected our welcome to be, but I am soon told that whenever these UNHCR vehicles arrive there is a great flurry of activity because of what or whom they might carry—good news or bad. Or perhaps on a long shot, it could be an emissary from an agency, country, or municipality that has taken an interest in the Darfurians’ plight beyond simple survival and instead promises to secure a real measure of relief through political intervention. There are also many beefs these inhabitants need to air, stories from the many daily arrivals, recounting their particular journey to the camp. Each tale is eerily similar to the others in its specificity and scope: first the planes, then the soldiers, then the marauders. Basic details of cruelty vary, but death for most men and rape for perhaps thousands of women are the consistent themes.

We pull to a stop in a cloud of loose earth and hop out into the throng. The cars are at the very least providing a break in the monotony, toting some odd-looking people to gawk at. The camp leader quickly approaches the car. I don’t speak his tongue, but it isn’t necessary to; he’s clearly upset. Somebody once told me that spoken language actually comprises only a small part of communication, and watching this conversation I’m inclined to agree. It is clear that a case is being made for something serious to this man, and he wants results! Our guide nods his head in appeasement, his body language telling me that he understands. The entire time the
Nightline
cameras roll, and I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not in a movie with special effects, lighting, and makeup but experiencing reality on a level I have never seen. When the
Nightline
cameraman hops out of the car with his equipment on his shoulder, red light steady to document the moment, many of the people, especially the young ones, shrink back. The little ones are smiling. I ask about it and am told that most of the kids have probably never seen a video camera.

‘You’re not serious.’

‘Yes. You are one of the few outsiders who have ever been here except for relief workers. And never a camera crew that I can remember.’

Right. What am I thinking? This isn’t Bosnia or Somalia or Iraq; this is an itinerant refugee camp on the Chad/Darfur border, nestled in the middle of nowhere, with very little international interest to protect its inhabitants. Who’s filming them? Maybe those in the crowd who were exposed to a camera before believe by now that pictures must be taken solely for the benefit of the photographer, not the subject, as their lives go unchanged while the picture takers go. Why not turn away? Those remaining, however, the curious, are partitioned out almost in concentric circles, with the youngest forming the closest ring and the elders on the outermost, with each gradation in between fanning out in a spontaneous, human design. I walk slowly, taking it in. A father myself, I know better than to try to force some kind of exchange with these kids, although, probably because I am a father, I am hawk-like, looking for an angle to do so.

We are introduced to Emile Belem, head of operations at Am Nabak as well as two other camps in the area. He’s been here a year and today is his last day.

‘When they come first to the camp and you approach them, you will see that they are very sad.’ Emile breaks it down.

‘Very sad,’ I parrot.

‘Now you see them, they are smiling, and this is, this is a very good image.’

Images of my two safe-at-home, well-fed, educated kids are swirling around in my head, and reverberations of reality find another pitch to hum inside me. My daughters’ faces are now joined by others. I feel my own face starting to shift, my expression beginning to change, but I’m maintaining, masking well the sorrow that’s creeping over me for those little boys and girls whose faces remind me of my childhood—looking in the mirror of my sister and brother’s faces, my cousins and friends. Faces taking me back to old pictures in only slightly newer family albums of happy times, Little Donald surrounded by the people he knew and loved most in the world. I hear the voice in my head speak up, the one my reason uses: ‘Maintain, Little Donald.’

Just then, I catch the eye of a little boy, no more than ten or 11, staring at me tripping. I hope he didn’t vibe my slippery state. The last thing I want to do is somehow present a sour mug, a face wracked with pity when pity in this situation is a useless and obvious indulgence, insulting even, if no action follows it. I shake it off. This child is the first one since we’ve pulled up that’s looked unwaveringly in my eyes. So I do what any clown would do: I make a silly face at him. Thankfully, he laughs, the wordless joke translating. Uh-oh. The Ham is loose. I got inroads now. I kick a rock over near him nonchalantly, still getting downloaded on camp specifics. When he kicks it back, though, I excuse myself from the tutorial; it’s on! Pretty soon other little kids are jostling around the impromptu soccer match, laughing and giggling. John jumps in as well and we’re having a nice little game now. One of the kids does a fancy between the legs move, and I reach out to give him a pound, and he pulls away, avoiding my contact and my culturally specific way of saying ‘good one,’ an outstretched fist. Toward a child, no less. Am I an idiot or what?

Don’t they know I’m only five short generations away from being an African myself? When my six-foot-one, melanin-challenged travelling companion reaches out, I understand these kids’ reservations. But me? For these kids, however, regardless of my skin and similar facial features, I am a ‘Them’ from a foreign land and don’t quite have pound privileges yet, harmless though I know myself to be. I turn their reticence into a game too, walking away like I couldn’t care less, then darting back to grab at them. The kids think this is a laugh riot, and it trumps the soccer game, carrying us deeper down the roadway and into the heart of the camp, comprised of small, makeshift mud, stick, and found-plastic homes. Completely bereft of any adornment, only the most basic of structures serve as a buffer to the harsh elements for their inhabitants, who sometimes number eight or more. We settle near a small area where women sit beside tarps laid out on the ground with beans, grain, and small knick-knacks strewn across them. Is this a market? Emile goes off to find Fatima, the woman we are to meet with today and interview for
Nightline,
while John and I survey the camp over the tops of the tiny heads huddled closer around us. The kids are braver now. The older ones, and even the adults now, close the circle behind them, and for a few minutes, that is all that happens: them staring at us staring at them. I don’t know what to do at first, then I remember I am a clown, here to entertain. I pick up a little stone, bend my arm back so I can balance it on my elbow, and then swipe my hand down fast, snatching the stone out of the air. Big reaction. They want me to do it again. John chimes in.

‘You’re a hit, buddy.’

‘I’m a seal. They just want to see how far I’ll go.’

I do the trick a couple more times then hand the rock to one of the kids, inadvertently inciting a pushing and shoving match as they all want to take possession of the stone, now apparently imbued with some kind of unique otherness that it lacked just five minutes ago. The conflict doesn’t last long, however, as an elderly woman, perhaps a camp elder (a small yet significant distinction), appears from behind one of the small huts carrying the innards of a box spring overhead, its metal coils rusted and black. She throws the thing at our feet and begins an impassioned rant. I look around for Emile, but he’s off dealing with camp business, and no one near can translate. John is no help.

‘Do you have any idea what she’s saying?’ I ask.

‘No. She looks angry though.’

She does.

‘Maybe she’s talking about what happened to her in her village,’ John adds.

‘Maybe this bed and all her other possessions were destroyed by the Janjaweed.’

Sounds about right. Like I said before, trucked-in strangers like us often signify witnesses, and very likely her story was one she knew we needed to hear. But I had to take it further. ‘Could be. Or maybe she’s looking for some payback and wants to tie one of us to that bed and set it ablaze.’

I push John an arm’s length away and point to him, hoping she’ll understand my gesture as the sincere offering it is: ‘Take the white man.’

‘No, buddy. Her attackers look more like you than me.’

‘Sure. Now.’

Emile calls us over. Fatima is ready to talk. I don’t know if I’m ready to hear. Reading testimonials in source materials is quite another thing from looking into haunted eyes and seeing scabbed-over scars. Hotel Rwanda’s real-life star, Paul Rusesabagina, stands close by. It’s a good thing. I consider his strength and step under the awning of the lean-to for my education from Fatima.

4

From the Front Lines of Darfur

Conflict in Darfur has been simmering beneath the surface for decades. The roots of it are competition for land, access to water, and the Sudanese government’s decision to manipulate local tensions for political gain rather than develop Darfur’s economy to address worsening poverty.

As the Sahara crept farther southward due to desertification—the degradation of formerly productive land due to drought and overuse of the land—nomadic herders from the upper northwest of Sudan began to encroach on the agriculturally rich areas farther south. Tensions increased, as nomads and their herds of cattle and camels strayed onto local farms and drank from precious water supplies.

The land is a complex mix of people, and tribal affiliations have always been important. There are at least 36 main tribes in Darfur, and people identify themselves as either belonging to an Arab or a non-Arab tribe. Three of the largest non-Arab tribes—and the ones most directly targeted by the regime in the genocide—are the Fur, the Zaghawa, and the Massaleit. Victims and perpetrators in Darfur are all devout followers of Sunni Islam (in its Sufi incarnation as practised in many parts of Africa). Arab and non-Arab identities are more political and cultural than racial, as centuries of co-existence and intermarriage have blurred the line between Arab and non-Arab in Darfur. Still, these groups retain separate identities.

For centuries the people of Darfur resolved local disputes through negotiation and customary law. Economic desperation was widespread and conflict over scarce resources was not uncommon, but violence never escalated to full-scale ethnic warfare. What destroyed this precariously balanced harmony was the Khartoum government, which in its pursuit of power by any means necessary turned the ethnic diversity of the Sudanese into a political instrument of genocide.

In the 1980s, the government of Sudan offered a glimpse of what was to come in Darfur when it began providing arms to Arab groups to fight against southern SPLA rebels. In 1987, the NIF government intervened in a local conflict between Arab nomads and non-Arab farmers from the Fur tribe. The Fur are the largest group in Darfur and have traditionally ruled the region. Arab nomad militia called the Janjaweed committed atrocities against the Fur and drove them from their land. The Fur formed a militia and fought back. The resulting two years of fighting eerily foreshadowed the carnage that would envelop Darfur 15 years later.

This conflict in Darfur from 1987 to 1989 killed as many as 2,500 Fur and 500 Arabs. The Janjaweed militias stole 40,000 cattle—a precious commodity and a source of wealth for many Darfurians—and burned 400 Fur villages. Many Fur representatives called the conflict ‘genocidal’ and claimed that the Arabs were trying to destroy their economy and drive them from their land. A second conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs erupted in 1996, and again the government armed Arab militias to attack a non-Arab group, the Massaleit. Hundreds of people were killed, and 100,000 Massaleit villagers fled across the border, becoming refugees in neighbouring Chad.

Atrocities against non-Arabs were increasing, and in Darfur the citizens realised that peace talks between the government and the SPLA rebels would not change the NIF’s destructive policy toward them. Non-Arab groups organised themselves militarily and formed the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). In 2003 the SLA launched its first attacks against government outposts in Darfur. In response, the government of Sudan subcontracted the Janjaweed militias in another scorched earth counter-insurgency campaign. They let loose the hounds of hell, and gave them total impunity. The strategy is the oldest in the ‘art’ of war: if you kill or displace all the people supporting a rebel group, you kill the rebellion. The result was genocide.

Who are the Janjaweed?

The Janjaweed are a loose collection of thousands of mercenary fighters and career criminals who share a racist ideology with their paymasters in Khartoum. The NIF’s powerful and pervasive security apparatus had used the Janjaweed effectively in other wars against Darfuri non-Arab groups, but this time was different. The SLA was a more organised fighting force than previous Darfur rebels, and left unchecked, they could have eventually posed a genuine threat to Khartoum.

Many young men from Darfur entered the Sudanese army and rose through the ranks to become commanders. The government trusted poor northerners to fight its war against southern-based rebels, but could government troops originally from Darfur be trusted to fight a war against people from their home area? When the government launched its counterinsurgency, with as many as 80% of its own troops from Darfur, government officials had strong doubts that the army would remain loyal. So rather than risk a mutiny, Khartoum turned to its trusted allies, the Janjaweed. The government needed more Janjaweed fighters to achieve its objectives, and it looked to the poorest reaches of northern Sudan for recruits.

Put simply, the government of Sudan cut a sinister deal. The regime promised land, livestock, war booty, and impunity to its Janjaweed allies. In return, the Janjaweed would attack villages belonging to the non-Arab Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit. To swell the ranks of its proxy army, the government released criminals from jail, recruited fighters from neighbouring countries, and gave cash handouts of around $100 to anyone who would take up arms against Darfur’s non-Arab tribes. The government provided the Janjaweed with new rifles and heavy weapons, and some of them even got uniforms.

The Janjaweed served a strategic purpose: to create anarchy and to inflame ethnic divisions and conflict. The government could then lie, say that atrocities were occurring because of historic ‘tribal’ feuds, and still be believed. This fallacy, as it had in Rwanda and Bosnia before, allowed those in the international community who didn’t really want to confront the killers to conveniently forget who set this destructive process in motion. It’s divide-and-destroy.

These are fundamental elements of the regime’s strategy for maintaining power: first they kill and displace as many as they can, until international condemnation reaches a tipping point, then they turn the ethnic diversity of Sudan into an instrument of war and political control. We have seen this time and again over the last two decades in Sudan: in southern Sudan, in the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan, and now in Darfur.

Government officials responsible for genocide in Darfur outsourced direct control and orchestration of Janjaweed activity and the divide-and-destroy policy to local government officials. These officials conjured up ways to stoke conflict between neighbours as if they were playing the board game Risk. Until the Janjaweed and regime officials are dealt with decisively, the situation will remain bleak. Darfur’s tormenters will not reverse their policy of support for the Janjaweed, because they would have too much to lose politically and militarily, and the pressure from the international community remains too muted and weak to alter their calculations.

Descent into Genocide

The genocide in Darfur came in two waves. The first wave featured wholesale destr uction of the way of life and livelihoods of the civilian supporters of the rebellion. The second wave has been marked by the manipulation of humanitarian access to survivors, aimed at slowly destroying their will to survive through mass rape and preventing their return home.

The government’s military has coordinated closely with the Janjaweed and laid waste to Darfur’s Zaghawa, Fur, and Massaleit populations. By the end of 2003, the Sudanese military and Janjaweed militia had slaughtered 70,000 people and driven more than 700,000 from their homes. The worst was yet to come.

The widespread campaign of atrocities and ethnic cleansing was extraordinarily evident. Nonprofit organisations such as the International Crisis Group, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Sudan Organisation Against Torture sent research teams to document the horrors: children thrown into fires, mass executions and gang rapes, rape survivors branded with a scalding iron.

When we spoke with the survivors of the genocide, most had similar stories. The attacks usually began before dawn. Government aircraft commenced the assaults by dropping crude bombs on villages, killing men, women, and children as they slept in their beds. In the chaotic aftermath of the bombings, government troops with hundreds of Janjaweed fighters would sweep into a village to murder the men, rape the women, burn the homes, loot the livestock, and drive the survivors into the desert. The attackers yelled racial slurs as they rampaged through the villages, and after they raped women they would often tell them that they would give birth to Arab children.

The Sudanese army and the Janjaweed methodically set out to destroy the livelihoods of Darfur’s non-Arab peoples. To prevent people from returning to their villages, the Janjaweed poisoned the water supply by dumping bodies down wells. They destroyed crops and precious food supplies. Food availability dwindled, prices soared, malnutrition rates skyrocketed, and the government began its favourite, tried-and-true tactic of denying humanitarian assistance to its suffering citizens by cutting off their access to aid agencies.

Witnesses to Destruction

One of
New York Times
columnist Nicholas Kristof’s trips to Darfur in June 2004 was particularly difficult and uncomfortable.

‘I was sleeping outside on the ground, and there were tens of thousands of refugees who had just arrived at the border. They were seeking shelter under trees, and I started talking to them. Under the first tree were two brothers who had been shot. The one less injured had carried his badly wounded brother on his back for 49 days and was nursing him, trying to keep him alive. Under the next tree was a woman whose parents had been shot and thrown into the wells, and then her husband was shot in front of her. Under the third tree were two little children, aged four and one, who were orphans, their parents killed. Under the fourth tree was a woman whose husband and two small children had been killed, and then she had been gang-raped and mutilated to humiliate her forever. And then, as far as I looked there were more trees, and more families sheltering under them, with stories just as wrenching.’

Nick adds, ‘Later, what I found most poignant was the women in Kalma camp who were willing to tell me, with sound and video running, using their names, that they had been gang-raped by the police. They risked humiliation and retribution, yet they had the guts to come forward because they thought it would help stop the assaults. I found that courage incredibly inspiring (and then agonised about whether to identify them; in the end I did not use their full names or identities because I didn’t want to have them on my conscience if they were imprisoned and beaten).’

Shockingly, these women were not even safe at the displaced camp. In late August 2006, the International Rescue Committee reported that more than 200 women had been raped in the Kalma camp over the previous five weeks alone.
[1]

Jerry Fowler, former staff director of the Committee on Conscience at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, was witness to the horrors told by refugees in eastern Chad in the summer of 2005. In Bahay, in stifling 115-degree heat, he spoke with a woman who had two bullet wounds in her leg. She had just crossed the border with 60 families, all fleeing attacks by Sudanese government forces and the Janjaweed. Along the journey from her village to the border, she and a 17-year-old girl went to a well to get water. A government soldier was guarding the well, preventing anyone from getting a drink. The soldier grabbed the girl and began taking her away, and the other woman tried to pull her away from his grasp. He opened fire and shot the woman twice in the leg. The teenager was later found in the desert. Both her legs were broken and she was covered with blood.

At one point, Jerry was sitting in a hot tent, a sandstorm raging outside, and a woman was telling him her story of the attack on her village. At that moment, Jerry had the overwhelming urge to get out of the tent. He was emotionally and physically exhausted. As he grabbed his things and began to leave, the woman asked him about her mother. Did he know her? Had he seen her? Did he know how to find her? These were not rhetorical questions. The woman’s name was Hawa. Her mother’s name was Hadiya Ahmed. Whenever Jerry speaks publicly about Darfur, he mentions Hawa and her missing mother. He doesn’t know if she was ever found.

John Heffernan from Physicians for Human Rights travelled to eastern Chad in May 2004 and recalls another refuge near the northern stretch of the Chad/Sudan border. John H. and his colleague Jennifer Leaning, a professor at Harvard and an emergency room doctor, drove south along the Chad border with Sudan before heading to the more forbidding north. After an eight-hour drive they arrived in a desolate locale near the northern stretch of the border. The travel was gruelling, and the car was stuck in a
hubbub
(sandstorm) along the way. Both John H. and Jennifer were badly dehydrated, and it became quickly clear that Jennifer’s condition was extremely serious. She needed fluids rapidly, and despite being hooked up to two IVs (with the assistance of relief workers) she was getting worse. ‘I’m losing ground,’ she told John H. The nearest clinic was three hours away.

As John H. and others worked to improve Jennifer’s condition, he looked out at the scene around him. Unlike other official refugee sites he had visited in Chad, there was no camp here: only people huddled under trees. The 18,000 refugees had no shelter or health care, meagre food supplies, and shared one dirty well with the livestock they had managed to bring across the border. Many animals—the livelihood and lifeline for many societies in Darfur—had not made it, and piles of burning carcasses among the refugees made for an awful scene.

Jennifer’s condition began to improve, and as the car departed for the nearest health clinic, John H. thought to himself,
If my friend almost died here, what chance do these people have?
They were caught in a desert death trap, and it became clear to him that the victims of the conflict in Darfur were victims of genocide. John H. is currently director of the genocide prevention initiative at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience, where he works to end the genocide in Darfur and atrocities in places like Congo and northern Uganda.