Wake Us When It's Over
The Janjaweed have had so much success in Darfur that they have decided to go into overtime by attacking each other. The Arab tribes that have pushed out the Christians and the animists from Darfur have started a civil war amongst themselves -- and the latest victims have headed for the same refugee camps as the people they earlier victimized themselves:
Some of the same Arab tribes accused of massacring civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan are now unleashing their considerable firepower against one another in a battle over the spoils of war that is killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.In the past several months, the Terjem and the Mahria, heavily armed Arab tribes that United Nations officials said raped and pillaged together as part of the region’s notorious janjaweed militias, have squared off in South Darfur, fighting from pickup trucks and the backs of camels. They are raiding each other’s villages, according to aid workers and the fighters themselves, and scattering Arab tribesmen into the same kinds of displacement camps that still house some of their earlier victims.
United Nations officials said that thousands of gunmen from each side, including some from hundreds of miles away, were pouring into a strategic river valley called Bulbul, while clashes between two other Arab tribes, the Habanniya and the Salamat, were intensifying farther south.
Darfur’s violence has often been characterized as government-backed Arab tribes slaughtering non-Arab tribes, but this new Arab-versus-Arab dimension seems to be a sign of the evolving complexity of the crisis. What started out four years ago in western Sudan as a rebellion and brutal counterinsurgency has cracked wide open into a fluid, chaotic, confusing free-for-all with dozens of armed groups, a spike in banditry and chronic attacks on aid workers.
One change from earlier is that the Sudanese government appears to have stopped arming the Arabs. That hasn't made much of a dent in their killing power, however, as the arms they received work perfectly well now. Those weapons sales appears to have bought long-range chaos for Sudan's government, which now sees its authority threatened throughout the country and not just in Darfur.
And chaos it is. Trucks routinely get hijacked on the highways, with men shot and women raped, with no real knowledge of which faction controls what highways at any one time. Land changes hands on a constant basis as the Arabs rack up vengeance attacks that once started seem never-ending. It's a spiral towards complete anarchy, where banditry now seems to trump tribal relations and serves as the main revenue source for the combatants.
It's difficult to muster any sympathy for these tribes at all. They created a genocidal conflict in the region, and now they have started a new war to divide the spoils of genocide among them. It sounds more like a curse they have brought down on their own heads. Let them suffer the consequences of their own evil. Maybe someone will learn a lesson from it.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on September 3, 2007 10:08 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)
Comments (16)
Posted by Bennett | September 3, 2007 10:32 AM
Are you sure this wasn't a report about Gaza? It sounds like Gaza. When there's no one else to kill, kill each other.
As to the Sudanese government, it brings to mind something to the effect of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.
Posted by Otter | September 3, 2007 10:40 AM
Maybe they'll kill each other off and weaken the Sudanese government before the Dhimmicrats send our troops in and give them something more appetizing to shoot at, in the name of 'we don't have any vested interests' in Darfur.
And they would send them in Despite the fact that there are already those blaming the US and claiming we would be after the oil discovered in that region.
Posted by Flighterdoc | September 3, 2007 10:42 AM
Oh, good. It couldn't happen to a more appropriate bunch of scum
Posted by ERNurse | September 3, 2007 10:46 AM
"...the Terjem and the Mahria, heavily armed Arab tribes that United Nations officials said raped and pillaged together..."
What!? Is the UN cheesed because the janjaweed didn't leave anything for them?
Posted by Sue | September 3, 2007 10:47 AM
Re: your last sentence, from your lips to God's ear. Although, I fear that history will continue to repeat itself as it has over the past 40-100,000 years. Ahhhhhh....we cro-magnon!
Posted by unclesmrgol | September 3, 2007 10:58 AM
Sue is right -- the last sentence is badly worded. Better would be
Posted by Jim,MtnViewCA,USA | September 3, 2007 11:09 AM
This article makes me think of the first book I read by Thomas Sowell "Conquests and Cultures". Mr Sowell discusses all manner of these sorts of conflicts: high-tech vs low-tech cultures, low-tech cultures which successfully swarm high-tech but decadent cultures, conquests when the attacker brings families with them, conquests where all-male attackers settle into the conquered society, and many other combinations.
It's an examination into what the historical record suggests about human nature (and not as negative as one might think given the subject matter).
Needless to say, highly recommended.
Posted by Carol Herman | September 3, 2007 11:17 AM
It's a custom in Darfur, if someone cheats you, to then go to a cousin's of their's house; and wreak havoc. What's the cousin's, cousin's, cousin, got to do with it? These evil twits want revenge on innocent family members.
Now, they're fighting over the "spoils" they stole from the people they killed. And, you want my sympathy?
Ain't no school books good enough that will repair what goes on in the heads of illiterates; bred on an evil religion. And, "protected" by the UN. Here? The UN's mad that some of the locals actually fight back.
The UN never did a single good in all the time it's been in business. FDR started the ball rolling. And, Truman weakened America, to give the UN the "stalemate" edge; with despots in russia, china, and india.
I think "solutions" will ulimtately look like mushroom shaped clouds. Won't be the first time in history fanatics did more harms than good.
What the world will be lacking, though, ahead, are stories of heroes.
Oh, the price of ignorance and evil.
Posted by NahnCee | September 3, 2007 11:56 AM
They're obviously working out of a well-thumbed copy of the official Palestinian playbook, "How to Achieve World Domination and Respect in 12 Easy Steps: How I learned to stop worrying and learned to love starvation."
Posted by Bill M | September 3, 2007 12:06 PM
My sympathy meter must be broken. It is refusing to register over this story...nope, checks out fine.
Posted by Palamas | September 3, 2007 12:51 PM
One correction, Captain. The Christians and animists in Sudan are in the south, and were victimized in the previous civil war. In Darfur, the victims of the Janjaweed have been almost exclusively black Muslims.
Posted by Drew | September 3, 2007 5:14 PM
This is starting to sound exactly like the conditions that existed in Sierra Leone before the intervention of that evil, mercenary army "Executive Outcomes", a group that stopped the depredations of a force of barbarians, and re-stored civil order.
It is too bad that the offer of intervention made by "Blackwater" (EO is out of business) several years ago was ignored by the moral midgets of Europe. Now they can view the results of their lack of concern.
Posted by NahnCee | September 3, 2007 6:55 PM
WHy on earth would you think that Europe gives a single hoot about what happens in Darfur? When have they *ever* cared about what happens any place else? Besides, haven't you heard the news? Many of the countries in Europe have their own rising rapes, pillages, plunders and riots to contend with -- and they're not armed to defend themselves either.
Posted by patrick neid | September 3, 2007 8:20 PM
I say give them free ammo......
Posted by amr | September 3, 2007 8:22 PM
There may be a 3rd party soon in this conflict and it is not the US. The UN is reported to be alarmed because the refugees are now arming themselves. No right of self-defense per the UN. The refuges have nothing to lose and much to be angry about, so when that is your lot, enemies beware.
Posted by Dan | September 4, 2007 10:13 AM
Maybe a bunch of celebrities can get together and hold a Darfur aid concert all across the globe. That'll solve the problem.