THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF DARFUR

A Report

to

Andrew NatsiosSpecial Presidential Envoy to Sudan

by

John Weiss

with

Divya BaliJulia BeckerElvir CamdzicCharles MarchantJanet MassaRobert Vainshtein

Denise Ziobro THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF DARFUR

Principal Findings:

1. Until at least the 1980s, primary ethnic identifications such as Fur, Um Jalul, Baggara, Massaleit, Zaghawa, Beni Halba had a considerable degree of fluidity. There was a significant degree of intermarriage and "absorption" among the different tribes.

2. Ethnic differences are mostly socially constructed, not biological. At the same time, these ethnic differences [ethnic "markers" of difference] can constitute the most important operationalized characteristics of a population, however fluid identities have been in the past. In the Darfur case, as in the case of South Sudan, they have become the subject of manipulation by political leaders who may in fact be using them as weapons in the pursuit of other goals. If an ethnic designation becomes a label which makes the labeled group a target, then past fluidity, or alternate meanings of the marker --Arab as anyone who speaks Arabic, Arab as someone wealthier, nomadic, with claims to a higher culture, or lighter-skinned --become problematic elements in the situation.1 In some cases the variations in the use of the term can become sites of refuge for those wishing to avoid confronting the fact that "Africans" , non- Arabs, are being targeted by local forces because they are seen as Africans, blacks, zurqa, abd, Fur, Zaghawa, Massaleit, Daju.As the American sociologist W. I. Thomas said long ago, "If

men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences," however mistaken their definition may seem to outsiders. Thus elements within the GoS primarily interested in the monopolization of power and resources, with its accompanying marginalization and domination of

1 An excellent survey of the complexities of "Arab" identification is Gérard Prunier, Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide (Ithaca, NY 2005), 4-8.

non-elite groups, are nevertheless willing to cooperate with other elements within that ruling group who privilege racialist notions in which the Arabization of Darfur and the maintenance of Arab supremacy throughout Sudan are the primary objectives.The emergence of Arab rebel groups, which by the fall of

2006 had at least one thousand members, illustrates the spread among Darfuris of the realization that for many of the most powerful in Khartoum, marginalization was the principal goal of its policies with regard to that region, not the protection of Arabs.

3. In the light of the above, the claim that accusations of genocide against the GoS and its operatives in Darfur crystallize cleavages and generally make matters worse seems open to serious question. "You in Khartoum are committing genocide against the Fur" is a statement that in no way precludes the maker of the statement from simultaneously holding additional or subsidiary views such as: 1. Part of that crime is the radical diminishing of a Fur culture that necessarily included multiple and beneficial relationships with Arab groups 2. "The gens in your genocide is in fact plural, and includes not only our Zaghawa, Massaleit, and Arab brothers as distinct groups, but also the people and culture of Darfur seen as a single whole. Hence the importance of our demand at Abuja that Darfur be reunified, united administratively as one region, a demand you were careful to reject."2

If one had to designate a single most important ideological source of the crystallization of cleavages in Darfur, it would be the racialist and supremacist fulminations of the "Arab Gathering" and its originators, proponents and "enforcers"

2 In the film DARFUR DIARIES, made by Aisha Bain, Jen Marlowe, and Adam Shapiro, Darfuri victims make both kinds of statements, some condemning "the Arabs", an equal number blaming the Government and asking only that all Darfuris be allowed to make peace and live together with their fellow Darfuri Arabs.

such as Muammar Gaddafi, Acheikh Ibn Omar, and Musa Hilal.3

SUMMARY REPORT

Ethnic Identifications

Descriptions of Darfur social structure meant for the suddenly interested reader, and even sometimes for specialists, usually begin with lists of ethnic groups designated as "peoples" or "tribes." The shorthand summaries mention Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit (Massalit), grouped as Africans or "non-Arabs", usually counterposed to an undifferentiated population of "Arabs".

As stated in the Principal Findings section, this summary picture is not entirely misleading. In those Darfuri villages with multicultural populations between 2003 and 2005, to be an Arab usually meant that one was spared death or uprooting. When in 2005 a journalist visiting refugee camps in Chad questioned the claim that the disaster could be explained as a slow motion pogrom driven by anti-African intent, a woman victim immediately asked him "how many Arabs do you see here in the camp?"4 In 2005 and 2006, rebel movements suffered splits "along

3 At this point in our research the most authoritative source detailing the origins and history of the Arab Gathering ideology and its organized expression is Julie Flint and Alex De Waal, Darfur:A Short History of a Long War (London, 2005), 38-49-57, 61-64, 73, 80, 117. This account points out the Libyan origins of the Arab Gathering as a movement, takes it to Khartoum and to Darfur, and notes [p. 117] that after a series of meetings with political leaders in South Darfur --Flint and De Waal do not name them --the Arab Gathering's political committee "sketched out" in November 2003 a secret "'project' for the 'complete domination of power' in Darfur as an example for 'the whole of Sudan.'" Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, Darfur: the Long Road to Disaster (Princeton, 2006), 278-9, note that even after the Treaty of Friendship between Sudan and Libya in 1994 "Qaddafi continued to support his Islamic Legion in northern Darfur and the malevolent Arab Gathering."4 This kind of exchange occurred more than once. See also the report of the Darfur Atrocities Team in Samuel Totten and Erik Markusen, "Moving Into the Field and Conducting the Interviews," in the Samuel Totten and Erik Markusen, eds. Genocide in Darfur: Investigating the Atrocities in Sudan (New York, 2006), 98 et al/. This entire report should be read in conjunction with the background essay by Andrew S. Natsios, "Moving Beyond the Sense of Alarm," in Ibid., 25-42.

tribal lines", with accounts of the splits often pitting the Fur Abdul Wahid el Nur against the Zaghawa Minni Minnawi.

Certainly the breakdown by whole peoples gives a better picture than the one reported by ICG analyst John Prendergast in a lecture at Cornell University on 28 March 2007. He noted that early reports about the Darfur disaster by journalists new to Darfur claimed that the struggle pitted Muslims against Christians. They had lifted the dominant (and not entirely accurate) explanatory template from South Sudan and applied it quickly to virtually all-Muslim Darfur.5

Experts on Darfuri society can of course offer more articulated and nuanced analytic schemes. We present examples here.

Alex De Waal in 2005:6

1. Major Non-Arab GroupsFur Keira

KunjaraOthers

TunjurZaghawa Tuer

GallaKabja

Zaghawa BedeyatOthers

MasalitBertiMeidobBirgidDajuBorguTamaGimir

5 In Nyala one can nevertheless find a Catholic community, headed by a bishop, made up mostly of a generation of refugees from the North-South conflict.6 Alex De Waal, "Who are the Darfurians? Arab and African Identities, Violence, and External Engagement," African Affairsm 104/415, (2005), 181-205.

BeigoErengaF ellata Hausa

FulaniUm Bororo

Fertit KaraBingaOthers

2. Major Arab Groups(a) North and West Darfur (mostly Abbala/camel herders)Rizeigat Mahamid Awlad Sheikh (divided into:

Um Seif al Din, Um Jalul)Awlad YasinShotiaAwlad ZeitMahriya EteifatOthers

Ereigat (sometimes classified as section of Rizeigat)Misiriya (northwest Darfur, Chad)ZayadiyaBeni Hussein (partly Baggara)Beni Halba (north-west Darfur, Chad)Salamat (many sections in Chad)(b)South Darfur (overwhelmingly Baggara/cattle herders)Rizeigat Mahamid, Nawaiba and MahriyaMisiriya Terjam (also Hmur and Zurug, in Kordofan)Beni Halba Awlad Jabir

Awlad JubaraTa'aishaHabbaniyaMa'aliya

Alex De Waal and Julie Flint in 2005:7

3. The Camel-herding Abbala Rizeigat of DarfurSection Subsection Clan Ruling Family

7 Flint and DeWaal, Darfur:A Short History of a Long War, 43

Mahamid Awlad Sheikh/ Awlad Mablul Hilal Abdalla Um JalulAwlad Bileili Issa Jalul & Junis AbdallaFour other clansAwlad Sheikh/ Juma Mohamed Um Seif al DinAwlad Rashid Adam Ja'ali3 Other Subsections

Mahariya 9 subsections Adud HassaballaEteifat 5 subsections Abdalla JadallaEreigat 5 subsections Jibriil Abdalla

Some of the blurrings of our knowledge of the ethnic makeup can be seen in the terminological puzzles and gaps in these tables, which are nevertheless probably the best attempts at a taxonomy of the Darfur population now available. De Waal and Flint's list of groups assigned to particular janjawid camps lists Gardud in South Darfur as set up for "Sa'ada and Baggara Beni Halba", but the Sa'ada are listed in none of the tables. Table 2. lists the Misiriya "Section" as having members in Chad as well as in Darfur, but Table 1., from the same source, does not point out the similar situation of the Zaghawa, who also have members in Chad. Africanist René Lemarchand has pointed out, moreover, that clan memberships within the Zaghawa, especially the Tuer-Bedeyat rivalry, have been important in influencing the politics of Chad's Zaghawa President, Idriss Déby.8 Collins and Burr refer to the Bedeyat at several points as a separate group distinct from the Zaghawa, not one of its subgroups as in Table 1.9 Adam Mohamed's 2004 study of the Abbala (camel-herding) Rizeigat Arabs lists five "subclans" as important "identity groups" --he uses this encompassing term in the way De Waal uses "section" and

8 Lecture delivered at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, 5 October 2005.9 Collins and Burr, Darfur:The Long Road, 65-66 et al.

"subsection"--within the larger Rizeigat category: Mahamzed, Mahriyya, Irangat, Itaifat, and Aulad Rashid. 10De Waal's Table 2., however, lists Eteifat as a subset of the Mahriya and does not include Irangat, Aulad Rashid, or the Shattiya and Mahadi named later by Mohamed as "smaller subclans". Mohamed lists the Fellata as Arab whereas De Waal lists them as non-Arab. 11 Maps purported to list the 'land" (dar) of each identity group or tribe also show wide variations and contradictions.12

Differences in life-style help to distinguish the larger groupings. Non-Arabs like the Fur are sedentary farmers (some of whom, however, have recently begun keeping herds of livestock), whereas Arab groups are pastoralists. Many of the southern Baggara Rizeigat are no longer nomadic, thus contrasting in a major way with other Rizeigat. The major exception to the rule that non-Arabs are sedentary farmers is the Zaghawa, who are camel-herders almost always described as non-Arabs. The two divisions of the Rizeigat people, Baggara (cattle-herding) and Abbala (camel-herding) have played contrasting roles in the current Darfur conflict. The Abbala Rizeigat, almost always described as lacking an official territory (dar) such as was granted to all other groups, have contributed a proportionately much larger contingent of janjawid than have their Baggara Rizeigat cousins.13

Perhaps the most useful basis for evaluating the ethnic divisions acting as agents of group formation in Darfur is to superimpose upon the "primordialist" search for lifestyle, blood-relation, fictive common ancestors, language, religious brotherhood membership, or geographical factors a consideration that, for the purposes of policy

10 Adam Mohammed, “The Rezaigat camel nomads of the Darfur region of western Sudan: from co-operation to confrontation,” Nomadic peoples (NS), vol.8:2 (2004), 230-40 11 Ibid, 231, and Table 1. above. 12 This lack of agreement among ethnic maps is illustrated briefly in STOPPING GENOCIDE:DARFUR (SUDAN) 2004, a video produced by Elaine and John Weiss.13 Flint and De Waal, however, describe the Ereigat section of the Abbala Rizeigat in the following passage: "The Abbala Rizeigat were disadvantaged even by Darfur standards.The only ones with fertile farmland [pasture land? -JHW] were the Ereigat. Historically poor, not having camels, this small section had been given small land grants by the Fur Sultans. Although few in number and traditionally looked down on by their camel-owning cousins, the Ereigat now found themselves hosting their kin from other sections and gaining news influence. Flint and DeWaal, Darfur:Short History of a Long War, 43.

making, a "tribe" is above all a political unit, as are often its subdivisions14.

Population Sizes of Different Groups

The difficulty of determining precise sizes for the ethnic groups named above was discussed in the previous report, "Sixty Per Cent Zaghawa?" The authors appreciate fully the role of size claims in any negotiations among Darfuris over the allocation of political power. We are continuing our analysis of the last census, that of 1982. At this point we can be confident only about relative sizes and rough estimates of population.

The Role of History

Any survey of Darfuri social structure that bases itself solely on a taxonomy of ethnic groups risks reducing its usefulness for policy decisions in a number of ways. In the first place, the resulting analysis is far too static. Tapping into research concerning Sudanese and Saharan-sahelian history is crucial to the understanding of the sources of resistance to change or the origins and direction of the current revolt;

1. The importance of the West-East axis of development, stressed by De Waal and Collins, cannot be appreciated if one is captured by what those authors consider the "Nilocentrism" of much of the scholarship and analysis during the last century. Several authors have pointed out that the strong sense of Darfuri identity exhibited by all parties has its origins partly in the strong sense of differentness from the North-South axis of culture along the Nile. The Fur sultanate ruled the region from the sixteenth century until 1916, with the exception of a period of Turco-Egyptian and then Mahdist control at the end of the 19th century. This Fur-Kaira Sultanate, ruled by an elite of both Fur and Kaira (Zaghawa) families, traced its ancestry to the Prophet, just as did Arab sultanates. Like its Arab analogues to the East, it participated actively in the slave-raiding and slave-trading that brought wealth and power to all regimes in the region. Darfur's Islamic roots may be as much the result of influences from the jihad of Othman Dan Fodio (originating in what is now Nigeria)

14 See De Waal, "Who Are the Darfuris?", loc.cit, passim.

than from proselytizing from Khartoum or Cairo. The practices of Darfur's Sufi brotherhoods, such as the Tijaniyya, more closely resemble those found to the west and north in the sahel/Sahara belt than they do any Nilotic Sufism.

2. The Darfur sultanate held periodic festivals, open to all its peoples, Arab and non-Arab. These are often evoked in accounts of the "good old days" when Darfur was one. With regard to the formation of a Darfuri identity, they seem just as important as the judicial and administrative acts of the Fur, the British, or the Sudanese Khartoum regime.

3. The fluidity of identities in Darfur, at least up to the years when conflicts took on the racist tone of the Arab Gathering proponents, cannot be appreciated without some mention of the process whereby groups absorbed other groups. This happened with the Fur absorption of its subordinate Fertit peoples south of the Jebel Marra, the Fur "homeland." Intermarriage between the Zaghawa-Kaira elite and the Fur elite was also common.

4. A examination of Darfur's 20th century history indicates that the previous Section 2.'s conclusion that a "tribe" can best be viewed as a political unit needs to be joined to an awareness of the history of the political manipulation of the tribal hierarchies, especially the "tidying up" of ethnic identities and tribal allegiances in the 1920s and 1930s. The "shoring up" of the authority of the pro-British nazir, Madibbu, and the introduction of British-influenced notions of land ownership produced new blends of custom and colonial law, new bases for authority:

There was sufficient free land, and a strong enough traditionof hospitality to settlers, that by the 1970s all "dars" in south

Darfurwere ethnically mixed, some of them with very substantial

populationsfrom the drought-stricken north. By custom, settlers were

obligedto adhere to the customary laws of the dominant group. Dar

owner-ship is as much concerned with power hierarchy as with ac tualusage of the land.15

15 De Waal, "Who Are the Darfurians?", loc.cit., 193.

The study of Darfur's history thus can contribute to an assessment of the strength and composition of an all-Darfuri identity as well as the strength and various customary and modern components of power and authority.

Need for a More Inclusive Approach

On the other hand, the weight of history can be overestimated. A focus on the problem of which clans are subordinate to which tribes, or which tribal officials draw their authority from the deepest customary roots rather than from the laws and nominations coming from Khartoum, can become a too limited approach.

In the first place, of course, the Darfur rebellion and genocidal repression have themselves created new political identities and a new distribution of power. Part of this new distribution of power has also been shaped by the massive increase of available weaponry, especially military assault weapons such as the Khalashnikov (AK-47). 16 The young men of the Khalashnikov generation, be they rebels, janjawid, or PDF, will probably not subordinate themselves easily to their nazir, omdah, or shartay, whether that leader was a holdover from colonial times or an appointee of independent Sudan. In short, even if an investigation of Darfur's social structure limits itself to the study of social stratification and segmentation, generalizations about the precise functioning of hierarchies and patterns of authority within the segments will be difficult to determine. Will identity group solidarity overcome individual desires, thus producing conformity to the decisions of the nazir and his council?17 Are Abbala Rizeigat sheikhs less powerful than Zaghawa or Fur omdahs because they have been less successful in delivering their followers land use rights? Are Weberian categories of any use in assessing the relative power of different sources of authority: traditional, legal, charismatic, religious, democratic-political, etc?

16 ? This is a general phenomenon through the Horn of Africa, producing social consequences noticed by many authors. See Robert Collins, "Disaster in Darfur", Human rights Watch, 2004. and Scott Peterson, Me Against My Brother:At War in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda (New York, 2000).17 That this would be the predominant pattern was suggested by Andrew Natsios in an interview with the authors in Washington, D.C., 20 March 2006.

In the second place, political developments both preceding and following the onset of the genocidal counterinsurgency in the summer of 2003 need to be added to the analysis. Secular democratic politics, populist Islamist politics, and political activity by non-customary ethnic entrepreneurs can all produce competing sources of legitimacy. Nor can an approach centered on the historical "long view" give much help in estimating the potential of a recently formed human rights movement in Sudan, as well as the potential ability of the especially powerful and sophisticated NIF/NCP regime to counter that movement.18

In the third place, a description of the Darfur population limited to ethnically defined identity groups risks excluding crucially important groups defined, and given a certain solidarity, by their recent common experience:

sheikhs or imams who have acquired expanded prestige through their leadership roles in the IDP and EDP camps;19

women who have acquired confidence and political power in camp self-help groups;20

human rights workers, from Darfur or neighboring regions, who operate across ethnic boundaries. This category would include Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, head of SUDO, and the humanitarian aid negotiator Suleiman Jamous, in whose survival and rescue may lie the fate of all Darfur;21

18 We regard Prunier's Darfur:Ambiguous Genocide as the best analysis of Darfur's recent history employing a conceptual approach grounded in modern political science rather than anthropology.

19 Researchers with the Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project worked through camp leaders, especially the umdahs, without investigating how these particular leaders came to exercise their authority or whether all camp victims uniformaly accept them as the sole source of authority. See Totten and Markusen, "Moving into the Field and Conducting the Interviews" in Totten and Markusen, Genocide in Darfur, 85-87.20 Much more information is needed about these women, whose accomplishments are masked by administrators' and aidworkers' access and communications policies. Hints about the importance of these women's groups can be found, however, in documentary fundraising videos distributed by organizations such as Oxfam.

veterans of the Sudanese Army, either those who deserted or those who have remained in Sudanese service to the present; 22

students in schools in Darfur, Khartoum, or Cairo, a group highly likely to develop identities reaching beyond their tribal, or even regional, labels;

migrant Darfuri workers employed in the East, especially in the Port Sudan area;

refugees at great risk in countries where their asylum status is threatened or uncertain, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Israel;

Catholics now resident for extended periods in the Nyala area;

members of the Darfuri Diaspora in countries such as Canada, Britain, the US, or Libya (the latter has a Sudanese population estimated at one million).

When to these categories are added the nazirs and omdahs who held office in Darfur prior to and during the period of accelerated destruction that began in 2003 and continues at present, the inadequacy and moribund post-signing status of the Darfur Peace Agreement become clear. Certain sheikhs and omdahs attended the signing agreement in May 2006, but they were apparently there mostly as observers to lend legitimacy with their nods of acceptance. Neither a roster of rebel leaders, however united, nor the addition of an honor roll of selected sheikhs will suffice to bring peace and rebuilding to Darfur if such groups as those listed above are excluded from decision-making.

Need for a More Dynamic Approach

Religion

21 Jamous has become familiar to American audiences through his appearance in the film DARFUR DIARIES, released in November 2006.22 We are continuing our attempts to find estimates of the number of Arab and non-Arab Darfuris who have served or are serving in the armed forces of the GoS.

Understanding the dynamics of Darfuri social structure demands consideration of the way various political and religious ideologies found audiences and interlocutors in Darfur, as well as how they found institutional expression. Late-nineteenth century Mahdism had a powerful influence in Darfur. Many Darfuris joined the Mahdi's call to migrate east to the lower Nile basin. Fundamentalist or Salafist calls for strict Sunni orthodoxy found expression not only in the Bashir regime committed to the enforcement of a narrowly interpreted shariya but also in the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, shaped in its early years by its allegiance to the teachings of Sudanese maître-philosophe and political manipulator Hassan al-Turabi. For many of the founders and early followers of JEM, loyalty to a strict Islam took precedence over loyalty to any particular tribe or secular political ideology. All the above-mentioned religious tendencies, moreover, have had to confront, co-opt, or work around the far more widespread, tolerant, and pragmatic Darfuri Sufism.

The MediaIt has often been observed that print and audiovisual media play

important roles in shaping the social structure of a region by defining communities of readers or viewers and by differentially evaluating processes that confer status and legitimize the actions of particular groups. Bashir's famous visit to Nyala in May 2004 to review the parade of the triumphant janjawid raiders associated the Government's authority with the destruction of central elements in Darfuri society.

The GoS realizes full well the dangers that such support for local groups and building of local loyalties can have for a regime determined to centralize practically everything (despite all its touting of various forms of Federalism, now pretty much viewed by even the most dense of the non-Khartoum leadership as transparently phony). With the exception of the highly limited humanitarian broadcasts of the "Darfur Lifeline" project ( two daily half-hour shows made by a single radio station funded by the BBC), no local radio or TV stations are permitted. A Darfuri press is all but non-existent. Foreign media

face tremendous difficulty in their efforts to documen events occurring in Sudan.

At the same time, those who argue, --accurately, we believe--for the existence of a strong sense of Darfuri identity, a major positive factor that could move the region into recovery, are often the same ones who evince little interest in building a local or regional media industry that could contribute to strengthening that identity. Media policies and media support agreements are conspicuously absent from the Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006. No efforts were made to limit or offset the virtually complete domination of Khartoum-based press, radio, and TV. It may be that the drafters of the DPA feared that a regional media, like the uniting of the Darfur provinces into one, could only lead to the reinforcement of an independence movement. But is not the choice for independence or federalism one that should be made in a media-supported and legally protected Darfuri "marketplace of ideas"?

Economic FactorsKnowledge of the distribution of wealth and income among

individual Darfuris or Darfuri families using indicators employed in capitalist systems, such as ownership of tangible goods, balances in bank accounts, annual cash incomes, or gold holdings would have a certain usefulness in ascertaining crucial aspects of Darfuri social structure. The Darfuri economy, however, is neither fully monetized nor based entirely on notions of individual freehold tenure of property.23 With regard to the pastoral populations, especially, wealth is usufruct: grazing rights, access to water, and other rights of use embodied in hakura documents or customary understandings, most of which are enoyed by collectivities, not by individuals. Wealth also resides in livestock far more than in banks or ownership of capital goods. The attacks on civilians in Darfur since 2002 have produced the greatest act of rustling in recent international history. More than two million cattle, farm animals, camels, and donkeys have been

23 One part of the economy based usually on money transactions and sales to the international market is the gum arabic industry. In South Sudan this industry has begun to consolidate and modernize, partly with the aid of Canadian capital. Income from export sales is expected to become a significant part of the Juba government's tax base. At this point, however, our research on the size of the gum arabic industry in Darfur has only begun, stimulated in part by the prospect that Darfur could profitably link its marketing or production operations to those of the South.

taken from the victims. Arrangements to restore these herds to their owners, or to compensate the victims of the theft, will necessarily be part of any settlement.

The implementation of such a settlement, when combined with the rebuilding of schools and the revitalization of the long-deprived educational system, will have important transformative, dynamic effects on Darfuri social structure.