New York Times: Militia Talks Could Reshape Conflict in Darfur

Excerpt:
"The complex and shifting role of Arab tribes in both Sudan and Chad underscores how difficult it will be to secure a political solution to the four-year-old crisis that has sent 2.3 million people fleeing their homes, killed as many as 400,000 and set off a broad conflict in one of the most unstable parts of the world.

The main perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities have been government-sponsored Arab militias that have come to be known by a local epithet, janjaweed.

The Sudanese government turned to these militias as a kind of counterinsurgency force because its own military, weakened by a long civil war in the south and made up largely of non-Arab recruits, could not be relied on to crush the rebellion among non-Arab tribes in Darfur.

While some Arab tribal leaders, notably Musa Hilal and Ali Kushayb, heeded this call, most did not, and instead remained on the sidelines, Mr. de Waal and other Sudan experts said. Arab leaders in Darfur say that fewer than a quarter of its tribesmen took up arms against their non-Arab neighbors."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/world/africa/15darfur.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Alex

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