Then there is the international dimension, and this is where matters become complicated. Ironically, Darfur became the victim of a peace process.

In the late 90s, the Khartoum government was now run by pragmatists, especially Vice President ‘Ali Osman Taha. It needed peace with the SPLA, whose position in the South was consolidated under the leadership of the late Dr. John Garang. The reason was oil; Khartoum could not export it in the face of SPLA opposition and vice versa.

Talks were opened in Kenya in 2002, with the backing of the U.S., UK, Norway and others. By the following year, Darfur was in the news. The question then arose whether the Darfurian movements, SLA and JEM, should join the negotiations in Kenya. Should they sit at the same negotiating table as Khartoum and the SPLA?

The answer was no. Darfur was re-ferred to the U.N. Security Council, which passed a three-part resolution. It established an international commission of jurists who would go to Darfur to investigate the atrocities, identify the culprits. The commission would then pass peacekeeping into the responsibility of the African Union (AU)—the recently formed successor of Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU authorized the sending of some 7,000 peacekeeping troops with a very limited man- date, basically only self-defense. The third leg of the resolution was that the AU Secretariat would host talks between the Darfur movements and the Khartoum government in Abuja, federal capital of Nigeria.

Things happened. The international commission went to Darfur and a list of 52 culprits guilty of crimes against humanity—a lesser charge than genocide; everyone has shied away from the “g” word apart from one statement by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell—was forwarded to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is still preparing indictments. African peacekeepers, mainly from Rwanda and Nigeria, went to Darfur, where, lacking any serious logistical backup and often without pay, have proved to be largely ineffectual. I imply no criticism of them. When I visited them in 2005, they were determined but frustrated.

The Abuja talks proceeded as a kind of minuet between the leaders of the Darfur movements, now hopelessly factionalized, and the Khartoum government. The main problem, as I discovered during a stay in Abuja in 2006, was that the Darfurians had no clear agenda. This incoherence was exacerbated by the fact that in January 2005, a Comprehensive Peace Agreeent (CPA) was signed in Nairobi, Kenya, between the Khartoum government and the SPLA. Eventually, under a great deal of American pressure, a Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) was signed by one of the SLA Darfur groups led by Minni Minnawi Arku and the Khartoum government in May 2006.

The DPA now is basically dead. In July 2006, a new Darfur grouping, the National Redemption Front (NRF), was formed in Asmara (Eritrea) bringing together most of the “big” names in Darfur. Much of the subsequent serious fighting is the work of the NRF, while Minni Minnawi presides over committees and the like in Khartoum.

I write this in November 2006; what is the situation in Darfur now?
Judging by reports I see from the U.N., World Bank, and elsewhere, I can only describe it as one of inexorable deterioration. The Security Council, in resolution 1706, has authorized a peacekeeping force with a robust mandate of some 17,000 soldiers plus some 3,000 police. The catch is that they can only enter Darfur with the agreement of the Khartoum government, which has utterly refused to countenance such a force. In fact, it is a moot point whether First World countries—the traditional suppliers of such troops—could, even if they would, provide such numbers. Iraq and Afghanistan have siphoned off most available manpower. The peacekeeping force would have to consist of troops from industrialized countries, if only for logistical reasons. This was brought home to me as I watched a Hercules transport plane in al-Fashir in 2005 offloading some 30 tons of bottled water.

So what is happening on the ground?

Conflicts proliferate. Each tribe has its own militia. What I have termed “retribalization” elsewhere is afoot, as communities withdraw into themselves to sur- vive. Where tribal leadership is strong, some kind of local peace (aman) can be agreed upon among neighbors.

The war is spilling over into Chad and the Central African Republic.
There has been a massive and brutal process of urbanization. Nyala in southern Darfur has grown from 300,000 in 1999 to 1.5 million in 2006, and my guess is that few of these people will ever go back whence they came despite the policy plans of the U.N. and related agencies.

Still, I refuse to end on a pessimistic note. The Darfurians live in a harsh land but are resourceful and strong. The best way the world can help is to let them sort out their differences undisturbed by outsiders, and here I include the Khartoum government, which has very little legitimacy in Darfur. Given the chance, Darfurians, “Arabs” and “Africans,” nomads and farmers, can hammer out their differences. But they will need humanitarian help.

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R.S. O’FAHEY is Professor of History at the Univesity of Bergen, Norway and a leading authority on the Sudan.