The Sudan Handbook

thE WaR in thE WEst 237

In recent years, tired of being considered by all – the other Arabs as

well as non-Arabs – as criminals, the Jalul of Sheikh Abdallah Abubakar

have slowly turned against the government, becoming closer to the Fur

rebels of the SLA faction led by Abelwahid Mohamed Ahmed al-Nur,

their neighbours living higher up in the mountains. Many other Arabs

also changed sides after the Abuja agreement of 2006. Absent from

the peace talks in Abuja, in Nigeria, the Abbala felt that they had been

let down by the government on questions as important as land and

disarmament.

The Abuja agreement did not bring peace, but it changed the structure

of the conflict. Arab groups that had been supported by the government

but who were less worried about obeying it than confirming their own land

conquests, started fighting amongst themselves. The bloodiest fighting

in Darfur in recent years has not been between Arabs and non-Arabs,

but between well-armed Arab groups. On the other side, rebel factions,

sometimes fighting against one another, have become more and more

numerous. This fragmentation has been caused by the government, ready

to sponsor groups, as well as by the international community, which is

now more flexible than at Abuja and ready to acknowledge any war leader

or even to create them.

The international community, Darfur civil society and many rebel

leaders have made the unification of the rebel groups a priority. But

attempts at unification or reunification have generally been short-lived.

In 2006, soon after Abuja, the JEM and the Zaghawa factions of the SLA

formed the NRF (National Redemption Front). The new front enjoyed

significant victories against Mini Menawi’s pro-government forces, then

against government troops. But the JEM became involved in civil war in

Chad fighting on the side of the President of Chad, Idriss Déby, himself

a Zaghawa, against Chadian rebels backed by Khartoum. And the SLA,

already divided, kept splintering along ethnic lines: the ‘unity confer-

ence’ which took place in April 2007 in Ammaray, North Darfur, was

boycotted by the Fur and gave birth only to a purely Zaghawa faction,

ironically called SLA-Unity.

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors The founder of the SLA, Abdel Wahid Mohamed al-Nur, lives in

(www.riftvalley.net).