Darfur’s ICC Suspect & the Oversimplification of the Darfur Conflict

Posted on March 2, 2007
Filed Under Sudan, Darfur |

Ahmed Mohamed Haroun is one of the two named by the ICC as suspected war criminals involved in Darfur. Today for the first time I saw a picture of him.

(JPEG)

Does he look Arab to you? He doesn’t to me. In fact he looks Darfurian. But is he really? If yes, it would mean he’s either an Afro-Arab or an Arabized African. “Darfur is a genocide perpetrated by Arabs against Africans” is an oversimplification of what’s really happening. I hope the picture above is more proof of this. Furthermore, in an interview with the Sudanese newspaper Akhbar al-Youm, Ahmed mentioned something which I found quite odd.

The minister, who is suspected of war crimes in Darfur while he was minister of state in the Interior Ministry, defended his work in the troubled region of western Sudan, where tens of thousands of people have been killed since 2003.

“The police operation that took place in Darfur, with the deployment of thousands of policemen, remains one of the greatest operations ever by the Sudanese police,” he said.

The aim was to secure areas populated by the Fur people, who give their name to the region. “(That is) contrary to the prosecutor’s claim that we incited what are referred to as the Janjaweed against our kin the Fur,” he added.

Why would he/they only want to secure areas populated by the Fur tribe and why does he only refer to them? What about other tribes? Could Ahmed Haroun be a Fur? I asked my father and some of my friends’ fathers the same question. They all told me that he’s a Darfurian but they’re not sure what tribe he’s exactly from. Various things about this conflict are indeed complex, sometimes a little too complex.

Comments

8 Responses to “Darfur’s ICC Suspect & the Oversimplification of the Darfur Conflict”

  1. Roman Kalik on March 2nd, 2007 1:14 pm

    So complex that I, at least, have more or less given up on trying to understand every last detail of it.

    The biggest mistake of those who try to understand Darfur, and one I myself have made, is thinking of it in singular. That is, ONE conflict.

    While in truth, Darfur is a field for many battles, many conflicts, with what seems to be dozens of interest groups pulling to their direction.

  2. nominally challenged on March 2nd, 2007 2:03 pm

    The plot thickens …

    By the way, Drima, still waiting for something about the Arab colonization of Africa … given it any thought?

  3. Drima on March 2nd, 2007 2:24 pm

    NC, I think my answer would have been quite predictable. Of course when the Arabs came in, they colonized. However they came in such large numbers and stayed for so long, that they’ve become part of “us”. It sounds funny to me when I call Arabs “they”. When I use the word “we” in my posts, most of the time I mean we Arabs, Africans or Muslims. Europeans don’t count as “we”. It’s surely “they”. Moreover I think the time factor makes a lot of difference. Europeans came and left, quite recently. That’s why it’s still fresh in our minds.

  4. nominally challenged on March 2nd, 2007 7:09 pm

    Drima, yeah, I know. It’s just that people like to forget Arab and Muslim colonialism. Colonialism, in most contexts these days, is only bad if it is white European and Christian. Or, more recently, if it is Jewish. The problem is that Colonialism has happened all around the world, throughout history. Peoples either benefited from it or they didn’t, but no-one ever got anywhere by whingeing about it.

    Either way, I’m with you. 50 years have passed, if not more. Time to get over it already and move on.

  5. The Sudanese Thinker » The Damage Sudan Has Endured At The Hands of Its Sons & Daughters on March 10th, 2007 10:50 am

    […] This is why I get so pissed off sometimes with that whole “Darfur is a gencide waged by Arabs against Africans” crap. The media needs to stop oversimplifying things. It’s counter productive in various ways. […]

  6. Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Sudan: ICC on War Crimes in Darfur, USS Cole, Funky Hairstyle & More on March 21st, 2007 1:44 pm

    […] There has been quite a lot of action in the Sudanese blogosphere during the past 3 weeks. We’ll start with the International Criminal Court’s announcement which named 2 suspects accused of committing war crimes in Darfur. […]

  7. The Sudanese Thinker » Ahmed Mohamed Haroun, Suspected Darfur War Criminal is Now… on May 28th, 2007 7:25 am

    […] not going to believe this one. I don’t even know whether to laugh or cry. Do you remember this guy? Guess what has become of him? Here’s what. Ahmed Harun, who was a government minister and […]

  8. Save Darfur Coalition Pissed Off Aid Groups : The Sudanese Thinker on November 12th, 2007 7:03 am

    […] criticizing their strategies? (They haven’t replied by the way). Or how about this and this? Well, let’s have a look at the article: Even as advocacy groups attained the seeming triumph […]

Leave a Reply