Ex-Janjaweed Fighter Indicts Sudanese Government
October 18th, 2006 | Published in Africa, Darfur, Sudan | 4 Comments
The Janjaweed, the Sudanese government killing machine, is “comprised of fighters claiming Arab background and has been one of the principal actors in the Darfur conflict, which has pitted the Arab-identified Sudanese against the non-Arab population of the region”.
The Sudan Watch blog draws attention to an ex-Janjaweed operative’s interview on the BBC. Here is an excerpt:
“The people who trained us came from the north, from the government. They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained they will give us guns and ammunition…They were wearing the uniforms of the military…
I tell you one fact. The Janjaweed don’t make decisions. The orders come from the government…
One very well-known and regular visitor was Interior Minister Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein.” — BBC
Many of the [tag]Janjaweed[/tag] leaders had “extensive previous experience as militia raiders; some had served in Muamar Ghaddafi’s notorious “Islamic Legion”, writes Eric Reeves in a Guardian article that warns another wave of violence may be in the horizon in the region.
October 20th, 2006 at 9:45 am (#)
I left a tip and comment about this over at The Sudanese Thinker’s blog yesterday. Thanks for picking up this story and amplifying it in the blogosphere. The AEGIS Trust site has the real lowdown (original interview) on this guy. The question is: “Can this Janjaweed asylum seeker Ali’s story be verified by anyone with some authority?”
Even if the story can be verified as being true, the “international community” of nations, the International Criminal Court, and the UN Security Council and other responsible international organizations are petrified with fear in taking any aggressive actions against the perpetrators in Khartoum and in the Darfur region.
The irony about the story is that “Ali the Janjawed” may end up doing time and/or being deported from the U.K. just because he “fessed up” to murder in Darfur.
October 20th, 2006 at 11:13 am (#)
Thanls for this post. Very illuminating. I will check the links
October 24th, 2006 at 9:01 pm (#)
[…] The Sudan has somewhat become synonymous with Darfur and genocide. How wrong can be be! The New York Times’s highlight on the good life in Sudan, fueled by petro-dollars, left a sour taste in my mouth, for several reasons. What I can’t really get over is the “not-in-my-backyard attitude” I perceive from the article; even those just few hundred miles away from the conflict seem so unbother by the gravity of the events in Darfur. Well, I hope I’m wrong. “To understand Sudan’s standoffishness toward the world, especially the Western world, consider the Ozone café. Here young, rich Sudanese, wearing ripped jeans and fancy gym shoes, sit outside with scoops of ice cream as an outdoor air-conditioning system sprays a cooling veil of mist…American sanctions have kept many companies from Europe and the United States out of Sudan, but companies from China, Malaysia, India, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are racing in. Foreign direct investment has shot up from $128 million in 2000 to $2.3 billion this year - despite an American trade embargo.” - NYT […]
May 21st, 2007 at 7:49 am (#)
Sudanese Thinker, Drima, Amir is a lier, just like this Darfuri refugee.
He is hiding that his family went to Maliysia free of charge, asylum, so he likes lying about Sudan government; his father is a hardcore rebel.