Mahmood Mamdani’s piece in the September 6 issue of the London Review of Books, based on his insights gleaned from a recent visit to the violent Darfur in Sudan, includes this frank back-and-forth with General Henry Anyidoho, a Ghanaian officer who was recently appointed joint deputy special representative for a hybrid force keeping the piece in Darfur and who had previously served as US deputy force commander in Rwanda at the time of the 1994 genocide:
‘What is the solution?’ I asked General Anyidoho, who has recently been appointed joint deputy special representative for the hybrid force. ‘Threefold,’ he replied, military fashion. ‘First, a complete ceasefire.’ (This would require a political agreement among all the fighting forces.) ‘Second, talks involving a cross-section of Darfurians. They must agree. And third, the government has a big role to play. This is not a failed state; there is a sitting government.’ What about the Janjawiid? ‘They are nomadic forces on horseback; they have always been there. They are spread across Sahelian Africa: Niger, Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic. The problem is that the AK-47 has replaced the bow and arrow. The Janjawiid should be disarmed before the rebels turn in their arms.’
What about the camps? ‘The camps are becoming militarised. Women go out to collect firewood and they are raped. Rape has become a weapon of war. It is meant to destroy a people’s moral fabric: in an Islamic society, rape is a big blemish. The AU police used to provide firewood patrols and they were successful. But if there is security in future, men will join their women in going to collect firewood. The objective should be to close the IDP camps.’
What about the American threat to ‘take steps’ – a no-fly zone, sanctions? ‘It is not the way to go. Americans give deadlines all the time. The threat of sanctions is also not enough. They have lived under these for so long that they have become normal. They are used to living in seclusion. Now, they have oil and a friend in the Security Council . . . We can’t solve these problems through weapons. We have to sit and talk, which is why it is important to look at how Côte d’Ivoire was solved after four years of fighting. Outsiders can never solve the problem for us. It’s a distant misery for them. We have to do it for ourselves.’
