Freelance journalist Shane Bauer reporting in the liberal New York news magazine The Nation on the tragic mix of civil war and state-supported violence against the citizens of Sudan’s Darfur region, especially on the political economy of rebel politics (the title refers to a derisive reference to the phenomenon of insta-rebel commanders popping everywhere).
The piece includes the insight below (unusually at odds with the usual US framing of the civil war, i.e. Arabs vs Africans, war on terror, etc), from one of the rebels:
This [war] isn’t between Arabs and blacks or blacks and Arabs,” says the mustachioed secretary-general, Muhammad Ibrahim Muhammad Brima. He says the government has exacerbated local tensions to keep its hold on power. “The government insists it is a conflict within our community, but the conflict in Darfur is a political one. The center controls everything in our region,” he says.
The image is from PowerHouse Books exhibit ‘Darfur: Twenty Years of War and Genocide in Sudan.’
