Q8: How is Darfur an example of this quest for Lebensraum?

To understand the Darfur crisis, we need to go back to its origins in the 1970s, to El-Turabi’s fatwa and to The Arab Congregation.

El-Turabi’s Fatwa

“ . . . several writers have wrongfully reduced the [Darfur] crisis to a matter of tribal feuds or scarcity of natural resources. But as opposition activist Suliman Hamid al-Haj emphasizes, ‘Darfur’s crisis is a fully fledged state conspiracy plotted by Hassan al-Turabi ([when he was] Secretary-General of the NIF party, the National Congress; Speaker of the state parliament, the National Council; and thus top guide of the NIF political bodies) and subsequently pursued by Arab militias in full collaboration with the Sudan government and its ruling party, the National Islamist Front’.

It is thus the government, to a much greater degree than the militias it established and systematically manipulated, that is squarely responsible for the crisis in Darfur and the heinous atrocities resulting from it.

According to Hamid’s documentary, . . . Hassan al-Turabi, at the height of his power with the NIF regime, issued a decree clearly stating the following : the Islamists of Negro tribes became hostile to the Islamic Movement. The Islamic Front aims to support the Arab tribes by these steps : forced displacement of the Fur from Jebel Merra to Wadi Salih, followed by complete disarming of the Fur people, for good: they are to be replaced with the Mehairiya, Itaifat, and Irayqat (Arab tribes ). Arms must never return to the Zaghawa, who must be moved from Kutum to Um Rwaba ( North Kordofan State); the Arab tribes should be armed and financed to act as the nucleus of the Islamic Arab Alliance.

This official fatwa is the basis of the state plot in Darfur. It has been literally executed, as revealed by current events in the region, even after al-Turabi was purged from the party.”
--[excerpt from El-Turabi plot and Khartoum’s orchestration of the ethnic cleansing in Darfur by Mahgoub El-Tigani, from page 3 of The Citizen of 3rd October 2007, Vol 2, Issue No 254, Published Khartoum/Juba, South Sudan
© Mahgoub El-Tigani 2007
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For how El-Turabi’s fatwa has been implemented in the last three decades, we must learn the story of
The Arab Congregation

“Al Tajamu Al Arabi, [is] loosely translated here as the Arab Congregation. Other translations are the Arab Coalition, Arab Gathering, Arab Alliance and Arab Congress.
The Arab Congregation was probably formed in early 1980s but gained momentum in latter years of the same decade. Darfur has been a major site of operation of the Arab Congregation. This basic fact disguises the broader aim and geographic spread of the organization. Within Sudan, the Arab Congregation aims at displacing/controlling indigenous populations of the entire [Sudan], though modestly starting with the six States of the western regions/provinces of Kordofan and Darfur.
At the broader regional level of Sub-Saharan Africa, tentacles of the Arab Congregation spread as far as Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Niger and possibly beyond. The geographical spread of the organization indicates that the Arab Congregation of Western Sudan is a mere small cog within a wider network of national and regional dimensions. At the national level, the Arab Congregation of Western Sudan is sponsored and operates as a conduit for Kayan Al Shamal and hence KASH or the Northern Entity in English (EL-Thom 2006). KASH was formed in 1976 when the government of dictator Nimeri was nearly toppled by a Kordofan army officer, who would in today’s language in Sudan be classified as ‘black’ and non-Arab. KASH was then formed to ensure that irrespective of the ideology behind the government of Khartoum, democratic, fascist, military, socialist, religious fanatic or otherwise, the leadership remains in the hands of the Northern Region. But KASH is an exclusive club, open only for three elite groups of the Northern Region. This is what various circles including the Arab Congregation refer to as Al Thalooth ie the Tripartite Coalition.. The Tripartite Coalition, which has been ruling the Sudan since independence, encompasses barely three ethnic groups; the Shaigiya ( Ex-President Sir Alkhatim, current Vice-President Taha ), the Jallayeen (President Al Bashir ) and the Danagala ( Ex-President Nimeri, Ex-Prime Minister Almahdi and Ex-Vice President Alzibair ). For the past forty years or so, KASH has spearheaded the project of Arab-Islamisation of the Sudan and in their pursuit of their project, they needed foot soldiers supplied by various bodies including the Arab Congregation. The hegemony of the Northern Region over Sudan is so clear-cut and requires no rerun in this article ( see JEM 2004, El- Tom 2003 and Ibrahim 2004 ).
The might of the geopolitical dimension of the Arab Congregation was chillingly demonstrated in Darfur in the early 1980s. Following the collapse of the Nimeri regime, Khartoum government connived with Gaddafi and his disastrous gamble in Chad to turn Darfur into one of their daring crusades to push the so-called Islamic belt into Black Africa. Having been kicked out of Chad Gaddafi proceeded to locate his Islamic Legion under the command of Acheikh Ibn Omar in the Massalitland in western Darfur. The Legion, whose recruits were sourced in Chad, Mali and Niger but equally as far away as Mauritania, devastated the area and its indigenous inhabitants. Settlers of the Islamic Legion in Darfur were later to play a prominent role as Janjaweed, effectively executing Musa Hilal’s call ‘ change the demography of Darfur and empty it of African tribes ‘ (Flint and De Waal 2005, see also Flint and De Waal). Attempts to change the demography of Darfur are still going on to this day. As recently as July 2007, Bloomfield accused the government of Sudan of ‘ cynically trying to change the demography of the whole region ‘. Monitoring the Chadian-Sudanese borders, Bloomfield wrote :-

An internal UN report, obtained by the Independent, shows that up to 30,000 Arabs have crossed the border in the past three months. Most arrived with all their belongings and large flocks. They were greeted by Sudanese Arabs who took them to empty villages cleared by the government and Janjaweed forces … further 45,000 Arabs from Niger have also crossed over ‘ ( Bloomfield 2007).

At least three conclusions can be drawn so far, each of which connects with a general misconception about the current conflict in Darfur. Firstly, Darfur conflict cannot be reduced to a strife that is internal to Darfur and as an outcome of environmentally generated scarcity of resources. Rather, the conflict is part and parcel of national and regional dynamics as well as aspirations.
Secondly, the Janjaweed are not a by-product of the present Darfur conflict. Their current involvement in the Darfur war is a mere culmination of decades of atrocities in the region as well as in other parts of the Sudan, such as Abeye in Southern Sudan.
Thirdly, the reading that Khartoum unleashed the Janjaweed following the rebellion in Darfur is factually incorrect. On the contrary, the Darfur rebellion took place due to several reasons including atrocities of the Janjaweed against indigenous Darfurians.”

--excerpt from THE ARAB CONGREGATION AND THE IDEOLOGY OF GENOCIDE IN DARFUR, SUDAN by Abdullahi Osman El-Tom, Ph D
Page 4 The Citizen 2nd September 2007
© Abdullahi Osman El-Tom 2007
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Meanwhile, amidst arguments about whether or not there is ethnic cleansing and genocide taking place in Darfur, and even behind the façade of an ineffective AU force, the Arab minority regime in Khartoum, with its Janjaweed agents, has been left unhindered to continue its project of land grabbing and Arabizing the demography of Darfur.
But since July 2007, when an internal UNHCR report was published by the Independent of London, disclosing how the Khartoum Government was brazenly importing Arabs from outside Sudan, giving them citizenship and settling them on the land and in the villages from where the Afro-Darfurians have been expelled, all the specious and obscurantist arguments of the last five years about whether Khartoum’s actions amounted to genocide/ethnic cleansing or to just counter-insurgency warfare have been overtaken and settled by events. The intent behind it all now stands revealed. The only ones who cannot see it are those who refuse to see: It was to drive out the indigenous black African population and repopulate their land with Arab settlers. Is that ethnic cleansing? Is that genocide? When you drive people off their land and give their land to others, have you not condemned them to slow death? Isn’t that genocide by indirect means?
El-Turabi’s fatwa and the project of the Arab Congregation reveal that Darfur is not a matter of counter-insurgency, but rather the first phase of an elaborate and determined scheme of Arab expansion and conquest westward to Dakar. They are evidence of the Arabs’ agenda of relentless territorial expansion at the expense of Black Africa.

It is an eternal shame on Mr. Obasanjo and his fellow black African presidents in the AU who let all that happen on their watch.