SUMMARY
Janjaweed is the name used for an Arabic militia in Darfur, the most western region of Sudan. The word Janjaweed is Arabic where jaan means evil and jawad horse, so roughly Janjaweed means Evil Horsemen. Other translations of Janjaweed are hordes or ruffians. The name Janjaweed is quit troublesome since it is used in different ways. Some use it as interchangeable to bandits whilst some use the term for the more organised group that will be described here. The Janjaweed themselves do not like the term and do not link themselves with that name. The reason behind this is that the term Janjaweed is an insult.
Earlier the Janjaweed (or at least very similar groups) have been referred to as Mujahedeen (Holy Warriors) and Fursan (horsemen). For example, in 1991 the army used a militia named Fursan -drawn from the Beni Halba Arabs- to defeat a SPLA band of troops that had entered Darfur.
The government of Sudan has a long tradition of using different militia in their war against insurgent groups. Even though the regime in Khartoum deny any link to Janjaweed the tight relationships between the two actors are doubtless. For example the most common atrocity in Darfur is joint attacks by government troops and Janjaweed militia. In the UCDPs coding these joint attacks are attributed to the government of Sudan, whilst only the attacks where the Janjaweed acts on their own is attributed to the Janjaweed. Important to note here is that the conflict in Darfur is often described as a conflict between Arabs and Africans. However, the ethnicity in the region is so complex that this term is rather misleading. Also the common distinction between Blacks and non-blacks are deceptive, since to a visitor Darfurians seem indistinguishable. One reason for this is decades of intermarriage. However, in a description of Janjaweed this dimension cannot be overlooked.
The person known to be the leader of the Janjaweed is Sheikh Musa Hilal, chief of the Jalul tribe in North Darfur. He is also the leader of a supremacist organisation called the Tajamu al Arabi, with various translations such as Arab Gathering, Arab Alliance, Arab Congregation, and Arab Congress. From here on the translation Arab Gathering will be used. There is little known about this shady organisation, but it is believed that it has roots in Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Libya and contacts with the intelligence services of other Arab countries. Even though the goals of the organisation are a bit unclear their intentions in Darfur can be found through different statements. For example, in August 2004 one directive from Hilals headquarter stated that they want to “change the demography of Darfur and empty it of African tribes”. The fact that this directive was sent to three different Sudanese governmental intelligence services shows the link between the Arab Gathering and the Government in Khartoum. To fulfil the aim of the Arab Gathering Hilal stated that it was not just the rebels that were the targets, but all Zurga (Blacks), since they always support the rebels. Despite their racist ideology the Janjaweed sometimes succeeded in recruiting non-Arabs since they said that it was a governmental force that existed for the protection of the whole of Darfur. The tactic of the Janjaweed was then to send the non-Arabs to fight against the rebels of their own ethnic kin while the Arabs of the Janjaweed were sent to attack villages and civilians.
The origins of the Arab Gathering and the Arab supremacism is not the ruling Arab elite in Khartoum, but rather lies in the politics of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. Gaddafi and Libya had a vision of an Arab belt across Africa and tried to overthrow the Chadian President at the time of Hissène Habré during the 70s and 80s. It was during the early 80s the first signs of an Arabic racist ideology started to emerge in Darfur. This racism increased and worsened in the second half of the 80’s when Gaddafi gave oil and weapons to Khartoum to wage war in the South in exchange for military access through Darfur to Chad. Gaddafi also needed an intermediary in North Darfur. His choice fell upon the Mahamid, the largest segment of the Northern Rizeigat-one of the Arab tribes in Northern Darfur. Leader of this group was Sheik Hilal who in 1986 became blind and withdrew from politics. Successor to Sheik Hilal was one of his sons Musa Hilal. At the end of the 80’s there were intense clashes between Arabs and Fur and it fell upon Musa Hilal to organise the Mahamids new arms supplies from Libya. It was also during this period that the Kalashnikov entered Darfur and severely changed the region. First of all it heavily increased the casualties in the clashes that took place but it also greatly increased the armed robberies committed and changed the moral order of Darfur. Earlier violence was a collective responsibility and you had to pay blood money to the kin of a person killed by anyone of your own kin, the nomads had a high moral including strenuous self-discipline when herding camels. The arrival of the Kalashnikov changed it all.
During the 80’s there were thousands of refugees from Chad that lived in Darfur. The people that had fled from Chad were from Arab tribes. The reason for their displacement was that they felt that Goraan the tribe as Hissène Habré (who took power in Chad in 1982) belonged to were nursing hatred towards Arabs in the Chadian society. The immigration of tens of thousands of refugees from Chad after a while led to clashes over the land in Darfur and after a while Darfur was engulfed in a civil war. Fighting began in mid-1987 and the Fur militia started to get more weapons from the Habré government. Heavily engaged in this fighting was Musa Hilal that reportedly told the Arabs in Northern Darfur to “Fight or loose your land and be destroyed”. At this time the Darfurians also for the first time heard about a militia called “Janjaweed”.
During the non-state conflict in Darfur between Furs and Arabs, Khartoum did not pay any attention to the problem, despite protests from parliament members from Darfur, huge demonstrations etc. The protesters argued that the Sudanese government supported the people that tried to overthrow the N’djamena (Capital of Chad) government, to reshape Darfur and open it up for foreign resettlement. In March 1987 the Libyan army suffered huge looses against the Chadian army which forced Gaddafi to make an abrupt adjustment of policy and recognise the Habré government. The defeated Libyan supported Chad-Arabs gave their weapon to their allies in Darfur. The governor of Darfur at the moment, Tijani Sese, already saw sheik Musa Hilal as a troublemaker that was inciting tribal hatred and conflict. In addition to this Musa Hilal reportedly told Ibn Omar (leader of CDR a Chadian opposition group that consisted of a wild gang of Bedouins) for “providing his tribe in Sudan with the necessary weapons and ammunition to exterminate the African tribes in Darfur”. On 8 July 1989 an agreement was signed to end the Fur-Arab conflict. In this agreement was the word Janjaweed used for the first time as it called for the disarmament of Fur self-defence groups and Arab Janjaweed. The signing of this agreement followed just days after the 30 June Coup in Khartoum that brought Brigadier Omer al Bashir and his National Islamic Front to power. But the deal was not implemented and Darfurian politics continue to be polarized and Gaddafi and the Sudanese Islamists had common agendas-not at least a 250 million weapon deal.
In 1994 were the administrative borders of Darfur redrawn. Earlier Darfur had been one administrative territory but now it was divided up in three different, West, North and South Darfur. This was done by the government with the purpose to divide up the Fur tribe so it became a minority in all of the three territories, before they had been in majority in the whole Darfur. Moreover, this administrative reformation created a lot of new positions and they were all given to Arabs. Put together these changes significantly reduced the power for the Fur and other African tribes. The Masalit (an African tribe) was also heavily discriminated with some forced to go to fight against SPLA in the south, other were arrested, imprisoned or tortured. This lead to a war between 1996-1998 between the Masalit and Arabs in which hundreds of civilian were killed, most by government backed militias. This was reportedly the beginning of the organization of Janjaweed from the government. Janjaweed and the regular army collaborated in their attacks, with the army first going in to put out eventual armed resistance and two days later the Janjaweed came to the village to loot, burn and kill. Many of the Janjaweed leaders at this time had a recent Chadian heritage. But the most prominent leader was Musa Hilal who did not have any Chadian heritage. He gained even more strength when weapons were collected from non-Arabs, even police, and given to him. In 2002 Fur and Zaghawa militants started to organize what became SLA and as a response government and their militias sought help from abroad. One of the largest impacts had Musa Hilal, who travelled to Chad promising volunteers, money, a gun, a horse and loot without limit. Approximately 20 000 accepted the offer. These volunteers were spread on different Janjaweed groups and trained by the government. In October 2002, Janjaweed launched a major offensive targeting Fur civilians and by the beginning of 2003 at least 160 civilians had been killed. It was now clear that the Janjaweed had total impunity, the police and the government did nothing to prevent or arrest people from Janjaweed conducting these attacks. This was a preface of the firestorm that soon would sweep all over Darfur.
In August 2002, Musa Hilal was arrested by the governor of North Darfur, General Suleiman, with the purpose of bringing some calm to the region. However, because of rebel successes on the battlefield he was released and sent back to Darfur in June the following year with the purpose of fighting back the rebels. The regular army was untrained in dessert warfare and therefore needed help by the Janjaweed. At this time Janjaweed was upgraded to a full paramilitary fighting force with new heavier weapons, more troops (recruitment among the Arabs was done all over Darfur) and a lot of other modern equipment. It is believed that Musa Hilal was released from prison to be the co-ordinator for this new phase in the history of Janjaweed. One of the recruitments standards was to release Arabs from different prisons and giving them a safe-heaven within the Janjaweed. Regular fighting’s between the government and the rebel decreased but instead Janjaweed attacks, in co-ordination, with the army against civilians increased. Often were a village first bombed by the government and then a short time after the Janjaweed attacked the village. The size of the force that Musa Hilal has under his command is reportedly 20 000 of whom 5 000 – 6 000 are based in his headquarter, in Misteriha, North Darfur. The orders from Khartoum was very straightforward, according to a official document the objective in Darfur was to “change the demography of Darfur and empty it of African tribes’ through burning, looting and killing of intellectuals and youths who may join the rebels in fighting”. Another extremely brutal way to change the demography of Darfur was through rape. Rape was an outspread weapon among the Janjaweed and in some cases the perpetrators said that they raped because they wanted the women to have Arab babies.
By 2014 large parts of the Janjaweed had been reformed into the governmental paramilitary forced called the RSF which was under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) in Sudan. The RSF incorporated as a part of the Sudanese governmental forces have continued to attack civilians and following the pattern where civilians are mostly attacked in relation to the ongoing intrastate conflict.
The Janjaweed has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
