Beginning Authors Julie Flint and
Alex de Waal date the beginning of the rebellion to 21 July 2001, when a group of
Zaghawa and
Fur met in
Abu Gamra and swore oaths on the
Quran (Nearly all of Darfur's residents are
Muslim, including the
Janjaweed, as well as the government leaders in
Khartoum.) to work together to defend against government-sponsored attacks on their villages. The rebels' first military action was a successful attack on an army garrison on 25 February 2002. The government had been aware of a unified rebel movement since an attack on the Golo police station in June, 2002. Flint and de Waal place the start of the
Darfur Genocide on 26 February 2003, when a group calling itself the
Darfur Liberation Front (DLF) publicly claimed responsibility for an attack on
Golo, the headquarters of
Jebel Marra District. By this point several rebel attacks had been carried out against police stations, army outposts and military convoys and the government engaged in a massive air and land assault on the rebel stronghold in the
Marrah Mountains. On 25 March 2003, the rebels
seized the garrison town of Tina along the
Chadian border, seizing large quantities of supplies and arms. Despite a threat by President
Omar al-Bashir to "unleash" the army, the military had little in reserve. The army was already deployed in both the south, where the
Second Sudanese Civil War was drawing to an end, and the east, where
rebels sponsored by
Eritrea were threatening a newly constructed pipeline from the central oilfields to
Port Sudan. The rebel
guerilla tactic of hit-and-run raids proved almost impossible for the army – untrained in desert operations – to counter. However, its aerial bombardment of rebel positions on the mountain was devastating. have been a major player in the conflict. At 5:30 am on 25 April 2003, the
Darfur genocide arose when the Sudan Liberation Movement and the JEM, which is the largest rebel group in Darfur, entered
El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur and
attacked the sleeping garrison. In the next four hours, four
Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships (according to the government; seven according to the rebels) were destroyed on the ground, 75 soldiers, pilots and technicians were killed and 32 were captured, including the commander of the air base, a
Major General. The success of the raid was unprecedented in Sudan; in the twenty years of the war in the south, the rebel
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had never before carried out such an operation. The El Fasher raid was a turning point, both militarily and psychologically. The armed forces had been humiliated by the raid, placing the government in a difficult strategic situation. The incompetent armed forces needed to be retrained and redeployed amid concerns about the loyalty of the many Darfurian non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Responsibility for prosecuting the war was given to Sudanese military intelligence. Nevertheless, in the middle months of 2003, rebels won 34 of 38 engagements. In May, the SLA destroyed a battalion at
Kutum, killing 500 and taking 300 prisoners; in mid-July, 250 were killed in a second attack on
Tina. The SLA began to infiltrate farther east, threatening to extend the war into
Kordofan. Given that the army was consistently losing, the war effort switched to emphasize three elements: military intelligence, the air force and the
Janjaweed. The latter were armed
Baggara herders whom the government had used to suppress a
Masalit uprising from 1986 to 1999. The Janjaweed became the center of the new
counter-insurgency strategy. Though the government consistently denied supporting them, military resources were poured into Darfur and the Janjaweed were outfitted as a paramilitary force, complete with communication equipment and some artillery. The military planners were aware of the probable consequences of such a strategy: similar methods undertaken in the
Nuba Mountains and around the southern oil fields during the 1990s had resulted in massive human rights violations and
forced displacements.
2004–2005 In 2004, Chad brokered negotiations in
N'Djamena, leading to the
April 8 Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement between the Sudanese government, the JEM, and the SLA. One group that did not participate in the April cease-fire talks or agreement was the
National Movement for Reform and Development, who had split from the JEM in April. Janjaweed and rebel attacks continued despite the ceasefire, and the
African Union (AU) formed a
Ceasefire Commission (CFC) to monitor its observance. In August, the African Union sent 150
Rwandan troops to protect the ceasefire monitors. However, it soon became apparent that 150 troops would not be enough, and they were subsequently joined by 150
Nigerian troops. On 18 September, the
United Nations Security Council issued
Resolution 1564 declaring that the Sudanese government had not met its commitments and expressing concern at helicopter attacks and assaults by the Janjaweed. It welcomed the intention of the African Union to enhance its monitoring mission and urged all member states to support such efforts. During April, 2005, after the Sudanese government signed a ceasefire agreement with
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) which led to the end of the
Second Sudanese Civil War, the
African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) force was increased by 600 troops and 80 military observers. In July, the force was increased by about 3,300 (with a budget of 220 million dollars). In April, 2005, AMIS's forces were increased to about 7,000. The scale of the crisis led to warnings of an imminent disaster, with
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warning about the risk of genocide. The scale of the Janjaweed campaign led to comparisons with the
Rwandan genocide, a parallel denied by the Sudanese government. Independent observers noted that the tactics, which included dismemberment and killing of noncombatants, including young children and infants, were more akin to the
ethnic cleansing used in the
Yugoslav wars and warned that the region's remoteness meant that hundreds of thousands of people were effectively cut off from aid. The Brussels-based
International Crisis Group had reported in May 2004 that over 350,000 people could potentially die as a result of
starvation and disease. preparing to depart to Darfur in 2005 On 10 July 2005, SPLA leader
John Garang was sworn in as Sudan's vice-president. However, on 30 July, Garang died in a helicopter crash. Despite improved security, talks between the various rebels in the Darfur region progressed slowly. An attack on the Chadian town of
Adré near the Sudanese border led to the death of 300 rebels in December. Sudan was blamed for the attack, which was the second in the region in three days. Escalating tensions led the
government of Chad to declare its hostility toward Sudan and to call for Chadians to mobilise against the "common enemy" (see
Chad-Sudan conflict).
2006 On 5 May 2006, the Sudanese government signed the
Darfur Peace Agreement along with the faction of the SLA led by
Minni Minnawi. However, the agreement was rejected by the smaller JEM and a rival faction of the SLA led by
Abdul Wahid al Nur. The accord was orchestrated by chief negotiator
Salim Ahmed Salim (working on behalf of the
African Union), U.S.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, AU representatives and other foreign officials operating in
Abuja, Nigeria. with U.S. President
George W. Bush after he signed the
May agreement The 115-page agreement included agreements on national and state power-sharing, demilitarization of the Janjaweed and other militias, an integration of Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and JEM troops into the
Sudanese Armed Forces and police, a system of
federal wealth-sharing for the promotion of Darfurian economic interests, a
referendum on the future status of Darfur and measures to promote the flow of humanitarian aid. Representatives of the African Union, Nigeria,
Libya, the United States, the
United Kingdom, the United Nations, the
European Union, the
Arab League,
Egypt, Canada,
Norway and the
Netherlands served as witnesses. In one incident at
Kalma, seven women, who ventured out of a refugee camp to gather firewood, were gang-raped, beaten and robbed by the Janjaweed. When they had finished, the attackers stripped them naked and jeered at them as they fled. In a private meeting on 18 August,
Hédi Annabi, Assistant Secretary-General for
Peacekeeping Operations, warned that Sudan appeared to be preparing for a major military offensive. The warning came a day after
UN Commission on Human Rights special investigator
Sima Samar stated that Sudan's efforts remained poor despite the May Agreement. On 19 August, Sudan reiterated its opposition to replacing AMIS with a UN force, resulting in the US issuing a "threat" to Sudan over the "potential consequences". On 25 August, Sudan rejected attending a
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting to explain its plan to send 10,000 Sudanese soldiers to Darfur instead of the proposed 20,000 UN peacekeeping force. The Security Council announced it would hold the meeting despite Sudan's absence. Also on 24 August, the
International Rescue Committee reported that hundreds of women were raped and
sexually assaulted around the Kalma refugee camp during the previous several weeks and that the Janjaweed were reportedly using rape to cause women to be humiliated and ostracised by their own communities. On 25 August, the head of the U.S. State Department's
Bureau of African Affairs, Assistant Secretary
Jendayi Frazer, warned that the region faced a security crisis unless the UN peacekeeping force deployed. On 26 August, two days before the UNSC meeting and Frazer was due to arrive in
Khartoum,
Paul Salopek, a U.S.
National Geographic Magazine journalist, appeared in court in Darfur facing charges of espionage; he had crossed into the country illegally from
Chad, circumventing the Sudanese government's official restrictions on foreign journalists. He was later released after direct negotiation with President al-Bashir. This came a month after
Tomo Križnar, a
Slovenian presidential envoy, was sentenced to two years in prison for spying.
Proposed UN peacekeeping force On 31 August 2006, the UNSC approved a resolution to send a new peacekeeping force of 17,300 to the region. Sudan expressed strong opposition to the resolution.