--:-- Noel King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noel King.
--:-- Noel King: Sudan is a very big country, the third largest in Africa. What's happening in one part of Sudan is often contained to that one part, like a drought in California that has no bearing on water levels in New York.
--:-- Twenty years ago, a conflict that the U.S. and its allies called a genocide unfolded in the far west of Sudan in a region called Darfur. The capital, meanwhile, in the east, was largely untouched. Then a civil war broke out in Sudan in April of last year, and it's affected every part of the country. 25 million people in need of international humanitarian assistance. And that's more than the population of the United States' 10 largest cities. I mean, this is a huge, huge crisis.
--:-- But recently, another dynamic unexpectedly emerged. In Darfur, we're again hearing warnings of a genocide. Because we did not complete the chapter on genocide 20 years ago, that chapter never really closed and is now taking on a new life of its own.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: [Nicholas Barrio is a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, and we reached him at his base in Kampala, Uganda.]
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: In Darfur, we're again hearing warnings of a genocide. Because we did not complete the chapter on genocide 20 years ago, that chapter never really closed and is now taking on a new life of its own.
--:-- Noel King: Nicholas Barrio is trying to get into Sudan to report on the crisis. He's been following closely as two armed groups, Sudan's army and a large and well-armed paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, fight for control of and, by all accounts, destroy Sudan.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: So the major battlefield is around the capital, Khartoum, where the rapid support forces, the military force, quickly made a lot of gains at the beginning of the conflict, capturing large areas. And the military responded with airstrikes, drone strikes, to try and drive them out.
--:-- Noel King: So much of it has been bombed into rubble. Most of the streets, the markets, banks, the shops have been looted and are empty.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: Across the country, more than 15,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the conflict started in April 2023, while almost 9 million have been forced to flee their homes.
--:-- Noel King: The control is still contested. The Rapid Support Forces, which is the paramilitary force, controls parts of this capital, while the other part is under the control of Sudan's military.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: Around 40 civilians were killed on Thursday when RSF paramilitary forces shelled Omdurman, a city which lies across the Nile from the capital Khartoum.
--:-- Noel King: And then a few months into the conflict, the Rapid Support Forces ended up capturing three of the capitals in the far region and are fighting to capture the only holdout capital.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: There are fears the worst is yet to come in the larger city of El Fasher. It is almost surrounded by the RSF. Satellite images in recent days show the apparent burning of homes in its outer neighborhoods.
--:-- Noel King: Sudan's military is on one side. What does the country's army want?
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: The country's army initially wanted to integrate these rapid support forces, which is a militia, under its command and control. But this didn't go down well with the command of the paramilitary force.
--:-- Noel King: So that's the major point of contraction that brought things where they are at the moment.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: The militia says we're not going to be integrated into the army. Instead, we're going to fight.
--:-- Noel King: Does the militia want anything else other than just not being integrated? What is their objective in this war?
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: Other than being integrated, they also think they can take control of this country. So they are fighting for power and then the country's resources.
--:-- Noel King: Nicholas, who has the support of Sudanese civilians? It's not very clear at the moment, although I could say that majority of the civilians are not happy with the rapid support forces, mainly because they've been accused of committing atrocities, attacking settlements, evicting people from their homes, and doing a lot of widespread robberies.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: That said, the military has also been accused of indiscriminate airstrikes that sometimes kill civilians. But on the whole, the rapid support forces look a bit more unpopular because they have been accused of conducting widespread atrocities targeting civilians.
--:-- Noel King: The Rapid Support Forces are also accused of carrying out a massacre on Wednesday, in which at least 150 people died. The UN Children's Fund says 35 children were among the victims of that attack on a village in central Sudan.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: There are a lot of Asun attacks, deliberately targeting civilian settlements. They also fire shells in civilian homes and their attacks are widespread especially within the capital where they are buying a lot of civilian homes and then in western Dafa It clear that they are systematically targeting civilian infrastructure and civilians.
--:-- Noel King: Sudan's rapid support force militia in El Fasha in Darfur today. Victory brings not honour, but goods to loot and women to rape.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: No wonder millions of Sudanese are fleeing the conflict. The U.N. says more than 9 million Sudanese people have been displaced since April of last year.
--:-- Noel King: We've seen credible claims that torture and rape are being used as weapons of war.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: The capital Khartoum has been absolutely devastated. It really is shocking.
--:-- Noel King: Do you have insight into why the brutality of this war is being inflicted on civilians instead of these men just fighting each other?
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: I think it stems from the history of this country. It was President Bashir who ordered the army to crack down on militants in the western region of Darfur. The resulting conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people, and Bashir was accused of organizing war crimes.
--:-- Noel King: The tactics that were used then to suppress the rebellion were very brutal, scorched-earth tactics, driving all communities from villages and cramming them in refugee camps and the small cities.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: Now, at that time, you had militias riding on horses and camels. They don't have military training. They don't have a lot of training in terms of how war is supposed to be executed. And they are trying to replicate what they did 20 years ago, but this time at a larger scale, better armed with more money and more outside backers.
--:-- Noel King: And then the fact that there is an ethnic dimension in this conflict, you have Arabs versus African communities.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: We are hearing, and I imagine you're hearing there in Kampala, two very distressing words, famine and genocide. The UN Food Agency, the WFP, recently warned that a famine is impending.
--:-- Noel King: Why the food shortages? Why is food such a concern?
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: This has been going on for more than a year, so the farmlands are abandoned. The farmers are displaced, so there's no food being grown at the moment. And then you have trade routes which have been displaced because of the conflict. Banks have closed down, the banking system has shut down. So the merchants, even in areas that are not affected by this conflict, are not able to import food because the banking system corrupts.
--:-- Noel King: So in terms of figures, you have 18 million people who are actually food insecure. Some 40% of the population in immediate desperate need of food security assistance.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: Since the outbreak of armed conflict in April 2023, production of millet in Sudan has almost halved, while maize production has decreased by a quarter.
--:-- Noel King: Genocide is a very specific legal term. And so it is significant that human rights observers are saying we may be looking at a genocide.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: What is happening in Sudan and where is it happening that has made people think there is some sustained campaign to eliminate an entire group of people?
--:-- Noel King: So this started mainly spread across the region of Dafoe, but it started as early as John Jirai in West Dafoe. The rapid support forces backed by their Arab militias systematically targeted African communities.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: So there are a lot of tribes which are African in Western Sudan and others are Arab. So there are a lot of reports from human rights groups which have documented systematic attacks.
--:-- Noel King: The campaign group Human Rights Watch is accusing paramilitary forces in Sudan of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: They asked what tribes we were from. If you answered mass elite, they would kill you immediately. I lied and said I am not Masalit.
--:-- Noel King: This is the same dynamic as 20 years ago. You have Arab militias attacking African farmers.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: This is... The genocide that human rights observers say that may be brewing is exactly the same thing?
--:-- Noel King: Yes, it's exactly the same thing and the conditions are almost the same only that this time around there are fears that it could even get worse because 20 years ago, the rapid support forces were just a fling of scattered militias, lightly armed with small guns.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: This time around, it's heavy weapons, including artillery, armored vehicles. So the conditions are the same, but the scale is likely to be worse.
--:-- Noel King: Nicholas Barrio, the Wall Street Journal, currently in Uganda.
--:-- Noel King: 20 years ago, a conflict that, as Nicholas said, mirrors today's almost exactly, sparked a movement in America called Save Darfur. It took over college campuses, Capitol Hill, even Hollywood for a time.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: [Nicholas Barrio, the Wall Street Journal, currently in Uganda.]
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: Coming up next.
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--:-- Noel King: It's Today Explained. I'm Noel King.
--:-- Noel King: And 20 years ago, I got my start in journalism in Sudan covering the Darfur conflict.
--:-- Noel King: Now, every journalist in the region back then knew the name Eric Reeves.
--:-- Noel King: Eric was the guy writing op-eds and blog posts about the horrors unfolding in Western Sudan, and eventually the guy urging Americans to save Darfur.
--:-- Noel King: Eric is very unusual. He was not really an Africa expert at the time. He was, in fact, an English professor at Smith College who became obsessed with Sudan after visiting in 2003.
--:-- Eric Reeves: I love the people. I love the landscape. It was in a moment in which peace had come. The people were no longer looking upward to see if there were bombers coming their way.
--:-- Noel King: Before his Darfur advocacy, he was just an ordinary Massachusetts American who made a little extra income from a hobby.
--:-- Eric Reeves: I create wooden vessels on a lathe and sell in galleries and online and in shows.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And gave that money to charity. I've always used the profits for humanitarian organizations.
--:-- Eric Reeves: So I settled on Doctors Without Borders as the one that was doing the best work.
--:-- Noel King: One day, he was talking to an aid worker about where his money was going, and Eric learned about Darfur.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And then Eric decided to make sure that everyone else learned about Darfur, too.
--:-- Eric Reeves: It was hard not to know something about what was going on in Darfur.
--:-- Eric Reeves: What we saw was that the non-Arab population, the African population, was being attacked by Arab militia forces. what was called the Janjaweed militia.
--:-- Eric Reeves: We crossed the border on our mule. They burnt our house down and murdered my husband. Then we fled.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Along the way, we passed burning houses and animal carcasses. They destroyed villages. They poisoned wells. They burned food stocks. They raped girls and women. They killed people.
--:-- Eric Reeves: This old man is taking a short break. For the first time in days, he washes his feet to pray, even though water is scarce.
--:-- Eric Reeves: I want to thank God that I made it over the border. Over there, they're killing us Africans, although we're Muslims.
--:-- Eric Reeves: They attacked our villages on horseback and with warplanes and destroyed them.
--:-- Noel King: Eric published in the Washington Post in February of 2004 an op-ed. That put him on the map.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Headline, Unnoticed Genocide. The terrible realities in Darfur require that we attend to the ways in which people are being destroyed because of who they are, racially and ethnically.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Nothing could have been clearer that this was genocide.
--:-- Eric Reeves: That opinion came to be quickly ratified by Nick Kristof of the New York Times. The United States Congress, in a bipartisan vote, declared it to be genocide.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And the Bush administration declared it to be genocide in September 2004.
--:-- Eric Reeves: We concluded, I concluded, that genocide has been committed in Darfur, and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring.
--:-- Eric Reeves: My recollection is that when this was identified as a genocide, suddenly all eyes are on Darfur.
--:-- Eric Reeves: How important was that designation, do you think?
--:-- Eric Reeves: I think it was quite significant, but the word was out. It was clear what was happening.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Genocide is the ultimate human crime, and it was being committed.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And we had an abundance of evidence from human rights organizations, NGOs, non-governmental organizations on the ground, the UN, and intrepid reporters.
--:-- Eric Reeves: They provided a very, very loud megaphone for the word genocide.
--:-- Eric Reeves: By about 2006, Save Darfur, this movement, was very big. It was all over college campuses.
--:-- Eric Reeves: There was a massive rally on the National Mall.
--:-- Eric Reeves: The junior senator from the state of Illinois, Barack Obama!
--:-- Eric Reeves: Silence, acquiescence, paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong.
--:-- Eric Reeves: I remember George Clooney was doing advocacy. We need humanitarian aid to be allowed into the Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
--:-- Eric Reeves: I remember Mia Farrow was wandering around out there.
--:-- Eric Reeves: This is one of the first times in U.S. history that a campaign to prevent a genocide or stop a genocide in such a far off place really became politically mainstream.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Can you talk about how you saw that evolve from almost no awareness to suddenly every college kid worth their salt is saying Save Darfur?
--:-- Eric Reeves: The Save Darfur movement such as it was a bit pretentious in its title but it began in 2005.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And one of the things that is very clear about the Darfur genocide is that the moral equities could not be clear.
--:-- Eric Reeves: That here you had sedentary farmers being attacked in their villages by heavily armed Arab militiamen, supported by the military aircraft of the Khartoum regime, and sometimes the soldiers of the Sudan armed forces.
--:-- Eric Reeves: This was one-sided if we're talking about moral equity.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And I think it was that clarity that helped galvanize students.
--:-- Eric Reeves: I spoke to many, many campuses, and it was, I would say, in my experience, the utter moral clarity of what was going on that really moved students a lot.
--:-- Eric Reeves: They understood the facts, the basic facts. They understood the moral clarity, but they wanted solutions.
--:-- Eric Reeves: They wanted the problem to be solvable and they weren't patient.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And none of those is good for a movement that's going to sustain political pressure.
--:-- Eric Reeves: What was the goal of the movement at the time?
--:-- Eric Reeves: Folks were advocating for what exactly? What did you want to see happen?
--:-- Eric Reeves: Well, what I wanted to see happen was a non-consensual military force deployed, whether under the UN auspices or not, in order to protect civilians.
--:-- Eric Reeves: But the political resistance, remember, this is a time of the US invasion of Iraq.
--:-- Eric Reeves: This was not a great time to be asking for non-consensual deployment of military force.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Yeah. So I'm not really sure what the students expected to happen.
--:-- Eric Reeves: But ironically, the election of Barack Obama ensured that the Save Darfur movement would end.
--:-- Eric Reeves: He was a catastrophically bad present for Darfur.
--:-- Eric Reeves: The notion, as expressed by one important figure in the Obama administration, that we don't want to see regime change in Khartoum.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Why was the U.S. so interested in continuing Omar al-Bashir's rule in Khartoum, knowing he was a Very bad guy.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Knowing it, but also deeply desiring counterterrorism intelligence.
--:-- Eric Reeves: That was a deep and important truth that helped sustain the Bashir regime, which felt that, well, if we give the U.S. what it wants in the way of counterterrorism intelligence, we can continue to prosecute genocide in Darfur.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And we can maintain power, which was corrupt, tyrannical, brutally destructive of Sudan's agricultural sector.
--:-- Eric Reeves: But none of that added up to enough to overcome the lust for counterterrorism intelligence.
--:-- Eric Reeves: In March 2009, the International Criminal Court indicted Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity and genocide.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Filing marks the first time prosecutors at the world's first permanent global war crimes court have issued charges against a sitting head of state.
--:-- Eric Reeves: It was furious. Sunday, the country's information minister said that Sudan does not recognize the International Criminal Court and refuses to obey any decision or order in issues.
--:-- Eric Reeves: He expelled 13 of the world's finest humanitarian organizations working in Darfur, thereby crippling the remainder. of the UN's humanitarian presence in Darfur crippling operations.
--:-- Eric Reeves: As the UN system, we have opposed this decision strongly, and we will continue to do so, and it's why we continue to ask the government of Sudan to reverse it.
--:-- Eric Reeves: At the same time, news journalists were not given travel permits. Human rights organizations found access impossible.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And so I think that 20 years later, you know, 20 years on from the original advocacy, there is a temptation to ask, how did we end up back here again?
--:-- Eric Reeves: But what I think I hear you saying is we were always kind of here.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Sudan has remained unstable, and while some of the players have changed, we're still dealing with very bad men fighting for control of this country, and civilians bear the brunt.
--:-- Eric Reeves: That's exactly right. The notion that somehow it ended is just nonsense.
--:-- Eric Reeves: And now, unfortunately, the attention is off of Sudan.
--:-- Eric Reeves: College students' advocacy has moved on to other things.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Even George Clooney, you're more likely to hear his name invoked in the context of Israel and Gaza than Sudan.
--:-- Eric Reeves: Do you think we can look back and say we learned anything from the advocacy of two decades ago that could help us again draw attention to what's going on in Sudan?
--:-- Eric Reeves: The situation is so much more complicated now.
--:-- Eric Reeves: The moral equities are so much more difficult to sort out.
--:-- Eric Reeves: We're talking about the lesser of two evils, and the greater of two evils here happens to be monstrously evil.
--:-- Eric Reeves: But the lesser is still monstrous.
--:-- Eric Reeves: You can find his work at SudanReeves.org.
--:-- Noel King: Today's episode was produced by Peter Balanon-Rosen and edited by Matthew Collette.
--:-- Noel King: It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard and engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristen's daughter.
--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noel King: It's Today Explained.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you.
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--:-- Noel King: Visit mercury.com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to do more for their business.
--:-- Noel King: Mercury, banking that does more.
