So the government decided to use the Janjaweed militia to help put down the Darfur rebellion. Hilal was in prison again, for crimes allegedly committed in 2002, but the government chose him to help organize the militia, according to Ted Dagne, an Africa specialist for the Congressional Research Service.
Hilal was released from prison after personal intervention by Sudan's first vice president, Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha, Dagne said. Another man, Gen. Abdullah Safi Nur, an Air Force commander and former commissioner of Darfur who is Hilal's cousin, also intervened, he said, adding that the Sudanese government had relied on militia leaders such as Hilal in earlier conflicts, including in southern Sudan.
Musa Hilal says he is a defender of Sudanese Arabs against African rebels.
(Evelyn Hockstein For The Washington Post)
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_____Crisis in Sudan_____
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Q&A: Darfur A brief explanation of the issues and current humanitarian situation in Western Sudan.
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Photos: Sudan's Rebels
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Sudanese Decry U.N. Threat of Sanctions (The Washington Post, Sep 20, 2004)
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U.N. Puts Sudan Sanctions Into Play (The Washington Post, Sep 19, 2004)
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Death Rates in Darfur Rising, WHO Says (The Washington Post, Sep 15, 2004)
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U.S. Calls Killings In Sudan Genocide (The Washington Post, Sep 10, 2004)
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U.S. Drafts Resolution On Sudan Sanctions (The Washington Post, Sep 9, 2004)
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Villages Bombed
The government responded to the rebel attack by bombing hundreds of villages. On the ground, Janjaweed fighters were unleashed. Some of them were jobless young men motivated by old ethnic tensions and lured into a lucrative new profession. They were then authorized by the government to burn villages and loot livestock and food, human rights groups say. They were also allowed to rape with impunity.
At least 30,000 people have been killed in Darfur, according to human rights reports. Among the more than one million people displaced by the violence, at least 200,000 have fled into neighboring Chad. Aid groups say 300,000 people have been left vulnerable to hunger and disease.
U.S. and U.N. investigators say they believe that the most significant leader of the Janjaweed is Taha, the country's first vice president, whom they have accused of orchestrating the attacks in Darfur. In February, Taha publicly told senior U.S. officials that he was going to "take care of the Darfur problem."
"The Janjaweed are just mercenaries and are just one piece of a bigger puzzle," Dagne said. "If I was Hilal, I would be less worried about the U.S. list and more worried about what First Vice President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha might do."
The U.S. has also circulated a U.N. Security Council resolution to impose an arms and travel embargo on the militiamen. But Dagne said that since the fighters rarely travel outside Sudan and apparently have no major assets, such sanctions would be largely symbolic.
Today, Hilal, 43, describes himself as a sheik, or religious and community leader, as was his grandfather in western Darfur during British colonial times. Hilal says he is responsible for more than 300,000 Arabs in Darfur.
On a recent night, Hilal, pressing his long fingers together, said his job as a leader was to protect his people and their honor. According to him, Africans have killed Arabs for years over grievances about land and water. "Things like that give birth to bitterness," he said.
Hilal said that although he has never carried a weapon, he has rallied other Arabs to fight. "When the government put forward a program of arming all the people, I will not deny I called our sons and told them to become armed, and our sons acquiesced," he said. "Those who became armed were no less than 3,000."
Rep. Donald M. Payne (N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee on Africa and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, is pushing to set up an international war crimes tribunal for Darfur, like those set up following the Balkan wars and the Rwandan genocide.
Payne has developed a separate list of government officials who he says are supervising and controlling Janjaweed activities. He listed Taha as number one, along with Nur, Hilal's cousin, and several other officials.
"This is a pariah government, which once harbored Osama bin Laden and took more than 20 years to even begin to end its civil war with the south," Payne said. "Darfur could happen again if we don't condemn this government's role in planning and executing the Janjaweed."
Hilal recently visited the U.S. and British embassies, preaching traditional reconciliation methods and telling diplomats and journalists that he wants to learn English.
