A Wide-Open Battle For Power in Darfur

Though Arab and African ethnicities are very much intertwined in Sudan, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's government used Arab nationalism, and money, as way to rally the landless, Arab nomadic militias against their farmer neighbors, who tended to identify themselves as African.

But the situation began to change in 2006, when only one rebel faction of the original Sudan Liberation Movement signed a peace deal with the government.

The rest of the rebels headed back to the desert and jockeyed for position as the divisions began: SLA-Unity, SLA-Free Will, Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance, National Redemption Front and so on. "There's no need of counting anymore," a U.N. official said, referring to the factions.

The one rebel group that remains militarily strong is the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, which is backed by Chad and staged an attack last month on Khartoum, Sudan's capital, that failed to topple the government. So far this year, most government and militia attacks on villages have been in areas along the Chadian border controlled by JEM.

Otherwise, the Sudanese government has little need for military action, as Darfur is at war with itself.

Arab tribes are fighting one another over land, cows and other spoils of war. Disillusioned Janjaweed militiamen, abandoned by the government, have joined rebels and government soldiers in the business of looting, carjacking and petty shakedowns.

"Everybody is guilty," said Col. Augustine Agundu, chairman of the peacekeeping mission's cease-fire commission, who reserved special wrath for the rebels. "Emancipation, ending discrimination, that was their drive at the beginning, whereas today they don't know what they want."

The peacekeeping mission is in the middle of it all, saddled with the high expectations of advocacy groups that simply want the conflict to end.

The hybrid U.N.-African Union force, known as UNAMID, technically took over from an underfunded, underequipped African Union force of about 7,000 soldiers in December, but little has changed. The first new battalions have not yet arrived, nor has any new equipment.

The soldiers are authorized to use force to keep peace and protect civilians under imminent threat, but commanders fear that opening fire would jeopardize the mission by making it a party to the conflict.

Last month, bandits on horseback attacked a UNAMID commander and several peacekeepers, who surrendered their weapons and truck.

"What we are here to do is talk, not shoot," said Gen. Martin Luther Agwai of Nigeria.

That is all that Osman, the truck driver, can do, too. He's learned to sweet-talk the bandits, whom he often presumes to be rebels. Sometimes, he tries to shame them, explaining that he is bringing food to people who need it. The approach seems to have worked so far.

"I am from Darfur, and these people outside are our relatives," Osman said. "So I have an obligation to take food to them."