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Chroniques du Darfour

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This is a unique contribution to the growing field of Dar Fur studies, which brings to bear on the war in Dar Fur the unique strengths and achievements of its author. Jerome Tubiana, the book's back cover tells us, did a Ph.D. in African studies, trained as a journalist, and initially worked as a free-lance journalist and photographer. He then served as a consultant for organizations such as Action against Hunger, Doctors without Borders, USAID, and the AU-UN Joint Mediation Support Team for the Darfur Peace Process, and worked as a researcher for projects such as Small Arms Survey and Darfurian Voices. He is also the son of two well-known French anthropologists with a respected and extensive oeuvre on the people of northwest Dar Fur, especially (but not exclusively) the Zaghawa. All these legacies inform this insightful, artistically and journalistically superbly illustrated, and moving book.

Tubiana has written many perceptive shorter essays and commentaries about the changing situations in Western Dar Fur and Eastern Chad, for example in Dispatches and the London Review of Books. He also contributed a chapter on the land issue in Darfur ("Darfur: a conflict for land") in War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, edited by Alex de Waal (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2007). The strength of Tubiana's work lies in his enormous knowledge of local conditions in Dar Fur and his connections with individuals and groups on many sides of this multi-sided conflict: traditional chiefs and rebel leaders; native speakers of Arabic as well as those with (other) African mother tongues; men and women; people who stayed in place as well as those displaced into camps, and common people as well as major political and military players. Chroniques du Darfour chronicles Tubiana's many visits to different parts of Dar Fur -- from the northwest to the southwest, south of Jebel Marra , and across the border to Dar Sila in southeastern Chad -- between October 2004 and May 2009.

The book consists of eleven chapters, which take the readers back and forth in time, both between 2004 and 2009 and between the time of the author's own visits and that of the fieldwork of his parents (Marie-José and Joseph Tubiana) from the 1960s to the 1980s. The book opens with a chapter called "Family Histories," in which the author introduces Am Boru in northwest Dar Fur through the history of his parents' contacts with the local chief; now, in very different circumstances, the sons meet and talk. Chapter Two is called "Genealogies of Conflict" and presents among other things testimonies by important local leaders (displaced in Khartoum and al-Fashir) about how the violence in their areas began. It is an important reminder of how local, regional, and national factors of many kinds began to converge and culminated in an all-out war. In this war the Sudanese government and its supporters (including militias drawn from many Arab groups) fought the anti-government rebels (including militias based on large sedentary groups such as the Fur). However, new divisions, realignments, and political fragmentation occurred on both sides, often leading to further violence.

Chapters Three to Five ("First visit to the rebel zone," "Under the trees," and "Lost children") are accounts of Tubiana's visits to rebel territory, where he interviewed those who took up arms against the government. As Paul Doornbos notes in his insightful review of Chroniques du Darfour on Amazon.fr, Tubiana poses a number of basic questions to all those he interviews: when did the violence begin? Who attacked whom and in what circumstances? What were the group relationships before this happened? What did the group constructs of Arab and non-Arab mean before the violence, how did they change and change again to become what they are now? When did those interviewed first hear the term Janjawid? What was and is the role of the Sudanese government and Sudanese Armed Forces in the events they experienced and witnessed?

Chapter Six, entitled "God's village," recounts the author's visit to Muzbat, one of the northernmost villages of Dar Fur. Endowed with uncommon rock formations, this is a place, the author tells us, where both Zaghawa and local Arab groups connected with the sacred and made animal sacrifices. In Chapter Seven ("The Arabs"), Tubiana chronicles his visits to some of Dar Fur's nomadic and sedentarized 'Arab' groups, from Wakhain and Kutum in the north to Nyala in the south, and from Jebel Marra to Dar Sila across the border in southeast Chad. Here his informants talk to him about their conditions before the fighting started, especially their lack of access to land; how they, in many but not all cases, saw the Sudanese Government's desire to arm and aid them militarily as an opportunity to solve their problems, and how they ended up feeling used. They insisted (correctly, as this book shows) that 'Arabs' and Janjawid are not equivalents but that these group constructs, reinforced through large-scale violence and atrocities, have become a formidable political force and an obstacle to peace.

In Chapter Eight, the author recounts visits and interviews with the rebel faction that did not sign the 2005 Dar Fur peace accords signed in Abuja. Chapters Nine and Ten take us to two specific regions, to Jebel Marra in the case of "In the shelter of the mountains" and to Dar Sila across the border in Chad in the case of "On the other side of the border." The book ends with a chapter entitled "Letter to my father," which, through specific examples rather than broad generalizations, draws out some of the contrasts between the 1960s, the time the author's father did research in the area and the present. Tubiana shows that his father had been well aware of the increasingly scarce natural resources such as water and land in the area. However, this chapter suggests that, if western Dar Fur in many respects has become a totally different place, the memories of the past and the relationships between individuals and groups that existed then are often still very vivid and not irrelevant to hopes for peace.

Tubiana's chronicles of his travels in Dar Fur and his extensive interviews with those he met and sought out there are the opposite of a 'grand narrative,' an authoritative account whose insights and conclusions can be neatly summarized and yield clear-cut conclusions, let alone simple solutions. This is indeed where this book's significance lies, for it actively undermines totalizing narratives that confidently attribute blame and neatly sort the perpetrators and the victims into group categories. The author patiently chronicles how local histories of competition and collaboration became articulated with regional and national political and economic struggles and how these transformed each other in complex and not always linear ways. This does not mean that there are no perpetrators and victims -- certainly the Sudanese Government is denounced by practically all Tubiana's interlocutors -- just that they do not fall into the neat and simple group categories of 'Arabs' and 'Africans.'

Tubiana mostly lets his informants speak. When he comments, it is often to point at two important findings. First, he gives evidence of increasing competition for natural resources in the context of environmental degradation and inadequate administrative attention and intervention by earlier Sudanese governments. Second, he keeps showing us that the group constructs of 'Arab' and 'non-Arab' (e.g. Fur, Masalit, Zaghawa) always had meaning but, until the war and the atrocities that accompanied it, not the meaning that they came to have at the height of, and after the violence. These new meanings were created and imposed through violence. In the escalation of the violence, the testimonies presented here suggest, the Government of Sudan played a central and transformative role. However, it also involved a wide range of local, regional, and national politico-military entrepreneurs and ideologues. This makes restoring peace and social reconstruction all the more challenging.

About 40% of the book consists of color photographs, interspersed with black and white images from the archives of the author's parents. These photographs do not shy away from depicting scenes of violence and despair -- skeletons by the wayside, ruined villages and wells, child soldiers and other heavily armed militia men, displaced elders hanging on to symbols of authority that, for the moment, have lost their significance, and so forth. However, they also show the resilience, dignity, and humanity of Darfurians in a wide range of locations in- and outside of their home areas. These photographs are an integral part of these Chronicles of Dar Fur between 2004 and 2009.

Readers for whom this book is their first introduction to the war in Dar Fur will be inoculated against the many superficial, simplistic, and at times purposefully manipulative accounts of this subject-matter. For readers with more knowledge and experience of Sudan and Dar Fur, this book brings into view places, offices, and families of great historical significance and fame, which, even though transformed and often damaged by the war, have somehow persisted.

This book is highly recommended.

Dans les années 1980, l'anthropologue allemand Kurt Beck a étudié les Kawahla, des éleveurs nomades de chameaux du nord du Kordofan, au Soudan. De retour à Khartoum, il rapporta qu'ils avaient une très mauvaise opinion du gouvernement soudanais, notamment du fait qu'ils payaient beaucoup plus de taxes et d'impôts (directs ou non) qu'ils ne recevaient de services en retour: leur frustration, mettait en garde Beck, pourrait un jour devenir désobéissance ou même plus grave... Cependant, ce ne fut pas dans le nord du Kordofan, mais dans le nord du Darfour, que la même frustration ainsi qu'un désir de terre et de routes migratoires sûres pour les nomades, conduisit à des violences significatives dans les années 1980 et 1990. Quand en 2003 les rebelles du Darfour sont parvenus à attaquer l'aéroport d'El Fasher, la capitale historique de la région, le gouvernement de Khartoum a recruté parmi les tribus nomades marginalisées de la région des supplétifs pour combattre les insurgés, principalement recrutés parmi les populations non-arabes.
Le livre très séduisant (60% de texte, 40% de photographies)de Jérôme Tubiana se distingue par bien des aspects differents d'autres publications expliquant les racines, le déclenchement et le déroulement du conflit du Darfour, ainsi que les chances de paix et de réconciliation: Julie Flint et Alex de Waal ont écrit un bref et utile essai en 2005, suivi d'une seconde édition plus dense en 2008. Martin Daly (2007) a approché le sujet avec une perspective purement historique, tandis que l'activiste américain Eric Reeves (2007) a pris un parti juridique et plutôt anti-arabe. Il y plusieurs autres livres et des blogs qui offrent un espace pour débattre à loisir des questions clefs et des solutions possibles.
Jérôme Tubiana est un chercheur, docteur en Etudes africaines, héritier d'une histoire familiale unique: ses parents Joseph et Marie-José Tubiana, tous deux ethnologues, ont fait des recherches sur le Sahel tchadien et soudanais depuis les années 1950. Leur fils a marché sur leurs traces. Il avait déjà longuement voyagé au Tchad lorsque commence son récit, alors qu'en 2004 il atterrit à Khartoum et commence par rendre visite aux vieux amis de ses parents et à leurs descendants, dans un Darfour déjà dans la tourmente.
Le livre est un récit astucieusement agencé de ses séjours au Darfour entre 2004 et 2009, illustré par ses magnifiques photographies et par quelques-unes, en noir et blanc, prises par ses parents. Ces chroniques ne se basent pas sur d'autres publications sur le conflit ou sur d'autres jugements que ceux des Darfouriens eux-mêmes. Jérôme Tubiana lui-même se garde de juger. Mais il demande à ses interlocuteurs, chefs de tribus ou gens du peuple, leaders et combattants des groupes armés, des questions telles que :
* "Quand le conflit a-t-il commencé pour vous ?"
* "Quelles en sont les causes ?",
* ou encore : "Quand avez-vous entendu pour la première fois le mot Janjawid (ainsi qu'on surnomme les milices pro-gouvernementales), et que signifie-t-il ?"
Le résultat est une histoire orale contemporaine. Ses sources principales ne se trouvent pas seulement parmi les deux ou trois millions de victimes qui vivent dans les camps de déplacés au Darfour et les camps de réfugiés au Tchad, où ils bénéficient de ce que Jérôme Tubiana appelle le plus vaste effort d'aide internationale depuis le Plan Marshall en Europe, à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Il a surtout interviewé des gens restés sur place, dans les zones rurales qui sont au caeur du conflit et à l'origine du conflit, notamment au nord du Darfour. Vers la fin du livre, il décrit aussi en détail les violences similaires (et particulièrement dramatiques) ayant eu lieu dans le sud-est du Tchad.
Ce récit vivant et limpide permettra aux lecteurs de se faire eux-mêmes leur idée sur la guerre. En donnant la parole à des chefs rebelles et "Janjawid", aussi bien qu'à de simples combattants ou civils, il nous donne accès aux différentes opinions dont les Darfouriens eux-mêmes voient leur passé, leur présent et leur avenir. Cette approche, mise en aeuvre dans une écriture accessible, font de "Chroniques du Darfour" un livre très agréable, et très bien édité.
La connaissance que Jérôme Tubiana a des lieux, et ses contacts dans tous les camps, ont fait de lui un expert de la région et un analyste reconnu. Mais les nombreux rapports et études qu'il a écrit ou co-écrit restent toujours basés sur les mêmes observations de terrain qui ont inspiré ces Chroniques. J'espère qu'il nous en apprendra un jour encore davantage sur l'économie de guerre apparue durant ces années de rébellion, dans un Darfour de plus en plus fragmenté.
Tout au long du livre, Jérôme Tubiana rend hommage à ses parents en citant leurs écrits et en nous montrant leurs photographies en noir et blanc, opportunément prises dans les années 1960. Il a dédié le dernier chapitre à son père disparu, sous la forme d'une longue lettre dans laquelle il évoque aussi bien l'explosion démographique, les conflits inter-ethniques et l'apparition de mots comme "Janjawid" et "Torabora" (le surnom des rebelles), aujourd'hui malheureusement connus dans le monde entier.
Une lecture fortement recommandée.