UNITED NATIONS, 3 March 2005 — A militia group accused of conducting a campaign of rape and village burning in Darfur was led by Sudanese Army commanders who took orders from Khartoum, according to the Arab tribal chief who recruited the forces.
Musa Hilal, a Darfur human rights abuse suspect, said the government steered the stamping out of a rebellion in Sudan’s western Darfur region. He made his comments in an interview with Human Rights Watch conducted in September and released on video yesterday.
“All of the people in the field are led by top army commanders,” said Hilal, considered the leader of militia known as Janjaweed.
“These people get their orders from the Western command center, and from Khartoum.” The Sudanese government admits it had recruited tribesmen into the Popular Defense Force, its official counterinsurgency paramilitary group, but distances itself from the Janjaweed.
Human rights groups and UN reports say there is little difference and have accused both the government and militia of heinous crimes under the guise of counterinsurgency. Hilal has been interviewed before and since the videotape was made, including by Reuters, but rarely on film.
Human Rights Watch says they interviewed him for several hours but only released a few minutes on the tape. The Janjaweed are considered responsible for brutal rapes, pillaging and killing of African villagers, throwing some 2 million out of their homes. The Darfur war has killed at least 70,000 people since last March. Darfur rebels took up arms in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of preferential treatment to Arab tribes.
Hilal, who operates in the Kebkabiya area in northern Darfur, said some fighters were just criminals and that some were not tribesmen loyal to him. But Human Rights Watch says numerous eyewitnesses have testified to atrocities committed in his name.
“There’s criminals on all sides, from all tribes in the area,” Hilal told the human rights organization. “When the bull or the cow dies, all the vultures come from the sky to feed off the carcass.” Hilal denies that his tribesmen committed any attacks independent of government orders or were responsible for any criminal acts, but were part of the Popular Defense Force.
A United Nations-appointed commission has drawn up a confidential list of 51 suspected war criminals in Darfur and has recommended they be tried at the new International Criminal Court. UN sources have said Hilal is on the list. Human Rights Watch considers its tapes, along with government documents it obtained, as legal evidence showing that the Khartoum government backed and even directed Janjaweed activities in northern Darfur.
The UN Security Council is deadlocked over where suspected war criminals should be tried. The United States wants to create a new court in Tanzania, which no one so far supports. Most council members back the International Criminal Court, a new global criminal court in The Hague.
