Sudan: Hemeti arrest of Hilal dangerous for Darfur (Part 8)

Article by Agence France Presse (AFP)

Dated 03 December 2017 

Militia chief arrest 'dangerous moment' for Sudan's Darfur

Musa Hilal (C), a powerful militia and Arab tribal leader in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur who was arrested last week by counter-insurgency (AFP Photo/-)

Khartoum (AFP) - By arresting Darfur's powerful militia chief Musa Hilal, Khartoum has tightened its control over Sudan's strife-torn region but analysts say it might open a new chapter of violence.

Hilal, a former aide to President Omar al-Bashir, was arrested last week by Sudan's counter-insurgency forces near his hometown of Mustariaha in North Darfur state after fierce clashes that left several dead.

"This is a dangerous moment actually," Magnus Taylor, Sudan analyst with the think-tank International Crisis Group, told AFP.

"By taking out Musa Hilal, they have pitched two different Darfuri Arab clans against each other."

Hilal, the top leader of the Mahamid clan of Darfur's biggest Arab tribe, the Rezeigat, was captured by a unit of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by other members of the broader Rezeigat tribe.

"This is the start of intra-fighting, this is only the beginning," said Ahmed Adam, a research associate at London University.

"No doubt, Hilal's arrest will impact the security and stability of Darfur."

During the initial years of the Darfur conflict that erupted in 2003, Arab militias fought alongside government forces against the region's black African rebels.

Hilal then led the government-allied Arab Janjaweed militia, notorious gunmen on horseback who swept through Darfur marauding villagers and fighting rebels who had taken up arms against Khartoum's Arab-dominated government, accusing it of economic and political marginalisation.

The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and another 2.5 million displaced in the conflict.

The RSF has also been used to crush rebels in a brutal counter-insurgency launched by Bashir.

- 'Inter-Arab violence' -

A joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force was deployed in 2007 to bring stability to Darfur -- a vast region in western Sudan the size of France.

"The previous dynamic in Darfur was militia versus Darfur rebel groups violence," Taylor said. "Now the most dangerous element is inter-Arab militia violence."

Hilal is subject to a United Nations travel ban and on a list of individuals sanctioned for "human rights atrocities" during the early years of the conflict.

Bashir himself is accused by The Hague-based International Criminal Court of genocide and war crimes related to the conflict, charges he denies.

Khartoum's use of scorched-earth tactics against ethnic minority rebels had also been a key factor for Washington to maintain a trade embargo against Sudan imposed in 1997.

Washington lifted the embargo on October 12, noting an overall fall in violence in Darfur since last year.

Khartoum now insists that the conflict has ended, and it has even launched a campaign to disarm militias operating there.

Analysts say the disarmament campaign is primarily aimed at weakening Hilal -- who according to a UN report controls several gold mines in Darfur -- after a rift with Khartoum.

"It is mainly about containing or liquidating Musa Hilal, as well as targeting other black communities and the internally displaced persons," said Adam, adding that Khartoum had armed these militias in the first place.

"Musa Hilal was created by Bashir to carry out his counter-insurgency in Darfur... but recently he had become politically ambitious.

"Thus, there is no love story between the two men."

- Reduced UN forces -

Up to 10,000 pro-government fighters led by RSF were mobilised to nab Hilal, who himself commands about 3,000 militiamen, sources said.

With his arrest, Khartoum is sending a signal to the international community that it is "in control" of Darfur, said Taylor.

"Hilal was the big one they wanted to take out.. He was seen as becoming this over-mighty figure," he said.

Although the overall violence has fallen in Darfur, a permanent peace deal between Khartoum and rebels has proved elusive.

With the fall in bloodshed, the UN-African Union peacekeeping mission, known as UNAMID, is now being downsized.

But Hilal's arrest at a time when UN peacekeepers are scaling back has the potential to unravel much of the gains achieved in Darfur, a European diplomat said.

"This is quite troubling... Musa Hilal is a very important sheikh who has tribal influence," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"This could trigger a lot of things, a lot of bad things, and UNAMID won't be able to stop everything."

SOURCE:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/militia-chief-arrest-dangerous-moment-sudans-darfur-045531373.html

Sudan: Hilal called for end to tribal fighting in Darfur (Part 7)

Article from and by .Afia Darfur.com

Dated 20 July 2016

Moussa Hilal calls for the activation of tribal reconciliations in the region

The president of the Revolutionary Awakening Council and the leader of the Al-Mahlad tribe, Musa Hilal, called for the activation of reconciliations between the social components to stop the tribal fighting.

"The president of the Revolutionary Awakening Council and the leader of the Al-Mahlad tribe, Musa Hilal Abdullah, called for an end to the violence and all forms of tension between the tribes," Hilal said in an interview with Afia Darfur.

In a related context, Hilal discussed with The Governor of North Darfur Abdul Wahid Yusuf the issues of reconciliation, securing the agricultural season and addressing frictions between pastoralists and farmers."

View original:  http://www.afiadarfur.com/musa-hilal-2/

Sudan: UN report links Musa Hilal to gold profiteering (Part 6)

Article from Foreign Policy

BY COLUM LYNCH 

Dated 04 APRIL 2016, 8:50 PM

EXCLUSIVE

Russia Blocks U.N. Report Linking Alleged Sudanese War Criminal to Gold Profiteering

A leader of the militia that terrorized Darfur is pocketing $54 million a year from gold sales. Why won’t Moscow release a confidential report documenting his abuses?

Tribal leader Musa Hilal arrives in the village of Kala in the West Darfur region of Sudan on Monday, July 12, 2004. Hilal is accused by U.S. officials of being the leader of the Janjaweed which is accused of atrocities in Sudan. (gsb) 2004 (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/MCT/MCT via Getty Images)

Musa Hilal, an alleged Sudanese mass killer who helped place Darfur on the map of modern genocides, has added a new title to his resume: multimillionaire gold digger.

A key leader of the Janjaweed, the horseback marauders who terrorized Darfuris in 2003 and 2004, Hilal and his armed crew earn about $54 million a year in profits from Jebel Amir, one of the largest unregulated gold mines in Darfur, according to a confidential report by a U.N. Security Council panel.

But the report’s release has been blocked by Russia, which is seeking to redact key details on the Sudanese gold trade. Russia has also refused to extend the contracts of the panel’s five members, effectively putting them out of work. Neither move has previously been reported.

In December, Russia dismissed the report as “extremely biased” and based on “speculation,” according to a diplomatic source. Moscow said it would only accede to the report’s publication if the “most controversial paragraphs are edited out.”

The United States and its Western allies rejected the Russian demand, saying it would set a precedent that would ultimately undermine the independence of U.N. sanctions panels like the committee charged with overseeing the measures taken against Khartoum after the genocide in Darfur. The panel’s findings highlighted the failure of U.N. sanctions to constrain the ongoing fighting between Sudanese authorities, their armed proxies, and opposition groups that has kept the troubled region mired in a state of chaos and violence for more than 15 years. The panel’s report claims that the gold trade has put more than $123 million into the pockets of armed groups throughout Darfur, in addition to Hilal’s earnings.

Moscow views the panel’s push to scrutinize Sudan’s gold industry as part of a politically motivated campaign to punish and weaken Khartoum, rather than promote peace and security in Darfur. A spokesman for the Russian mission to the United Nations, Alexey Zaytsev, told Foreign Policy by email Monday that Moscow put a “hold” on the publication, “pending further consultations in the council,” but didn’t block it.

“The reports by this panel have rarely been balanced or objective,” Zaytsev said. “But the degree of lopsided, unrestrained, and generally unfounded criticism of the Sudanese authorities in the latest report just ran over the top.”

The report, he added, risked “depriving thousands of Darfuri miners of their means of existence.”

The Darfur conflict has its roots in a 2003 uprising by ethnic minorities against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. The Sudanese government, working in concert with Hilal’s Janjaweed militia, carried out a scorched-earth campaign that displaced more than 2.5 million people and resulted in the deaths of more than 300,000 Darfuris.

In response, the International Criminal Court charged Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, with three counts of genocide and issued an arrest warrant that has never been executed. Five other Sudanese nationals were accused of multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hilal was never charged by the court, but in 2006, his name was placed on a U.N. Security Council list of individuals banned from travel outside Sudan and subject to a financial asset freeze for impeding the peace process and attacking civilians.

“We all thought he should have been a real target of an ICC investigation, given the facts we documented in our own interviews and fact-finding,” said Richard Dicker, an expert on the International Criminal Court who heads the international justice program at Human Rights Watch.

The panel found that violence was continuing in Darfur, reinforcing reports by Human Rights Watch that a government-backed armed group, the Rapid Support Forces, committed atrocities, including widespread sexual assault.

The report also documented a 225 percent increase in attacks against the joint U.N.-African Union Mission in Darfur, or UNAMID, in 2015. The Sudanese government refused the panel’s request to interview a suspect in a May 24 attack on the peacekeeping mission in the town of Kabkabiya, where Arab militias opened fire on four Rwandan peacekeepers, killing one. Sudan’s refusal to make the suspect available “adversely affects the panel’s ability to gather information, including biometrics” needed to complete the investigation into the attack, according to the panel report.

The Sudanese Air Force, meanwhile, continues to deploy attack helicopters and Antonov An-26 bombers in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, according to the report. The panel also uncovered “clear evidence” that Sudan has deployed cluster munitions in Darfur.

Hilal’s gold mining gives him access to substantial amounts of money and could mark a new phase in the Darfur conflict.

Gold has become an increasingly vital source of national wealth for Khartoum since South Sudan separated from Sudan and declared independence in 2011, taking with it most of the oil fields.

Unregulated gold mining has emerged as a major source of revenue for Darfur’s armed groups. Between 2010 and 2014, more than $4.5 billion in gold was smuggled from Sudan to the United Arab Emirates, according to the U.N. panel report. In 2008, gold accounted for only 1 percent of total Sudanese exports. By 2014, that number had risen to 30 percent, the report stated.

Hilal seized control of the Jebel Amir mines in January 2013 after the Sudanese Armed Forces withdrew from the site to avoid a violent confrontation with his forces.

The report found that Hilal has since turned the area into a gigantic ATM. He charges gold mining merchants $164 per month to do business at the site while vendors interested in providing services to gold prospectors must pay up to $197 per month to operate a stall. Every butcher on the site, meanwhile, must pay $3.28 to Hilal for every slaughtered sheep. All told, the report found that Hilal and his armed followers make $54 million a year from their control of the gold mines.

Hilal has had a complicated relationship with the Sudanese government since 2003, when he was released from prison and helped to lead a government-backed campaign against rebel forces. In 2008, he was named a special advisor to the president, an appointment that brought him to the center of national power in Khartoum.

Hilal has since returned to Darfur to develop his personal power base. In January 2014, he defected from the ruling National Congress party to form the Sudanese Awakening Revolutionary Council and is believed to have ambitions to become Darfur’s governor. Today, Hilal effectively controls more than 400 mines in Jebel Amir, and his permission is required for prospectors or other vendors hoping to enter the area.

The new U.N. report found that Hilal continues to collaborate with Sudanese forces and engage in millions of dollars’ worth of deals with the Central Bank of Sudan. The panel charges that the bank, which facilitates the gold trade, failed to comply with its obligation to freeze Hilal’s assets while the government also permitted him to travel beyond Sudan’s borders with impunity.

In an interview, Sudan’s U.N. ambassador, Omer Dahab Fadl Mohamed, told FP that Hilal hadn’t sold gold to the UAE through the Sudanese banking system. “He doesn’t have an account and did not export gold through the Central Bank of Sudan,” Mohamed said.

Mohamed said the move to sanction Sudan’s gold trade is the latest in a decades-long effort, led by the United States and its allies, to “deprive us of our natural resources.” Nearly two months ago, Sudan summoned the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Khartoum to protest a move by Washington to include illicit gold prospecting in a U.N. list of activities subject to sanctions.

He said that Sudanese mining statistics show that only 13.3 percent of the country’s gold exports come from Darfur, with only “a limited amount” of that coming from Jebel Amir. He said that the Sudanese government has recently taken control of the Jebel Amir mines, something disputed by the U.N. panel, which has said it believes Hilal is still running them.

As for the panel’s claim that Sudan failed to enforce the U.N. travel ban on Hilal, Mohamed said: “The problem we’re facing with Musa Hilal is that he is leading a nomadic lifestyle. It is difficult for us to track his movements.”

Photo credit: EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/MCT via Getty Images

Colum Lynch is a senior staff writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @columlynch

View original:  https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/04/russia-blocks-u-n-report-linking-alleged-sudanese-war-criminal-to-gold-profiteering/

Hat tip:  https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/russia-blocks-un-report-on-darfur-gold-trade

Sudan: Hemeti and RSF, Sudan's ticking time bomb (Part 5)

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor:  The below copied article from The New Arab is dated 25 May 2015. It is published here as part of a series of blog posts featuring Sheikh Musa Hilal of North Darfur, Sudan.  

Musa Hilal and his relatives and comrades have spent the past two years incarcerated in Omdurman prison, not far from Sudan's capital Khartoum. They were arrested in North Darfur in November 2017 by Hemeti's Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Hemeti ordered his RSF, formerly known as Janjaweed, to arrest his cousin and former boss, Musa Hilal, and bring him to Khartoum alive or dead. Some points from the article:

• Observers feared Hemeti's ambition, which some said could end up destroying the country after the concessions the government has granted him.
• The Janjaweed have played a major role in quelling rebellions in Sudan.
• They are associated with the Sudanese Armed Forces.
• The Janjaweed militia emerged as a powerful political player in Sudan, but the history of militias getting involved in politics suggests all may not end well.
• The Sudanese government allowed 3,000 Janjaweed to deploy in various areas of Khartoum.
• In 2014 the Janjaweed militias were brought under a united command and given their new official name - the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).  Read more:

Article from and by The New Arab www.alaraby.co.uk

Dated 25 May 2015

The Janjaweed, Sudan's ticking time bomb

The Janjaweed have played a major role in quelling rebellions in Sudan [AFP]

Analysis: The Janjaweed militia has emerged as a powerful political player in Sudan, but the history of militias getting involved in politics suggests all may not end well.

The name Janjaweed strikes fear into the hearts of many Sudanese people. 

The Janjaweed, now formally known as the Rapid Support Forces, first gained international notoriety in 2003 at the beginning of the Darfur conflict. Today, the Janjaweed are being accused of new violations - accusations that their leaders and the Sudanese government strongly deny.

The Janjaweed established their presence on the Sudanese political scene very quickly. They are associated with the Sudanese Armed Forces, fighting alongside them in the Sudanese states of the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, as well as in the Darfur region.

A spoiled child or a ticking bomb?

The Janjaweed, however, also enjoy advantages over the official Sudanese army. Their equipment is more advanced and their salaries are higher. Some people here call them the "spoiled child of the Sudanese regime".

However, others see the Janjaweed as a ticking time bomb. By supporting them, the Khartoum government is digging its own grave, they believe, especially as the government has allowed 3,000 Janjaweed to deploy in various areas of the capital itself.

The Janjaweed started out as Arab tribal militia which the government used to suppress the 2003 Darfur rebellion. The government relied on them heavily for this, and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir stated they were responsible for quelling the revolt.

On an international level, the Janjaweed, who have also been known by several other names including the "Border Guards", have been accused of human rights violations in Darfur, including rape and burning villages. These accusations have led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for President al-Bashir and other Sudanese officials, including Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein.

The Janjaweed have also been accused of recruiting foreigners from Arab tribes in Niger, Chad and Mali. 

The government denies this, however, while the leader of the Janjaweed, Mohamed Hamdan Hamidati [aka Hemeti or Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo], says most of his forces are from the Arab tribes of Darfur - and there are no foreigners among them. 

He says he is willing to provide the government with 100,000 fighters if it requests them, and considers fighting for the government a form of paid employment.

In a documentary, Hamidati, who is 43 years old, said he was called to a meeting with Bashir, who requested his help in quelling rebellions in Darfur, the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, offering him money in exchange.

In 2014, the Janjaweed militias were brought under a united command and given their new official name - the Rapid Support Forces. In order to regularise their status, they were placed under the command of the security forces.

It is believed the Sudanese army refused to integrate the Janjaweed within its ranks, because it considered the Janjaweed to be a chaotic militia following a tribal code, rather than a code of combat.

Hamidati admitted as much when he was sacked as a security adviser in South Darfur. "I am a free human being," he said at the time. "I have my clan and my own army and resources. The state governor cannot reduce my authority."

Official status

At the end of 2014, the Sudanese parliament amended the country's interim constitution, turning the security forces into an official state force, like the army and police. This allowed the Rapid Support Forces to become the military branch of the security forces, fighting in several areas.

Most recently, the Janjaweed played a key role in the Battle of Nakhara in south Darfur, inflicting heavy losses on the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). President Bashir celebrated with the Janjaweed near the front lines, rewarding them, promoting their leaders and handing out medals.

Some sources say Hamidati made any participation by the Janjaweed in battle on the government side conditional on the regularisation of their status.

A source close to him said he "learned from the experience of his cousin, Musa Hilal, who took part in the creation of the Border Guards and participated in the government's military campaigns, before being purposely sidelined by the government - despite his status as an MP and his appointment to a federal ministerial post".

Before the constitutional amendment, Hamidati said that he had asked for a law to be passed allowing the Border Guards, whose intelligence operations he headed, to have powers and military ranks similar to those of the regular forces.

Hamidati demanded participation in government and the development of the areas inhabited by Rihal Arabs in Darfur, pointing to their role in ending the rebellion there and making a success of the Khartoum and Doha negotiations with armed Darfur rebel groups.

Hamidati holds the rank of brigadier and says he achieved it through his military successes, despite having never attended a military academy. He is also a leader of Darfur's Arab tribes, which fought against the rebels in that area.

He became a leader of the Border Guards, which Musa Hilal formed in 2003, and was appointed as a security adviser in South Darfur state. He was later sacked after being accused of involvement in violence in South Darfur.

His sacking occurred after his dispute with the former governor of South Darfur, Hamad Ismail. Ismail had targeted Hamidati's Ruzayqat al-Abalah tribe, the Janjaweed ledaer claimed. After the two men fell out, violence broke out in South Darfur.

After the latest violence, Hamidati became a more important figure, especially as Hilal's fortunes with the government waned. Hamidati said that if his tribe were disempowered in South Darfur, the rebellion would return.

He has become a rising star in the Sudanese press - and, at the same time, a widely feared figure.

Accusations of abuses
In addition to the human rights violations they are accused of in Darfur, his forces are accused of looting and killing people in areas they passed through when they returned from the battlefields of South Kordofan.

"Our forces are disciplined and do not commit violations," he said. "These violations are committed by others who happen to be leaving at the same time. There may be some indiscipline, but these are individual cases which we deal with straight away. Our troops are not angels and similar things happen in other armed forces."

Observers are concerned, however, with Hamidati's ambition, which some say could end up destroying the country after the concessions the government has granted him.

The government has shown its weakness by turning the Janjaweed into a force above criticism, punishing politicians who have expressed concerns about them, say analysts.

Their promotion has dealt a blow to national dialogue efforts, especially following the arrest of the opposition Umma Party leader, Sadiq al-Mahdi. Mahdi, one of the main figures expected to participate in this dialogue, had accused the Janjaweed of committing crimes and recruiting foreigners.

When Mahdi was arrested, Hamidati said the Janjaweed were now in charge of the country - and they were the ones who could decide whether to release Mahdi or keep him in prison.

Previously, Hamidati used to make statements portraying himself as a source of security and stability. 

When the 3,000 Janjaweed were deployed in Khartoum, Hamidati said they would be the main protection force for the Sudanese capital, allowing denizens to live in peace.

"We came to defend you and you should thank us," he said. "We could have left the rebels to attack you."

The Sudanese government is accused of using the Janjaweed to suppress the September 2013 protests against fuel prices. Hundreds of demonstrators were killed and injured.

In the 1980s the democratically elected government of Sadiq al-Mahdi armed the Masiriya and Ruzayqat tribes to fight against the rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), then led by John Garang. 

These became known as "Sadiq's militias".

They were resented by the army. In 1989, under Bashir's command, the army carried out a successful coup against Mahdi. On the day of the coup, Bashir challenged these militias to fight against the army. Some observers believe that the Rapid Response Units may now bring about the fall of the regime.

One military analyst, who asked not to be named in this article, told al-Araby al-Jadeed the bureacracy of the official state forces keeps them less favoured by officials.

"The police and army have well-established systems and traditions that can't be bypassed," he said. "The government has decided that militia warfare is best because of its flexibility. Armies were created to fight other armies and it is difficult for them to fight rebel guerrillas. However, mobilising militias comes at a price - they demand land, power, and money."

The analyst said arming militias always led to problems. He said the government needed to collect the 4,000,000 weapons in the country before the situation gets further out of control. If the situation stayed as now, there will be a new rebellion against the government, he said, leading to new alliances in Darfur that would lead to the region separating from Sudan, like South Sudan did.

Analysts said the inevitable outcome of the Janjaweed's deployment in Khartoum and the conflict zones will be a crisis which would bring chaos to Khartoum, as the Janjaweed are an undisciplined militia and their leader wants to gain power.

Some high-ranking officials from the ruling National Congress Party reportedly want to ally with him, explicitly for this purpose - and this makes the Janjaweed a ticking time bomb.

This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/politics/2015/5/21/الجنجويد--قنبلة-السودان-الموقوتة

Follow @The_NewArab

View original: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/politics/2015/5/25/the-janjaweed-sudans-ticking-time-bomb

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Sudan: Hilal "I am the leader of all the Arab tribes in Darfur" (Part 4)

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: This is Part 4 of a series of posts about Sheikh Musa Hilal of North Darfur, western Sudan. Unfortunately, there was a technical hitch and Part 4 entitled 'Sudan: Hilal turned his forces on SAF and RSF' was deleted.

I have substituted it with the below copied article by BBC News 20 July 2019 by Sudan and Africa expert Dr Alex de Waal, a must-read. Below Alex's article I have re-printed a BBC report dated 2017 about Musa Hilal and his son being arrested. 

Finally, here is an excerpt from Rebecca Hamilton's 03 Dec 2009 article entitled 'The Monster of Darfur': "As Hilal explains it, Arabs were forced to flee their villages long before any “zurga” (literally “black,” a derogatory term for non-Arabs). But, he added scathingly, “[W]e would never go to a [displaced persons] camp and be seen as beggars." To solve the crisis in Darfur, Arabs have to be in charge, he continued. "We have the majority in the field. We have the majority of the livestock. There can be no solution without us”. He sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “I am not the leader of the Janjaweed. I am the leader of all the Arab tribes in Darfur,” Hilal said, his relaxed confidence returning." [View original here: https://newrepublic.com/article/71627/the-monster-darfur]

BBC News report

By ALEX DE WAAL

Published 20 July 2019

Sudan crisis: The ruthless mercenaries who run the country for gold

Photo: The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been accused of widespread abuses in Sudan, including the 3 June massacre in which more than 120 people were reportedly killed, with many of the dead dumped in the River Nile Sudan expert Alex de Waal charts their rise. (Photo credit AFP)

The RSF are now the real ruling power in Sudan. They are a new kind of regime: a hybrid of ethnic militia and business enterprise, a transnational mercenary force that has captured a state.

Their commander is General Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagolo, and he and his fighters have come a long way since their early days as a rag-tag Arab militia widely denigrated as the "Janjaweed".

The RSF was formally established by decree of then-President Omar al-Bashir in 2013. But their core of 5,000 militiamen had been armed and active long before then.

Their story begins in 2003, when Mr Bashir's government mobilised Arab herders to fight against black African insurgents in Darfur.

'Meet the Janjaweed'

The core of the Janjaweed were camel-herding nomads from the Mahamid and Mahariya branches of the Rizeigat ethnic group of northern Darfur and adjoining areas of Chad - they ranged across the desert edge long before the border was drawn.

During the 2003-2005 Darfur war and massacres, the most infamous Janjaweed leader was Musa Hilal, chief of the Mahamid.

Human rights groups accuse Musa Hilal of leading a brutal campaign in Darfur  Image copyright AFP

As these fighters proved their bloody efficacy, Mr Bashir formalised them into a paramilitary force called the Border Intelligence Units.

One brigade, active in southern Darfur, included a particularly dynamic young fighter, Mohamed Dagolo, known as "Hemeti" because of his baby-faced looks - Hemeti being a mother's endearing term for "Little Mohamed".

A school dropout turned small-time trader, he was a member of the Mahariya clan of the Rizeigat. Some say that his grandfather was a junior chief when they resided in Chad.

A crucial interlude in Hemeti's career occurred in 2007, when his troops became discontented over the government's failure to pay them.

They felt they had been exploited - sent to the frontline, blamed for atrocities, and then abandoned.

Hemeti and his fighters mutinied, promising to fight Khartoum "until judgement day", and tried to cut a deal with the Darfur rebels.

A documentary shot during this time, called Meet the Janjaweed, shows him recruiting volunteers from Darfur's black African Fur ethnic group into his army, to fight alongside his Arabs, their former enemies.

Although Hemeti's commanders are all from his own Mahariya clan, he has been ready to enlist men of all ethnic groups. On one recent occasion the RSF absorbed a breakaway faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - led by Mohamedein Ismail "Orgajor", an ethnic Zaghawa - another Darfur community which had been linked to the rebels.

Consolidating power

Hemeti went back to Khartoum when he was offered a sweet deal: back pay for his troops, ranks for his officers (he became a brigadier general - to the chagrin of army officers who had gone to staff college and climbed the ranks), and a handsome cash payment.

His troops were put under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), at that time organising a proxy war with Chad.

Some of Hemeti's fighters, serving under the banner of the Chadian opposition, fought their way as far as the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, in 2008.

Meanwhile, Hemeti fell out with his former master, Hilal - their feud was to be a feature of Darfur for 10 years. Hilal was a serial mutineer, and Mr Bashir's generals found Hemeti more dependable.

In 2013, a new paramilitary force was formed under Hemeti and called the RSF.

The army chief of staff did not like it - he wanted the money to go to strengthening the regular forces - and Mr Bashir was worried about putting too much power in the hands of NISS, having just fired its director for allegedly conspiring against him.

So the RSF was made answerable to Mr Bashir himself - the president gave Hemeti the nickname "Himayti", meaning "My Protector".

Training camps were set up near the capital, Khartoum. Hundreds of Land Cruiser pick-up trucks were imported and fitted out with machine guns.

RSF troops fought against rebels in South Kordofan - they were undisciplined and did not do well - and against rebels in Darfur, where they did better.

Gold rush

Hemeti's rivalry with Hilal intensified when gold was discovered at Jebel Amir in North Darfur state in 2012.

Coming at just the moment when Sudan was facing an economic crisis because South Sudan had broken away, taking with it 75% of the country's oil, this seemed like a godsend.

Sudan is one of Africa’s biggest gold producers

But it was more of a curse. Tens of thousands of young men flocked to a remote corner of Darfur in a latter-day gold rush to try their luck in shallow mines with rudimentary equipment.

Some struck gold and became rich, others were crushed in collapsing shafts or poisoned by the mercury and arsenic used to process the nuggets

Hilal's militiamen forcibly took over the area, killing more than 800 people from the local Beni Hussein ethnic group, and began to get rich by mining and selling the gold.

Some gold was sold to the government, which paid above the market price in Sudanese money because it was so desperate to get its hands on gold that it could sell on in Dubai for hard currency.

Meanwhile some gold was smuggled across the border to Chad, where it was profitably exchanged in a racket involving buying stolen vehicles and smuggling them back into Sudan.

Hemeti has loyal supporters outside the capital

In the desert markets of Tibesti in northern Chad, a 1.5kg (3.3lb) of unwrought gold was bartered for a 2015 model Land Cruiser, probably stolen from an aid agency in Darfur, which was then driven back to Darfur, fitted out with hand-painted licence plates and resold.

By 2017, gold sales accounted for 40% of Sudan's exports. And Hemeti was keen to control them.

He already owned some mines and had set up a trading company known as al-Junaid. But when Hilal challenged Mr Bashir one more time, denying the government access to Jebel Amir's mines, Hemeti's RSF went on the counter-attack.

In November 2017, his forces arrested Hilal [ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42141938 ], and the RSF took over Sudan's most lucrative gold mines.

Regional muscle

Hemeti overnight became the country's biggest gold trader and - by controlling the border with Chad and Libya - its biggest border guard. Hilal remains in prison.

Under the Khartoum Process, the European Union funded the Sudanese government to control migration across the Sahara to Libya.

Although the EU consistently denies it, many Sudanese believe that this gave license to the RSF to police the border, extracting bribes, levies and ransoms - and doing its share of trafficking too.

RSF fighters have fought for Yemen’s government in the civil war which is devastating the country

Dubai is the destination for almost all of Sudan's gold, official or smuggled. But Hemeti's contacts with the UAE soon became more than just commercial.

In 2015, the Sudanese government agreed to send a battalion of regular forces to serve with the Saudi-Emirati coalition forces in Yemen - its commander was Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, now chair of the ruling Transitional Military Council.

But a few months later, the UAE struck a parallel deal with Hemeti to send a much larger force of RSF fighters, for combat in south Yemen and along the Tahama plain - which includes the port city of Hudaydah, the scene of fierce fighting last year.

Hemeti also provided units to help guard the Saudi Arabian border with Yemen.

By this time, the RSF's strength had grown tenfold. Its command structure didn't change: all are Darfurian Arabs, its generals sharing the Dagolo name.

With 70,000 men and more than 10,000 armed pick-up trucks, the RSF became Sudan's de facto infantry, the one force capable of controlling the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and other cities.

Cash handouts and PR polish

Through gold and officially sanctioned mercenary activity, Hemeti came to control Sudan's largest "political budget" - money that can be spent on private security, or any activity, without needing to give an account.

Run by his relatives, the Al-Junaid company had become a vast conglomerate covering investment, mining, transport, car rental, and iron and steel.

Since April, Hemeti has moved fast, politically and commercially

By the time Mr Bashir was ousted in April, Hemeti was one of the richest men in Sudan - probably with more ready cash than any other politician - and was at the centre of a web of patronage, secret security deals, and political payoffs. It is no surprise that he moved swiftly to take the place of his fallen patron.

Hemeti has moved fast, politically and commercially.

Every week he is seen in the news, handing cash to the police to get them back on the streets, to electric workers to restore services, or to teachers to have them return to the classrooms. He handed out cars to tribal chiefs.

As the UN-African Union peacekeeping force drew down in Darfur, the RSF took over their camps - until the UN put a halt to the withdrawal.

Hemeti says he has increased his RSF contingent in Yemen and has despatched a brigade to Libya to fight alongside the rogue general Khalifa Haftar, presumably on the UAE payroll, but also thereby currying favour with Egypt which also backs Gen Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army.

Hemeti has also signed a deal with a Canadian public relations firm to polish his image and gain him political access in Russia and the US.

Hemeti and the RSF are in some ways familiar figures from the history of the Nile Valley. In the 19th Century, mercenary freebooters ranged across what are now Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic, publicly swearing allegiance to the Khedive of Egypt but also setting up and ruling their own private empires.

Yet in other ways Hemeti is a wholly 21st Century phenomenon: a military-political entrepreneur, whose paramilitary business empire transgresses territorial and legal boundaries.

Today, this semi-lettered market trader and militiaman is more powerful than any army general or civilian leader in Sudan. The political marketplace he commands is more dynamic than any fragile institutions of civilian government.

Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

View the original report plus a video here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-48987901

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BBC News report

Published 27 November 2017

Sudan says militia leader Musa Hilal arrested

Sudanese authorities have arrested a powerful militia leader suspected of human rights abuses in the Darfur region

Musa Hilal was detained after fighting with Sudanese forces near his hometown in North Darfur, state media reports.

He is a former ally of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and led the government-allied Janjaweed militia.

Musa Hilal is subject to UN sanctions for his suspected involvement in the Darfur conflict of the mid-2000s.

His son Habeeb was also detained in the clashes in North Darfur, Sudan's defence minister, Lt Gen Ali Mohamed Salem, said.

"They were arrested after clashes in the area but the security situation there is now stable. They will soon be brought to Khartoum," Gen Salem added.

Musa Hilal was appointed as an adviser to President Bashir in 2008 but they later fell out. His fighters have often clashed with Sudanese forces in Darfur.

The latest fighting started on Sunday when Sudanese troops were ambushed as they oversaw a handover of weapons under a disarmament campaign, the Sudan Tribune reported.

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces said they lost 10 members, including a commander.

Musa Hilal has refused to surrender the weapons held by his militia and has also declined mediation to resolve the dispute, the report adds.

The Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 when black African rebels began attacking government targets, accusing Khartoum of favouring Arabs.

In response, the mainly Arab Janjaweed militia was accused of carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Darfur's black African population.

Arrest warrants against President Bashir were issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2009 and 2010 on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur. The conflict claimed at least 300,000 lives.

He denies the charge and has evaded arrest.

View the original report here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42141938

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