Sudan’s RSF, ‘new version’ of Darfur Arab militias
CAIRO: Heavily armed and dressed in desert fatigues, Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have made their presence felt in Khartoum since military generals cracked down on a long-running sit-in. Piled onto pickup trucks mounted with machine guns or patrolling the streets on foot, they are seen by some protesters as a new version of the infamous Janjaweed militias accused of horrific abuses in Darfur. The RSF is a paramilitary force led by the deputy head of the ruling Transitional Military Council, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, nicknamed Himeidti.
Dagalo was a former leader of one of the Arab Janjaweed militias at the height of the conflict in Darfur that started in 2003. The Janjaweed militias were recruited when Khartoum trained and equipped Arab raiders to crush an ethnic minority rebellion in the area. The groups were sent to attack villages on camel and horseback as part of a campaign of terror that saw now ousted president Omar al-Bashir indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In 2013, during clashes between the Arab militias and the security forces in Darfur, “Dagalo was one of the few commanders to stay loyal to the regime, which got him chosen for the RSF - the new paramilitary force aiming to control and strengthen the Janjaweed,” said Jerome Tubiana, a researcher specialized in Sudan. Under the control of Sudan’s powerful National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) and then the presidency, the RSF was sent to fight insurgents in Darfur, and in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.
But the force was accused by rights groups of abuses against civilians in Darfur, such as rape, extrajudicial killings, looting, torture and burning villages. In 2014, the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda called them the “new version of the Janjaweed”. That same year, Abbas Abdelaziz, the NISS officer jointly in charge of the force with Dagalo, said calling the RSF “Janjaweed” was an insult, insisting the men had combat experience and had “become professionals”. —AFP