Tijani Seisi: The master of disaster in Darfur
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By Anne Bartlett
January 31, 2012 — Tijani Seisi is a man with an extremely dubious
past and an even more dubious future where Darfur is concerned. Not
content with creating chaos and polarized ethnic relations in Darfur
during the 1980’s, he now seems to be presiding over a re-run of these
problems as he takes the helm of the Darfur Regional Authority in
2012. Unable to learn from his own mistakes, he is now moving, full
steam ahead, in the same chaotic direction once again – this time with
the NCP, the international community and the head of the UNAMID
peacekeeping mission Ibrahim Gambari, following closely behind.
The big question here is why the international community and UNAMID,
with all their intelligence gathering capabilities, are so blind to
the lessons of history? The other pertinent question is why a “son” of
Darfur could do so much damage to his own people? As I will show, the
answer lies in an examination of his past, his desperate attempts to
shed his Darfur identity and the tenuous relationship he has built
with the people he purports to serve.
All of these problems were first illustrated in an encounter I had
with Seisi at the beginning of 2003. At that time, Seisi was based in
west London working as a director of a refugee consortium when inflows
of people from Darfur started to reach their height. One might have
assumed that as a former Governor of Darfur, he would have welcomed
his kinsmen who were fleeing the violence in the region with open
arms. One might also have assumed that he would have used the
resources of the refugee center with equity and responsibility to help
those who were traumatized by the violence. In fact, the reverse was
true. Seisi spent his time making speeches that denied anything was
happening in Darfur. Moreover, he and his wife, made every effort
possible to deny any help to those who had been affected. When I asked
him why he was behaving in this manner, his response was that all
those who opposed the Sudanese government in Darfur were “terrorists”.
It is then, a rather a strange turn of events that the man who thought
that all Darfuris were “terrorists,” is now claiming to save those
very same people and to restore the Darfur region to stability.
For any normal person, this behavior would indeed be inexplicable, but
for Tigani Seisi it is simply business as usual. Born into the elite
in Darfur, having little in common with those around him, he has
always had his eye on Khartoum rather than Darfur itself. Yet in order
for him to pursue these ambitions, he has had to shed his Darfuri skin
and pretend to be something else instead. As a result, he has
assiduously cut his relationships in Darfur, thereby denying his
Darfuri identity and his links to the region. Instead of focusing on
Darfur, he has cozied up to the elites in Khartoum acquiring all the
political credentials and connections he needed to succeed in this
world. However, despite these efforts, his lack of innate political
ability has always shone through. Starting with his unmitigated
disaster as Governor of Darfur under the patronage of the Umma Party
in the 1980’s, he has failed to cultivate any genuine following among
Darfuris in the region or in diaspora. Reduced to creating an NCP
sponsored movement - the oddly titled “Liberation and Justice
Movement”- he had anything but liberation or justice in mind. Instead,
his goal appears to be a familiar strategy of “confuse and conquer”
where Darfur is concerned – a strategy he has had a lot of practice
with and knows exactly how to get right.
Today as he returns as a stooge of the NCP, he presides as “master of
disaster" over Darfur. Given this position as a consolation prize for
his loss of the vice-President position to Al-Haj Adam, Seisi is now
trying to prove himself a worthy candidate for Bashir and his cronies.
His “worthiness” is predicated on the complete cultural and
demographic re-engineering of Darfur. It is also predicated on the
re-tribalization of the region and yet another attempt by the NCP to
carve Darfur into smaller and smaller pieces.
The demographic and cultural manipulation of Darfur has been ongoing
for some while and Seisi is, of course, the perfect choice to recreate
the region in Khartoum’s image. For example, in many parts of Darfur,
the culture of the local area has been erased with a new retitling
strategy. For example, Fugu Fukka (Fur) also known as Jebel Amhar
(meaning red mountain), was changed to El-Waha (Arabic for oasis).
Nyga Duolo (Fur, meaning valley), was changed to Naaga dalow (Arabic,
meaning a female unloaded camel). Dogei (Fur, meaning worn out
plough), was changed to Um Al Gura (Arabic, meaning mother of all
villages) — a reference to Medina in Saudi Arabia. This process has
also been accompanied by the re-contouring of the landscape so that in
many locations, the land is almost unrecognizable to the local people.
Following on from previous election irregularities and attempts to
redraw boundaries in Darfur we are also seeing new attempts to divide
the population along “tribal” lines. Not content with carving the
region into three, Seisi has now presided over the addition of two
more states. Today the Fur people have been herded like sheep into
central Darfur; the Massaliit to west Darfur; the Rezeigat to east
Darfur, the Habbania to south Darfur and so on. Each area has its own
governor with an ethnic affiliation to match. All of this is
suspiciously reminiscent of British policies following the annexation
of Darfur in 1916, where imperial control put leaders who were
friendly to the British, in charge of their “tribes” in specific
locations. All we need now is a “closed district ordinance”, and the
pattern of desperation, underdevelopment and violence is set to repeat
itself all over again.
This situation may be lost on the international community, but it is
not lost on the local people. Sick of attempts to create more tribal
tension, a rapidly deteriorating security situation, dwindling food
supplies and an almost complete lack of humanitarian aid, the people
took to the streets in Nyala this week, setting fire to the police
station and the municipal building which houses NCP officials. Their
demands to rid the country of the NCP are likely to fall on deaf ears
for now, but are unlikely to end, because like so many other
authoritarian regimes that have come to a sticky end recently, the
people have legitimate grievances that cannot be denied.
Seisi, who prefers to sit on his hands while chaos reigns down around
him is in the position he is historically most comfortable with: a
master of disaster who presides over chaos and confusion while serving
his own interests and those of his handlers in Khartoum. However,
while he has denied his connection to the people of Darfur and has
studiously avoided engaging the real issues, the question still
remains about how long he will be able to divert the people from
realizing that their strength lies in unity with each other. My guess
is, not long. Seisi’s second chaotic tenure is therefore likely to be
short lived and on the day he is ousted, he may very well find himself
beating a hasty retreat from the region – this time, with any luck,
for good.
Dr. Anne Bartlett is Professor of Sociology and International Studies
at the University of San Francisco. She is also Director of the Darfur
Reconciliation and Development Organization (www.drdoafrica.org). She
may be reached at [email protected]
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