A Final Critique of New York Times reporting from West Darfur, February 2012—An open letter to the Office of the Public Editor

An Open Letter to the Office of the Public Editor of the New York Times

November 3, 2016 | http://wp.me/s45rOG-7553 .

Evan Gershkovich, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times

Dear Mr. Gershkovich:

I received your letter in response to my invitation to the New York Times to correct the misrepresentations in your February 22, 2012 dispatch by Jeffrey Gettleman with a dateline of Nyuru, West Darfur. You should be aware, and perhaps are, that at the time of the original dispatch I wrote not only to the Public Editor of the New York Times, but former deputy foreign desk editor Ian Fischer, who had once covered Sudan—and thus Darfur—for the Times. Despite several letters, both direct and open, pointing out factual errors in the Times’ dispatch established by Radio Dabanga (by far the most authoritative source of news concerning conditions in West Darfur at the time) and by informed Darfuris with whom I have worked, no acknowledgement was made, let alone published, that these errors compromised fundamentally the integrity of the dispatch.

Perhaps it is also relevant here to note that before the Times dispatch appeared, I was interviewed by Mr. Gettleman, as an expert on Darfur, for approximately an hour. Sensing a deeply erroneous characterization in the making, I did everything I could to urge caution and skepticism on Mr. Gettleman. I pointed out a great many factual matters that in the end were not included or acknowledged, directly or indirectly, in the dispatch. I spoke of the evidence of continuing high levels of violence throughout Darfur; I spoke of the likelihood that Khartoum’s highly resourced security services, including Military Intelligence (the primary security service deployed in Darfur) were present during his visit.

I also spoke of the almost complete unreliability of the UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), a fact borne out by the revelations of a former spokeswoman for UNAMID, Aisha Elbasri, who released extremely damning internal UNAMID documents concerning UNAMID reporting and inaction. The implications of the documents were reported by the skilled journalist Colum Lynch in Foreign Policy in 2014 (“They Just Stood Watching”).

I also well remember poring over a map of West Darfur with a Darfuri colleague at a conference on Darfur at the Rockefeller Institute in Bellagio, Italy—this shortly after the Times dispatch appeared. For countless reasons, the geography of “returns”—“returns” being the primary evidence of “peace descending” on Darfur, as the Times would have it—simply made no sense. Nor was it surprising that the Chad representative of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) insisted—adamantly—to Radio Dabanga that there had been no significant return of refugees from eastern Chad to Darfur. Indeed, in the years following the Times’ dispatch, the Darfur refugee population in eastern Chad has increased significantly, according to the most recent UNHCR census. The farsha (chief administrative officer) for Murnei, the major town closest to Nyuru, traveled to Nyuru in the wake of the Times’ dispatch and found no evidence of the returns the Times’ correspondent referred to.

Notably, the Times’ dispatch nowhere clearly indicates whether the “returns” were from the internally persons displaced camps of Darfur itself or from eastern Chad (where there are presently more than 300,000 Darfuri refugees too fearful to return to their land because of intensifying insecurity). The title given by the Times’ editor refers to “refugees,” but it is not at all clear to what population this is referring; internally, the dispatch is self-contradictory on this critical issue. This is an extraordinary lapse in reporting and reflects gross inadequacy in establishing basic facts, or at least claims.

And even as the Times was reporting that “peace has descended” on the Darfur region—indeed, in the very month the Times’ dispatch was published—Amnesty International reported (“Sudan: No End to Violence in Darfur,” February 2012):

In the last twelve months, as other developments in Sudan overshadowed international attention on Darfur, the region has seen a new wave of fighting between armed opposition groups and government forces, including government-backed militias. The fighting has shifted during 2011 away from former epicentres of the war near the border with Chad and elsewhere, to eastern Darfur in particular. This has included targeted and ethnically motivated attacks on civilian settlements, and indiscriminate and disproportionate aerial bombings that have contributed to the displacement of an estimated 70,000 people from their homes and villages.

Gershkovich, pointing out all that makes clear the errors in the Times dispatch is a task for which I simply don’t have time, especially in light of the links I’ve provided above and my recent extensive compendium of reports and analyses for the year of the dispatch, 2012: http://sudanreeves.org/2016/10/22/on-the-invisibility-of-darfur-causes-and-consequences-over-the-past-five-years/.

I have included below both the original Times dispatch and your letter to me of November 2, 2016. At various points I make comments, all in CAPS and indented; these will have to suffice as an answer to your basic request: “If you note the specific factual inaccuracy in the story in question…”

Since I have no reason to believe that any of what I say here will inform the Times’ archiving of this article, and given my past failures in attempting to secure even a modicum of acknowledgement of the errors I again note here, I’ve used the occasion of these renewed labors to produce an “open letter,” which I will attempt to circulate as widely as possible, including through an extensive email list-serve, my website, and very substantial “social network.”

Perhaps as a final bit of context: a bipartisan letter from members of Congress to Secretary of Stat John Kerry was released yesterday (November 2, 2016), focusing on Darfur, with the headline: “Members of Congress Sign a Bipartisan Letter Raising Alarm on Worsening Situation in Sudan.” Hardly “peace descending….”

Sincerely, Eric Reeves

A Taste of Hope Sends Refugees Back to Darfur

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN FEB. 26, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/world/africa/darfur-refugees-returning-home.html

[Photo/CAPTION] People who fled the Darfur region of Sudan amid brutal attacks are coming back. A Darfurian in Nyuru, peacekeepers behind her. Credit Sven Torfinn for The New York Times]

NYURU, Sudan — More than 100,000 people in Darfur have left the sprawling camps where they had taken refuge for nearly a decade and headed home to their villages over the past year, the biggest return of displaced people since the war began in 2003 and a sign that one of the world’s most infamous conflicts may have decisively cooled. [emphasis added here]

NOT A SINGLE HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATION WORKING IN DARFUR AT THE TIME REPORTED ANYTHING LIKE A RETURN OF “100,000 PEOPLE”—MOREOVER, THE TOTAL POPULATION OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS AND REFUGEES IN EASTERN CHAD AT THE TIME WAS NOT “more than two million” BUT A FIGURE CLOSE TO OR EXCEEDING THREE MILLION PEOPLE (SEE BELOW).

The millions of civilians who fled into camps, their homes often reduced to nothing more than rings of ash by armed raiders, are among the most haunting legacies of the conflict in Darfur, transforming this rural landscape into a collection of swollen impromptu squatter towns.

And while the many thousands going home are only a small fraction of Darfur’s total displaced population, they are doing so voluntarily, United Nations officials say, offering one of the most concrete signs of hope this war-weary region has seen in years.

WHAT IS NOT NOTED IN THE TIMES DISPATCH IS THAT MANY “voluntary” RETURNS RESULTED IN THOSE RETURNING TO THEIR LANDS AND VILLAGES BEING MET BY VIOLENCE THAT COMPELLED THEM TO RETURN TO THE VERY IDP CAMPS THEY HAD LEFT.

“It’s amazing,” said Dysane Dorani, head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission for the western sector of Darfur. “The people are coming together. It reminds me of Lebanon after the civil war.”

[UNAMID, EVEN AT THE TIME OF THE TIMES DISPATCH, HAD BEEN THOROUGHLY DISCREDITED BY NUMEROUS OBSERVERS ON THE GROUND, BOTH WITHIN THE HUMANITARIAN AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMUNITY. THE REVELATIONS OF GROSS MALFEASANCE BY AISCHA ELBASRI, REPORTED IN FOREIGN POLICY IN 2014 (“They Just Stood Watching”), WERE WELL KNOWN EVEN BEFORE THE LEAKING OF INTERNAL UNAMID DOCUMENTS.

THE TIMES’ CORRESPONDENT GIVES NO EVIDENCE OF KNOWING OF THESE ASSESSMENTS AND MAKES NOT EVEN THE SMALLEST GESTURE TOWARD THEM.

THE COMMENTS HERE BY DYSANSE DORANI ARE COMPLETELY SELF-INTERESTED AND HAVE BEEN MASSIVELY CONTRADICTED BY SUBSEQUENT FACTS, AND INDEED BY FACTS KNOWN TO DORANI AT THE TIME.

ALTHOUGH I STRESSED ALL THIS TO CORRESPONDENT GETTLEMAN WHEN HE INTERVIEWED ME PRIOR TO PUBLICATION OF HIS DISPATCH, THERE IS NO SIGN OF MY WARNING IN THE DISPATCH AS IT WAS PUBLISHED.

If ever there was a ghost town, it was the village of Nyuru, on a windswept hill in western Darfur, where countless people were gunned down by men on horseback or stabbed with crude little daggers when this region of Sudan exploded in bloodshed in 2003. After that, everybody fled, and they stayed away for years.

But on a recent morning, thousands of Nyuru’s residents were back on their land doing all the things they used to do, scrubbing clothes, braiding hair, sifting grain and preparing for a joint feast of farmers and nomads. Former victims and former perpetrators would later sit down side by side together, some for the first time since Darfur’s war broke out, sharing plates of macaroni and millet — and even the occasional dance — in a gesture of informal reconciliation.

I KNOW OF NO OTHER REPORT OF “RECONCILIATION” OF EVEN A VAGUELY SIMILAR NATURE.

MOREOVER, GETTLEMAN HERE GIVES NO INDICATION OF THE POSSIBILITY OF A PRESENCE BY KHARTOUM’S SECURITY FORCES, EVEN AS THAT PRESENCE—PARTICULARLY IN THE FORM OF INFORMANTS—WOULD CERTAINLY HAVE INTIMIDATED ANY AND ALL DARFURIS WHO SPOKE WITH GETTLEMAN.

A DIRECTLY COMPARABLE EXAMPLE WOULD BE THE INITIAL INVESTIGATION OF MASS RAPES COMMITTED BY KHARTOUM’S REGULAR ARMED FORCES (SUDAN ARMED FORCES, SAF) IN TABIT, NORTH DARFUR FROM OCTOBER 30, 2014 – NOVEMBER 1, 2014). THE MASSIVE INTIMIDATION OF ALL WHO SPOKE WITH UNAMID—AND THEIR REFUSAL TO SPEAK ABOUT THE RAPES OF MORE THAN 220 GIRLS AND WOMEN—WAS ESTABLISHED IN A DEFINITIVE REPORT BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH IN FEBRUARY 2015.

NOT TO SPEAK OF OR EVEN GIVE EVIDENCE OF CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS OF A THREATENING SECURITY PRESENCE IN NYURU DURING THE BRIEF TIME GETTLEMAN WAS PRESENT IN THE VILLAGE IS GROSS JOURNALISTIC MALFEASANCE.

After all the years of international diplomacy, sanctions, billions of dollars spent on peacekeepers and an extremely well-oiled advocacy machine that elevated Darfur into a worldwide cause célèbre, attracting the likes of George Clooney and Mia Farrow, parts of Darfur finally appear to be turning around, for a few reasons.

WHILE SOME PARTS OF DARFUR OF LESS VIOLENT THAN OTHERS, TO SAY THE “parts of Darfur finally appear to be turning around” IS CONTRADICTED BOTH BY CONTEMPORANEOUS HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTING AND ALL SUBSTANTIVE REPORTING SUBSEQUENT TO THE TIMES’ DISPATCH.

WE SHOULD RECALL AGAIN THE FINDINGS OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL IN THE VERY SAME MONTH AS THE TIMES’ DISPATCH, FEBRUARY 2012 (“Sudan: No End to Violence in Darfur”):

WHY WAS THERE NO MENTION OF THIS REPORT BY ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST DISTINGUISHED HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS? DID THE TIMES’ CORRESPONDENT EVEN SPEAK WITH INVESTIGATORS AT AMNESTY, WHO HAD LONG BEEN FOLLOWING CONDITIONS IN DARFUR VERY CLOSELY AND WITH CONSIDERABLE RESOURCES AND WELL-ESTABLISHED SOURCES ON THE GROUND?

The most obvious is that Sudan recently made peace with Chad, securing a border that used to be crawling with proxy forces and militiamen toting bazookas.

AGAIN THERE ARE GROSS ERRORS OF FACT HERE. MILITIAMEN—SOME FROM CHAD, NIGER, MALI AND OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES—WERE ACTIVE ALONG THE BORDER AND CONTINUE TO BE, ALTHOUGH THEIR PRESENCE IS CURRENTLY MOST CONSPICUOUS IN NORTH DARFUR (WHICH, LIKE WEST DARFUR, ALSO BORDERS CHAD).

Western aid groups are now trying to capitalize on this, partially shifting away from emergency aid and increasing funds for what they call “recovery,” providing brave pioneers with all the essentials they need to go home and stay home, like seeds, wells, plows and workshops to make plows. Even the death of Libya’s dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, has had ripples — good ripples, people here say.

THE ASSERTION ABOUT “western aid groups” IS ALSO ERRONEOUS. THE KHARTOUM REGIME, BEGINNING IN 2011, INSISTED THAT HUMANITUARIAN ORGANIZATIONS SHIFT THEIR EMPHASIS FROM HUMANITARIAN RELIEF TO DEVELOPMENT—THERE WAS SOME “RHETORICAL COMPLIANCE” BY ORGANIZATIONS THAT WISHED NOT TO BE EXPELLED FOR DARFUR, AND SOME PROJECTS DID HAVE LONGER TERM BENEFITS.

BUT BASIC HUMANITARIAN RELIEF CAPACITY IN DARFUR HAD NEVER RECOVERED FROM KHARTOUM’S EXPULSION IN MARCH 2009 OF THIRTEEN CRITICAL INTERNATIONAL NONGOVERNMENTAL RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS, AS WELL AS SUSPENSION OF THREE KEY SUDANESE NATIONAL RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS.

EXPULSIONS HAVE CONTINUED, ALONG WITH WITHDRAWAL BY ORGANIZATIONS THAT FELT ACCESS DENIAL BY KHARTOUM HAD BECOME INTOLERABLE. IN FEBRUARY 2012, THE DATE OF THE TIMES DISPATCH, THE OVERWHELMING NEED IN DARFUR WAS FOR ADEQUATE FOOD, CLEAN WATER, SANITATION, AND PRIMARY MEDICAL CARE.

THE EXISTENCE OF A FEW SHOW-PIECE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS DOES NOTHING TO QUALIFY THIS BASIC FACT, NOWHERE NOTED IN THE TIMES DISPATCH.

Colonel Qaddafi used to supply guns to Darfurian rebels, part of his meddling across this patch of Africa. Now that he is gone, the rebels are weaker, with some more in the mood to negotiate, as evidenced by a recent peace treaty signed by one rebel faction.

Photo/CAPTION Darfur was long known for the brutality inflicted upon its residents by militias, but peace has settled on the region. A nomadic tribe got water at a well this month. Credit Sven Torfinn for The New York Times [emphasis/highlighting added—ER]

THIS CLAIM—THAT “peace has settled” ON THE DARFUR REGION IS WHAT MOST INFURIATED DARFURIS AND SUDANESE GENERALLY.

EXTRAPOLATING FROM A BRIEF VISIT TO A VILLAGE FULLY UNDER CONTROL BY AND THE SURVEILLANCE OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, AND THE COMMENTS OF HIGHLY SELF-INTERESTED PARTIES, THE TIMES DISPATCH MADE A MOCKERY OF ALL THAT WAS KNOWN BY WAY OF SUDANESE NEWS REPORTING FROM THE DIASPORA, INFORMATION THAT I MADE KNOWN BY WAY OF MY CONTACTS WITHIN THE HUMANITARIAN COMMUNITY ON THE GROUND, BY HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS, AND BY REPORTS FROM THE EXTREMELY AUTHORITATIVE SMALL ARMS SURVEY (GENEVA) ON DEVELOPMENTS IN DARFUR:

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/highlights/highlight-hsba-wp28.html

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/highlights/highlight-hsba-ib20.html

THE VERY phrase “peace has settled” WAS BIZARRELY INAPPROPRIATE, GIVEN THE BRIEF DIMINISHMENT OF VIOLENCE IN SOME PARTS OF WEST DARFUR. SUBSEQUENTLY, WEST DARFUR AND OTHER PARTS OF DARFUR—PARTICULARLY NORTH DARFUR (EAST JEBEL MARRA) AND THE JEBEL MARRA MASSIF—HAVE BEEN THE SCENES OF VIOLENCE EVERY BIT AS BRUTAL AS THE EARLY YEARS OF THE GENOCIDE:

VILLAGE BURNING AND DESTRUCTION, WITH FOOD STOCKS BURNED OR LOOTED ( CONSTANT STREAM OF REPORTS FROM RADIO DABANGA;

VIOLENT EXPROPRIATION OF NON-ARAB/AFRICAN FARMLANDS BY KHARTOUM’S REGULAR AND MILITIA FORCES; SEE HERE IN PARTICULAR;

INDISCRIMINATE AND DELIBERATE AERIAL ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS AND CIVILIAN VILLAGES WITH NO MILITARY PRESENCE ARE AN ALMOST DAILY OCCURRENCE IN ONE OR ANOTHER OF THE MARGINALIZED REGIONS AT WAR WITH KHARTOUM: DARFUR, SOUTH KORDOFAN, AND BLUE NILE;

USE OF RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR, WITH TENS OF THOUSANDS OF NON-ARAB/AFRICAN GIRLS AND WOMEN ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY THOSE TARGETED BY KHARTOUM-ALLIED MILITIA AND REGULAR MILITARY FORCES; AGAIN, IN TABIT, NORTH DARFUR, MORE THAN 220 GIRLS AND WOMEN WERE RAPED BY REGULAR ARMY FORCES, ON ORDERS FROM THEIR GARRISON COMMANDER, OVER TWO DAYS IN 2014;

THE USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN THIS YEAR’S JEBEL MARRA OFFENSIVE—SUCH USE HAS LONG BEEN REPORTED IN VARIOUS PARTS OF GREATER SUDAN AND DARFUR, BUT DEFINITIVELY ESTABLISHED FOR JEBEL MARRA IN A SEPTEMBER 2016 REPORT BY AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.

Of course, all is not well in Darfur. More than two million people remain stuck in internal displacement or refugee camps…

[IN FACT, A RANGE OF DISPATCHES MAKES CLEAR HOW INACCURATE THE FIGURE OF 2 MILLION WAS AND IS NOW:

A TYPICAL YEAR BEFORE THE TIMES’ DISPATCH

UN IRIN (Nairobi) reports, March 16, 2011: Tens of thousands of people continue to flee their homes in Sudan’s western region of Darfur for the safety of internally displaced people’s camps after recent fighting between government forces and armed militias. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), an estimated 66,000 IDPs have arrived in camps in North and South Darfur since January. At least 53,000 are in and around North Darfur State’s Zam Zam IDP Camp.

A TYPICAL YEAR FOLLOWING THE TIMES’ DISPATCH

“The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have fled fighting in all of Darfur in the first five months of this year, which is more than the total number of people displaced in the last two years put together,” Amos said [in Khartoum].” (Agence France-Presse [Khartoum], May 24, 2013]

…and some rebel groups fight on. But people who have been victimized and traumatized are sensing a change in the air and acting on it, risking their lives and the lives of their children to leave the relative safety of the camps to venture back to where loved ones were killed.

Abdallah Mohamed Abubakir, a skinny farmer, just brought his family back to Nyuru.

“Things aren’t great,” he said, “but they’re getting better.”

A quick glance around Nyuru illuminates what he means. The village school may be six sagging grass-walled huts — but it is a new school. The village hospital is one large dusty tent — but it is also new, paid for by an Islamic charity.

TO EXTRAPOLATE FROM THIS EXTRAORDINARILY SLIM EVIDENCE TO THE SITUATION IN DARFUR GENERALLY—“peace has settled on the region”—IS THE HEIGHT OF JOURNALISTIC IRRESPONSIBILITY.

Not far away are smashed houses and traces of ash on the ground, the footprints of the violence nine years ago, almost as if the land itself was quietly saying: people were killed here, many, many people.

But, at the same time, there is a new police station standing on a hill, with a fresh coat of high-gloss blue, and there are no reports of major violence.

POLICE ARE FREQUENTLY ATTACKED IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS THROUGHOUT DARFUR; POLICE ARE ALSO, IN VIRTUALLY ALL LOCATIONS IN DARFUR, UNWILLING TO INVESTIGATE CRIMES—INCLUDING WAR CRIMES—COMMITTED BY KHARTOUM-BACKED MILITIA FORCES.

THE EXISTENCE OF A SINGLE POLICE STATION IS IN NO WAY CHARACTERISTIC OF DARFUR AS A WHOLE, WHERE ALL REPORTERS—EVEN THOSE WITH THE UN—HAVE POINTED TO A CONTINUING DETERIORATION OF SECURITY FOR CIVILIANS AND HUMANITARIANS, A DETERIORATION WELL UNDERWAY IN 2012.

Until just a few weeks ago, the Abubakirs, like hundreds of thousands of other Darfurians, had been living in Chad.

THE TIMES DISPATCH HERE AND ELSEWHERE DOES NOT MAKE CLEAR WHETHER THE “100,000 RETURNS” ARE REFUGEES FROM CHAD OR INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS FROM CAMPS WITHIN DARFUR. THIS FAILURE ALONE VITIATES THE INTEGRITY OF DISPATCH AS A WHOLE.

They were essentially serfs, renting a tiny spit of land and barely surviving off it. They fled to Chad in 2003, when nomadic Arab militias sponsored by Sudan’s government — the infamous janjaweed — rampaged the Darfurian countryside, slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians who belonged to the same ethnic groups as the Darfurian rebels.

But in the past few months, word began to trickle back to Chad that the janjaweed were gone. The Abubakirs — Abdallah and his wife and their two children — decided to pack up and return.

AS HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORTED IN FULL DETAIL LAST YEAR, THE “JANJAWEED” HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY THE BETTER ARMED, BETTER SUPPLIED, AND OPENLY CELBRATE RAPID SUPPORT FORCES (RSF). MANY REFER TO THE RSF AS SIMPLY THE “NEW JANJAWEED.” THEY WERE BEING RECRUITED THROUGHOUT 2012, YET ANOTHER CRITICAL OMISSION FROM THE TIMES DISPATCH.

“And it’s true,” Mr. Abubakir said. “You can go out to the bushes and collect firewood and nobody bothers you.”

THIS IS SO PAINFULLY SELECTIVE AND UNREPRESENTATIVE OF LIFE FOR MOST NON-ARAB/AFRICAN DARFURIS THAT ONE IS TEMPTED TO WEEP AT JOURNALISM THAT WOULD BASE ENORMOUS CLAIMS ON SUCH SLENDER EVIDENCE. SEE “CHANGING THE DEMOGRAPHY: VIOLENT EXPROPRIATION AND DESTRUCTION OF FARMLANDS IN DARFUR.”

He added, “People are coming back every day.”

Nancy Lindborg, a top official with the United States Agency for International Development, said, “We’re very optimistic about that area.” A recent agency news release featured Nyuru, under the headline: “Darfur’s Window of Opportunity.”

U.S. POLICY TOWARD DARFUR HAS BEEN MADE TO COMPORT WITH THELARGER STRATEGIC CONCERNS OF WASHINGTON, PARTICULARLY KHARTOUM’S PROVISION OF COUNTER-TERRORISM INTELLIGENCE. THIS LED TO A SENIOR U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL DECLARING IN NOVEMBER 2011 THAT DARFUR WAS BEING “DE-COUPLED” FROM U.S. STRATEGIC POLICIES VIS-À-VIS KHARTOUM. THE WORD CHOICE OF “DE-COUPLED” IS ATTRIBUTED TO A “SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS” IN THE OFFICIAL U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT TRANSCRIPT.

SENATOR RUSS FEINGOLD, CHAIR OF THE AFRICAN SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE AND A MEMBER OF THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, DECLARED IN MAY 2009:

“I take serious issue with the way the report [on international terrorism by the U.S. State Department] overstates the level of cooperation in our counterterrorism relationship with Sudan, a nation which the U.S. classifies as a state sponsor of terrorism. A more accurate assessment is important not only for effectively countering terrorism in the region, but as part of a review of our overall policy toward Sudan, including U.S. pressure to address the ongoing crisis in Darfur and maintain the fragile peace between the North and the South.” (emphasis added) (Statement by Senator Russell Feingold, Chair of the Africa Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, May 1, 2009)

THE ISSUE RAISED BY FEINGOLD, WHICH INFLECTS ALL U.S. GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS ABOUT DARFUR—INCLUDING BY USAID, WHICH IS INCREASINGLY SIMPLY AN EXTENSION OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT—WAS NOWHERE MENTIONED IN THE TIMES DISPATCH.

François Reybet-Degat, the current head of the United Nations refugee office in Sudan, said that more than 100,000 people returned home to several different areas of Darfur in 2011, far more than in any year before that.

THIS ASSERTION BY REYBAT-DEGAT IS SUPPORTED BY NO EVIDENCE THAT I HAVE SEEN—NONE. NOR IS ANY STATISTICAL EVIDENCE PROVIDED IN THE TIMES DISPATCH.

WHAT WE DO KNOW IS THAT ACCORDING TO THE UN OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATIONS AFFAIRS (OCHA) AND ALL NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ASSESSING DISPLACEMENT IN DARFUR IS THAT SOME 1.4 PEOPLE WERE VIOLENTLY DISPLACED IN THE FIVE YEARS PRECEDING THE TIMES DISPATCH AND ANOTHER ROUGHLY 1.4 MILLION WERE VIOLENTLY DISPLACED IN THE FIVE YEARS FOLLOWING THE DISPATCH. THESE PEOPLE ARE OVERWHELMINGLY FROM THE NON-ARAB/AFRICAN POPULATIONS OF DARFUR.

SO, HAS “peace has settled” ON DARFUR? PERHAPS THE TIMES SHOULD HAVE DONE SOME ADDITIONAL STATISTICAL WORK BESIDES MAKING SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS BASED ON A SINGLE BRIEF VISIT TO A POTEMKIN VILLAGE IN NYURU, WEST DARFUR.

[Photo/CAPTION] Nyuru is among the places drawing refugees back home. Credit The New York Times]

“It’s an early sign of a bigger trend,” he said. “There are still pockets of insecurity, but the general picture is that things are improving.”

THE “BIGGER TREND” HAS BEEN THE DEMONSTRABLE INCREASE IN VIOLENCE AND DISPLACEMENT, EVIDENT EVEN AT THE TIME OF THE TIMES DISPATCH.

The United Nations will soon start organizing “go and see” visits for refugees in Chad, he said, to scout out their home villages.

THIS DID NOT AND HAS NOT OCCURRED. DARFURIS DO NOT TRUST THE UN AND WILL MAKE THEIR OWN ASSESSMENTS OF SECURITY IN DARFUR ON THE BASIS OF THEIR OWN CLAN OR TRIBAL RECONNAISANCE. SUGGESTING THAT DARFURIS DO IN FACT TRUST THE UN IS YET ANOTHER ERROR IN THE TIMES DISPATCH.

But some people may never want to go home. The optimism about the uptick in returnees is checked by the sober realization that Darfur’s sprawling displaced person camps — some virtual cities, with more than 100,000 people — will probably never totally disband.

Darfur’s conflict has destroyed not only innumerable lives but also a whole way of life. Many villagers who fled into the camps to avoid getting killed have stayed for nearly a decade and grown used to camp services like schools, clean water, health clinics and cellphone coverage —the very things missing from rural Darfur that planted the seeds for resentment and rebellion in the first place.

THIS ALSO IS DEEPLY MISLEADING. DARFURIS ARE IN THE MAIN DESPERATE TO RETURN TO THEIR LANDS AND VILLAGES. IT IS CONTINUING VIOLENCE—EVIDENTLY FAR BEYOND THE KEN OF THE TIMES—THAT KEEPS THEM IN CAMPS THAT ARE INCREASINGLY UNDER-SERVED, LACKING IN BASIC HUMANITARIAN CAPACITY, AND THUS EXPERIENCING SIGNIFICANT FOOD DEFICITS, INCREASING FREQUENCY OF ILLNESS FROM LACK OF CLEAN WATER AND ADEQUATE SANITATION, A SEVERE DEARTH OF PRIMARY MEDICAL CARE.

Many will probably never go back to the harsh village life, and analysts see the giant camps turning into the kind of permanent slums that ring urban centers across Africa, from Kinshasa to Nairobi.

Darfur is “a quite different place from 2003,” said Dane Smith, the American senior adviser for Darfur. He cited a telling statistic: In 2003, 18 percent of Darfur’s population lived in urban areas. Now it’s about 50 percent.

THIS SHOULD BE A DEEPLY DISTURBING TREND, EVEN IF TRUE IN PLACES. CAMPS ARE TYPICALLY TOO FAR FOR COMMUTING TO WORKIN NEIGHBORING CITIES OR LARGE TOWNS, AND THE CAMPS THEMSELVES OFFER EXCEEDINGLY LITTLE IN THE WAY OF EMPLOYMENT. LARGE NUMBERS OF DISPLACED PERSONS MAY BE NEAR LARGER TOWNS AND CITIES—BUT THIS IS NO GUARANTEE THAT URBAN BENEFITS WILL ACCRUE TO THEM.

The peace treaty signed in July between the Sudanese government and one rebel faction, the Liberation and Justice Movement, outlined steps for the compensation of war victims and the prosecution of murderers. But while peace has taken root in some parts of Darfur, justice remains a specter.

THE PEACE AGREEMENT REFERRED TO HERE—THE “DOHA DOCUMENT FOR PEACE IN DARFUR” (DDPD)—WAS A DIPLOMATIC TRAVESTY AND REGARDED AS SUCH BY ALL WHO ACTUALLY KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT DARFUR.

IT NEVER ENJOYED MEANINGFUL SUPPORT FROM DARFURI CIVIL SOCIETY (WHICH WAS DELIBERATELY EXCLUDED FROM THE TALKS BY KHARTOUM AND QATAR) OR ANY OF THE MILITARILY MEANINGFUL REBEL GROUPS. THE SOLE SIGNATORY WAS A FACTITIOUS “REBEL” CREATION OF THE U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SUDAN IN 2011 (SCOTT GRATION) AND LIBYAN STRONGMAN MUAMAR GHADAFFI).

THE DDPD WAS DEAD ON ARRIVAL AND HAS BEEN WRITTEN OFF EVEN BY THE EXPEDIENT GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE AND THE U.S. KHARTOUM FOR ITS PART HAS DECLARED THE “PEACE” AGREEMENT NO LONGER NECESSARY, AND THAT THE REGIME HAS FULFILLED ALL ITS OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT. ALL THIS WAS CONSPICUOUS IN FEBRUARY 2012; NONE OF IT SEEMS TO INFORM THE REFERENCE HERE TO THE “PEACE TREATY SIGNED IN JULY [2011].”

Many Arabs in Nyuru still call the massacres in 2003 an “accident” and speak of them in the passive voice.

“Something happened in the past, but it’s over now,” said Ahmed Ayam Orgas, an Arab leader.

It does not feel over for Nyuru’s victims. Down by the river is a brickyard, where thick mud bricks bake in the sun. Nyuru never had a brickyard before. Before the conflict, all the houses were made of straw.

“But then the entire village was burned down by one match,” said Adam Hajar Omar, a sheikh.

He laughed a bitter, little laugh.

“We’ve learned our lesson,” he said.

THE SUGGESTION HERE THAT GENOCIDAL VIOLENCE WAS OVER—A BAD THING BUT A THING OF THE PAST—IS AN APT CULIMINATION FOR THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE PIECE OF JOURNALISM I’VE READ IN EIGHTEEN YEARS OF WORKING ON SUDAN.

[Letter from the Office of the Public Editor of the New York Times, received via email, November 3, 2016:

Evan Gershkovich, Office of the Public Editor

The New York Times

Dear Mr. Reeves,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We appreciate your concern, and I apologize for the delayed reply. Unfortunately it is against Times policy to append corrections to stories older than a year; it is unfeasible to correct all stories in the archive while keeping up with daily corrections

However, in certain cases, The Times’s standards desk, which is responsible for the paper’s corrections decisions—the public editor looks at questions of news judgment and other editorial decisions, as well as ethical issues that arise in either the news or opinion side of The Times—has added a note to a story in its online archive. If you note the specific factual inaccuracy in the story in question [I WOULD NOTE AGAIN MY REPEATED EFFORTS WHEN THE TIMES’ DISPATCH APPEARED TO SECURE CORRECTIONS TO FACUAL ERRORS], I will pass it along to The Times’s standards desk with your note.

Best regards,

Evan Gershkovich

Office of the Public Editor

The New York Times ]