Tribal Chief Discusses State’s Role in Darfur

Musa Hilal, an Arab tribal chief who tops the U.S. State Department’s list of human rights abuse suspects in Sudan’s Darfur region, said he was doing only what the government told him when he recruited militiamen to help put down an uprising there.

Hilal said the Sudanese government had entrusted tribal leaders with recruiting young men to join the militias. “The war in Darfur was not in our hands,” he told Reuters. “The decision to make war was taken by higher powers in the state.”

Darfur rebels and human rights groups have accused Sudan of using the militias as a proxy force to crush a rebellion in the region, where tens of thousands have been killed and at least 2 million people have been displaced in two years.