Moscow: Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2014, 388 p.

Africa is not called a conflict region for nothing. African conflicts often continue for years and decades, sometimes bursting into a bright flame, then subsiding, giving hope for a settlement of the situation, then suddenly escalating again. At the same time, they often cover countries adjacent to the hotbed of fire, increasing the scale of armed confrontation and exacerbating the humanitarian situation in the region as a whole. S. V. Kostelyanets, an employee of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, devoted his research to this kind of conflict, the scene of which was the Sudanese province of Darfur.¹

The monograph consists of three chapters, a conclusion, two appendices, and four indexes. The first chapter focuses on the causes and background of the Darfur conflict. The conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan is considered by many to be one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twenty-first century Since the outbreak of the armed uprising in Darfur in 2003, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people and displaced more than 2.7 million. Already by the spring of 2004, when more than 100 thousand Refugees have flooded into neighboring Chad, and the crisis has taken on an international dimension. The peculiarity of the situation is that, despite the signed peace agreements and the activities of the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the region, which numbered about 16 thousand military and police officers as of January 2015, clashes in Darfur do not stop, and the number of victims continues to grow. In the first half of 2014 alone, about 400,000 new refugees arrived, and in January 2015, 36,000 more were added. Hostage-taking and abductions of foreigners continue in the region. Reports of sexual violence against civilians are increasing.

The analysis of the conflict in Darfur is undoubtedly difficult for the researcher, since its very nature, driving forces, as well as ways and forms of settlement are the subject of constant discussions by domestic and foreign historians, political scientists, economists, and the media. Some compare the Darfur conflict with the bloody ethnic conflict in Rwanda, believing that genocide took place here, as well as there, while others express a different point of view. The Government of Sudan has repeatedly been accused of complicity in genocide against the black population of Darfur in the West.

During the visit of the UN Security Council delegation to Darfur in June 2008, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, L. M. Ocampo, presented a report on the situation in the region, which stated that all the structures of the state apparatus of Sudan are related to crimes against humanity. However, as St. John justly observes, Kostelyanets, answering the question of whether the events in the region can be qualified as genocide, should take into account that "the large number of victims of the conflict in itself does not allow it to be classified in this category", since "genocide implies the intention to destroy an entire race, ethnic or other group" (p. 6), which, I would like to add that it took place in Rwanda. As for Sudan, of its population of 40 million, 70% are Sunni Muslims, 25% are adherents of local beliefs, and 5% are Christians. The fact that African Muslims kill their co-religionists and adherents of other faiths in the course of tribal conflicts, according to many scientists and politicians, can hardly be called genocide. For example, Alex de Waal, an expert on Sudan, noted that in Darfur, "Arabs" are local black residents. They are African and Muslim, as are the local non-Arabs.

Considering the historical background of the conflict, St. Kostelyanets shows that it is rooted in the medieval history of the region. The Arab invasion of Africa had a significant impact on the development of the peoples of the Sudan, where in the late 15th and early 16th centuries a number of large state entities were formed, one of which was Darfur. The main ethnic group of the region was the Furs, who, like their Arab nomadic neighbors, had been carrying out armed raids on nearby territories for centuries to seize slaves and livestock, destabilizing the situation in the region. In the slave hunt, the violent nature of the Darfur Sultanate was revealed: "... for at least three centuries, the Fur state existed thanks to looting

¹ On this topic, see an article by the same author in our journal: [Kostelyanets, 2015, pp. 76-86].

and the capture of slaves and their subsequent sale to the Mediterranean coast " (p. 17). Only in the 19th century, as the author notes, did Darfur cease to be a permanently warring region.

S. V. Kostelyanets carefully examines the background of the conflict that developed over a long historical period, in particular, the process of migration of various peoples and groups to Darfur, the spread of Islam in the region, the organization of Sufi tariqas, as well as the Mahdist movement, whose outpost was Darfur (p. 21). The author shows how a wedge was driven between sedentary and nomadic tribes - the division between "landowners and landless residents of the region, which resulted in the Darfur crisis in the mid-80s" (p.29). Finally, he attributes the post-colonial attempts to "Arabize" Darfur, which caused an increase in opposition to the regime, to the background of the crisis (p. 30).

At the heart of almost every African conflict is the struggle for access to natural resources, and the Darfur conflict is no exception. The author cites the main reason for the competition for Darfurian natural resources as a sharp decrease in the territories of pasture lands, the main wealth of local residents, as well as water sources as a result of droughts and climate disasters (pp. 55-56). The rivalry was compounded by unclear land-use laws enforced by local administrators. That is why the Darfur rebel movements have attached particular importance to the land issue. In the Darfur crisis, as in many other crisis situations, the underlying conflict is also a struggle for raw materials, in this case oil. South Darfur (and all of South Sudan) is rich in oil. As the author notes, at the beginning of the Darfur conflict, the country had oil reserves close to the reserves of Saudi Arabia, huge reserves of natural gas, uranium and copper (p. 68). The presence of oil in Darfur and the struggle for potential revenues from it between the central Government and the tribes living in the field areas can be attributed to the causes of the conflict.

S. V. Kostelyanets also examines such destructive phenomena that predetermined the aggravation of the political situation in the region, as the socio-economic marginalization of the country's peripheral regions, including Darfur, the exclusion of its leaders from the process of making responsible decisions at the state level, and the selective support of some tribal militias by the government against others. "The situation was similar under both authoritarian and parliamentary regimes: in both cases, the provincial elites remained virtually excluded from both electoral processes and participation in the process of making responsible decisions" (p.89). That is why one of the main demands of the rebel leaders was to ensure proportional representation of the region in the central authorities.

Special attention is paid to the role of the Islamic factor and the process of spreading political Islam in Darfur (pp. 93-101). The author also pays attention to the regional aspects of the conflict, and in particular the role played by the neighboring countries of Sudan, Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic.

The course and drivers of the Darfur conflict is the subject of the second chapter of this book. The author consistently refutes the popular version of the Darfur conflict as a conflict between Arabs and non - Arabs (Africans), showing that even in the colonial period, new Sudanese identities were formed, sometimes in the form of re-and re-identification of entire peoples by conducting a census, rewriting history and creating appropriate legislation. The British artificially divided Sudan according to the tribal principle, arbitrarily dividing the country's inhabitants into " tribal groups "and" races", and tribal affiliation was determined by a person's employment. Numerous mixed marriages also contributed to the erosion of intertribal and inter-racial boundaries. In addition, the majority of Darfurians speak Arabic and almost 100% of the region's inhabitants are Muslim, which excludes confrontation on religious grounds. The perception of the conflict as an inter-racial one only helps the Government perpetuate the myth that the Janjaweed Arab militias are solely responsible for the massacres and hide the fact that the Government is arming them.

The book's unquestionable merits include a thorough study of the nature of the driving forces of the conflict-the rebel movements and the Janjaweed tribal militias, which are famous for their brutality. The author points out that in the media, UN documents, and scientific studies, "Janjaweed" is usually understood as fighters of Arab militias who participated in armed clashes with the rebels and in raids on the lands of Iran-

non-Arab tribes during the main phase of the Darfur conflict from 2003 to 2010. Meanwhile, the Janjaweed movement has a long history, and its organization was supported by armed groups that emerged during the civil wars between 1962 and 1991 in neighboring Chad. Moreover, most of the local conflicts in Darfur that have been observed in the past few decades have been related in one way or another to the presence in the region of Chadian oppositionists who opposed the central governments of their country, joined the tribal militias in Darfur and formed a significant part of the Janjaweed, which later became identified with armed groups that initially did not related items. Of particular interest are the portraits of Janjaweed leaders, as well as the rebel movements that opposed it (Abd Wahid al-Nur, Minawi, etc.), which demonstrate, for example, the transformation of a school teacher or lawyer into a "war baron" (p. 168-195).

To the author's credit, the last section of the second chapter is devoted to the little - studied period of the conflict after the signing of the Darfur Agreement (2006-2013) and the behavior of rebel movements and their leaders during the period under review.

A significant part of the book is the third chapter, which contains an analysis of all the twists and turns of the negotiation process to end the conflict in Darfur, as well as the AU and UN peacekeeping efforts to resolve the conflict. As shown in the first section of the third chapter, a number of attempts to resolve the Darfur conflict through negotiations resulted in the signing of several agreements, none of which resulted in an end to armed clashes and violence against civilians (p.222). The author concludes that with the region flooded with weapons, unresolved land and other issues, the inability of the government to control the situation in the periphery, and the intervention of third forces, achieving peace at the negotiating table was doomed to failure from the very beginning. The negotiation process itself had significant drawbacks that made it ineffective. The negotiations took place at a time when both sides still believed that they could protect their interests on the battlefield, whereas the most convenient situation is when all parties or at least one of them has reached an impasse, without having the strength and means to continue the struggle (p.239).

The author focuses on the role of mediators in the February 2009 Doha peace talks. While he sees the February agreement as a success, he also notes that it has not led to an improvement in the situation in the region. Although the Qatari mediators were able to achieve some success in resolving the conflict, the way they used to attract the rebels to the negotiation process (bribing and providing material assistance to the movements) indicated that they were not trying to solve the problems of the region, but to extinguish the conflict at this stage, to achieve a temporary truce and to raise Qatar's status in the Arab world (p. 263).. The subsequent negotiation process and agreements signed with the participation of third parties did not lead to peace in Darfur.

The second section of the third chapter focuses on international peacekeeping in Darfur. The AU-AMIS peacekeeping mission was launched in 2004. However, as the author notes, the mission's tasks-protection of civilians, protection of displaced persons and refugee camps, monitoring the implementation by the parties of the points of the previously signed ceasefire agreement-were not implemented due to the lack of conditions for the operation: no map was drawn up of the areas controlled by the armed forces of the parties, no directions for the redeployment of which made it almost impossible to track the cease-fire, etc. In addition, the peacekeepers suffered from a lack of funds, food and equipment. The mission's mandate was also too narrow. As a result, in the spring of 2005, it was decided to replace AMIS with a UN mission, which happened in early 2007, and in June a hybrid AU - UN-UNAMID mission was deployed in the region, which led to a slight decrease in the level of violence in the region, but in general also did not achieve much success, as armed clashes continue to this day.

The author dwells in detail on the reaction of the international community to the conflict in Darfur and on the actions taken by the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, China, African and Arab countries, as well as Russia to resolve it.

The United States, as the author rightly notes, shaped its Sudanese policy depending on the nature of the Sudanese regime, the possibility of using it for its own interests, the degree of its "Islamism" or friendliness to the West. At the same time, the author comes to the conclusion that in

Over the years, the United States has supported one side or the other of the conflict in the constant confrontation of the Sudanese Government with the regional opposition and rebel movements. As a result, the United States and Sudan have established relations that are unique from the point of view of the theory and practice of international contacts, which can be described as dual, in some aspects - "friendly", in others - "hostile", and these categories do not move in time space, pushing out and replacing each other, but" peacefully " co-exist in the future. at the same time (pp. 295-296).

Describing the positions of Russia and China in relation to the Darfur conflict, S. V. Kostelyanets notes that during the entire crisis, the Russian-Chinese alliance was quite successful in protecting the strategic interests of the two countries, which oppose any tough decisions of the Security Council regarding Khartoum. Russia has provided support to Sudan not only through diplomatic but also through military channels. Russia has repeatedly stressed its commitment to providing humanitarian assistance and has helped to alleviate the situation of the population of Darfur by providing food (p. 330). Thus, Russia supplied large quantities of rice and wheat to the region, and welcomed the agreement reached between the UN and the Government of Sudan on simplifying the work of humanitarian organizations. For its part, China, like Russia, has also consistently rejected the use of harsh measures against Khartoum (for example, the imposition of sanctions); the country's leadership has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to ending violence in Darfur (pp. 333-334).

In conclusion, the author suggests considering the Darfur conflict as "long-term" in terms of time and" regional " in terms of spatial parameters. A peer-reviewed book is unique in its own way, as it provides complete, almost exhaustive information on the problem being studied in it. It will certainly be useful for scholars of Oriental studies, conflict studies, political and international studies, as well as politicians involved in the prevention and resolution of international conflicts.

list of literature

Kostelyanets S. V. Conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan: a regional aspect // East (Oriens). 2015. N 1.

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