Darfur's complexities

NYT.

The complex and shifting role of Arab tribes in both Sudan and Chad underscores how difficult it will be to secure a political solution to the four-year-old crisis that has sent 2.3 million people fleeing their homes, killed at least 200,000 — some say as many as 400,000 — and set off a broad conflict in one of the most unstable parts of the world.

The main perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities have been government-sponsored Arab militias that have come to be known by a local epithet for bandits, janjaweed.