For years, Mohammed Ali has been hearing relatives and friends tell how government-backed militiamen torched villages in his native Darfur, raped women and shot fleeing civilians. The painful past and present have become a way of life for Ali and his tribe, so much so that the news that the president of Sudan has been indicted on genocide charges seems to leave him cold.

"I just want to see peace in Darfur. Nothing else," said Ali, a father of eight who came from Darfur to live in the capital, Khartoum, as a child.

The 55-year-old laborer is not unique in his indifference to the International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision Monday to seek the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir on genocide charges. There was no spontaneous outpouring of support for the country's ruler of 19 years. The only protests and rallies so far have been those organized by his ruling party and other loyalist groups.

Ali's Fur tribe (Darfur means "House of the Fur") is one of three named in the indictment as being targets of the violence. But what is happening in the western territory of Sudan is just one chapter in the civil wars that have raged in this country for generations.

Despair runs deep. Poverty, famine, drought and refugee crises are a fixture of life, and many fail to see how an international indictment against their longtime president will change things.

The causes of Sudan's conflicts lie largely in its geography. Nearly four times bigger than Texas, seven times the size of Germany, Sudan straddles the Saharan Arab north and African south. The south and west feel marginalized and discriminated against. The government, based in the north, fears any concession toward regional autonomy will usher in the breakup of the country.

The latest chapter of Darfur's agony blew up in 2003 with an armed rebellion by ethnic Africans. Arab militia fighters called janjaweed and backed by the government responded by wiping out entire villages. The U.N. says up to 300,000 people have died and 2.5 million made homeless.

The 10 charges filed by Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accused al-Bashir of masterminding the Darfur campaign. Moreno-Ocampo, based at The Hague, Netherlands, said survivors are preyed upon by janjaweed and army troops.

The Sudanese government has denied unleashing the janjaweed and has condemned the indictment as a political stunt.

On Saturday, the chairman of an emergency Arab League meeting said the decision to charge al-Bashir set a dangerous precedent with regional ramifications.

"The indictment is a dangerous precedent in dealing with heads of state. It will have dangerous repercussions, not only on Sudan but on the whole region," said Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssef, who is chairing the meeting convened by the 22-member body to discuss the charges.

Only three Arab league states recognize the court - Jordan, Djibouti and Comoros.

In Suday, people like Ali may be indifferent, but some autonomy-seeking groups say the indictment gives the country of 38 million a sliver of hope.

"This may be the time for finding a quick and just settlement in Darfur and establishing a new national understanding," said Yasser Arman. He is the spokesman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the main political group in southern Sudan and al-Bashir's partner in government following a peace treaty signed in 2005.

The peace deal in the south, after a 22-year civil war, suggests that not all Sudan's ethnic conflicts are beyond resolution.

But analysts say that a broader peace will only come when Sudan rises above tribal and regional interests and embraces a sense of nationhood that transcends the exclusively Arab and Muslim ethos long promoted by Sudan's leaders.

"The north-south conflict and now Darfur are symptoms of a much larger and enduring crisis of governance and identity," said Jennifer Cooke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "And until those problems are fixed, conflict will be the norm."

Al-Bashir's Islamist regime has shown little tolerance for political dissent, let alone rebellion. He has executed army officers accused of plotting against him. He ordered the arrest of his own former spiritual mentor, veteran Islamist Hassan al-Turabi, and exploited ancient tribal disputes over pasture and water to make allies against rebels.

Before coming to power, he served at least one combat tour in the south in a war characterized by brutality on both sides which has only deepened the ethnic rifts and the resentment of a central government perceived as uncaring.

"You only have to travel 10 kilometers (six miles) outside Khartoum to find people who speak about being marginalized by the government," said human rights activist Mudawi Ibrahim.

The divide is felt in the language and in everyday life. Interracial marriages are rare. In the Arabic spoken in Sudan, southerners, who are mainly Christian or animist, are called by some "abed," meaning "slave." Darfur people are "zurq," or "blue," a derogatory word that alludes to their deep-black skin.

A northern Sudanese is casually referred in the south as "galabah," or "one who brings." The word was coined to refer to visiting Arab merchants but later took on a derogatory overtone.



Written By HAMZA HENDAWI