Justice Africa Sudan can be found at Street 55, Amarat, Khartoum, Sudan.

1.    The NCP-SPLM partnership for the CPA stands at a critical juncture. The NCP sees the 2009 elections as its route to internal and international legitimacy and is hoping that problems with the census and elections can be pinned on others (the SPLM, the Darfurians). Both parties have failed to find a compromise to the Abyei situation.

2.    The NCP strategy for the elections is to organize politically in the central regions of the North, expecting to use its money and organization to win on the basis of pre-election agreements with other Northern parties, and to utilize security methods to control elections in the peripheral areas including Darfur and the South, where necessary postponing the elections altogether. The Northern parties are distrustful of both NCP and SPLM. The SPLM faces the challenge of organizing its own electoral strategy for the North.

3.    The economic crisis of the last nine months is a major headache for the NCP. Economic hardship undermines the NCP’s popularity among its constituents and creates difficulties for its patronage-based mechanism for controlling the country. The NCP has moved to consolidate central control of state finances.

4.    The SPLM Convention scheduled for May will be a pivotal event for the future of the movement. The majority of the organizing committee is members of the pro-unity bloc and it is possible that they will use the occasion to push for the SPLM to embrace unity, which would involve sidelining those leaders who support separation.

5.    The Darfur conflict is currently intractable with the parties pursuing military options. The GoS sees Chad and JEM as its major military adversary and is mounting offensives in Darfur and supporting the Chadian rebels for another offensive against N’djamena. Idriss Deby is fighting for his political life and has no interest in negotiations except as a tactical measure to buy regional and international support. Darfur cannot credibly become part of the national democratization process.    The international mediation has exhausted its options.

6.    UNAMID is in an impossible situation. It is entrapped in the war on the ground in Darfur and Chad and the war of words between Khartoum and western capitals. While these two conflicts continue, UNAMID will remain a vulnerable hostage, draining international resources for very meagre benefit. A salvage plan for UNAMID would begin with making its existing ten battalions properly operational.

<strong>NCP-SPLM Relations</strong>

7.    Following the September 2007 withdrawal of the SPLM from the GoNU, relations between the NCP and SPLM descended to an all-time low. The SPLM played its hand tough to the point of intimating that a new war was a possibility. The response of the NCP has been to seek to marginalize the SPLM in Northern politics while keeping its options open for cooperation or competition in the South.

8.    Abyei was the flashpoint for the breakdown of the relationship. Both sides are playing for the maximum outcome in Abyei: the NCP wants the oil and the support of the Misiriya (the latter is not a foregone conclusion); while the SPLM wants the whole territory and was actively recruiting Arabs to its ranks, notably into the Debab forces. The confrontation brought the sides to reciprocal military mobilization which could have led to armed conflict.

9.    Salva Kiir insists that dialogue is the only way ahead and has tacitly offering a similar joint interim administration to that which was tabled last year. But the two parties have been unable to avoid a confrontational posture. Edward Lino has taken the position as chief executive (governor) of Abyei, appointed SPLM ministers and has invited the NCP to appoint ministers. The NCP has rejected this as a violation of the CPA and has dispatched forces..

10.    Trust has not been restored to the NCP-SPLM relationship. The two parties are planning in parallel for an election in which they do not expect to present a common platform. Each continues to acquire arms. The NCP maintains its security presence in key areas of the South such as the oilfields and uses its relatively small political presence as an effective base for political organization. The SPLM is importing major new weapons systems (such as 300 T72 tanks, which it will be a challenge to use effectively) and is seeking alliances with groups in Kordofan and Darfur.

<strong>The Electoral Calculus: The Centre</strong>

11.    The NCP enjoys only minority support and would be reduced to one party among many in a free and fair election. But its preference is to contest and win elections and gain the legitimacy that will follow. Internationally, it will make the case that its elections are at minimum no less free and fair than those in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. It is using its money, organizational capacity and control of the state to position itself at the centre of an exercise in limited democracy. Those running the election for the NCP do not believe in democracy for its own sake—they believe in elections as a route to legitimacy. And most of the Northern opposition recognize that there must be soft landing for the NCP—it must remain the major stakeholder in power—if there is to be any prospect for stability. The Iraq invasion has given incumbency a good name.

12.    The elections bill is mostly agreed but still awaits decisions on remaining issues, notably the proportion of seats in the National Assembly to be chosen on a constituency basis and the number on proportional representation. This question has been referred to the Presidency for a final decision. The civilian opposition prefers a slant towards proportional representation and away from geographic constituencies on the basis that PR is less amenable to manipulation by an incumbent with resources.

13.    In the central areas of the north we can expect an election contested relatively fairly. In the historic triangle between Port Sudan, el Obeid and Sennar, including the main cities of the north and east, the Gezira and Gedaref, and the Nile from Kosti to Wadi Halfa, the NCP will spend money on infrastructure and services, seek support from local powerbrokers, and allow a fair election to proceed. (A memo two years ago written by the former finance minister Abdel Rahim Hamdi revealed that the NCP considered these the essential parts of Sudan.) All Sudanese know the broad outlines of electoral outcomes in these areas and would not accept blatant rigging. Hence the NCP strategy is to deal with this area through civil politics.

14.    The NCP is talking to each of its main rivals in the North. The aims are to diversify its political options in advance of the 2009 elections and to position itself as the champion of national unity. Even if a formal coalition is impossible then the NCP will seek common positions on key issues. Northern Sudanese politics is reverting to form. In the past it has always been coalition politics and it is becoming so again. No party can realistically expect to win a plurality of the votes. The opportunities for political bargaining are multiplied by the complexity of the election: voters will be selecting the President, the National Assembly, State governors, and members of state assemblies. (There are also locality elections due and in the South there are further levels: the President of South Sudan and the Southern Assembly.)

15.    The Umma Party leader Sadiq al Mahdi has taken the principled position that he will not accept a position in any government that is not elected. He is strongly disavowing any deal-making with the NCP and has nothing to gain from joining the GoNU at this point. But he has stated that he and Bashir have agreed on eighty percent of the issues that divide them. He is calling for a national convention that will not roll back any of the gains made by the South in the CPA—that is, a form of intra-Northern dialogue.

16.    The DUP and NCP share much of the same core constituency in the riverain areas of central north Sudan. The DUP has the potential to offer itself as a secular alternative to the NCP and a unifying force across northern Sudan. However it suffers from internal splits. The unifying factor is loyalty to the exiled leadership led by Mawlana Mohamed Osman al Mirghani. However, al Mirghani’s leadership has lacked energy and he remains preoccupied with the question of compensation for his family property which was seized by the government after the 1989 coup. The DUP is unable to capitalize on the unpopularity of the NCP. Prominent DUP members who have maintained their opposition credentials throughout the last 19 years are beginning to waver and declare that they would consider dealing with the NCP.

17.    The NCP is also talking to the PCP. The elections pose a sharp dilemma for the PCP leadership: should it boycott and face the prospect of being marginalized, or contest and then face the need to cut electoral deals? The PCP has suffered from defections to the NCP and the option of a common front with the Umma Party against the NCP is ruled out because Sadiq is committed to contesting the elections. Hassan al Turabi may find himself isolated if he continues to pursue his existing line, as mercurial as ever. It is notable that Turabi and Khalil Ibrahim of JEM have been speaking in very similar terms about self-determination for the regions of the North.

18.    The SPLM possesses a wide reservoir of popular support across Northern Sudan, chiefly on account of its credentials as the voice of opposition to successive governments. The extraordinary turnout for John Garang’s return to Khartoum in July 2005 is testament to this. SPLM leaders in the North are confident that Sudanese will vote with their hearts, that it will gain the support of many in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Darfur and that many northern Arabs will vote for the SPLM confident that it is the best chance for unity. Some SPLM leaders argue that the movement should put forward a Muslim Northerner as a presidential candidate. However the SPLM faces a challenge in creating an effective electoral organization in the North. The NCP calculation is that after the elections the SPLM will be one coalition partner among many in the North.

<strong>The Electoral Calculus: The South</strong>

19.    The NCP’s strategy for the peripheries is based on security management. In the South, Darfur, many parts of Kordofan and some parts of the east, the NCP neither expects nor is likely to permit free and fair elections. Its expectation is that the census and voters roll will be inaccurate, both for technical and political reasons, and that voting will follow local patterns of coercion and bribery. It would be content with no elections in many peripheral constituencies and could readily engineer the pretext for elections to be postponed. (Though it would much prefer for the SPLM to be the one that asks for a postponement.) All previous Sudanese national elections have been incomplete. In the past, Southern constituencies affected by war have simply not returned members to parliament. In 2009 it is more likely that representatives for any voided electoral seats would be appointed by the NCP and SPLM on the basis of CPA-based calculations.

20.    The SPLM has tended to take its electoral support for granted and counts on established loyalties. It is possible that conditions will not be conducive for free and fair elections in the South. Salva Kiir has convened a forum for Southern leadership that includes non-SPLM figures which is an important step.

21.    The technical demands for conducting an election in the South and the three areas are immense and as the timetable for the census has slipped, the realistic prospects of compiling the electoral roll and defining constituencies in time for elections before the rainy season of 2009 are dimming. (In the central areas of the North, the existing civil register can be used as the basis for voting and constituencies.) There is controversy over the census forms. The SPLM accuses the NCP of omitting some of the questions demanded by the SPLM, such as religious affiliation. The NCP points out that SPLM participated in the census committee and did not object to the decision.

22.    Southerners displaced to the North are entitled to vote if they return to the South. It is inconceivable that the economic conditions necessary for several million Southerners to return South will be in place before the census. The likely outcome is that these people will be disenfranchised. For the NCP, this means that the largest potential bloc of SPLM voters in the North, especially the cities, will be removed from the voters’ roll, reducing the size of the opposition vote. For the South, it means that a large constituency of Southerners who residing in the North, and thus may be susceptible to interference from the NCP, will not be able to vote in the referendum.

23.    The true size of the Southern population could become a contentious issue. The CPA arbitrarily defined one third of Sudan as the South. The SPLM argued that Southerners were under-counted in the previous censuses of 1983 and 1993. This is correct. But twenty years of war took a huge demographic toll. One 1998 calculation (by Millard Burr and Robert Collins for the US Committee for Refugees) estimated that there were 1.9 million people missing, attributable to excess mortality and reduced fertility. If an accurate census were to reduce the figure for Southerners, this would automatically reduce their representation in a post-2009 National Assembly and central government. The NCP is unworried by this and sees it as a change for political arm-twisting. However, this could rebound. The Southerners may accept a reduced presence in the National Assembly, trading allegations that the count was rigged, and use this as an additional rationale for separatism. The federal system provides safeguards that minimize the significance of the demographic size of each state. Also, the referendum law is due to be passed by the current National Assembly, so that the Southerners’ priority issue will already have been dealt with before the election.

<strong>The Electoral Calculus: Darfur</strong>

24.    Darfur is a headache for all the major parties. All would be ready to proceed with national elections irrespective of Darfurian participation, but none wants to be the one who suggests suspending the elections there. Most expect that Darfur will become a liability for the national elections, especially fearing that violence or disputed outcomes will damage the credibility of the national elections. The mainstream Northern parties are tempted to treat Darfur in the same way that Northern Ireland was treated by the mainstream British political parties for decades—as an irritant that should not become a partisan electoral issue (thereby disenfranchising the electors in the province). But at present there is no way of insulating Darfur’s problems from the national electoral process.

25.    Among Darfurians, the majority view appears to be that participation in either the census or the election would be a mistake. IDPs fear that they will be either disenfranchised or lose the right to return home, and that recent west African immigrants will be enfranchised in their place. Some Darfurian leaders in the NCP have expressed opposition to the election. The opportunity of presenting the elections as a mechanism for liberation through democracy has been missed. It is now too late to alter Darfurian popular opinion on this issue, which means that any elections in Darfur will be severely compromised. Failed elections in Darfur and the consequent missed deadline for the 2010 referendum on the status of Darfur will have severe implications for the remaining credibility of the DPA.

<strong>The Economy</strong>

26.    Sudan’s economic performance is the GoS’s Achilles’ heel. The diversified management of national finances was merely a management problem when the economy was growing, because the central financiers could satisfy the major claimants within the government, NCP and security simply by delaying paying the non-priority demands until sufficient funds were available—which was usually quite soon. Since the economy hit a downturn in the middle of 2007, economic and financial management has turned into political crisis. Claims on the central funds include security’s requirements for its operations in Darfur, Chad and the wider region, and the NCP’s demands for its election campaign. The government put a freeze on recruitment and promotion and stopped salary increases. (Inflation is officially 15%.) The Minister of Finance, Zubeir Ahmed Hassan, was a technocrat who did not have the power to rein in the spending of the various claimants on his funds. He offended the NCP bosses by asking for them to account for the money he provided to them. His ability to increase revenue from income tax and corporation tax was very limited (most of those who should pay these taxes find ways not to do so) and he had no control over oil funds. Zubeir tried to raise VAT from 12% to 16% but was faced with a revolt by the National Assembly. The budget was eventually passed. Nonetheless a substantial budget deficit is forecast for this year and the government has been forced to borrow. Deficit financing is likely to fuel inflation.

27.    In response, President Bashir switched Awad al Jaz from the Ministry of Energy to the Ministry of Finance (while Zubeir Ahmed Hassan moved in the opposite direction). Some SPLM members’ immediate reaction was joy that a man they feared had been removed from control over oil. However, the petroleum finances moved with Awad al Jaz. For the first time, a true political heavyweight is now Minister of Finance. Not only is there a new minister, but many of the senior staff at the ministry such as the permanent secretary have changed. Instead of the technocratic administration that existed until now the ministry more resembles a security office. Al Jaz made a quick move to court popularity by reducing the price of wheat bread, the urban staple. (No similar move was made for sorghum, the staple of rural areas and the poor.)

28.    The immediate outcome of al Jaz’s move is that the GoS can prioritise its spending more effectively than before, ensuring that the NCP’s campaign chest and the security services have the resources they need. This also gives President Bashir the opportunity to centralize government finances to an unprecedented degree and inject some discipline into what has been a financial free-for-all. Two questions arise. The first is, will al Jaz have authority over the companies controlled by the security agencies, which control a large part of the market in consumer commodities (some estimates are 40% of the market)? If Bashir and al Jaz are able to centralize this financial control, a second question arises: to what end will this discipline be utilized? It seems very likely that the immediate outcome will be using funds to swing the election. After the election, will the possibilities for coherent financial and economic policymaking be utilized for national benefit?

29.    Sanctions and divestment are biting, with the attempted shift from trading in US dollars to Euros less than successful. The oil industry is sorely in need of technical upgrading that will allow it to refine the low quality oil that is being pumped. The government’s recent solvency has also meant that creditors who would otherwise have written off Sudan’s debts are showing greater interest.

<strong>The SPLM</strong>

30.    Two months away from its landmark National Convention, the SPLM is searching for its national political strategy. Its official position and default position is holding fast to the strict implementation of the CPA as its manifesto. This is a safe approach that wins it international support and allows it to remain a partner in the GoNU while criticizing the NCP. However the SPLM is poised for a major debate on its approach to the fundamental national issues and for what to do should it win an election.

31.    The fundamental question of national unity or secession is still open for debate. Salva Kiir faces the need to make decisions on this in the coming months, which also entails a decision on the balance between Southern and national politics. The organizing committee for the National Convention is in the hands of the unionists within the SPLM. Their critics allege that their handling of the preparation for the meeting has lacked transparency, arousing suspicions that the different tendencies within the movement will not be able to resolve their differences in an amicable manner.

32.    The SPLM leadership still needs to build its capacity to handle its twin roles of leading the South and playing a national role. The GoSS faces many problems of corruption and failure to deliver services.

<strong>The Darfur War</strong>

33.    The NCP’s overall framework for Darfur is the following. It holds that it would have won the war militarily and imposed a political solution, had it not been for international interference and the role of Chad in supporting the rebels, in concert with Libya and Eritrea. It sees Chad as a direct sovereign threat and also as the staging post for European/NATO aggression. It is unworried by the SLA but concerned by JEM because of its political links in Khartoum.

34.    The NCP strategy for the regional forces is to remove the government in N’djamena and neutralize or contain the threats posed by Libya and Eritrea. For the SPLM, it wants to neutralize what it sees as an attempt to bring Darfurian armed movements into a grant military alliance of the Sudanese peripheries against the centre.

35.    Regarding the SLA, the NCP approach is to buy the splinters off one by one, as cheaply as possible. Concerning JEM, the calculation is that Khalil Ibrahim can only survive with the support of two of his three current patrons, namely the Islamists, Chad and Libya. If the NCP succeeds in neutralizing the Khartoum Islamists through its talks with the PCP and overthrowing Idriss Deby, then JEM will not be a threat.

36.    The last few months have seen a sharp uptick in violence in the northern part of West Darfur, as the GoS has waged a counteroffensive with combined air support and militia against JEM. This has both clear military objectives and significant civilian casualties. Even if it were at full strength, UNAMID would be unable to do more than watch.

37.    The Arab militia headed by Mohamed Hamdan Hemeti, which mutinied in October last year, is back in the GoS fold. Hemeti double-crossed the GoS after receiving a vast shipment of armaments and took his militia to Jebel Marra where he signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the SLA-Abdel Wahid. He fought against the GoS and his brother was killed in the fighting. But having jumped out of the GoS orbit, he found nowhere to land—Abdel Wahid was unreliable and there was no opening from the international community. Hemeti continued to talk to the GoS and at the end of February signed an agreement with Khartoum, in which the GoS gave him (on paper) most of what he wanted—positions in the army, payments for his men, posts in local government. However, the relationship is now very different as neither side trusts the other. Hemeti says he expects the GoS to deliver on less than half of its promises. The GoS no longer expects Hemeti to act as its loyal proxy.

38.    Anwar Khatir, a Mahamid Arab leader who had never served as a GoS proxy, is another who recently signed a deal with Khartoum. He also found the rebels so disorganized that they were unable to provide a sensible alliance partner. Within the government orbit he is seeking to chart an independent line.

<strong>Chad</strong>

39.    The wars in Darfur and Chad are one and the same to the protagonists. The GoS and the Chadian government fight on both sides of the border. So too do the Darfur rebels and (to a lesser extent) the Chad rebels. Only the international community respects the border. There can be no peace or stability in Chad without the same in Darfur and vice versa. The very fact that the international peacemaking and peacemaking efforts have been divided up in the way that they have, at the insistence of the two governments, is an indication that they do not want peace yet—or at least they do not want peace on international terms. Much fighting remains to be done, sadly.

40.    The GoS intent to remove the government in Chad has been clear since 2005. The timing of the February assault was determined in part by the imminent deployment of EUFOR. The rebels’ failure to capture the city was due in part to their lack of internal coordination and trust, and in part to the failure of the GoS to provide them with anti-tank and anti-helicopter weapons. One may assume that the reason for Khartoum’s apparent oversight is the tendency of weaponry to change hands and end up being used against its original supplier. France and Chad have revived the allegation that Khartoum has an agenda of Arabizing Chad. This is not convincing. The struggle is solely for power.

41.    Deby’s defence of N’djamena was conducted by an unlikely assortment of forces, including Sara and Hadjerai militia, JEM and SLA-Unity fighters, and French special forces, which played a greater role than Paris officially admits. Nonetheless, France’s position is well short of unconditional support for Deby. France offered to evacuate Deby, who refused, saying he would prefer to die fighting in N’djamena to following the path of his predecessor Hissene Habre. France and Deby played a game of brinkmanship which Deby won. Once Deby had called France’s bluff, France had no other policy than to support him.

42.    Deby has succeeded in tactically outmanoevering his allies and adversaries. By politically eliminating the civilian opposition he has left the international community (i.e. France) the choice between him and the Khartoum-backed rebels. Knowing that supporting GoS proxies is a political impossibility, Deby was a sure winner. But once EUFOR is fully operational, French calculations may change.

43.    The Dakar agreement was signed by the governments of Sudan and Chad in the full knowledge that it is wholly ineffective and both of them will violate it at the first opportunity. It was signed out of deference to Senegal and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. This is another indication that mediation efforts have become part of the parties’ strategy for sustaining the war, rather than purely impartial interventions.

44.    Deby is weaker than ever before. He has lost crucial kinsmen and allies, who were killed or defected (or executed when they rejoined his side). Popular sentiment is against Deby to the extent that any change is welcome. The role of the Darfur rebels in policing N’djamena on behalf of Idriss Deby is not winning them friends among the Chadian populace. The unreported razing of large areas of N’djamena has intensified hostility against the president. It is remarkable that Deby is so little liked that large sections of his own populace would prefer GoS-backed armed factions as their rulers. The warning signs are flashing for another battle for Chad.

45.    The credibility of French and European policy in Africa has been seriously damaged by the battle for N’djamena and the perception that France is cynically reprising its neocolonial role. The belief that France made a trade off with Chad over the Zoe’s Arc kidnapping scandal does not help. Chadian popular opinion is deeply anti-French. Most seriously, France and Deby have put EUFOR in an impossible situation in which it has no political mandate and no formal mechanism for liaising with the rebels. This could prove a disabling handicap.

<strong>Prospects for the Darfur Mediation</strong>

46.    The likelihood of the international mediation for the Darfur conflict making significant progress in the coming months is close to zero. The mediation possesses neither strategy nor leverage to bring the parties closer to an agreement, and has identified its overriding objective as restarting talks. International efforts to bring peace to Darfur are exhausted, throwing the onus of action back onto the Sudanese. The most important characteristic for the next chief mediator for the Darfur conflict will be the readiness to spend long periods listening to people in Darfur and the ability to translate those views into a peace process appropriate to today’s constrained realities.

47.    The NCP and JEM are ready to discuss power-sharing on a bilateral basis without international involvement. To the extent that UN-AU mediated peace talks occur, they are likely to be a façade behind which the parties pursue other interests and options. If the most important political issues are in fact dealt with in another forum, then the UN-AU mediation needs to consider which issues it should focus upon, and how.

48.    Khartoum will continue to attend peace talks because it wants to show a respectable face to the international community and because it is confident that the armed movements will either fail to turn up, or should they turn up, fail to put together a coherent negotiating strategy. In the meantime it will pursue its military options in Chad and Darfur. The GoS has nothing to lose from the mediation because it expects nothing from it. The UN-AU mediators possess no leverage which might compel Khartoum to alter its strategy.

49.    The rebels’ main interest in the mediation is the legitimacy it confers and the possibility of obtaining resources independent of the GoS and Chad. Insofar as they see other regional or international sponsors with more capability, they have little interest in the mediation. And insofar as they are seeking recognition from the mediation, their interest may in fact be in sustaining the status quo rather than reaching a peace deal that would require them to deal with Khartoum directly. By this process, a high-profile mediator may be sucked into the conflict and become a factor helping prolong the conflict rather than ushering it to a conclusion.

50.    The divisions among Darfur’s elites should not be the occasion for dividing the communities of Darfur or leaving them hostage to these political gyrations. For this reason the mediation should encourage parallel processes at community level and among civil society to achieve consensus on the core substantive issues facing Darfur. The Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation seeking common ground among Darfurians is a promising process that should be facilitated. Its outcomes will bear fruit at such time that a genuine peace process can once again begin.

<strong>Prospects for UNAMID</strong>

51.    UNAMID has been asked to perform mission impossible. Despite its Chapter VII mandate it is in reality a classic peacekeeping operation with a few additional protection elements added to its task list. It is deployed in the middle of an ongoing war, without a ceasefire or a functional mechanism for dealing with most of the belligerent groups, and with a mismatched counterpart in Chad that has no mechanism for dealing with the Chadian rebels. It is deployed in the middle of a political battle between Khartoum and three of the P5, in which Sudan suspects that UNAMID is the vanguard for a hostile deployment. GoS opposition to any troop contingents that might fall under NATO command is logical in this context. The rebels hope that UNAMID will ultimately deliver something akin to Kosovo, as certain U.S. politicians and columnists have advocated. Disinterest in peace and escalation of conflict are logical in this context.

52.    The immediate obstacles for UNAMID are the logistical difficulties it faces in operating effectively. It is underperforming AMIS. Its best option at present is to concentrate on the existing ten battalions and make them properly functional, with adequate base facilities and transport, rather than trying to expand its size. The GoS is extending just sufficient cooperation for the major onus of responsibility for non-performance to fall on the international donors.

53.    The greatest risk for UNAMID is that the war of words between Washington DC and Khartoum will escalate, to the extent that the GoS sees a rationale for taking pre-emptive action in advance of possible military strikes. Thus far UNAMID has been fortunate in that neither side has chosen to endanger it militarily. The best case scenario is that UNAMID will survive this year undamaged.

<strong>Next Steps</strong>

54.    International options for making progress on Sudan are severely constrained. The Darfur policy is essentially at a dead end. International peacemaking and protection efforts in Darfur are exhausted and the best opportunities for progress lie with recognition among ordinary Darfurians that this is the case, so that they take matters into their own hands. The central question before a new chief mediator for Darfur is how to identify and pursue a strategy for peacemaking that takes account of the improbability of any progress within a year or two, given the continuing unrealistic demands for progress coming from the UN Security Council and western capitals.

55.    International policy is rebalancing. However, there is little time to revive a useful policy on the CPA and elections, with time lost and leverage wasted. In this regard, a correct assessment of why the Naivasha talks succeeded and the Darfur engagement has failed, is necessary. Most importantly, no progress is likely while western political leaders tout offensive military action as a realistic option.

56.    Khartoum is clearly worried by the prospects of a Democratic administration in Washington DC, fearing that it would take a bellicose stand against the Sudan government. For this reason, the GoS welcomed the new U.S. Special Envoy, Ambassador Richard Williamson, on his recent visit to Khartoum. The GoS wants to put its relations with the U.S. and other western nations on a new footing. Many in the U.S., for their part, recognize that they need to do business with Khartoum. Williamson proposed a sequence of reciprocal steps that each could take. The main problem is that there is so much distrust on both sides that no leader in Khartoum or western capitals is ready to take the other’s commitment in good faith. All will wait for clear evidence that the other side has delivered before responding. The GoS will not abandon its bellicose posture towards Chad without firm guarantees that its interests can be protected. Khartoum continues to believe that there are individuals well-placed within the administration who advocate regime change. Given the difficulties of the GoS adopting and sticking to a single coherent policy, especially under these circumstances, it is inconceivable that the GoS could display sufficient good intentions within a six month period, for the U.S. administration to be satisfied and change policy before the Presidential elections.

57.    The greatest opportunities for international support and leverage lie with the SPLM, which looks to the international community, especially the U.S., for endorsement of its policies. The reflexive solidarity that America has extended to the SPLM has not always served the best interests of movement or the people of Southern Sudan. Much work still needs to be done if the SPLM is to form a capable administration of Southern Sudan and be an effective democratic force in the North.

Prospects for Peace in Darfur Today

April 19, 2007

A Statement by Alex de Waal, Program Director Social Science Research Council, Fellow of the Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University, and Director, Justice Africa

“Congressman Lantos, members of this Committee,

It is a pleasure to be invited here to testify at this hearing and to present some of my views and analysis on the situation in Darfur, a part of the world that I knew intimately in the 1980s, and whose travails I have followed closely since then.

I will focus my remarks on two major points. One is that Darfur today is different to the Darfur of 2003-04, when, on the tenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, the conscience of the world—and notably this House—was awoken to condemn the massacres, dispossession and rape as “genocide.” Many realities in Darfur have changed and we need an accurate appraisal and analysis of the situation if we are to take the right decisions. The crisis in Darfur has been characterized as “genocide,” as “war” and as “anarchy.” None of these descriptions does justice to the complexity of the situation and the changes in the political and military landscape, especially in the last year. I submit that in order for us to respond appropriately, it is important to recognize the realities- notably that Darfur today cannot be described as a conflict between Arabs and Africans.

My second point is that the essential test of any policy for Darfur— or indeed Sudan—is that it should work. “Ought” implies “can”: in framing our actions we should be aware of what can succeed.

In that regard, I draw upon my experience as a member of the AU mediation team in Abuja, when I was tasked with mediating a comprehensive ceasefire for Darfur and convening a task force to draw up an implementation plan for AU or UN forces. We must be aware of the considerable limitations on what international forces, such as are proposed under UN Security Council Resolution 1706, can achieve in Darfur. What they can do is to monitor and selectively enforce a ceasefire including demilitarization of displaced camps and humanitarian access routes. What they cannot do is to police Darfur, disarm the Janjaweed or provide protection to the majority of Darfurian civilians in the event of an eruption of major violence. The proposed UN troop deployment could notfulfill these latter tasks, even with a workable ceasefire, and certainly cannot undertake them in the middle of ongoing hostilities.

The current political alignment is not favorable for a rapid peace settlement for Darfur. Nonetheless, without the warring parties having confidence that there is progress towards such a settlement, the task of any international peacekeeping or protection force in Darfur will be infinitely harder. Our immediate aim should be a robust and monitorable ceasefire. In turn, a credible political peace process for Darfur requires putting Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement back on track, and restoring Sudanese confidence in that peace agreement. I urge the U.S. government to keep this primary aim clearly in focus.

My Personal Involvement in Darfur

I lived and worked in Darfur from 1985-87, when I conducted research for my PhD thesis. Of the villages and nomadic camps where I lived, three are completely destroyed—one of them occupied by Janjaweed—two are partly destroyed, one is a government garrison, and one a stronghold of the SLA, which was attacked and bombed by the government. Another—where I stayed as a guest of Sheikh Hilal Abdalla, father of Musa Hilal—is a camp for the Janjaweed. One day I hope to return to these places and document what has happened to the people I knew who lived in each of them.

During the 1990s, and during the period of the peace talks between the Sudan government and the SPLM during 2001-04, I focused much of my energy on the question of the marginalized peoples of northern Sudan including the Nuba, the Beja and the peoples of Blue Nile. International attention to the plight of the South tended to overlook these people, who on occasions were suffering from massacre, systematic rape and forced displacement every bit as horrendous as that inflicted on the people of Darfur during the peak of the counter-insurgency campaigns by government army and Janjaweed in 2003-04. I was concerned that the North South focus of the Naivasha peace talks would leave the marginalized peoples of northern Sudan politically short changed and vulnerable. I also followed Darfur and brought Darfurians into the various fora I helped organize, though their effective participation was always hampered by their internal divisions.

When Darfur erupted into large-scale violent conflict in 2003 I was saddened and angered, but not entirely surprised. The pattern of the violence in Darfur replicates in most respects the experience of other Sudanese peripheries. In an article I wrote in 2004, entitled “Counterinsurgency on the cheap,” I described the atrocities as “genocide by force of habit.” We can learn much about the conflict in Darfur by placing it in the context of the previous wars in Sudan and the sadly consistent methods used by the government of Sudan to pursue its war aims.

I spent much of 2005 and 2006 as an advisor to Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, the African Union’s chief mediator for the Darfur conflict, dealing with many of the places and some of the people I knew from my years in Darfur. My principal role in the peace talks was facilitating the negotiations on security issues. The main focus of this was working on a text of a comprehensive ceasefire and final status security arrangements—a text that was subsequently enhanced in certain details by the efforts of Deputy Secretary Robert B. Zoellick and his team on May 2-4, 2006. I am happy to say that all the three leaders of the Darfur armed movements judged the security arrangements section of the Darfur Peace Agreement acceptable at that time, with the sole objection coming from Dr. Khalil Ibrahim, President of the Justice and Equality Movement, who demanded that his troops be paid salaries from the government budget during the interim period.

My role also included overseeing an implementation task force, consisting of military officers from the UN and AU, who designed the ceasefire implementation modalities, a plan that in turn was the basis for the troop strengths and tasks envisioned in UN Security Council Resolution 1706, which calls for the dispatch of UN forces to Darfur. My final task in Abuja was to stay on when all the other members of the mediation team had left, in a last-ditch effort to persuade Abdel Wahid al Nur to join the peace agreement. I came close but did not succeed.

How to Describe Darfur Today?

Darfur’s nightmare continues. It is taking new forms. The violence today is different in both scale and nature to that of three years ago. Many fewer people are being killed than during the peak of atrocity in 2003-04, and many fewer are dying from hunger and disease. The humanitarian agencies have done a remarkably good job. The number of deaths should not be the sole or the overriding measure of the crime and tragedy in Darfur. Millions of people live in displaced camps, unable to return home. They live in fear. The legacy of the immense military campaigns of 2003-04 is that significant areas of Darfur have been ethnically cleansed of their former population. This crime cannot be allowed to stand: one basic measure of peace is that it entitles and empowers displaced people to return to their places of origin, to resume their lives under a local administrative system of their choice that provides them with physical and legal security, including tenure over their land.

Moreover, the capacity for renewed violence on a comparable scale has not diminished. Darfur is awash with weaponry. The army, paramilitaries, rebel groups and local selfdefense groups are all heavily armed. Decades of experience in Sudan tells us that war consists of occasional sweeping campaigns in which the army, air-force and paramilitaries destroy everything in their path, followed by longer periods in which the violence subsides somewhat, but the underlying causes of conflict remain unaddressed. Any new explosion of violence rarely follows the same pattern as the previous peak in killing- the location may be different (for example in urban areas or displaced camps, or across an international frontier), and the belligerents may be configured differently (some militia may switch sides to join the rebels, some rebel factions may cut deals with the government). New armed groups may emerge, perhaps among the angry and politicized groups of displaced people, or in neighboring regions of Sudan. These patterns are familiar from Sudan’s long-running wars and it would be unwise to assume that Darfur’s violence will not surge again and take on new forms.

I submit that we can no longer describe the conflict as “Arab” versus “African.” That was always an inadequate description, even during the height of the killing in 2003-04, when racial labels were particularly salient. The ethnic politics of Darfur are much more complicated now. Having armed numerous Arab militia, including the Janjaweed, the government no longer commands the loyalties of its erstwhile proxies. Army generals are fearful of the might of the Janjaweed, who in some locations are more numerous and better armed than the regular army. The generals know it is impossible to disarm the militia by force. Their greatest fear is that some of the Arab militia will desert the government for the rebels. This fear is not without foundation: many Darfurian Arabs are talking to the insurgents and making local pacts. In the other direction, one of the most unfortunate consequences of the Darfur Peace Agreement was the way in which some commanders of the SLA-Minawi, most of them ethnic Zaghawa, became government proxies, to the extent that local people called them “Janjaweed-2.”

There is no doubt that individual atrocities in Darfur continue to bear the hallmarks of ethnically-targeted genocidal massacre. But these atrocities do not follow any straightforward “Arab”-“African” dichotomy. One of my concerns about the use of the word “genocide” to describe these crimes is that it seems to imply that Darfur’s crisis consist of Arabs killing Africans. Such a depiction is inaccurate.

Many Darfurians characterize the situation as “anarchy.” That is correct insofar as the institutions and mechanisms that maintained law and order have broken down or been dismantled, and the government is failing in its basic obligation of providing security. It is accurate insofar as much of the violence witnessed in the last year is localized conflict (including clashes between Arab tribes), fighting among rebel groups, and banditry. Describing the situation as “war” does not do justice to the complexity of the conflict and the extent of multiplication of armed groups. But “anarchy” is also an incomplete description: it fails to capture the way in which the situation is manipulated by the strongest actor, the government of Sudan, which has co-opted many institutions for civil administration into its paramilitary structure.

What is clear is that Darfur’s crisis is complicated and has changed. Last year’s solutions can no longer work. Last year’s labels may no longer fit.

Prospects for Peace and Security

The prospects for peace in Darfur are not encouraging. The political alignment for peace was most favorable in the first half of 2005, when there was enthusiasm for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (just signed by Khartoum and the SPLM) and its promise of national democratic transformation. At that time, pro-peace figures in Khartoum such as vice president Ali Osman Taha were in the ascendant, the Darfur rebels had a semblance of political coordination, and Chad was still part of the solution, not part of the problem.

That favorable alignment slipped during late 2005 and early 2006, and by the time the Abuja peace talks reached their denouement, the political context was becoming less favorable week-by-week. Peace in Abuja was missed by a hair’s breadth, but that slender miss was disastrous. The adverse trend has continued over the subsequent eleven months.

I recall some tribal elders arriving at Abuja to encourage the rebels to sign the agreement, making the argument that if the chance for peace is not taken, Darfur faces the prospect of a war of all against all. That Hobbesian scenario may yet materialize. Local disputes are multiplying and the mechanisms to resolve them are too weak.

Today, the Darfur armed groups are more fractured than at any time in their short history. The prospects for unifying them are remote. Arabs groups have emerged as independent actors and should be represented in any new peace process.

External interference—by Chad, Eritrea and Libya—has intensified. The leaders of these countries see turmoil in Darfur as a means of furthering their own political interests.

Implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement is farcical. Minni Minawi possesses no power, the key institutions do not exist or have no resources, and the National Congress Party is choosing the candidates to fill the ministerial and gubernatorial posts provided for the SLM. Contrary to the provisions of the DPA, the Security Arrangements Implementation Commission is headed by an army general, not a nominee of the SLM. The most important institution of all—the Ceasefire Commission has become completely dysfunctional. The government is practicing “retail politics”—purchasing the allegiance or cooperation of individuals on a case-by-case basis, and describing this as fulfilling the requirements of the DPA.

Credible mediation is needed, but the most important interlocutors face conflicts of interest. The African Union has the mandate to implement the DPA as it stands, and is also tasked with negotiating a new agreement with the non-signatory rebels. It is hard for it to do both. In due course the UN will find itself in a similar position—the UN Mission in Sudan is mandated to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and Special Representative Jan Eliasson is also tasked to mediate with Darfurian groups which demand that the CPA be revised to accommodate their demands.

This points us to perhaps the most significant single challenge to peace in Darfur: any peace agreement for Darfur must be a buttress to the CPA. But most Darfurians see the CPA, not as a charter for national democratization, but rather as (at best) a ceiling for their aspirations and (at worst) a sinking ship. While such beliefs continue, there is little chance that they will be ready to make peace. Peace in Darfur is possible only if there is widespread confidence in the CPA among ordinary Sudanese, and at present this does not exist.

In these circumstances, many advocate that the priority should be to send a strong international force to Darfur to protect civilians there, so that the Darfurian people who have already suffered enough do not continue to die while the politicians argue interminably about peace over the coming months and years. There is no doubt that a larger, better equipped and better mandated international force could improve conditions in Darfur. But we must also be frank and realistic about what such a force can achieve, both under the current circumstances of ongoing hostilities, and under any future conditions of a fully-signed up peace agreement.

In facilitating the discussions on the security arrangements for the DPA, the African Union security team took advice from a number of senior and experienced military officers and security advisers from Africa, the UN and the U.S. The team concluded that a force of about 20,000 peacekeepers could police a ceasefire agreement between government and rebels, monitor airfields to ensure that the ban on offensive military flights is respected, ensure the demilitarization of displaced camps and humanitarian supply routes, train a community police force to provide security for displaced people, and monitor government efforts to neutralize and selectively disarm the militia. It could fulfill these tasks in the context of a fully-signed up peace agreement with the active cooperation of the parties.

Even with a Chapter VII mandate and the consent of the Sudan government, what such a force could not do is to provide security for all, or even most, Darfurian civilians in their home villages. It could not disarm the Janjaweed. It could not remove the government army and police from Darfur and take over their functions.

In the context of ongoing hostilities, the capability of a peacekeeping force would be even more limited, as it would need to devote much of its capacity to force protection. As we have learned from many other conflicts, international forces do not, as a general rule, protect civilians at risk during an explosion of violence.

The main security discussion that is needed concerns the strategic plan and concept of operations for an international force in Darfur. This was a discussion that we began but did not conclude in Abuja. But in our truncated discussions, some basic principles became clear.

A first consideration is time. Any international force dispatched to Darfur should expect to be there for a minimum of five years. It is not realistic to expect the region to be stabilized in a shorter period of time.

Second, disarmament can only be undertaken by consent, in a staged and reciprocal manner across all armed groups. Arms control is primarily a political process, not a technical one. The government’s cooperation in this is also necessary. While Khartoum is most of Darfur’s problem, Darfur’s solutions must also come through Khartoum.

Third, for an international force to be effective, it must devote the majority of its energy to political work and community liaison, with the threat and use of force comprising only a small part of its activities.

And finally, the force levels envisaged for the implementation of the DPA security arrangements would be woefully insufficient to provide physical protection to all civilians at risk during any possible future eruption of violence. Other measures would be required to prevent such violence or protect civilians at risk.

It is important to be soberly realistic about what the UN or indeed any international force—can achieve in Darfur. Many Darfurians have exaggerated expectations that the UN will solve all their problems, and these false hopes deter them from engaging realistically with the political challenges they face. It is important for the U.S. and UN to give the right message: peace is the goal, peacekeeping is a tool.

A comprehensive, robust and monitorable ceasefire in Darfur, and a political process leading to a peace agreement for Darfur, and a properly-implemented CPA must be the priority. Let us have no illusions that these goals will be easy to achieve. But a credible political process in this direction is essential and can create sufficient confidence that an international force can function effectively. The lesson of Sudan’s wars over the last quarter century is that peace is possible, if it is pursued relentlessly and with an international consensus.

The lesson of Sudan’s peace deals is that what ever is on paper is never good enough: the challenge lies in the implementation. Sudan and its problems will be with us for some time to come: we must take a long view.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts.”

In its half century of independent statehood, Sudan has only rarely and briefly been at peace. From the eve of independence until 1972, a separatist rebellion in the South caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. Peace in the South coincided with an on-off civil war in the North between a secular leftist government and conservative sectarian forces. “National reconciliation” between the Northern foes in 1977 prompted a slow slide into renewed war in the South, which crystallised into all-out rebellion in 1983 and the spreading of the conflict to adjoining areas in the North in 1985 and to eastern Sudan in 1994. Intermittent low-level conflicts in Darfur from 1987 exploded into full-scale insurrection in 2003, just as efforts to conclude the Southern war were leading towards a landmark peace agreement. Is Sudan fated to experience perpetual instability and a constant round of bloody provincial conflicts? Does the intractability of these wars portend a collapse of the state? Or is there a possibility of a new political dispensation that deals with both the “root” and “brute” causes of Sudan’s wars?

Crisis States Occasional Paper No.2

This paper presents the ethnic and ideological factors in the Sudan crisis as products of other processes, notably the strategies adopted by successive governments for managing the peripheries and the militarisation of society. It differs from many scholarly analyses in its emphasis on the importance of failed consolidation at the centre of power. The implication of the analysis is that Sudan faces possibly insuperable challenges in attempting to achieve democracy and a fair distribution of national wealth and power, and that the hopes raised by the 2005 CPA between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) for national unity and democracy are fading

Alex de Waal - Sudan: What Kind of State? What Kind of Crisis?

Crisis States Occasional Paper No.3

This paper locates the internationalisation of Sudanese governance in a historical context and highlights some of the implications for post-independence politics. It also examines Sudan’s relationship with its donors and creditors and analyses how successive Sudanese governments have dealt with the debt burden and with financing its wars. Finally it considers Sudan’s relationships with its neighbours and its place in the region

Alex de Waal - Sudan: international dimensions to the state and its crisis

Final Communiqué and Recommendations

Facilitated by the Khartoum Centre for Human Rights and Environmental Development (KCHRED) and Justice Africa

Funded by the European Commission and the Government of Belgium

Download the communique text here (PDF file)

Preamble
The Darfur Civil Society Organisation (CSO) representatives from the three Darfur States, CSO activists in Khartoum, community leaders, and the peace centre of the University of Zalingei met at the Grand Holiday Villa, Khartoum from the 24th to the 26th of March, 2007 at the invitation of KCHRED and Justice Africa to discuss Darfur Civil Society Organisations strategic planning.

Mindful of the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and the determination to alleviate the suffering of the people of Darfur;

Acknowledging Darfur Civil Society Organisations’ positive role in confronting the human tragedy in Darfur and their contribution to achieving stability and comprehensive and just peace in the region; Aware of Darfur Civil Society Organisations’ pioneering role within their various communities and the daunting task of facing the challenges of the humanitarian disaster in Darfur and the destiny of its people;

Appreciating the importance of civil society, the European Union has adopted a strategy to aid and assist in building the capacity of Darfur Civil Society Organisations to enable them play a vibrant role in reducing the suffering in their communities and assist in bringing peace to Darfur;

As a result, the European Union decided to provide funding to Justice Africa, an international organization working in the field of peace, human rights and capacity building to implement a programme that shall have the duration of six months.

For the implementation of the project, Justice Africa, in coordination with KCHRED, established a strategy with the following objectives:
1. Formulation of a strategic plan for Darfur Civil Society Organisations;
2. Involvement of Darfur Civil Society Organisations in formulation and the implementation of the strategic plan.

Justice Africa conducted several consultative brainstorming meetings with different Civil Society Organisations from Khartoum and the Darfur states to explore the best ways of achieving the objectives of the programme. It was concluded that the goal could only be achieved through a strategic planning workshop. Moreover, the workshop should involve all stakeholders in Darfur with the exception of those working in the relief sector. Inclusiveness of all stakeholders was emphasised. A workshop preparatory committee was formed to organise an event that would be inclusive of all actors and lay the foundations take for successive workshops and lasting engagement among the participants.

In this regard Justice Africa, through the preparatory committee, conducted several meetings and consultations on the strategy with many sectors of Darfur Civil Society in Khartoum and in the three states of Darfur. Participants were selected on the basis of the organisations’ records of achievement. Discussion papers and selection criteria for the workshop were agreed. The criteria included effective performance and contributions of the organisations in Darfur. The preparatory committee agreed on the following discussion papers to address the sectors of focus for future civil society engagement:

1. Peace: Vision on the future of peace in Darfur
2. Human Rights
3. Women and Children
4. Youth and Students
5. Capacity Building
6. Media

The workshop was held with considerable participation and characterised by a high level of discussion and objective recommendations. The donor representatives also participated in the workshop. Mindful of the need for transparency, Justice Africa revealed the total amount offered so far by the EC in relation to the project. The workshop divided itself into working groups to conduct detailed discussions on the papers presented. With assistance from the facilitators the working groups agreed on recommendations which were endorsed by the workshop plenary. The workshop recommendations shall form the core of future Darfur CSO engagement and shall be implemented according to the priorities agreed. However, the needs of each state shall be considered on its merits by Justice Africa in consultation with the EC and the Darfur civil society organisations.

The workshop was also honoured by the presence of Mr Eliasson, the UN Envoy for Darfur, and Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, the African Union Chief Negotiator on Darfur. Both addressed the workshop and gave their full attention to the participants. They received the final Communiqué and the recommendations of the workshop and promised to give these their full consideration as an
acknowledgment of the Darfur Civil Society Organisations’ leading role in resolving the Darfur crisis.

Finally, the workshop resolved to put forward the following recommendations:

1. Peace Sector
1. Call upon all the parties to the Darfur conflict to commit themselves to respect all signed protocols and ceasefire agreements;
2. Continue international and regional efforts to protect the civilian population
in Darfur, especially the IDPs and refugees;
3. Support confidence building and social peace mechanisms in Darfur;
4. Hold peace conferences at the national and Darfur State level to solicit a united Darfuri view on the peace process.
5. Support Agaweed (Reconciliation) process and training of traditional and community leaders in Darfur;
6. Publicise the resolutions of this workshop.

2. Women Sector
1. Strengthen women’s social and economic organizations;
2. Support women empowerment mechanisms to amole rate effects of war;
3. Support establishment of maternity health centre in Darfur States;
4. Support foster family projects.
3. Human Rights
1. Establish a Human Rights network among the Darfur states;
2. Establish specialized units on violence against women;
3. Employ Human Rights Centre personnel full time;
4. Support legal aid units in the states and IDP camps.

4. Media Sector
1. Establish a newspaper to tackle Darfur issues;
2. Establish a website to serve CSO objectives;
3. Promote local cultures to serve peaceful coexistence in Darfur;
4. Distribute radio equipment to IDPs;
5. Conclude a Memorandum of Understanding between Darfur Civil Society
Organizations, UN agencies, the EC and the African Union;
6. Establish public television clubs.

5. Capacity Building Sector
1. In the area of training:
a. Establish a training centre for Civil Society Organisations;
b. Provide training on the design of profit-making enterprises;
c. Provide training on negotiations, conflict prevention and conflict resolution skills;
d. Provide training on skills in peace culture and confidence building;
e. Provide training on project planning and report writing in the field of finance and administration,
f. Provide instruction in the field of languages (English) and information technology;
g. Offer capacity building for national NGOs with affirmative action for
women with regard to training opportunities.
2. Institutional Capacity Building:
a. Implementation of projects in all sectors;
b. Administration of training projects;
c. Administrative reform for community leaders;
d. Documentation and information gathering;
e. Networking.

6. Youth Sector
1. Development of voluntary work culture among youth;
2. Support youth postgraduate studies;
3. Conduct youth workshops in all Darfur States to discuss social peace
issues;
4. Establish schools for children by utilizing the unemployed graduates;
5. Establish base of voluntary workers by utilizing unemployed graduates.

The workshop noted with appreciation the kind funding of the European Commission, the Government of Belgium, and other donors and the hospitality of KCHRED and Justice Africa.

Alex de Waal writes about the Darfur peace negotiations, London Review of Books 30th November 2006.

Was it not here, on this same French soil, in this culture proud nation that sometimes appears to conflate the very notion of civilization with whatever is uniquely French, that a culture warrior once took the bulldozer to a hamburger joint some years ago? His mission was to stem the tide of a neo-barbarism that, for the French, is synonymous with whatever is American. Lost on that protector of French cultural purity was a thought that must have tickled the collective memory of former French colonials: the Macdonalisation or Disneyisation of the French urban landscape was a kind of poetic justice in a reverse play of history. MacDonalds had arrived from the former colony of another European power to challenge the cultural hermeticism of a former colonizer.

The circumstances, and action directe of the bulldozer response differed somewhat from the strategy embarked upon by the poet and statesman Leopold Sedar Senghor, Aime Cesaire, Leon Damas, Diop, Rene Depestre and other cultural militants- to adopt Senghor’s own expression– in their own time. They were also protesting– right on the terrain of their colonizers, and as protagonists of a distant civilisation- the ascendancy of others over their own cultures and civilization. Theirs was of course a far-reaching protest, initiated within the enemy camp, against the lop-sided dialogue between France and her possessions, one that had turned the African mind into a mere cultural receptacle of France, indentured it to European identity and values. Thus, Negritude– to give it its name- was compelled to commence by a seemingly separatist strategy, one that restated an African cultural matrix in contradistinction to the European. The implication of this, on the surface, was that the paracletes of Negritude commenced with a proposition of two
distinct, parallel cultures, two monologues – one, the European, the other, black African. It was, in plain language, a strategy of fighting fire with fire.

Those who recall the phase of black nationalism in the United States and in apartheid South Africa– Back to Africa, Black is Beautiful, Black Consciousness etc.- will easily recognize in Negritude both heir to, and precursor of a tradition that is born of displacement, domination and dispossession. Its strategy provoked accusations of counter racism from white liberal thought– phrased benignly perhaps by Jean-Paul Sartre as - anti-racist racism. Would all extant racial discourse– all contemporary propositions and projects of cultural separatism were equally benign, and even, as in this case, propitious for the harmonization of the human race. For even this separatist assertiveness was eventually guided into the predication of convergence with others. This optimistic outlook, the mutual insemination of cultures, under Leopold Sedar Senghor’s restless historicism, expanded to embrace the Arab world and its cultural actualities, to which he gave the name– Arabite. It was the culminating annunciation of what history itself had long proclaimed, one that would result, inexorably– in Senghor’s formulation- as the Equilibrium of twentieth-century Humanism, the Civilisation of the Universal.

It would be more than sufficient, in my view, if our gathering today achieved nothing more than an evocation of that optimism, a reunion of minds, a celebration of identity and origin, and an opening up of the collective memory for interrogation, to determine what may be jettisoned, and what to re-invigorate as a racial contribution to the quest for the universal. It would still remain deeply satisfying if we have merely responded to the human impulse towards celebration, carving out a brief pause for ourselves from the crushing demands of an increasingly unstable world, its negativities, its season of fear and menace, simply to bask, for two or three days in the boldness of a 50- year old initiative that sought to wean a closed, imperial and aggressive world of its racist limitations. It would be sufficient to celebrate that moment, fifty years ago, when the citizens of the continent of disdain, and their brothers and sisters in the Diaspora joined minds to demolish the doctrines on which the mission of colonialism was raised, and challenge the scriptures – both religious and philosophical - on whose authority the inhuman commerce in black flesh - Arab and European - had been justified. Celebration may choose to limit itself to the euphoria of that event, but one that may also be followed by the sobriety of ‘the morning after’ when reflection takes over, and the expressed or implicit summons of the occasion begin to resurface, enjoining a re-designing of the future, of a re-positioning of attitudes, replacing complacency with re-dedication, disturbing one’s peace of mind with the summons of a familiar imperative: a task that remains unfinished, even after fifty years.

The very prospect of such a reunion, even before the event, may however have provoked an alertness to current, thematically contingent actualities, realities that exhibit the very provocations which, in no small measure, aroused a need for that original gathering, over and beyond the mere wish for a meeting of minds. Realities that make the bulldozer almost a benevolent act, since that agent of cultural eradication has since given way to the armoured truck, the flamethrower, the strafing aircraft and the fragmentation bomb. Realities where – to bring it all to the present - a presumably modern state, with its massive weaponry of coercion, has replaced the local maverick, acts in full confidence of the control of its own borders, and in a project for the alteration of the demography of a humanised space, its history, its cultural uniqueness – in short, a project for the eradication of its thriving humanity. Even as we speak, even as the world is distracted by other heated zones all over the globe, one such project is taking place on the black continent, with the passive complicity of that continent’s rulers.

Those who have had the dubious privilege of reading the manifestoes of the arrowhead of a state policy of ethnic cleansing, the Sudanese Janjaweed, an agenda pronounced, without ambiguity, as the Arabisation of the Sudanese nation- will surely have squirmed at the naked language of racial incitement, its claims of race superiority, complemented by the language of contempt and disdain for the indigenous African. It is not quite what Senghor had in mind when he embarked on his fraternal annunciation of arabite and his proposition for a north-south, negro-arab collaboration of cultures:

“Je ne parle meme d’arabisme…. je parle d’arabite, de cette arabite qui est le foyer irradiant des vertus de l’eternal Bedouin”

How Senghor, humanist idealist, would shudder today at the perversion of that vision on reading contemporary tracts in which a state commits itself– through its surrogates- to the eradication of partners in that optimistic venture, actively condones the elimination of those cultural partners who, to add to the grim irony, were autochthones of that land long before the arrival of the current apostles of race supremacy, a pernicious fantasy that one hoped had been rebuked by monumental race criminalities of the past- the Arabo-European enslavement of and trade in the commodity of African peoples, by the Jim Crow culture of governance by lynch mobs and segregation laws in the ‘brave new world’ of the American mainland, by the lessons of the Holocaust, the atrocities of
Apartheid South Africa and even, so lately, the horrors of Rwanda. It is clearly the ambition of the Sudanese government to surpass these records of dishonour, and the world appears to accept that it deserves to succeed, that it is right and just that an African nation join its name to the long catalogue of racist infamy. Enjoy the starkness and concision of directives from authenticated documents taken from the headquarters of one Sheik Musa Hilal, acknowledged leader of the Janjaweed:

“Change the demography of Darfur. Empty it of all African tribes”

The nation that is Sudan belongs to two families of the world community– Arab and African. These are structured, with global recognition, as the Arab League, and the Africa Union. It is depressing to observe the studied indifference of one– the Arab family- to the criminality of one of its members, a nation historically placed as a cultural bridge between two races, just as, in Senghor’s cultural architecture, the North Africa Arab world represents the bridge between Africa and Europe. The African family, for its part, manifests a shaming impotence that permits a re-enactment of a history that forged the chains of colonial bondage. But there is also a third, overarching family that is common to both– the United Nations. When a deviant branch of that family of nations flouts, indeed revels in the abandonment of the most basic norms of human decency, is there really justification in evoking the excuse that protocol requires the permission of that same arrogant and defiant entity, one that is unambiguously indicted in the court of universal censure, before it goes to the rescue of its abused, violated, and dehumanized victims?

One finds it odd that this alibi for inaction was not invoked before the rigorous intervention in former Yugoslavia, an intervention that not only brought a rogue regime to heel, but oversaw the return and rehabilitation of the dispersed populations of ethnic Albanians and Moslem Croats. If the lightning speed at which the UN responded to the recent Middle East war and its aftermath is explained away by the willingness of the belligerents to accommodate, indeed to demand the presence of peace enforcers from the United Nations, we are still left with the example of intervention in central Europe over the strenuous resistance of the murdering regimes. That leaves the African situation in what category, exactly? Equals before the family structures of rights and responsibilities, or yet again, fifty years after the first organised challenge to a racist order, as the marginalized orphans of history?

As we speak, the Africa Union is preparing to abandon the peoples of Darfur, leaving them at the mercy of murdering, raping, and burning gospellers of race doctrine, withdrawing even its pathetically inadequate protection forces which, at the very least, provided a moral presence and a modicum of restraint. We are speaking here of a nation where mass rape is proffered as compliment to Senghor’s vision of cultural metissage. This is the established profile of a regime that has given its peers their marching orders, read them the riot act and delivered its ultimatum, and the African family has chosen to obey, to beat a retreat on schedule, with its tail between its legs. The Arab Family, one to which belongs a primary moral authority irrespective of the location of its member on the black continent, has steadfastly refused to call Sudan to order, indeed placed obstacles in the way of sanctions. But by what right does this speaker impose this moral responsibility on the Arab world? None whatsoever, except on the authority of the protagonists of Arab culture themselves, on their own historic claims, such as the self-pronounced Arabist, the Sudanese prime minister, Ismail Al- Azhari, who, in 1965, made the following declaration:

“We are proud of our Arab origin, of our Arabism and of being Muslims. The Arabs came to this continent, as pioneers, to disseminate a genuine culture and promote sound
principles which have shed enlightenment and civilization throughout Africa at a time when Europe was plunged into the abyss of darkness, ignorance, and doctrinal and
scholarly backwardness. It is our ancestors who held the torch high and led the caravan of liberation and advancement; and it is they who provided a superior melting-pot for Greek, Persian and Indian culture, giving them the chance to react with all that was noble in Arab culture, and handing them back to the rest of the world as a guide to those who wished to
extend the frontiers of learning”

That lofty declaration – never mind its hyperbolic accents - but certainly one which Leopold Sedar Senghor would have endorsed as the ringing spirit of Arabite was made just less than a decade after the first gathering of the black writers and artistes of the world, impelled also by the need to situate their race and heritage accurately in a racist world. The claims of black civilization were no less resonant at that conference, no less proud, the mission of race retrieval no less impassioned. And the question we must ask the government of Sudan today is simply this: how does the current manifesto of the Janjaweed, the champions of Arabism, its project of cultural extermination, correspond to Al-Azhari’s manifesto of enlightenment – among numerous others. Examine the tomes of attestation with the United Nations’ fact-finding missions, examine even the dossiers that have resulted in sealed indictments against named individuals both in government and in the autonomous order of the Janjaweed, soulmates of the Milesovics, the Radovan Karavics, the Radkos of eastern Europe, and tell us if Al-Azhari’s banner of enlightenment has not been besmirched by his Hitlerian apostles.

And the African family? I refer to the family of humanist idealism of whom the poets and philosophers sang or preached– Aime Cesaire, Leon Damas, Marcelino dos Santos John Mbiti, Ogotimeli, Tierno Bokar and all. Did they not instruct that African humanism does implicate a concern, and a responsibility towards ‘my neighour’? And does that responsibility end with the rhetoric of power and the commodity of compromise? This African family, which vies for cultural honour with any race on earth, will be the subject of our gathering here, so for now, we shall merely let this question hang in the air: Has that family made any move to openly denounce or expel this renegade member? What happens in private caucuses within the closed chambers of the so-called ‘peer review mechanism’ of NEPAD and other much vaunted structures of restraint, is cold comfort to those who are violated daily, who fight the hot and grainy wind for the rags on their backs, the pitiless sun for moisture, the camels for the dry clumps of grass that have escaped the fury of the Janjaweed arsonists. And as they leave their camps, in sheer desperation, to forage for more nourishing fodder, are they not set upon by the marauding Janjaweed, slaughtered, raped, mutilated and robbed of the last shreds of their innate dignity?

For the family of all, the United Nations, which again and again has been compelled to avow, ‘Never Again’, it continues to meet in impotence and debate in sterility. Sealed indictments against the identified violators of humanity are admirable, but they cannot replace the rigour and honour of prevention. Not one member of the UN family has expressed its displeasure by expelling Sudanese diplomats from its borders. Not one has demanded that sanctions be universally applied to the Sudanese cesspit of criminal impunity. For decades, Libya was declared the pariah of the international community on suspicion and/or evidence of complicity in terrorist acts, and of harbouring terrorists within its borders – she was ostracized. What further dimension of state terrorism does the world need in order to act when a government unleashes its surrogates, armed to the teeth, supported, supplied, and logistically enabled by its own forces and intelligence services, authorised by well documented mandate of ethnic cleansing, its acts witnessed, recorded and reported by the United Nations’ own agencies, its results seared on the Sudanese landscape as mass burial grounds, ruins of burnt villages, poisoned wells, slaughtered livestock, in the swelling army of mutilated survivors, victims of gang rape, of diseased and overflowing refugee camps.

Words are our stock-in- trade, and writers are not slow to notice when a word screams out through absence and avoidance. Now what is that word that the United Nations, once again, has scrupulously skirted, a strategic avoidance, a moral liability that led, in this very recent memory to- Rwanda? The protocols are clear. Recognition of a certain dimension of criminality against a people, its culture, against the very existence of the people of Darfur compels the United Nations to act. But no, Darfur is not the heart of Europe. It is not the heart of Lebanon or the borders of Israel. It is located in a land of disdain, recognized only as the home of want and occasionally – of much sought material resources So, just what is this word that accuses, damns, and will not be silenced? What is this word for which so many substitutes are massed, though derobed of the inexorable imperative, in the corridors and chambers of the United Nations?

As writers, we cannot cease to recognize and embrace our mission of testifying and laying ambush for escapist minds. Those who are alive today to witness this renewed perfidy, and their successors living or yet unborn in the mission of warning and bearing witness, will not forget. Let words, at the very least, be mobilized towards the fulfillment of responsibilities by those who are charged with the protection of the weak and helpless, the temporarily disadvantaged, let them persist in saying to you, all who hold the primary controls of the direction of a continent’s future, that that future will not forget, nor will it forgive. As the armies of the Sudanese state mass for the final onslaught on its long determined design of race extermination, that future will stigmatise you one and all, will brand you collaborators and accomplices if you abandon the people of Darfur to this awful fate, one that so blindingly scrawls its name across the supplicating sands and hills of Darfur– Genocide!

Wole Soyinka
September 16, 2006

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