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Sudan: African Union Panel Reports
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Oct 11, 2009 (091011)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"Repeatedly during our process of consultation, the Darfurians
insisted that the Panel would fail in its mission if it did not
identify and address what they called "the root cause of the crisis
in Darfur". ... a gross imbalance between a strong centre
and a marginalised periphery, which resulted in political power and
wealth being concentrated in the centre, with the consequent
negative consequences on the periphery." - African Union High-Level
Panel on Darfur
The report presented by the African Union panel last week is still
not public, but a statement by the panel's chair, former South
African President Thabo Mbeki highlighted both the urgent need for
a political resolution in Darfur and the inextricable connection of
that goal with parallel efforts for completion of the peace process
for Sudan as a whole.
The Panel was established by the African Union in March 2009, and
included, in addition to President Mbeki, two other former
presidents: General Abdulsalami Abubakar, former President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria; and Mr Pierre Buyoya, former President
of Burundi. The other members were Hon Justice Florence Mumba,
Judge of the Supreme Court of Zambia; Ms Rakiya A. Omaar, Director,
African Rights; Mr Mohammed Kabir, Lawyer, Nigeria; and Mr Ahmed
Maher El Sayed, former Foreign Minister of Egypt.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the panel's
statement (full text available at http://tinyurl.com/yzqpv74). The
statement was notable for the extensive range of consultation
cited, with both Sudanese and a full range of international
stakeholders, and for its call for a fully inclusive negotiating
process to avoid "forum-shopping" among different international
mediators. It also lauded the efforts of U.S. Sudan envoy
Maj Gen Scott Gration, called for both the African Union and United
Nations to give high priority to helping the Sudanese people meet
their challenges, and insisted that all three goals of peace,
justice, and reconciliation were essential and interconnected.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out by e-mail is one of three posted
today. Given the importance and complexity of the issues in Sudan,
the AfricaFocus web site carries two bulletins with additional
background analysis:
(1) Sudan: Between Peace and War
The pace of diplomacy on Sudan is increasing, with talks set to
resume on Darfur and active engagement by the African Union, the
United Nations, and the United States in efforts to move Sudan's
Comprehensive Peace Agreement forward as it approaches the last
year of a projected 6-year interim period. But, says veteran Sudan
analyst John Ashworth, in fact the agreement "is not Comprehensive,
nor Peace, nor an Agreement. Its failure could ignite a new war
even more deadly than the two previous conflicts in Southern Sudan.
For more go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/sud0910b.php
and
(2) Sudan: Policy Debates and Dilemmas
In the debate on international policies towards Sudan, the critique
of the Save Darfur movement and the International Criminal Court
for counterproductive "humanitarian fundamentalism" has been
convincingly argued by such analysts as Alex de Waal and Mahmood
Mamdani. Both the Obama administration and the "international
community" seem to be gearing up to give diplomacy a serious
chance, after recent years of alternating bluster and failure to
put real pressure on the Sudanese government. But the unanswered
question is whether even forceful and skillful diplomacy can
overcome Khartoum's long-practiced strategies for delay and
deception.
For more go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/sud0910c.php
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Sudan, see
http://www.africafocus.org/country/sudan.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
Speech of the Chairperson of the AUPD, Thabo Mbeki, on Handing over
the AUPD Report to the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Jean Ping:
AU Headquarters, Addis Ababa. October 8, 2009.
Social Science Research Council, Making Sense of Darfur Blog
[Excerpts. For full text see
http://blogs.ssrc.org/darfur / http://tinyurl.com/yzqpv74
Contact for the panel is Barney Afako, Spokesperson, AUPD;
Tel: +27724740486, +447917054523; Email: [email protected]]
Your Excellency, Mr Jean Ping, Chairperson of the AU Commission, AU
Commissioners, Your Excellencies Ambassadors and members of the
diplomatic corps, Distinguished guests:
Following the decision taken by the Peace and Security Council of
the African Union, at its 142nd meeting held at ministerial level,
on 21 July 2008, and subsequently confirmed at the 12th Ordinary
Session of the Assembly of the African Union held in Addis Ababa on
1-3 February 2009, you, Chairperson, appointed us to serve as
members of the independent African Union High-Level Panel on
Darfur.
The mandate you gave us required us to examine the situation in
Darfur and submit recommendations on how best the issues of
accountability and combating impunity, on the one hand, and
reconciliation and healing, on the other, could be addressed
effectively and comprehensively, within the context of the peaceful
resolution of the conflict in Darfur.
As Your Excellency is aware, to begin its work, the Panel decided
that it would have to engage in an extensive process of
consultation with those who have the possibility to contribute to
the solution of the conflict in Darfur.
As a consequence of this, the Panel was privileged to interact a
number of times with the President and Vice Presidents of Sudan as
well as other members of the Sudanese Government of National Unity.
Similarly we interacted with many of the Sudanese political
parties, including the biggest among these, as well as Sudanese
civil society and specialised formations such as the lawyers'
collectives.
The Panel took great care that it spend as much time as possible
in Darfur. In the end this resulted in four visits to the region,
amounting to at least 40 days, and encompassing the three States of
Darfur.
These visits to Darfur enabled the Panel to engage in extensive and
repeated discussion with the Internally Displaced People, civil
society, the Native Administration, the nomadic tribes, the armed
opposition, the various State authorities and UNAMID. Necessarily
the Panel did everything it could to engage the various Darfur
armed opposition groups and therefore met their representatives in
Darfur, Chad, Libya, Qatar and here in Ethiopia.
Here I should also mention that during our visit to Chad, we also
had occasion to interact with some of the Darfur refugees in that
country.
We were also privileged to be received at high levels by the
Governments of the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Libya and Qatar, all of which engaged the Panel in focused
discussions on the various matters on our agenda.
We were similarly privileged to be received by and interact with
the leadership of the League of Arab States at its Headquarters in
Cairo.
We were also honoured to have the opportunity to engage the Special
Envoys to Sudan of the Five Permanent Members of the United Nations
Security Council and the European Union.
In this context I must also report that while we were in Ndjamena,
we were fortunate to have the possibility to engage the Ambassadors
of the P5 countries and the EU, as well as the African diplomatic
corps in Chad.
We also thought it proper that we should engage the African and
international Non-Governmental Organisations which have undertaken
advocacy work, focused on Darfur, and others, such as Justice
Cassese, who led the UN team which investigated violations of human
rights in Darfur. The Panel was pleased that it had the possibility
to engage a number of these.
To complete this account, I must also mention that the Panel was
honoured to interact with the leadership of UNAMID and the
Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation, the DDDC, UNMIS and
MUNURCAT, as well as the Darfur Joint Chief Mediator, the Hon
Djibril Bassol�, the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, the Hon Luis
Moreno-Ocampo, as well as the African Commission on Human and
People's Rights and the UN Human Rights Council.
From everything I have said, it is clear that the work done by the
AU High-Level Panel on Darfur constitutes the most extensive and
inclusive process of consultation ever conducted to facilitate the
resolution of the conflict in Darfur.
In preparing its Report and Recommendations, the Panel has done its
best to take into account the many views it received in Darfur, in
Sudan generally, the Sudanese neighbourhood and from the rest of
the international community.
In this sense, we believe that these - the Report and the
Recommendations - are much more than a sum of the reflections of
the Panel. Rather, they represent a consensus view among many in
Sudan and internationally, including the millions of Darfurians
whose representatives we met.
In this regard I must also mention that the Panel also made a
special effort to present its Draft Recommendations, which address
its mandate, to as many of its interlocutors as possible. I am
pleased to say that by and large these Recommendations were
welcomed by the various constituencies we engaged.
Arising from what I have said, the Panel takes the firm view that
in everything it does to accelerate the resolution of the conflict
in Darfur, the African Union should do its best to sustain an
inclusive approach, drawing in the relevant constituencies in
Darfur and Sudan, as well as the rest of the world, behind a common
programme and vision.
We are convinced that this is possible, provided that those
concerned are truly committed to the central objective of helping
to accelerate the advance towards a just and lasting peace in
Darfur, rather than other goals.
We say this directly emanating from our experience. In the
interactions with our interlocutors which preceded the
consultations on the Recommendations, in essence we posed the same
question to everybody.
That question was - what should be done to accelerate the process
towards the achievement of peace, justice and reconciliation in
Darfur!
The first and vitally important observation we would like to make
in this regard is that everybody in Darfur and Sudan as a whole,
without exception, emphasised that everybody has to recognise and
respect the fact that the resolution of the conflict in Darfur has
to be brought about by the Sudanese people themselves, and cannot
and should not be imposed from outside.
Secondly, everybody inside and outside Sudan insisted that it was
urgent that everything is done to achieve all three outcomes in
Darfur - peace, justice and reconciliation.
Accordingly, the point was underlined that the conflict in Darfur
is political in nature and therefore requires a political solution.
Consensus therefore exists that a military solution to the conflict
is neither possible nor desirable.
When making the firm statement that there must be peace, that
justice must be done and seen to be done, and that reconciliation
should be achieved, our interlocutors also recognised the reality
that the objectives of peace, justice and reconciliation in Darfur
are interconnected, mutually dependent, equally desirable and
cannot be achieved separate one from the other.
The Panel fully agrees with this approach and is therefore firmly
of the view that the negotiated agreement to end the conflict in
Darfur must accordingly address the related issues of (a) peace,
(b) justice, accountability and impunity, and (c) reconciliation
and healing, as one integrated package.
Like the overwhelming majority of our interlocutors, the Panel is
therefore firmly of the view that any attempt to present any of
these issues as taking precedence over any other would be
counter-productive, and would militate against the speedy
achievement of the just and lasting peace for which the people of
Darfur yearn.
Again consonant with the view advanced by the overwhelming majority
of our interlocutors, and relevant to the necessary negotiated
Global Political Agreement, it will be critically important that
the negotiations are facilitated by one Mediator to avoid
forum-shopping.
They should also be inclusive in character, to ensure that their
outcome is supported by the people of Darfur and Sudan as a whole,
the states neighbouring Sudan and the world community as a whole.
Necessarily, therefore, the African Union and the United Nations
will have to ensure that they provide the Joint Chief Mediator with
the necessary resources to enable him expeditiously to discharge
his responsibility, which should include helping to resolve the
various matters relating to the measures that should be put in
place to ensure the inclusivity of the negotiations process.
We must also make the point that everybody we spoke to in Darfur
and Sudan was determined that any negotiated agreement arrived at
would have to be implemented with the greatest determination, and
therefore that the negotiators would have to agree on the ways and
means to achieve this result.
As Your Excellency is aware, and as we have already said, the
mandate of the Panel related to Darfur and to Darfur only.
However, the reality is that Darfur is an integral part of Sudan.
In addition, the people of Darfur have not expressed any demand for
self-determination. Accordingly, the conflict in Darfur cannot be
resolved unless it is placed within the context of the evolution of
Sudan as a whole.
We must therefore confess, Your Excellency, that because of this
concrete and unavoidable actuality, the Panel had no choice but to
consider the wider Sudan setting as it relates to the resolution of
the conflict in Darfur, precisely to ensure that it discharges its
mission.
Repeatedly during our process of consultation, the Darfurians
insisted that the Panel would fail in its mission if it did not
identify and address what they called "the root cause of the crisis
in Darfur".
That root cause is the marginalisation and underdevelopment of
Darfur as a result of policies and practices implemented throughout
Sudan during both the colonial and post-colonial periods.
This is represented as a gross imbalance between a strong centre
and a marginalised periphery, which resulted in political power and
wealth being concentrated in the centre, with the consequent
negative consequences on the periphery.
Many in Darfur have argued that this was the fundamental reason for
the armed rebellion which broke out in 2003, and therefore that any
just and lasting solution of the conflict in Darfur must redress
the imbalance between the historic Sudanese centre and periphery.
It is in this context that the point was made to the Panel that
what we would have to consider is the "Sudan crisis in Darfur",
rather than what is inadequately described as "the crisis in
Darfur".
Fortunately, the reality of this root cause of the various violent
conflicts that have plagued Sudan has been highlighted in various
agreements negotiated to end these conflicts.
For instance the Machakos Protocol, which is part of the CPA, says
that "historical injustices and inequalities in development between
the different regions of the Sudan ... need to be redressed."
The Declaration of Principles adopted to resolve the conflict in
Eastern Sudan says that the "political, economic, social and
cultural marginalisation (of the region) constitutes the core
problem..." which had to be addressed.
This Declaration goes on to say: "Unity with recognition of and
respect for diversity, protection of the fundamental freedoms and
rights of citizens, devolution of powers within a federal system,
and equitable distribution of national wealth are essential
foundations for a united, peaceful, just and prosperous Sudan."
This is also exactly what the people of Darfur say. Thus they
expect that this outlook will find concrete expression in the
negotiated Darfur Global Political Agreement.
This speaks to the challenge that Sudan faces, to effect a
fundamental process of social transformation which, as visualised
in the CPA and other agreements, would result in a "united,
peaceful, just and prosperous Sudan" on the basis of the
reconstruction of Sudan driven by the objective to achieve:
- unity in diversity;
- democracy and respect for human rights;
- power sharing; and,
- wealth sharing.
It is self-evident that this is an enormous challenge which the
Sudanese people as a whole will have to tackle together, and as
single-mindedly as possible. The Panel is convinced that the
African Union can and should support the Sudanese people as they
work thus to reconstruct their country.
More immediately, whatever the African Union does to end the
conflict in Darfur, perhaps acting on the basis our
Recommendations, it will have to take into account two particular
and important processes relating to Sudan as a whole. These are the
General Elections scheduled for April 2010 and the 2011 Southern
Sudan Referendum.
Quite correctly, the people of Darfur insist that they have a right
and duty freely to participate in any General Election that takes
place in Sudan, as well as fully participate in any national
discussion that takes place in the context of the agreed
Referendum. The search for a solution to the conflict in Darfur
must take these important views of the Darfurians into account.
Your Excellency, earlier this year, on June 24, the Deputy
Chairperson of the SPLM, Malik Agar Eyre participated in a
discussion in Washington D.C., hosted by the US Institute of Peace.
Among other things, he issued a grave warning that must be of
serious concern to the AU and our Continent.
He said that the "reading" of the SPLM was that the process of the
fragmentation of Sudan would not end with the separation of
Southern Sudan, if this was the result of the 2011 Referendum. He
warned that Sudan could be afflicted by a destructive process of
further balkanisation, and thus sink into chaos and
ungovernability, producing dangerous instability in the nine
countries he pointed out share borders with Sudan.
The Panel believes that the AU should take this warning seriously
and act upon it. We are convinced that in the interest of Africa as
a whole, the AU must place perhaps at the top of its agenda the
very important issue of helping the Sudanese people successfully to
manage the urgent challenges they face.
In addition, we mention this because it is of critical importance
to the achievement of the aspiration shared by the people of Darfur
that they remain part of a united Sudan.
At the same June 24 Institute of Peace discussion to which we have
referred, the US Special Envoy to Sudan, Maj Gen Scott Gration
spoke of his hope for a peaceful and successful Sudan. He said he
knows of situations in which:
"Yesterday's enemies are today's friends. The wars we fought
yesterday - those lands are at peace. Humanitarian disaster areas
are today stabilised communities. Negative attitudes become
positive behaviour; frowns, smiles; clenched fists become hand
shakes, and hate becomes forgiveness. It's possible ... I believe
in a vision in which we will have a country that is politically
stable, with a responsible government, physically secure,
economically prosperous, at peace inside and at peace with its
neighbours...That's what we are all hoping for - a future of hope
and trust, a future of lasting peace."
Before I conclude, I would like most sincerely to thank and salute
the esteemed members of the AU High-Level Panel on Darfur who
applied themselves to our common project with unequalled diligence,
dedication and wisdom.
[section continues with thanks to a wide variety of others who
assisted in the deliberations of the panel.]
We trust that we have met our responsibilities to the people of
Darfur, Sudan and Africa, and that our findings and recommendations
provide a solid foundation from which to accelerate the advance
towards peace, justice and reconciliation for all the people of
Darfur and the Sudanese nation as a whole.
In this regard, Your Excellency and friends, we share the powerful
message of hope we cited earlier, as conveyed by President Obama's
Special Envoy to Sudan, Maj Gen Scott Gration. We too are convinced
that if the right things are done, Sudan faces a "future of hope
and trust, a future of lasting peace."
We have the honour to submit and commend to Your Excellency our
unanimous Report, entitled Darfur: The Quest for Peace, Justice and
Reconciliation.
Thank you.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at [email protected]. Please
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