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Sudan: Policy Debates and Dilemmas
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Oct 11, 2009 (091011)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
In the debate on international policies towards Sudan, analysts as
Alex de Waal and Mahmood Mamdani have convincingly critiqued Save
Darfur movement and the International Criminal Court for
counterproductive "humanitarian fundamentalism." After recent years
of alternating bluster and failure to put real pressure on the
Sudanese government from the U.S. under President Bush, the
Obama administration and the "international community" seem to be
gearing up to give diplomacy a serious chance. But the unanswered
question is whether even forceful and skillful diplomacy can
overcome Khartoum's long-practiced strategies for delay and
deception.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains (1) a set of links to regular
sources and recent commentaries on the issues of war and peace in
Sudan, (2) a nuanced review of Mamdani's book Saviors and Survivors
(http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?0307377237) which
applauds his critique of humanitarian fundamentalism, but faults
him for an analysis which neglects the fundamental responsibility
of the minority ruling faction in Khartoum for reinforcing
marginalization and use of repression and divide-and-rule tactics
not only in Darfur but as a general practive, (3) an appeal from a
Sudanese supporter of the Save Darfur Campaign, Klahid al Nurg, for
the campaign to move from the politics of rage to the politics of
change doing more harm than good, and (4) a report and policy
analysis from Darfuri human rights activist Mohammed Ahmed Eisa.
This web-only AfricaFocus Bulletin is one of three posted today.
Also only on the web is Sudan: Between Peace and War, at
http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/sud0910b.php; Sudan: African
Union Panel Reports was sent out to subscribers by e-mail and is
also available on the web (http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/sud0910a.php).
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Sudan, see
http://www.africafocus.org/country/sudan.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
Sources on the Sudan Debate
(1) Regularly Updated Sources
Sudan Tribune
http://www.sudantribune.com
Comprehensive news and commentary
AllAfrica.com
http://allafrica.com/sudan
News and commentary from African media and other sources
Making Sense of Darfur
http://blogs.ssrc.org/darfur
Commentary from Alex de Waal and others
Enough Project Sudan page
http://www.enoughproject.org/conflict_areas/darfur_southern_sudan
Commentary from John Prendergast and others
(2) Recent Commentaries & Reports
Critique of current U.S. policy as "fundamentally flawed"
- John Prendergast
http://www.enoughproject.org/files/publications/Avoiding%20War.pdf
Peace in Sudan: Priorities and Constraints, by Alex de Waal
http://blogs.ssrc.org/darfur / http://tinyurl.com/yjn4zsb
At Issue eZine
http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp?issue=issue10=issue10
5 Analytical Commentaries - May to September 2009
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings on Sudan
July 30, 2009
http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2009/hrg090730a.html
Includes testimony from Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan
U.S. House Committee of Foreign Affairs, Hearings on Sudan
July 29, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/yfe4vqd
Includes testimony by Roger Winter and John Prendergast
Understanding Darfur's Saviours and Survivors
Sudan Tribune
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article32018
3 August 2009.
Darfur in the crossfire between humanitarian fundamentalism and
Khartoum's divide and rule
By Harry Verhoeven, Lydiah Kemunto Bosire and Sharath Srinivasan,
Harry Verhoeven, PhD-student, Dept of Politics & IR, St Cross
College, Oxford University; Lydiah Kemunto Bosire, PhD-student,
Dept of Politics & IR, St Cross College, Oxford University and
Sharath Srinivasan, PhD, Department of International Development,
St Antony's College, Oxford University. The authors of this article
can be reached at [email protected]
Crises in African countries are too often given a media
attention-span of a couple of days. Millions of deaths in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia's two decades of disorder,
and the famines in Ethiopia only capture the imagination when
related to gorillas, pirates and rock stars, respectively, before
they return to their footnote status. Darfur, however, is
different. A resource-poor region of Africa is at the centre of the
most vibrant student activist campaign in a generation. In a
unanimous vote in mid-2004, both the US House of Representatives
and the Senate labelled it "genocide" (before sending out a mission
to inquire into whether it really was, but no matter). For five
years since and counting, Darfur has top-billed the agenda for
human rights activists, media-outlets and the Western-led
international community: aid organisations have set up the world's
largest humanitarian operation and more than 15000 UN and AU
peacekeepers now operate in Western Sudan. To cap it all, the
International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for
Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and is appealing to add a charge
of genocide. What is going on?
"Saviours and Survivors" is Prof. Mahmood Mamdani's answer to this
question. This is a book about the naming and framing of violence,
and its consequences: it explains why this war in particular has
received such unusual publicity and become the object of
international political and judicial activism. Through an
investigation into the roots of the violence, Prof. Mamdani
challenges the moral, apolitical rendering of the conflict in the
activist - consequently global - consciousness. Combining
analytical strength and historical knowledge with a provocative
tone, this book has unleashed, since its preview essay in the
Nation and the LRB a year ago, one of the most heated discussions
of an African conflict in recent time.
According to Mamdani, the ICC's arrest warrants, the campaign of
the Save Darfur Coalition (SDC), and the principle of the
'Responsibility to Protect' should be understood in the context of
a wider emerging Western thinking and discourse epitomized by the
Global War on Terror (GWOT).
"Saviours and Survivors" does not try to tie a conspiratorial
thread between the GWOT, the ICC and the SDC as some of its critics
allege. Rather, it explicitly aims to highlight the problematic
nature of the increasing tendency of the Western-led international
community to remove the 'political' - the adversarial, the
contestable - from key areas of public life and public
decision-making. The SDC, just like GWOT-theorists, depoliticises
conflicts, preferring to cast them in intellectually easy,
intuitively appealing and politically convenient terms of 'good'
and 'evil'. What is effectively a technocratic banner of 'global
justice' and 'universal values' obscures quintessentially political
questions about the who, what and why of 'global' interventionism
and thereby also veils powerful interests and highly partisan
decisions. In the GWOT-Zeitgeist, complex violent processes are
radically simplified and packaged in catchy soundbites and
emotionally charged messages. The contradictions and particular
stakes of politics are removed from the war setting and replaced by
absolutist norms that leave us with only one 'a-political' (and
hence morally obvious) choice: military action. And just like the
GWOT, the supporters of military intervention in Darfur cannot be
bothered with local nuances, socio-historical processes and the
messy nature of on the ground conflict realities that do not fit
nice legal or ethical categories. There can be no discussion of how
certain 'perpetrators' were once 'victims' and how the 'victims'
are at risk of becoming 'perpetrators' due to outside intervention;
or of how the 'saviours' of some continue to be the oppressors of
others.
The reason for action is moral. Politics is to be kept at bay; it
is too messy, analysing and understanding it takes too long; look
where politics got us in Rwanda.
And Rwanda is particularly emotive for the Darfur activists. As
Mamdani notes, "The lesson is to rescue before it is too late, to
act before seeking to understand. Though it is never explicitly
stated, Rwanda is recalled as a time when we thought we needed to
know more; we waited to find out, to learn the difference between
Tutsi and Hutu, and why one was killing the other...What is new
about Darfur, human rights interventionists will tell you, is the
realisation that sometimes we must respond ethically and not wait.
That time is when genocide is occurring. - In other words,
prescribe the solution without understanding the problem. What
"Saviours and Survivors" suggests is that an understanding of the
problem would lead to a vastly different understanding of what
solutions are necessary.
Mamdani perceptively contrasts the current wave of Darfur activism
the anti-war campaign regarding Vietnam, or the struggle against
apartheid- SDC's bottom-line is about military intervention: it
mobilises for war, not for peace. The tactics used to influence
public opinion too are very different - a particularly striking
paragraph is Mamdani's description of how the SDC, in its early
days, distributed 'action packets' according to faith with a
specific message tailored to religious stereotypes: if Christians
were asked to lead (cf. the burden to save) and Jews were uniquely
placed to bear witness (cf. the Holocaust), then Muslims, cast in
the GWOT-framework, were asked to fight oppressors in their midst
and identify perpetrators.
SDC's mischaracterisation of the Darfur conflict as being about
'Arabs' committing genocide against Darfur's 'African' population
was meant to appeal to a very broad albeit only American audience,
uniting East Coast liberals, African-American churches and Deep
South nativists behind Congress resolutions. Lead by movie stars
and campus activists who decried Darfur as an 'African Auschwitz',
Mamdani rightly criticises this ad hoc coalition of right-wing
conservatives and youthful Western progressives for turning Darfur
into a place and an issue 'to feel good about yourself because
we're doing the "right" thing and not engaging in politics'. Put
differently, intervention in this brave new post-9/11 world claims
to destroy evil, not to tackle a political problem. Quod non, of
course.
The outcome? Humanitarian impunity. Here, Mamdani points out that
Africa is the site of experimentation: the logic of societal
experimentation in the form of Structural Adjustment Programmes
that led to collapse in the public sector continues in the work of
the humanitarians. Today, in the messy situations of ongoing
conflict, a new idea is being advocated, that of prosecutions at
all cost, even when increased violence - as seen with the murderous
rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army now engaged in violence in the
Congo - becomes a real outcome. What are the implications for the
institution of accountability itself and our hierarchies of
principles when we embrace the dogma of unconditional, immediate
justice - justice by force or through the suspension of peaceful
negotiation if necessary? Who gets to decide which right trumps
others? And before we say 'the international community', what
legitimacy and accountability have those who constitute this group,
assuming we can agree to the analytical content of this
'international community'? In theory, prosecution and military
intervention are elegant interventions. However, if they go wrong
- and humanitarianism is littered with interventions gone wrong -
architects do not have to live with the consequences of their
action.
Whereas "Saviours and Survivors" offers some excellent reflections
on the ideological background of the international community's role
in the Darfur conflict, it is less good at analysing what has
actually (not) happened. For all Mamdani's claims about the
extraordinary efficiency of the SDC and its Congress resolutions,
the policy of Washington (and by extension, other Western
countries) towards Sudan over the past years has been incoherent
and deeply ineffective. Nor has the principle of the
'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P) and its definition of sovereignty
transformed the will of interveners. In making a case for the
concept, one of R2P's philosophical fathers, Gareth Evans said,
"While the primary responsibility to protect its own people
properly lies with the sovereign state, if that responsibility is
abdicated, through ill-will or incapacity, then it shifts to the
international community collectively - who should respond with
force if large scale killing or ethnic cleansing is involved, and
that is the only way to halt or avert the tragedy." While Mamdani
sees this discourse as thrusting open doors for the violation of
African sovereignty, this outcome has not been forthcoming.
Instead, America has swung back and forth between long periods of
silence, outright confrontation with Al-Bashir, support for the
former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and attempts
at normalising diplomatic relations with Khartoum. It initially
supported African Union troops, then considered them to be
inadequate, subsequently lobbied for a UN peacekeeping force only
to fail to seriously support it when it finally took over in
January 2008; simultaneously the Bush administration invited
Sudan's intelligence chief to Langley, Virginia for collaboration
in the context of the GWOT. Overall then, Washington and other
stakeholders who have embraced the genocide-label have struggled to
manage competing interests - the Khartoum-SPLA peace agreement,
terrorism, regional stability, Darfur - and have failed to develop
a coherent long-term policy that really improves the human security
of Sudanese civilians. It has been exactly this problem of
inconsistency, confusion and the exigencies of Realpolitik, rather
than bellicose confrontationalism inspired by militant activism,
that has dominated real world Western actions.
This brings us to the second of three major shortcomings of the
book: its own portrayal of the violence in Darfur. While "Saviours
and Survivors" does a masterful job of exposing the flaws in the
orthodox 'genocide'-narrative of the Darfur conflict, demanding
that history and politics are injected into our understanding, it
offers an account of its own that lacks engagement with critical
parts of the historical context of violence in Sudan. In effect,
Mamdani diminishes the importance of contemporary Sudanese politics
that do matter to the understanding of Darfur.
For Mamdani, Darfur is, essentially, a two decades old war over
land, caused by the nefarious interplay of prolonged drought, the
colonial legacy of re-tribalisation and the Cold War's negative
impact. Building on earlier scholarship, he argues that Darfur's
history cannot be constructed as a simple settler(Arab) vs
native(African) narrative, as the SDC does, with a bad 'Arab'
government as spoiler-in-chief; we need a far more sophisticated
analysis in both space and time to understand the contemporary
violence. While Darfur served as a launching pad for proxy warfare
in neighbouring Chad between France, America and Libya,
displacement through desertification in the 1980s unleashed a
struggle over ever shrinking quantities of land: as Darfurians
responded by resorting to increasingly narrow racial-ethnic
constructs, the Malthusian trap became ever more violent. For
Mamdani then, the national government's role in all of this has
largely been one of misreading local dynamics and failed attempts
to broker negotiated settlements. By 2003, the violence had
spiralled out of control and acquired broader national
implications; the rise of two potent rebel movements lead to a
brutal counter-insurgency marked by gross human rights violations.
The problem is not so much that these claims are wrong (though some
scholars have taken issue with its reconstruction of the history of
land and identity in Darfur), but that through their selectiveness,
they could be seen as absolving the current regime in Khartoum from
its devastating political, moral and legal responsibility for the
atrocities and displacement in the region. Mamdani effectively
diminishes the importance of recent deliberate political actions
through an under-analysis of why Darfur is not exceptional and of
why Sudan has been torn apart since independence by countless macro
and micro-conflict: war in Sudan - whether in the East, in the
South or in the West - is fundamentally not a "clash of (Islamic
and Christian) civilisations", nor a question of irreconcilable
'Arab' and 'African' cultures, but a result of the brutal
exclusionary rule of a faction of Sudanese elite who control the
country. "Saviours and Survivors" overlooks how since coming to
power in 1989, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has
radicalised these core-periphery tendencies under the banner of
militant Islam, rhetorically welcoming as equals all those from the
peripheries who wanted to join its cause, but in reality deepening
the political-economic realities of exclusion and wealth
accumulation in Sudan. During the last decades, Darfur, like other
'backward' parts of Sudan, has been totally deprived of public
goods like security provision, decent health care and roads, while
its people have been excluded from government jobs at the centre.
Historically, Darfurians had a wide range of mechanisms to deal
with both climatic changes and tribal-political upheaval and did so
without falling into ethno-ecological conflicts; the
intensification of violence from the mid-80s onwards has thus less
to do with creeping desertification and 'unfortunate' governmental
misunderstanding, then with a context of structural exclusion that
makes, and keeps, people vulnerable to disasters, whether natural
or political. The ruling NCP did not merely fail to 'think through'
the colonially crafted divide, as Mamdani sees it, but it
reinforced and exploited divisive ideas of race, identity and
citizenship in order to manage patronage politics, as it has done
elsewhere in Sudan.
The similarities between the tragedy in Darfur and wars elsewhere
in the country go beyond their position in the Sudanese state and
relate to the dynamics of the conflict itself: there is a vicious
and deliberate interlocking of decentralised violence, forced
migration, racialised language and ethnic divide and rule. The
scorched earth tactics in which displacement and terror are often
more important than actual killing; the dehumanising discourse that
stirs up hate and antagonises communities; the use of proxy
militias, composed of marginalised groups in their own right, who
are given total impunity to combat the enemy; the systematic
transfer of assets (cattle, land, water holes,...) from those
targeted by the government to those fighting for Khartoum; the
aerial bombardment of civilians and the use of aid as a weapon
against people; the false cease-fires and the relentless
obstruction of humanitarian operations to wear down the
international community and rebel opposition: the pattern of
violence in Darfur eerily mimics that of war in the 80s and 90s in
Southern Kordofan, Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal. Ahmed Haroun (who
has been indicted by the ICC on charges of crimes against
humanity), exemplifies how the horrors of Darfur are connected to
massacres in other parts of Sudan- Haroun was not only one of the
chief organisers of the Janjaweed in 2003-2004, he also led the
government militias in their 1990s jihad in the Nuba Mountains,
raping, pillaging and killing to break the soul of the local
communities.
None of this is to be found in "Savours and Survivors." While
Mahmood Mamdani rightfully criticises the international community's
simplistic account of 'genocide' in Darfur, he engages in his own
distortion through his downplay of the agency of those factions of
the Sudanese elites in control of the state. War, exclusion and
underdevelopment in Sudan have a history that needs to be told. And
Darfur is now more than ever before an integral part of that
history.
The third problem with the book is in its vision of the contents of
accountable politics. For Mamdani, there are three kind of justice
possible - political, criminal and social. Quite apart from the
problem of the Court being an extension of the antipolitical
humanitarian fundamentalist Zeitgeist - after all, the ICC
considers cases in according to technical specifications of gravity
and applies the appropriate procedures, unencumbered by the
politics that produced the violence - the ICC's focus on criminal
justice is inadequate. Seeking to deliver justice in accordance to
the 'Nuremberg Model', the court assumes it is possible to tell
apart good and evil, perpetrators and victims. It also assumes that
the survivors do not have to live together, that the violence has
ended and that there is a winner. In Darfur, as South Africa,
Mamdani offers, the situation is different. Right and wrong,
perpetrator and victim, are far more fluid. People have to live
together, there are no winners and losers. Everyone is a survivor.
The solution lies in the establishment of political change and
inclusive institutions, with an acknowledgement that amnesty may be
a price to be paid. Instead of criminal justice, the focus should
be political justice based on what Mamdani calls the Kempton Park
model that brought an end to Apartheid in South Africa. There, the
focus was on political justice, not criminal justice. The process
focused on the political needs of the nation, privileging the
sovereignty of the country over the principles of the amorphous
international community.
What Mamdani does not address is that the 'Kempton Park'-choices of
apartheid South Africa, Mozambique and Southern Sudan were easier
to make because the outside world was not all mobilized behind one
principle, right or wrong. Is Kempton Park still on the table now
that the rules of peace negotiations - and of who should end up in
parliament and who should be in jail - have been transformed? Might
the activists be satisfied with delayed justice, where amnesty and
political transformation are privileged, with the knowledge that
later, whenever domestic politics allows it, prosecutions can take
place? After all, many countries are recently revisiting their old
amnesty provisions. Mamdani does not make this proposal but it
might be one worth considering, including its moral hazard.
Further, South Africa has demonstrated that the Kempton Park model
does not automatically address social justice, the other pillar of
justice that often part of the root causes of violence. Where does
this leave us? This is not addressed.
In conclusion, "Saviours and Survivors" demonstrates how the
humanitarian project - with SDC and ICC being just two examples
thereof - has shifted and continues to shift the vocabulary through
which all local claims are made, how people understand their
problems, and what solutions are availed to them and which ones are
excluded. This thought-provoking book leaves us with an existential
question: what are we do with a humanitarianism which, instead of
increasing the agency of those it hopes to support, removes from
them the possibilities of acting out of their predicament, turning
them into wards, passive subjects in need of saving?
Politics of Rage, Politics of Change
posted by Khalid al Nur, September 25, 2009
Social Science Research Council Blogs
Making Sense of Darfur
http://blogs.ssrc.org/darfur/
Sudan needs its version of the anti-Apartheid movement, one that
can combine both the anguished moral outcry against mass
atrocities, and also a practical political programme to end them
once and for all. Like many Sudanese sympathizers of the Save
Darfur Campaign I am worried that the campaign will end up making
things worse instead of better.
In Sudanese history, progressive change has always come from
within. The 1964 and 1985 Popular Uprisings came from within and
even if the 1972 and 1985 peace agreements were facilitated by our
African neighbours and the international community, they were
negotiated by Sudanese and their implementation succeeded or failed
because of Sudanese leadership. Whenever there has been an attempt
to change Sudanese politics from outside it has ended in disaster,
for example with blood flowing on the streets of Omdurman in 1976
and 2008.
We are deeply appreciative of the American and European wellwishers
who have campaigned against the atrocities in Darfur and southern
Sudan. They have given hope to many people who believed that they
were condemned to suffer and die without the world knowing or
caring. But they have also ended up by giving encouragement to some
of the most mindless elements in the opposition, who oppose for the
sake of opposing, and who mindlessly welcome any condemnation of
the NIF government without considering the fate of the nation. Alex
is right that when Save Darfur designs its messages for an American
audience it makes the government more paranoid and more
intransigent. At the moment Save Darfur Campaign is not helping us.
I have some recommendations for the Save Darfur Campaign:
- Use the opportunity of the end of mass atrocities in Darfur to
support the democratization process. Campaign for free and fair
elections.
- Define your objectives. There is a lot of misunderstanding and
cynicism even among your supporters, and the vagueness of your aims
mean that it is easy for your critics to make you out to be agents
of neo-imperialism.
- Come to visit Darfur and see for yourselves. Ask the people of
Darfur how they would like your money to be used.
When Darfur was burning we needed the politics of rage. Now we need
the politics of change. I appeal to Save Darfur to become part of
that.
United States Senate (Washington, DC)
Sudan: Statement of Mohammed Ahmed Eisa Before Hearing on Sudan
Mohammed Ahmed Eisa
30 July 2009
[Excerpts only. Full statement available at
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907300969.html]
...
I was born and raised in Darfur and have lived in Darfur for most
of my life. I am a medical doctor and also serve as a professor of
medicine at Al-Fashir University in Darfur in Sudan. I received my
medical degree from the University of Khartoum Medical School in
Sudan in 1976 and I am a specialist in internal medicine.
... I have addressed major community problems in Darfur and have
engaged in peace negotiations on behalf of people in Darfur for the
past 20 years, since 1989. In preparing for this hearing, I spoke
and consulted with many Darfuris on the ground and in the Diaspora
as well as leaders of Sudanese civil society groups. Many of their
views are represented in this statement.
...
Humanitarian Conditions and Situation in the Camps
When the genocide in Darfur erupted in 2003, I was living in Darfur
and have lived there ever since. I personally have provided medical
treatment to hundreds of civilians injured as a result of the
conflict. The injuries have been in various forms: gun-shot wounds,
rape, torture, beatings and other forms of violence.
From 2004 - 2007, I worked as the Director of Medical Treatment at
the Amel Center for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of
Torture (the Amel Center) in Darfur. The Amel Center provided
medical and psycho-social services to victims of rape and torture
and also documented human rights abuses taking place in Darfur.
Most of the cases referred to the Amel Center were from the camps.
I regularly treated several victims of rape, torture and other
forms of violence on a daily basis. The victims comprised men,
women and children and they ranged in age from a boy of 3 years old
to an elderly man who was 80 years old. The Amel Center was the
only organization on the ground providing medical treatment and
psycho-social services to victims of rape and torture.
Many of the civilians who fled their homes as a result of the
conflict live in camps in Darfur and Chad. I visited several of the
camps in the Darfur area, and worked mainly in three of them:
Kalma, Dreij and Otash in Southern Darfur, providing health care
services to the men, women and children living there.
There are more women than men living in these camps. A typical camp
is composed of about 65% females; 25% children and 10% men, mostly
elderly. 30% of children under the age of five in these camps are
malnourished. Since the escalation of the conflict in 2003, several
of the women and girls living in these camps have been raped and
subjected to other forms of sexual harassment. Reports of threats
of violence and rape in these camps persist today. In June this
year, two girls from Hamdya Camp in West Darfur were attacked,
raped and beaten by six janjaweed militia. On the same day, another
girl from Abusorroge Camp in West Darfur was kidnapped by armed men
in military uniforms. In July this year there have been four cases
of rapes in Nyretti Camp in West Darfur. Also in July, an elderly
man was killed, and four children were slaughtered in Tawila Camp
in North Darfur, by the janjaweed militia. Four young men from
Abokaro Camp were also killed by the janjaweed militia when they
left the camp to collect firewood and straw.
The expulsion on 9 March 2009 of 16 aid organizations (13
international and 3 national) by the government following the
issuance of the arrest warrant for President al-Bashir by the
International Criminal Court (ICC) has worsened the deplorable
humanitarian conditions in camps in Darfur. Reports from my fellow
community leaders on the ground indicate that as of June 2009, no
one was providing health care services in Kalma and only two
organizations were supplying food there. Kalma is one of the
largest camps in Darfur with a population of about 100,000 people.
Shadad Camp in Northern Darfur, which previously received food and
water supply from the expelled organizations, is also experiencing
a severe shortage of food and water supply.
...
Although the government has allowed a few aid organizations to
return to Darfur, reports from my colleagues on the ground indicate
that the organizations have not yet started operations in the camps
as a result of lengthy bureaucratic processes locally. Thus the
sufferings in the camps continue.
In addition to the problems within the camps, there are long-term
problems in West Darfur which need to be addressed today. Supported
by the Sudanese Government, newcomers, from Chad and Mali, are
settling on land belonging to the displaced African groups who now
live in the camps. Even if conditions finally improve in Darfur and
people are able to return home to their villages, they will have
nothing to return to and nowhere to go. Any solution for peace must
seriously address these issues.
Finally, the continued and prolonged existence of Darfuris in the
camps contributes to a serious deprivation of the educational
rights of Darfuris. Educational facilities are lacking in the
camps. Even before the conflict, the education level of Darfuris
lagged far behind that of other groups in Sudan, due to the limited
number of schools in Darfur, compared to the rest of the country.
The enrollment of Darfur children in elementary school, for
instance, was only 40%, compared to 90% in North Sudan State. The
limited education in the camps will stunt the educational
development of Darfuris, denying them access to positions in key
sectors in the country.
Targeting of Civil Society and Local Activists and Organizations
Those of us who try to address the deplorable conditions in Darfur
that I just outlined, face constant intimidation by authorities of
the Sudanese Government.
In late 2008, we became aware that our operations at the Amel
Center were no longer secure as information was being leaked to the
Government, thus endangering the lives of the survivors of the
Government-sponsored violence. Six of us from the Amel Center
therefore started the Sudanese Organization for Rights and Peace
Building (Sudanese Organization).
The Sudanese Organization provided legal support for those whose
rights had been violated, such as victims of illegal arrest and
detention and police brutality, and also provided support to
victims of rape and torture. In late October/early November 2008,
three of my colleagues, including one who held a British passport,
were arrested and detained for about three weeks. The holder of the
British passport was spared physical abuse; however, the other two
Sudanese were severely beaten to the extent that one of them
sustained broken ribs. My three colleagues placed in solitary
confinement and denied access to lawyers and visits, even from
family members. The incident forced my colleagues and I to keep a
low profile.
On March 9, 2009, during my absence from Darfur, national security
officers went to the hospital where I worked and to my house
looking for me. They enquired about my whereabouts and conducted a
search of my home. Fortunately, they took nothing from my house and
no one in my household was harmed. On that same day, the national
security forces also went looking for Massad Mohamed, Director
General of the Sudanese Organization. They went to his home, but
did not find him; when they left Massad's home, they left with his
brand new car. Personally, I fear that if I return home I will be
arrested. The five of my other colleagues who ran the Sudanese
Organization with me have also left Darfur and fear for their lives
should they return. In effect, this means that the Sudanese
Organization is no longer functional and victims of crimes and
Government abuse are left without much needed support services.
The Government of Sudan has also prevented civil society groups
from traveling outside of Sudan to participate in peace-building
efforts. In May 2009, about 300 people representing different
groups of civil society members in Darfur were to travel to Addis
Ababa in Ethiopia to meet with other civil society groups in the
Diaspora to formulate a unified vision for peace. The Government
denied exit visas for these members of civil society. As a result,
the meeting in Addis Ababa never took place.
United Nations/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID)
The presence of UNAMID forces has not stemmed the violence in
Darfur due to lack of adequate manpower and equipment. From the
inception, UNAMID has lacked sufficient number of troops,
logistical supplies, including critical aviation capabilities and
communication equipment, rendering it feeble to stem violence in
the region of Darfur. The Security Council Resolution authorized
26,000 troops, but only about 17,000 have been deployed. The
required number of helicopters has also not been provided, and with
Ethiopia's pledge to deliver five in October, a shortage of 19
still remains. An empowered UNAMID will result in effective
partnerships with local village police who can be trained to help
provide additional security. It will also increase the
effectiveness of UNAMID troops in protecting the camps and enable
them to assist with the voluntary return of the civilians in the
camps back to their homes when conditions in Darfur improve.
However, as long as the janjaweed militia remains armed and UNAMID
is inadequately manned and equipped, the prospect of people
returning home from the camps remains unrealistic.
The people of Darfur continue to suffer and there seems to be no
end in sight. There is an urgent need for peace in Darfur. We are
counting on the United States, as a world leader, to play a key
role to bring about peace in Darfur and in Sudan.
Comprehensive Peace Agreement
The United States and the international community has focused a
great deal of attention on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)
signed in 2005. I welcome the CPA and the international attention
on the agreement, as do many people in Darfur. It provides a
framework to bring about the necessary changes that must occur to
effectively address the root causes of the problems in Sudan as a
whole and has relevant application to the conflict in Darfur as
well. Although the CPA does not address the issue of accountability
and issues unique to the Darfur conflict, such as land
re-settlement, it nevertheless encompasses many of the principles
that we in Darfur want: freedom of religion; equality of all
Sudanese citizens; the right to one's own cultural identity, etc.
However, a number of provisions called for in the CPA, such as the
review and amendments of national laws to make them compatible with
the CPA agreement and the 2005 interim constitution of Sudan, have
to date not been implemented. Further, the result of the 2008
census conducted pursuant to the CPA has been rejected by
stakeholders in Southern Sudan and Darfur. We in Darfur and South
Sudan are of the view that the census does not reflect the true
population of the people of Southern Sudan and is less than the
actual number of Southern Sudanese people. These issues must all be
resolved within the shortest delay. Failure to do so would have
disastrous consequences for the elections scheduled for 2010 and
ultimately for the 2011 referendum. The people of Darfur are
closely watching the implementation process of the CPA and with
keen interest. If the CPA is successfully implemented, it will be
a major sign of hope for peace settlement in Darfur. However, if it
fails, it will threaten the prospects of peace in Darfur.
It must be emphasized that the situation in Darfur presents
pressing needs which must first be addressed before some of the
provisions of the CPA, elections, for instance, can be effectively
implemented. There must be peace first, before elections are
conducted. Further, a sizeable number of the Darfur population
lives outside of Darfur as refugees. Without peace, their
participation in an election is severely restricted, if not
completely impossible.
Solutions to the conflict in Sudan must take into account all of
the above factors which threaten to weaken peace. I would like to
outline some recommendations to the United States for sustainable
peace in Darfur.
Recommendations
(1) The U.S. should urge the Government of Sudan to allow the
return and functioning of the 16 humanitarian organizations
expelled in March 2009 and remove the bureaucratic red-tape which
is preventing the few aid organizations in Darfur from commencing
operations.
(2) The U.S. should ensure the inclusion of civil society groups,
including representatives from the leadership of the displaced and
refugees and women organizations in any peace process. The
Government of Sudan should provide requisite documents for
international travel and permit civil society organizations to
participate in peace-building activities.
(3) As a key player in the peace process, the U.S. should call for
the timely implementation of provisions called for in the CPA such
as the review and amendments of national laws, in particular
national security laws and laws guaranteeing freedom of press, in
accordance with the CPA agreement and the 2005 interim constitution
of Sudan.
(4) The U.S., through the Security Council, should take measures to
strengthen the joint United Nations/African Union peace keeping
force, UNAMID.
(5) The U.S., working with the Security Council, should demand that
the Government of Sudan fulfill its commitment to disarm the
janjaweed militias, pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1556
adopted on 30 July 2004.
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