Sudan still bleeds
By AMIR TAHERI, The New York Post
May 10, 2005 — AS the plane from London landed at Khartoum Air port the other day, a contingent of armed security men moved in to cordon it off before its “dangerous cargo” could be removed from it and taken to an unknown destination.
The “dangerous cargo” in question was the mortal remains of Khatim Adlan, an exiled Sudanese writer and opposition activist who had died in London of cancer. Outside the building, hundreds of students and other pro-reform activists had waited for hours to carry the coffin to the National Students Club, so that the public could pay its respects.
This bizarre exercise in body-snatching is just another example of the nervousness that characterizes Sudan’s repressive military-Islamist regime as it tries to ward off pressure for democratic change at home while hoodwinking the outside world with cosmetic reforms.
The current view in some Western capitals, including Washington, is that the regime of Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir has seen the writing on the wall and is trying to introduce a minimum of changes needed to transform Sudan from a rogue state into an acceptable element in the region’s new pattern.
In recent months, Khartoum has accepted U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with the 21-year-old war in the south and signed a peace agreement with Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA-SPLM). The regime has also agreed to cooperate with the United Nations to put an end to the year-long genocide in Darfur. Other diplomatic gestures have reinforced the impression that Khartoum is truly heading for change.
The truth, however, is quite different:
* The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Khartoum and the SPLM concerning the south remains largely a dead letter.
* The U.N. peacekeeping mission exists only on paper, with no timetable set for its deployment on the ground.
* Tension is growing over the southern oilfields – while elaborate plans for sharing oil revenues, to help rebuild the war-shattered south where most oilfields are located, have been back-burnered.
* The regime’s promise to disband some of its most vicious security organs hasn’t been fulfilled – and there is, as yet, no sign of releasing political prisoners on any significant scale.
* The regime has also breached the peace agreement by repeatedly missing deadlines fixed for drafting a new democratic constitution as the first step toward free and pluralist elections.
* In a clear sign that the regime intends to retain a significant war-making capacity in the south, a stream of military personnel and materiel still flows into the two mainly affected provinces. And Khartoum has speeded up arms deliveries to the so-called Lord’s Army in next-door Uganda as part of a scheme to use that band of cut-throats as a mercenary force in the south.
The situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate. By humanitarian-group estimates, 15,000 people a month are still dying there thanks to famine, disease or Khartoum-controlled paramilitary gangs.
The African Union’s long-promised peacekeeping force for Darfur is frozen at a quarter of its envisaged size and, deprived of adequate mobility, is reduced to inaction even in areas where it is present. There is as yet no serious effort to enforce a ban on military flights over Darfur or an embargo on arms supplies. Talk of NATO support has led nowhere, as the AU force remains inadequate and badly organized.
Plans for protecting the refugee camps, disarming the murder gangs and helping repatriate those who wish to return home can’t proceed without a much larger peacekeeping force with a better-defined mandate and rules of engagement.
Worse still, the African Union, the U.N., the U.S. and the European Union have proved unable or unwilling to coordinate to send a unified message to the rebels and their masters in Khartoum. The much-talked-of appointment of a single mediator representing all four parties is yet to take place.
Last March, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution raising the possibility of prosecuting senior Sudanese officials for crimes against humanity in Darfur. So far, however, the International Criminal Court has failed to widen the process of collecting testimonies and other data, thus sending the opposite signal.
Having talked of Darfur for months as “another Rwanda in the making,” the international community appears to be losing interest. Is it “compassion fatigue” in a world that seems full tragedies? Conspiracy theorists are certain to see things differently. In many Arab capitals, there is already talk of the Faustian pact that Western oil giants have concluded with Sudanese despots to help keep them in power in exchange for new oil concessions.
The sense of calm developing about Sudan is certain to prove false – with even more tragic consequences. Tension is already building up in the east; another major civil war seems possible unless strong international action is taken.
The idea that a narrowlybased military regime could control a vast and diverse country such as Sudan without bloodshed is unrealistic to say the least. The only way to keep Sudan together and in peace is through power-sharing in the context of genuine democratization.
Although one of the poorest Arab states, Sudan – thanks to its ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity and a long memory of pluralist politics – could be in the forefront of democratic change in the broader Middle East region.
The civil war in the south and the tragedy in Darfur have claimed millions of lives. But they have also produced a genuine opportunity for helping Sudanese people envisage a way out of the impasse created by the military regime.
The outside world should do what it can to help them find that way.
Iranian author Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.