Is cry of Darfur people for help being heard?
By Roba Gibia
Dec 18, 2006 — There is no doubt that the world attention has been focused during the past months and this days on the dreadful events in Darfur, due to the complexity and magnitude of the human tragedy as a challenge of twenty-first century enticing the international community. But it seems it is only convergence of consciousness without actual commitment or desire to tackle the twenty-first century challenge. The international community has been torn apart by their diversity interests on the account of human suffering on one hand, and on the other, it has become the conflict between civilized and non-civilized nations over devaluation of human life at our current contemporaries.
The raw over Darfur predicament which has been going on and on without any concrete decision, is simply a conflict of principles and merits on one side and between moderates or liberals and extremists from the other side. In other words, it has become conflict between nations which value the human life and the nations which devalue human life for their own empowerment.
This conflicting ideology over Darfur has become apparent in Geneva between UN Human Rights Security Committee, as the committee has been divided over the principles of human rights protection. The African, Asian and Arab countries despite their confession that the human tragedy in Darfur is the worst, but yet refrained in condemning Sudanese government but rather backed its move. Thus, European counterparts were left with no choice but to drop their request of censuring Khartoum, and instead agreed on sending a committee of facts finding from the various sources on the ground. Thus, instead of sending strong message and holding Sudanese regime accountable, the UN Human Rights Security Committee praised the so-called Khartoum’s steps towards resolving Darfur crisis, which is a really victory to Khartoum diplomacy.
In this context of UN Human Rights appreciation to steps taken by Khartoum, there wasn’t any major political move or strategies in place except dominant military offensives which has intensified situation more on ground. The Darfur crisis has reached grave and complex stage, and it will never be resolved within the Sudanese contest alone, due to the lack of confidence and trust between the warring parties. Thus, the sincerity and faithfulness is required to get all the warring parties on board to re-start serious and genuine negotiations for the cessation of hostilities, disarming Janjaweed militias as step forward in building confidence and mutual understanding between the parties and the way forward to sustainable peace.
As a simple and ordinary Sudanese citizen, I believe it is imperative to the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and other Sudanese political parties to engage into serious deliberations to come up with a general consensus and unified plan to resolve Darfur crisis, instead of hanging country’s problems on outsiders. As the NCP has lost already its credibility before the Darfurians and Sudanese in general to bring about the peace in the region.
In my view the Darfur crisis is a nationwide problem and can’t be considered as a ruling party’s problem alone. Yes, it has made the mess at the first place, but the real issue now is how to find a way out, as the role of other political parties is an asset. And one wonders, where is the role of other major political parties in Sudan toward resolving Darfur predicament? As since the Darfur crisis become the issue of hour, we haven’t seen any major political move from prominent Sudanese figures or political leaders mediating or trying to narrow the gape between the warring parties or visiting Darfur region or IDPs in the camps to show its support and solidarity with the Darfur people. While we have seen overseas political leaders and prominent figures visiting Darfur and IDP camps to show their compassion and love toward the most neglected human tragedy at the twenty-first century! Are we less concerned with the torment of our own people, and how dare could we say tomorrow that Darfurians are our Sudanese brothers and sisters while we never give a hand or even a morale support to them when they badly needed and crying for help!
We can’t give deaf ears to the cries of our brothers and sisters, as their cries have to be heard first by us and neighbors then the outsiders. But if we have denied hearing cries of Darfur people and claimed that there isn’t any cry there, certainly we have contributed in one way or another to the calamity of Darfur people. We are no less than other nations who value the human life. Thus, we have to rise and defend our human value and prevent the on going massacre of our brothers and sisters and exhibit to the world that we do value the human life.
The stand of Sudanese political leaders in Sudan were against deployment of UN forces in Darfur, yet confessed and agreed with the scale of crisis in Darfur but disagreed by the way country is being run. This is obvious, but hoped to see all those major political parties in Sudan, not to be only vocal about the Darfur crisis, but have to be seriously involved in drawing up plans jointly with the ruling party to find the best recipe for the country’s problems far from partisan, as the national interest is beyond any party’s interest.
I believe it is time for Sudanese to come up with clear plan and strategy as how to resolve Darfur crisis instead of preferring military option on negotiations. And the ambitious projects which VP Taha talked about in his recent BBC Arabic program discussions will never commence unless there is stability and peace in the region. As you can’t execute any developmental projects while there is still insecurity and more than 2.5 million people living in IDP camps and depending entirely on foreign aids. Support those IDPs, bring laughter and smile back to their lips instead of crying, show them your compassion and offer them protection as a government to gain their confidence and trust. The ambitious projects will never begin and the peace will never prevail while the government continues to use food as weapon, bars humanitarian aids and Sudanese media from reaching its own people. This policy widens gape, breeds hatred and discrimination among Sudanese sons and daughters and leads to disintegration of the country.
While the international communities are busy with Darfur, the south Sudan peace implementation process is being neglected and most of its provisions are placed on shelf and has become a secondary issue. And this was exactly what happened to Darfur when the world attention was focused on Naivasha peace negotiation and Darfur was left as an easy prey to Khartoum government despite their cry for help.
My anxiety at this juncture is that, south Sudan is not getting enough support, attention and aid to implement the most essential clause of Naivasha accord, which is the core of the agreement such as Abyei protocol and south-north demarcation to determine accurate oil accounts. And I fear if the current trend of Naivasha peace implementation continued as it is, the general census in 2007, elections in 2008 and 2011 referendum will never take place as stipulated in the peace agreement. And consequently, there will be no other option but actuality on ground which people would be obliged to accept it. And that was apparently what happened to Pronk when he was declared person non grata and ordered to leave Sudan, he didn’t get any sufficient support from the UN Security Council as well as international community except vocal criticism without any significant move or alteration of the situation, and everyone accepted the situation as a reality. In other words, the voice of the most courageous, critical person to Khartoum’s policy and adamant UN envoy to Sudan was not heard, then how could we expect cries of Darfur people for help to be heard!
* Roba Gibia is a Sudan Tribune columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]