Sudan’s CPA, another born-dead peace
By Kanta Robert
Jan 29, 2007 — In Africa the dead are not dead. They are alive and watch over the living with whom they can speak with and listen to.
Upon signing the January 2005 Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Kenya, the words of Dr. John Garang, the late chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLM/A radiated hope. Garang, who negotiated the agreement on behalf of SPLM, said, “We have reached the crest of the last hill in our tortuous ascent to the heights of peace. There are no more hills ahead of us, the remaining is flat ground.”
At the same time, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, First Vice President of the Republic of the Sudan, said that his government was serious about the accord. “Peace is our gift to the entire region,” he declared.
Thus, the peace agreement was born just a few days later like African children. But hope for a lasting peace in South Sudan was entombed with Garang, when he died in July 2005.
The “crest of the last hill” that he spoke of on that hopeful day in January and the country’s “tortuous ascent to heights of peace” has yet to be reached. At this point in time the road ahead for political orphan of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement is not “flat ground” but a mountain.
There is a parallel between Africa’s maternal mortality rate and CPA and many peace agreements signed throughout the continent.
According to the World Health Organization, “Up to half a million African babies die on the day they are born – most at home and uncounted.”
What the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement –and other peace agreements– has in common with that statistic is that the agreement also died before its first birthday. And, like many African children, it and the other died of preventable “disease.”
As with the children who die at home uncounted, most African peace agreements signed in foreign countries die in the countries-or “homes”-where they were signed before even reaching African shores. The agreements remain uncounted because the parties who signed them are the only ones with the right to violate or question them.
The preventable disease of African peace agreements is well stated in the International Crisis Group analysis of the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement:
“The north-south war formally ended in January 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which incorporated the former rebel group, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) into a Government of National Unity (GNU). However the implementation of the CPA has been hampered by the lack of good faith and the absence of political will on the part of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the lack of capacity of the SPLM/A, aggravated by the July 2005 death of its late Chairman, Dr. John Garang, as well as the absence of consistent international pressure. Deliberate obstruction of the CPA implementation by the NCP, particularly the areas of Abyei, oil revenue sharing and the demarcation of the north-south border, are putting the hard-fought peace at risk”.
Prevention sometimes may fail to prevent diseases, mainly when the environment cannot be controlled by humans. This, in part, is the fate of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The changing political environment that followed the signing illustrates what ICG has described.
First, the war in the Darfur region of Sudan erupted. The mistake made by the Sudanese officials was to downplay its impact on implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Accord. The officials said that the rebellion in Darfur would be short-lived and would have no impact on the peace process. Today, the reality of the situation in Darfur defies those expectations.
Next came the change in the political environment in the United States, which impacted all of the U.S. power brokers involved in Sudan: The Iraq war took its toll on President Bush, who played a key role in bringing the Sudanese parties to an agreement.
Former Senator John Danforth, who had been the administration’s special peace envoy to Sudan and later U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, retired. Roger Winter, The state department’s special representative to Sudan has far less influence in a Democrat-controlled Congress.
Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), one of the original co-sponsors of the Sudan peace accord, is otherwise engaged, preparing a run for the presidency. Neither African-American democrats, such as Rep. Donald Payne, a co-chair of Congress’s Sudan Caucus, nor the officials handling African problems at the state department are diplomats with high enough profiles to change the attitude of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Some members of the United Nations peacekeeping force sent to protect the peace now are sexually victimizing the women in the South, who already are victims of Arabs slave merchants. Even worse, China, India and Malaysia have no interest in seeing their oil revenues decrease. And last but not least, the U.S. economic ties with these three countries provide President Bashir with an advantage in his maneuvering to delay implementation of the peace agreement.
Would that Dr. Garang could say the words necessary to get the plan back on track. As it is, he must be turning in his grave to see what has become of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to which he devoted his life.
* The author is an African Conflict Analyst, who worked in Southern Sudan and Darfur. She is based in Washington. Email [email protected]