Roots of bloodshed run deep in Sudan’s Darfur: experts warn

By JIM LOBE

WASHINGTON, Jan 10, 2005 (IPS) — Human rights groups and other observers remain worried about the continuing violence in the western region of Darfur, despite the signing yesterday of a final peace accord between the government of Sudan and southern rebels.

Women collect water at a communal pump in Kekabiya, in Sudan’s North Darfur state, November 17, 2004. (Reuters).

They are also concerned that both major parties to the accord, the National Islamic Front (NIF) government and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA/M), will fully comply, even though a cease-fire negotiated in 2002 to end two decades of war has held up remarkably well since then.

“A major cause of the conflicts that have shattered the lives of so many Sudanese has been injustice and marginalisation,” said Kolawole Olaniyan, director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme. “Unless these basic human rights concerns are seriously addressed, it will be difficult to have a lasting peace.”

“The signing of this peace deal could mark a historic moment for Sudan by bringing to an end decades of violence and devastation in Africa’s largest country,” said Washington-based Africa Action in response to the signing.

“But this peace agreement does not cover the ongoing conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, where the Sudanese government continues to wage a campaign of genocide against civilians from three ethnic groups,” the group stated.

Indeed, on the eve of the signing, which was witnessed by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell among many other dignitaries, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that the situation in Darfur, where between 70,000 and 300,000 mostly African Muslims are estimated to have died over the past two years, was deteriorating, with violence throughout the region spreading despite the presence of about 1,000 members of an African Union (AU) monitoring force.

The Khartoum-SPLA/M conflict, which is believed to have killed more than two million people since 1983, pitted an Arab- and Muslim-dominated government against an African population consisting mainly of Christians and animists. The war, which was begun after the government decreed that Islamic law should apply to the entire government, has centred in areas where Khartoum has sold oil concessions to foreign companies.

The Darfur conflict, on the other hand, has pitted the government and Arab militias, called the Janjaweed, allied with it, against two rebel groups consisting mainly of three African ethnic groups who are also Muslim.

The counter-insurgency campaign waged by Khartoum and the militias has been directed primarily against the settled African population, more than 1.6 million of whom have been forced from their homes, either across the border into Chad, into camps controlled by the government, or into remote areas inaccessible to relief groups.

Last July, the U.S. Congress approved a resolution accusing the regime of “genocide”, a characterisation officially endorsed by the George W. Bush administration two months later.

The U.N. Security Council has passed two resolutions that called on all sides to cease hostilities and for the government to disarm the Janjaweed. It also authorised an AU observer mission of up to 3,500 troops, and sent a special mission to determine whether war crimes are being committed. The mission is expected to make a preliminary report this month, which the administration has suggested may lead to a push to impose economic sanctions on Khartoum unless it complies with the earlier resolutions.

Annan reported on Jan. 7 that government forces, after suspending joint operations with the Janjaweed last summer, had resumed them in December.

Washington, which, along with Britain, Norway, and neighbouring African states, played a mediating role in peace talks between Khartoum and the SPLA/M, has been pressing for a final agreement since even before hostilities broke out in Darfur. The government, which offered safe haven to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s, is seen as an important potential U.S. ally in the “war on terrorism.” The U.S. has also argued that a final north-south accord will create greater pressure on Khartoum to settle in Darfur and with other restive minorities around the country that have long been alienated by the NIF’s fundamentalism and Arab chauvinism. At the same time, the Bush administration has said it will not normalise relations with Khartoum unless it halts the violence in Darfur.

Under the agreement signed Sunday, earnings from Sudan’s growing oil production are to be split 50-50 between Khartoum and the south, which will be granted autonomy, including exemption from Islamic law, for six years. At that time, it may hold a referendum on secession. SPLM leaders will also take senior posts in the government.

The accord, however, does not cover the rights of other minority groups in Sudan, including in Darfur.

Powell himself indicated some scepticism about the accord’s future after the signing. “This is a promising day for the people of Sudan, but only if today’s promises are kept,” he said.

That scepticism is widely shared by other observers, who stressed that the agreement at this point was simply a document whose potential remains to be fulfilled.

“But most indicators point towards a different outcome,” according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). “The government is signing partially to deflect pressure over Darfur. It is likely to use resulting goodwill to increase attacks there and undermine opposition elsewhere in the country.”

“The government’s objective is to maintain power,” said John Prendergast, the ICG’s special adviser on Sudan who served in the National Security Council under former President Bill Clinton. “Supporters of the peace deal need to understand it pursues contradictory approaches in different regions with different opposition elements to confuse outsiders and defuse criticism.”

That analysis was echoed by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which called the final accord “an important step”, but pointed to the ongoing “scorched-earth campaign of ‘ethnic cleansing’ by the government and its allies in Darfur as reason for skepticism that the government was truly committed to providing security for all Sudanese.”

“Even as the Naivasha agreement (named for the Kenyan town where the negotiations have taken place) is being celebrated in the South, people are being raped and burned out of their homes in Darfur,” said Peter Takirambudde, director of HRW’s Africa programme. “The Security Council must clearly send Sudan the message that there will be no impunity for crimes of this magnitude.”

Africa Action, a grassroots group which led the anti-apartheid campaign in the U.S. beginning in the 1960s, also stressed that Washington must focus on Darfur.

“The U.S. must not allow itself to be diverted by the north-south deal,” said Africa Action director Salih Booker. “It must concern itself with the fate of all of the marginalised people of Sudan – otherwise peace will continue to elude Africa’s largest nation.”