Untimely death
By Eric Reeves , The New Republic Online
August 2, 2005 — The chances for an end to Darfur’s genocide were dealt a potentially severe blow this weekend by the helicopter crash that killed the country’s new vice president, John Garang de Mabior. But this is not because Garang was, as U.S. State Department officials have disingenuously implied, a powerful force within Sudan’s new national unity government, able to exert real pressure on Khartoum’s National Islamic Front (NIF) to negotiate a just peace with Darfur’s insurgency movements. (In an example of this excessively optimistic reasoning, Condoleezza Rice said two weeks ago that Garang “has been saying the right things” about the genocide and that “we want him to be very involved in Darfur.”) Rather, Garang’s death imperils the January 2005 north-south peace agreement–and thereby increases the odds that the genocide in Darfur will accelerate. The relationship between Darfur and southern Sudan is complex, but it takes on a terrible urgency in the wake of Garang’s death.
First, some background. Garang was an intelligent and visionary leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in its effort to achieve a just peace for southern Sudan. He, more than anyone, confronted the NIF, both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. And he was certainly well aware of the nature of his adversaries, having seen Khartoum’s genocidal ambitions in the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan and the oil regions of southern Sudan. He also knew the military limitations of his adversaries: He once told me, shortly before the north-south peace process moved into its final phase, that the NIF was negotiating only because of the military burden of fighting in Darfur. “Khartoum cannot fight both in Darfur and in the south,” he declared, “so they are forced to deal with us seriously at the negotiating table.”
But the genocide in Darfur is now carried out largely by proxies (the notorious Janjaweed), malnutrition, and disease–factors that increasingly relieve Khartoum from having to expend its own military power. Moreover, the NIF–which still dominates the national unity government (including the executive branch, the military forces, the intelligence and security services, and the various paramilitaries throughout the country)–has created a ghastly quid pro quo, admonishing the West: Don’t press us too hard over Darfur or we will scuttle the north-south agreement. The NIF has also reversed this diplomatic equation, saying in effect to the international community: Your humanitarian organizations presently have acceptable access to Darfur; but that can change quickly if we are blamed or punished for any renewed conflict in southern Sudan. Which means anything that increases Khartoum’s ability or inclination to renew conflict in the south also raises the likelihood of NIF obstructionism in Darfur.
And the threat of renewed violence in southern Sudan is very real in the wake of Garang’s death. The new SPLM leader, the collegial Salva Kiir Mayardit, does not have nearly the diplomatic or political skills of Garang, and will also have a very difficult time holding together the incipient Government of South Sudan. He is likely to be severely tested in the coming weeks, in various ways. Most ominously, the Khartoum-backed militias (the South Sudan Defense Forces) could easily provoke renewed fighting in the oil regions of Eastern and Western Upper Nile. If this occurs, Khartoum will hold out the threat of accelerating genocide in Darfur. The regime will, in effect, say: New fighting in Sudan is to be regretted, but any interference will prompt us to reconsider issues of humanitarian access in Darfur.
The NIF is constantly underestimated by Sudan observers–one reason this cruel deviousness may seem implausible to some. But the NIF comprises intelligent men who are ruthlessly survivalist by instinct, and who have been amply encouraged by the international community in the belief that claims of national sovereignty will always outweigh the moral claims of humanitarian intervention.
But why would the NIF be interested in resuming war in the south? There is a simple answer. Sudan’s large oil reserves are located primarily in southern Sudan, but very close to the historic north-south administrative border. Under the current wealth-sharing agreement, the NIF-dominated unity government is obliged to share revenues from all southern oil production equally with the government of South Sudan. Many in the NIF want all these oil revenues. Moreover, many in the NIF believe too much was conceded to the south in January’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement; in their eyes, the agreement was merely a device to buy time while pressure over Darfur was at its most intense.
Seeing that even massive genocidal destruction in Darfur will not provoke humanitarian intervention, and the current strategy of genocide by attrition will accomplish the same goals as previous large-scale violence, the NIF may be forgiven for wondering why it should not resume its war in the south. If such war occurs, as is much more likely in the wake of John Garang’s death, a pressured NIF will not hesitate to threaten humanitarian operations in Darfur–all that currently stands between life and death for millions. The calculus is as brutal as this.
Eric Reeves is a professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College and has written extensively on Sudan.