Can Darfur Peace Deal Succeed?
Without Foreign Chancelleries and Hollywood’s Finest, Can Darfur Peace Deal Succeed?
By Alex de Waal
A peace deal to end three years of fighting, the death of tens of
thousands and the flight of millions was signed last Friday between
the Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel faction. The next
stage in the peace process will be on May 15, when the African Union
meets in an attempt to persuade two other rebel factions to sign the
peace deal and to discuss when the United Nations will take over
peacekeeping duties from the African Union. Can the peace deal
succeed? Alex de Waal weights its chances.
It took four years to negotiate an end to Mozambique’s civil war.
That peace, signed in 1992, has lasted until today. The Darfur Peace
Agreement, which it was hoped would end the first genocide of the
21st century, was forced through in little more than a year. If it
fails to end the conflict in western Sudan, it will be because of its
process rather than its provisions. The process has been flawed from
the beginning, and could be fatal at the last. The DPA may well be
the best the people of Darfur can get in their present, miserable
circumstances. But international pressure for a quick fix threatens
to cripple it – and in so doing to condemn Darfurians to further
suffering.
Defenders of the peace process that began in the Ethiopian capital,
Addis Ababa, in mid-2004 before shifting to the Nigerian capital,
Abuja, will argue that it lasted almost two years. On paper, yes. In
truth, no. The first four rounds of the seven-round talks were
dominated by the Sudan government’s egregious violations of ceasefire
agreements and the international community’s failure to take a single
meaningful step to stop them. When serious negotiation was finally
engaged, the African Union mediation was almost as problematic as the
rebel negotiators themselves. The mediation improved towards the end
of 2005, but popular pressure from outside Darfur for armed
intervention was by then encouraging a series of deadlines that
culminated with a 30 April date set by the AU Peace and Security
Council. The best of the AU’s experts in Abuja believed April was
unrealistic, off by a couple of months at least.
On 25 April, the AU presented its draft agreement. Previous deadlines
had come and gone. But this one, astonishingly, was enforced (more or
less). Officially, the parties had five days to take the agreement –
or leave it. Five days, that is, for those able to read and
understand English. Those who were dependent on the Arabic text,
completed on 28 April, had only 48 hours. The people of Darfur, who
will live or die by the agreement, know very little about it. They
have not been party to the talks. No-one has explained the agreement
to them. (Least of all the state-controlled media, which would not be
permitted to mention the state’s many concessions.) They do not know
what it offers and what it doesn’t – and, most importantly, why it
doesn’t. There is no individual compensation, they tell me. But there
is. No timetable for the disarmament of the Janjaweed militias. But
there is. No guarantees for implementation. But there are – inasmuch
as there can be in the face of a government that will see
implementation as defeat and will fight it every inch of the way.
This was never a people’s peace, a peace that grew from within and
had strong, deep roots. Today it is an imposed and partial peace-
between the Sudan government and the faction of the Sudan Liberation
Army that is led by Minni Minawi, who represents 8% at most of the
population of Darfur. It is already faltering: Darfurians are
demonstrating against it in towns and displaced camps, recognizing in
the signatories two narrowly-based parties who believe in domination
through force and preferring continued struggle to what they believe
is surrender. SLA Chairman Abdul Wahid Mohamed al Nur, until now the
single most important rebel leader in terms of popular support as
opposed to firepower, is insisting he will not sign, refusing sack-
fulls of dollars intended to change his mind.
There are many in the Khartoum government who believe they can crush
the movements by force and who, given half a chance, will try.
Rushing an agreement that some factions still oppose could, in a
worst-case scenario, give them that chance.
Interpretation of the DPA varies enormously. My own is that it is a
pretty good deal. Not the best, perhaps, but not bad. The rebel
movements have from the beginning suffered from delusions of
grandeur. Unlike the southern rebels of the SPLA, they have not
fought for 20 years. Their region is of little or no strategic
importance: it has no water and it has no oil. The rebels themselves
are divided, without a leader who can hold a candle to the SPLA’s
John Garang. Most importantly: they did not win the war. Their only
asset was the support of the international community, and their
comportment in Abuja – and in Darfur itself – has damaged that.
Even those who have rejected the agreement acknowledge that its
security provisions are surprisingly good. The Sudan government must
withdraw its forces from many areas it currently occupies, and must
disarm the Janjaweed within five months – before the rebels even
begin to lay down their guns. Guarantees include an independent
advisory team that both Canada and Norway, outspoken critics of the
Khartoum government, are keen to head up. The government must
downsize the paramilitary Popular Defence Force and Border Guards in
which Janjaweed have been hidden. The hated PDF must be abolished in
three or four years. Thousands of rebels will be integrated into the
Sudanese Armed Forces. Some will even be given command posts.
The agreement’s weakest point, from Darfur’s viewpoint, is its
provisions for power-sharing. At the federal level, the rebel
movements have won few concessions and have been refused the third
place in the national hierarchy. But they have the fourth – in itself
a gigantic step up. The government has won the battle to keep Darfur
divided into three states, until a referendum on a single region, and
controls 50% of state legislatures to the rebels’ 30%, with 20% going
to independents – a division that could, in reality, produce an anti-
government majority. Critically, however, the movements will control
the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (TDRA) and annual income
of hundreds of millions of dollars. It is the TDRA which will be the
real power until elections. It will implement the peace agreement,
supervise reconstruction and economic development, and help the
return and resettlement of the refugees. All the TDRA’s commission
heads will be the movements’ nominees.
The real, abiding concern is implementation. Because of the
timetable, the implementing force will be the AU, which has been
hopelessly under-resourced so far. UN troops may be accepted by
Khartoum now the strongest rebel faction has signed the agreement,
but they cannot arrive much before year-end. The threat of UN
sanctions frightens no-one. What is most disturbing is the degree of
eagle-eyed, unrelenting international pressure that will be needed to
force Khartoum to do all the things it is refusing to do in South
Sudan. Not just now, when the world’s eyes are on Darfur, but in a
few years time, when foreign chancelleries and Hollywood’s finest may
have shifted their attention to another crisis and another photo
opportunity.
* Alex de Waal is director, Justice Africa, and Senior Adviser to Salim Ahmed Salim, Chief African Union Mediator at the Darfur Peace Talks