The dilemma of rejecting both intl and national determination
By Mahgoub El-Tigani
August 29, 2006 — In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council, the President of the Government of National Unity (GONU) Omer al-Bashir spoke about his government’s efforts to democratize Darfur, process the Abuja agreement effectively, and establish peace and political stability by the active participation of civil society groups in close collaboration with the African Union. Even if these promised obligations would be consistently pursued by the president and his GONU, they would never match the intensive, sharply-focused, and decisive draft resolution(s) of the Security Council that have been put forward in the name of the International Community for Sudan to comply with as a party to the UN international obligations.
The GONU President claimed in his letter to the Security Council that “large sections of the Sudanese people reject the transition of AU forces to UN troops.” The bare facts about the GONU governance defy this claim: the GONU major partner, the SPLM, is supportive of the UN mission in Darfur and has repeatedly opposed the NIF ruling party’s one-sided decision to stand against the UN plan to end the Darfur crisis. The other parties to the GONU, including the National Democratic Alliance, and the large non-GONU opposition parties, especially the Umma Party, are agreed that the NIF-controlled GONU has decisively failed to bring a lasting and just peace to the warring region.
The GONU President referred to “the close collaboration and active participation of civil society” in the efforts of his government to redress the humanitarian crisis of Darfur. Contrarily to his claim, not a single civil society group over the globe could testify to any “possible collaboration” between the Sudanese and/or non-Sudanese human rights, democracy, or relief organizations, and the NIF rulers of Sudan. The bitter fact is that civil society groups have been increasingly harassed, censored, and persecuted by the iron clad security department of the ruling regime over the past 17 years up to the present time.
The President indicated “close collaboration with the AU forces, the signing rebel groups of the Abuja Agreement and the others’ joining them in the implementation of the agreement, in addition to the appointment of a rebel leader as his assistant.” The formal signing and appointment, nonetheless, are not sufficient indicators for a lasting peace, let alone even popularly recognized acceptance by major rebel groups, as well as the other opposition parties, that continue to insist in a full-scale participation of all players in the arena versus the piece-meal selectivity model of the Naivasha/Abuja agreements.
In his meeting with the Sudanese media groups and journalists abroad this week, the GONU president criticized the SPLM performance towards the Naivasha implementation proceedings, including the Abyei dispute. The fact of the matter is that the NIF-controlled GONU has been weakening the South Sudan Government with respect to all provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement: foreign affairs, the oil revenue, parliamentary decision-making, security concerns, militias’ disarmament, and confidence building to help build-up the national unity of the country. “Only one of more than 20 agenda in the Naivasha Agreements has been accomplished,” announced the NIF-GONU leader.
It was equally claimed by the President that the UN forces “would not help making peace in Darfur; they would encourage the rebels to abuse the situation and would motivate the militias not to cooperate with the government to disarm them.” These predictions are not appealing since the GONU failures have been carefully documented by both NGOs and the AU officials in Darfur. From their part, the rebel groups and the opposition parties have adamantly accused the NIF-controlled regime of protecting the militias and attacking the displaced population.
The angry reactions by a great many Darfurians against the restrictiveness of the Abuja Agreement to certain rebel groups indicated further a popular rejection of the peace arrangements rather than the president’s claimed “popularity” of the agreement. The government’s unprecedented expansion of public spending on the army, police, and security agencies have been strongly criticized by the GONU parliamentarians, as well as the opposition groups, which added more difficulties to the GONU plans to increase spending on military/security operations in the region. Little wonder, Amnesty International warned against the government’s intention to deploy army troops in Darfur because “it will aggravate the situation.”
The Security Council draft resolution might be vetoed by China despite the fact that a majority of Council members might support the draft. Admitting failures for poor financing, etc., the AU has already given consent to a greater level of “international collaboration” regarding its mission in Darfur. The Arab friends of Sudan, such as Qatar, advised Sudan not to oppose “the international decision-making” about Darfur. Several Egyptian official analysts did the same in media interviews. The Sudanese Press never ceased criticizing the GONU one-party’s show in this Sudanese-international crisis.
The GONU presidency and the other governmental decision-making (NIF ruling party, competing foreign affairs sources) have already fallen short of the pressing needs for a united national action to return the displaced Darfurians to their homes, establish a long-term political solution, and move ahead the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to embrace the national agenda of the whole country.
The poor show Bashir exercised at his meeting with the media, the poorer show NIF university student supporters manifested at the Khartoum Airport to reject the high level mission of the US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer will not modify the decisive magnitude of the Security Council to resolve the crisis. Nor would the reconciliatory flavor of the president’s letter to the Council re-establish confidence in the NIF-GONU intentions or capabilities to resolve the crisis.
The UN Secretary-General has been called for by both the Council and the GONU President to mediate in the escalated confrontation. The GONU leader claimed that his meeting with Mr. Anan at the AU meetings in Banjul carried with it an appeal to the UNSG to allow Sudan 6 months to achieve the UN approved agenda to end the crisis. The Council draft resolution has also entrusted the SG with a competent international mandate that left only symbolic participation for the GONU in the territory of Darfur. According to the draft, the UN would police the whole region, including borders with Chad and Central Africa, disarm outlaws, bring the displaced Darfur safely home, and take the political initiative of stabilizing the region in political terms with more than 17,000 well-equipped international troops.
The Security Council draft resolution meant in practical terms a replacement of the GONU authority with a UN patronage. As such, it is quite understandable why the GONU President rejected the resolution’s letter all together. The UN SG might choose to go ahead with the Council mandate should China join the Council members to pass “a slightly amended” draft to save face of the NIF-controlled GONU.
In the meantime, the National Will of the People of Sudan, including the Darfurians, is not yet honored by the Security Council resolutions or the NIF-controlled GONU, so far as the real solution of the crisis, i.e. an All-Sudanese Constitutional Conference is completely ignored by the letters of the disputing parties.
Still, the UN Council and the GONU controlling parties might agree to act appropriately to arrange for the Sudanese National Constitutional Conference under the auspices of the United Nations before new complexities take the situation to inevitable violence.
* The author is a member of the Sudanese Writers’ Union. He can be reached at [email protected].