Peace still some way off in Sudan
By Peter Moszynski, Middle East International
LONDON, Jan 08, 2004 — President Umar al-Bashir’s Independence Day speech on 1 January was somewhat bellicose for a country supposedly on the verge of a historic peace agreement. Instead of celebrating the end of the war in the South as planned, he virtually declared a new one in the west.
“Our top priority will be the annihilation of the rebellion and any outlaw who carries arms against the state”, the president said. Describing the Darfur rebels as “hirelings, traitors, agents and renegades whom the enemies of Sudan employed to carry out their plots against the country”, Bashir said the rebels were a small group “not representing the people of Darfur in any way and pursuing personal ambitions of seizing power not only in Darfur but also in Kordofan and even in Khartoum.”
The unrest in Darfur is leading to a vicious cycle of expectation and violence that risks undercutting the limited progress made over two years of peace talks. Leaving discussion of the marginalized areas until last has meant they are increasingly linked to the situation in Darfur and Khartoum’s unwillingness to concede on issues beyond the South.
The government is all too aware of the dangers of creating a precedent in any of the three marginalized areas which could lead to further secessionist claims in the outlying areas of Northern Sudan. Yet those in the three areas are unlikely to feel bound by a peace that mainly deals with the South if conflict continues in the North.
America’s hopes of achieving a Sudanese peace deal by the end of the year were always unrealistic, but it would have given quite a boost to George Bush electorally had he managed to end the war in Sudan the same week as capturing Saddam Hussein and neutralizing Colonel Qadhafi. The Administration still talks about both parties travelling to Washington to sign a framework agreement before the end of January.
Unrealistic hopes
One senior official at the talks told MEI: “The Americans don’t seem to realize that the United States is the last place a peace deal should be signed. This is an African initiative, led by Kenya and IGAD, and any deal should be signed in Africa. The US should not try to take all the credit. There is already insufficient local ownership of the process and a peace deal signed in Washington would appear far too driven by outsiders.”
The danger is that any deal seen to be led by outsiders will be all too easily repudiated by locals. There is also the issue of timing – Washington is anxious to get a framework deal signed as soon as possible, leaving negotiators to thrash out the details during the three month “pre-interim period” immediately following an agreement. But with so many important details yet to be resolved, there is concern that the relaxation of pressure following an initial agreement will destroy the momentum.
Sudan does not look like a country on the verge of peace. The problems are not just Darfur. Neither side seems to realize that the changes implicit in peace will affect not just the South. The government still has 18 separate security organs, whose powers have been boosted by the recently renewed State of Emergency. They continue to clamp down on the media, opposition and aid workers despite Khartoum’s pledges to end censorship and allow unrestricted aid access.
The International Crisis Group recently warned: “While immense progress has been made on the main conflict, that between the government and the SPLA, the situation in the western province of Darfur is rapidly deteriorating, and yet another war threatens in the east.
“Even a comprehensive government-SPLA agreement is potentially jeopardized by an inability to agree on terms for three contested areas: the Nuba Mountains, Abyei and Southern Blue Nile, all in the centre of the country, close to the North-South boundary. Most disturbing are increasing reports of major human rights violations in the west, where some 600,000 persons have been displaced in what resembles the government’s strategy in the oilfields over the last four years.”
Picking on Eritrea
At the same time, Sudan, Yemen and Ethiopia have been strengthening their alliance against Eritrea. Khartoum is finally learning to pick fights with internationally unpopular regimes and institutions: its current media clamp-down is now targeting Al Jazeera TV as well as the independent domestic press.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail accused Eritrea of destabilizing his country and said that Khartoum “will notify the regional and international organizations of Eritrea’s practices against Sudan, particularly its involvement in the events in Darfur and its support for the rebels there in disturbing security and stability”.
At a tripartite summit in Addis Ababa the leaders of Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen accused Eritrea of being a destabilizing influence in the region. Asmara, concerned that the three countries are forming a military alliance against it, has dubbed the three states the “axis of belligerence”. It denies backing the rebels in Darfur and said criticism from neighbouring states was made to hide their own “deep internal problems”. The head of the president’s office in Asmara, Yemane Gebremeskel, dismissed Khartoum’s allegations as “totally baseless”. “The Sudanese cannot attribute their problems to outsiders,” he said.
State of Emergency
At the end of December parliament agreed by an overwhelming majority to extend the State of Emergency for another year. The chamber justified the move on the failure of the peace talks to reach agreement. It decided that the continuing war-like state in the South and the Nuba Mountains and the escalating insecurity situation in Darfur all put Sudan’s unity at risk.
The next day the Popular National Congress party said the government had arrested three of its leaders and 22 other members for having links to rebels in Darfur. Led by prominent Islamist Hassan Turabi, the PNC denied any direct contact with the Darfur rebels. Although Turabi acknowledged connections with the Islamist Justice and Equality Movement he denied giving it material support. “We support the cause, no doubt about it,” he said. “I didn’t say I was involved with the fighting, I said we have relations with some of the leadership.”
Sudanese authorities also raided a Khartoum University dormitory on Wednesday and arrested some 50 members of the politically active Darfur Students’ Union.
The closer a deal in the South looks, the more concerned the minorities in the North become. Last month’s apparent breakthrough at the talks, offering a 50-50 split of Southern oil revenues, led to both hopes and fears that a final deal was imminent, although the progress was actually rather less than Khartoum announced. When it became clear that there was no possibility of the promised settlement before the end of the year, Bashir still insisted that agreement would be reached “within a week”.
However, there are still so many issues outstanding, and so much detail to be settled on the few modalities actually agreed on, that even the most optimistic observers believe no settlement will be possible before March. This will certainly upset Washington’s timetable. Bush needs to make another determination on the Sudan Peace Act on 20 January.
Opposition leaders in Northern Sudan continue to warn against a bilateral peace agreement between the government and the SPLA that does not directly address the grievances of Northern Sudan’s marginalized populations. “If the peace process is a bilateral process, it will be a very temporary peace that will unravel very soon,” said Sadeq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party (which enjoys widespread support in Darfur).
“There is a cocktail of ethnic-based political dissent, armed and supported from outside. It is going to be copied by others unless problems are universally addressed,” Turabi concurred, warning: “Sudan has never been in a more critical position than it is today – breaking up into regions or joining together by free will. The most important thing is a decentralization of power, a federal government. It’s very simple.”
The danger now is that an incomplete peace deal that leaves large parts of the country feeling excluded will fail to end the fighting in the long term. Even areas currently peaceful, such as the Nuba Mountains, may be tempted to return to conflict if they feel their grievances are insufficiently addressed by a deal that mainly focuses on the South.
One senior Nuba politician told MEI: “Of course, they will eventually sign a deal in Kenya. There is too much international pressure to refuse. But it will be a quick-fix solution that will not last. A return to fighting looks almost inevitable.”
A final peace settlement still appears to be some way off.