Darfur talks doomed to failure

In trying to bring peace to Darfur, the international community has
ignored the needs of rebel groups and Darfuri civilians

By Eric Reeves, The Guardian online

November 1, 2007 — With terrible predictability, peace talks in Sirte, Libya between the
Khartoum regime and Darfur’s various rebel groups broke off today,
having accomplished nothing other than to reveal the poverty of
international efforts in halting the ongoing genocide in Sudan’s
western region. Nor was progress made in fashioning a ceasefire, the
essential context for meaningful negotiations. Instead, Khartoum – which
had announced with much fanfare a unilateral ceasefire when talks opened
on October 27 – launched the very next day what may be a final solution
to its Darfur problem: the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and
journalists in the region are all reporting Khartoum’s assaults on
camps for displaced persons, including violent relocation of civilians
to insecure areas

The host of the Libyan talks was Muammar Gadafy, who for decades has
armed groups on both sides of the Chad/Darfur border. No regional actor
has done more to destabilize this volatile region than Gadafy. Many of
the brutal Janjaweed militia in Darfur were first armed by the highly
erratic Libyan leader as part of his “Islamic Legion.” So how did
Gadafy see his role as host to what should have been critical peace
talks? He described the first great episode of genocide in the 21st
century as “a quarrel over a camel.” Such contemptuous dismissal of
the massive atrocities, committed by Khartoum in response to the
insurgency that emerged in 2003, reveals all too much of Gadafy’s
views – and makes clear why Libya was recommended to UN
secretary-general Ban Ki-moon by Sudan’s military strongman and
president Omar al-Bashir during their early September meeting. Although
strenuously warned in advance by human rights and humanitarian groups of
the danger of Libya’s hosting Darfur peace talks, Ban accepted the
invitation – without consulting the rebel groups expected to appear at
the talks.

The most important of these groups did not show up in Sirte. There has
been an unconscionable fractiousness on the part of rebel political
leaders and military commanders. The broad split between those fighting
on the ground and those living abroad is complicated by the failure of
both to do enough to represent the views and needs of civilians in the
camps. But if attention has been mainly on divisions, it is important to
recognize that these divisions are not between parties of equal
significance or comparable moral equities. The rebels who attacked the
African Union base near Haskanita in September have little in common
with the rebel movement in North Darfur – principled men such as Jar
el-Naby and Suleiman Marajan. Moreover, there are prospects for
reunification: Suleiman Jamous, the rebel humanitarian leader and widely
respected elderly conciliator, begged the UN and AU mediators for more
time before going ahead with the talks. He is confident that much more
progress toward unity can be made in matter of weeks. (Jamous was
released after more than a year’s imprisonment by Khartoum only in
September.) Just today, Jamous announced that a number of significant
figures in the rebel faction that signed the ill-fated Abuja peace
agreement in May 2006 are abandoning their brutal and incompetent
leader, Minni Minawi, to join the primary rebel group, the Sudan
Liberation Movement/Unity.

But instead of working effectively for rebel unification, AU and UN
mediators have worked part-time on this enormously difficult and complex
task, and concentrated their efforts in Khartoum, not on the ground in
Darfur. They have fashioned no effective way to bridge the gap between
commanders on the ground and leaders in exile. And, disgracefully, they
have done almost nothing to ensure that civilian voices from the camps,
including those of traditional leaders, are heard in the talks.

But the real reason for the failure in Sirte is that neither the UN nor
the AU is willing to confront Khartoum with meaningful consequences for
its serial violation of UN resolutions and its continuing obstruction of
humanitarian aid and the deployment of the hybrid UN/AU peace support
operation authorized by the security council in July. Nor has Khartoum
paid a price for its systematic reneging on the north/south
comprehensive peace agreement of January 2005. Nor has it been held
accountable for its failure to implement the terms of the disastrously
consummated Abuja peace agreement, including compensation payments,
releasing of development funds, or security arrangements, including
disarming of the Janjaweed.

Quite simply, the rebels and the people of Darfur have no reason
whatsoever to trust that a negotiated agreement will mean anything. Over
18 years in power, the National Islamic Front (National Congress party)
regime that dominates a merely notional Government of National Unity in
Khartoum has never abided by any agreement with any Sudanese party – not
one, not ever. Why, Darfuris ask, should they or the international
community expect this occasion to be different? Even the Janjaweed have
been betrayed by Khartoum, which has reneged on various promises to give
expropriated land to these Arab militia groups. Inter-tribal violence
now plagues Arab populations in Darfur as well as non-Arab or African
peoples – and only Khartoum’s cynical divide-and-rule objectives are
furthered.

When asked what they want, the people of Darfur will of course say they
wish for a peace agreement. But they recognize all too clearly that such
an agreement, with appropriate guarantees and guarantors, is a very long
way off. What they plead for desperately is security – to have their
lives protected now, not many months from now. And they wish with
similar urgency that security be provided to humanitarian operations
that continue to contract and diminish in efficacy. Some 4.2 million
Darfuris now depend upon humanitarian aid; these people know all too
well how acutely vulnerable they are to the consequences of large-scale
humanitarian withdrawal.

Peace talks for Darfur will succeed only if there is enough pressure on
Khartoum to negotiate in good faith. That cannot be generated without
significant cooperation from China, which has so far adamantly opposed
all threats of sanctions against Khartoum, signaling to the regime that
diplomatic obduracy will be rewarded. Creative, diligent and sustained
negotiations with responsible rebel leaders are also essential, with the
governing assumption that if there is a critical mass within the
fractured political and military leadership, potential spoilers can be
partially sidelined or eventually brought on board a consensus
negotiating position, broadly representative of Darfuris, including
civil society. It is an assumption, not a clear road map. But no other
assumption seems to promise a way forward. Decisions about the location
of the next round of talks and Darfuri representation at them must be by
consensus, even if unanimity is clearly impossible. Such consensus
cannot be achieved anywhere but on the ground in Darfur.

In the interim, the deepening security crisis facing civilians and
humanitarians must be squarely addressed. Urgent deployment of the
formed police units authorized by the UN must become a priority. If the
camps explode in violence, as they are poised to do, hundreds of
thousands of civilians—largely women and children—will die. For
them, a peace agreement will have no meaning at all.

* Eric Reeves is author of A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide. He can be reached at [email protected]. www.sudanreeves.org