Darfuris say Sudan initiative dead in water
October 16, 2008 (EL-FASHER) — Political opponents and victims of the conflict dismissed Sudan’s initiative on Thursday to resolve the war in Darfur as dead in the water and a cynical attempt to keep the regime in power.
Rejected by 13 opposition parties and ridiculed by those living in militarised camps for the displaced, the so-called people’s initiative failed to rally a national consensus behind efforts to resolve the conflict.
It has rallied only President Omer Al-Bashir’s National Congress Party and his coalition partners, chiefly the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, whose power depends on sticking to their own peace agreement with Khartoum.
For displaced persons spoken to by AFP, the initiative is ridiculous.
They ask how a party to and an instigator of the conflict can find a unilateral solution to the nearly six-year conflict while it continues military operations and as insecurity deteriorates?
Bashir needs to curry favour with the UN Security Council, which can defer any chance of him being hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to answer accusations of war crimes levelled by chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
“It’s only after Ocampo that Bashir started to do his best, but there is nothing serious,” said Alawia Ahmed Mohammed, a 26-year-old displaced woman living in Abu Shouk camp, outside the government-held town of El-Fasher.
“This peace, peace, peace we hear about is not true. It’s a lie,” she said.
“The right way is for the people of Darfur to make peace,” she said quietly from behind her pink veil. No one was invited from the 2.5 million people estimated to have been displaced from the war, people in the camp say.
The Sudanese military has been pressing campaigns in the deserts of North Darfur, outside the state capital El-Fasher, for the past month.
In downtown El-Fasher, gunmen in military fatigues wove through the traffic stuffed into pick-up trucks that were mounted with machine guns.
“The government will bring peace by the gun,” said Salah Salih Baku, a community leader living in Abu Shouk and from the Fur tribe that Ocampo accused Bashir of ordering to annihilate.
“At the time of any meeting, the soldiers will be outside shooting. This could go on for another 10 to 20 years,” he said.
Bemoaning the government’s failure to involve civil society independents, scholars and displaced people, Darfuri academic Abdul-Jabbar Abdullah Fadul believes regime change is the only route to a sustainable peace in Darfur.
“With the presence of this regime, Sudan will never be healthy. Traditional peace negotiations are nonsense and they will not take place,” he said.
“I doubt Beshir can sign an agreement,” he said.
Instead he sees the ICC chasing after top regime officials, and national elections scheduled for next year, as helping to weaken the NCP and quicken its eventual departure from power.
“The ICC, as one of the pressures, will not solve the problem but will go towards weakening the regime, which will help withdraw this regime,” he said.
Many believe the only way to overcome the intractability of the conflict is when international concern translates into sufficient pressure.
Yet Thursday’s initiative only adds to the maze of competing efforts to ease the conflict, variously led by the Arab League and African Union, Qatar and the joint African Union-United Nations mediator, Djibril Bassole.
One UN diplomat in Darfur likened Sudan to a stove with three or four pans on the boil but with nothing to eat on the table.
“A credible peace process in Darfur cannot be achieved by negotiations alone between the rebels and the government,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to journalists.
“They are too weak and too illegitimate to sustain or implement any deal they sign. The rebels are too fragmented and turning into tribal militias. The government has committed atrocities and is therefore not legitimate.”
The UN diplomat believes that the NCP knows the people’s initiative will fail and that improving cooperation with the AU-UN peacekeeping mission, which Khartoum obstructed for so long, is another weapon in its charm offensive.
Still drastically under-manned, that force has proved unable to protect its soldiers and lacks the power to intervene to protect victims of the conflict.
(AFP)
Akol Liai Mager
Darfuris say Sudan initiative dead in water
I always get plenty of reasons to feel pity about Furs. But I also feel that Fur armed movements are adding more problems to their people for not unifying their ranks, struggle and efforts to fight common enemy.
Unifying ranks and efforts is necessary for achieving goals, however, scattering ranks, ideas, and efforts cost dearly and only enemy can gain and that’s why we had half a centuary of civil war in southern Sudan.
When I look back into SPLM/A struggle in the South, S. Blue Nile, S. Kordofan and Eastern Sudan I see a clear connection and similarities in causes and costs with what’s happening in Darfur right now.
It took SPLM 22 years to shape Sudanese attitudes and equalised the balance of power between Khartoumers and villages, Arabs and Africans and southerners and northerners. Darfurian have golden chances to inflict a final below to an enemy already weaken by SPLM and what they only lack one tool; “Unification” of their ranks and efforts, that’s the tool they should work harder to obtain it.
Lacking unity amongst Furs reminds me of Jang (Dinka)’s parable that says; “Killing a fat Fisherman”
A good fat Fisherman needs to shorten his hears when dealing with an enemy like NIF.
Finally, well done Alawia and Abdul Jabbar, what come from Khartoum are always either Deaths or Liars so be prepared.
Sihs
Darfuris say Sudan initiative dead in water
The first step to get to a comprehensive agreement is by sitting on the table , denying an effort to even starting some sort of political settlement will do no good for the Darfur conflict,being proposed by the goverment wont hurt if people sit and come to a common ground, as the previous comment has suggested, there should be unity and shared agenda between these multiple armed factions to bring peace to the region,at end of the day without a forthcoming peace only people of darfur will get the burden of suffering,while the west is busy fixing financial setbacks.