New Strategy for Darfur is corrupt merchandise

By Mahmoud A. Suleiman

September 29, 2010 — The media circulated the news that the National Congress Party (NCP) Cabinet chaired by President Bashir in Khartoum has passed a New Strategy for resolving the 7-year Darfur conflict through shifting the plans toward addressing the needs of the people in Darfur. To implement its strategy, the NCP regime in Khartoum would allow the peace talks in Doha, Qatar, to continue, but they will no longer be the centre of Khartoum’s approach. Furthermore, the regime will establish a Darfur Consultative Forum to consult with representatives of nonviolent groups focusing on five main elements: security, development, resettlement, reconciliation, and negotiations. The strategy stated that the opportunities for Darfur peace are not dependant on negotiations, but include the concerns of the Darfur community. It has also been reported that Dr. Ghazi Salah El Din, the presidential advisor in charge of the Darfur portfolio, said that the new strategy supports voluntary repatriation of the internally displaced people (IDPs) to their home areas and their re-integration into economic life. He also said the strategy aims for partnership with the African Union-United Nations peacekeepers (UNAMID), and with the African Union High Level Panel (AUPD) which has made its own recommendations about Darfur. Mbeki was reported to have voiced “strong support” for the new strategy. Whereas the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) has been reported to have categorically rejected the new strategy for Darfur. Radio Dabanga quoted Dr. Keji Roman, the spokesman for SPLM Northern Sector, as speaking about the strategy at a joint news conference with the SPLM leaders in the three Darfur states, who were visiting the headquarters of the movement in Khartoum, and saying that the new strategy belongs solely to the National Congress Party (NCP), which is attempting to take the initiative in resolving the issue away from the armed movements, the national political forces and the civil society in Darfur. Moreover, Dr. Keji was reported that he reiterated the fact that the solutions recommended by the National Congress Party (NCP) in the new strategy are very far from resolving the case.

Observers wondered whether the new strategy for Darfur peace is a strategic plan or a tactical plot of a cunning old fox to breed sedition among the citizens of the region. Many political analysts strongly believe that this ‘New’ strategy is only a repetition of a similar scenario that the Government of the National Islamic Front (NIF) outlined in the Nineties of the last century to attract the satisfaction of the people of South Sudan when Dr. Riek Machar signed the Khartoum Peace Agreement in 1997, forcing the National Islamic Front to adopt a democratic constitution. The agreement was a “soft landing” for Dr. Machar and his team who decided to join the Islamists in Khartoum. After the signing, Machar was the leader of South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF, the newly re-named SSIM) (1997–2002) The Khartoum Peace Agreement offered the South self-determination on paper and made Machar the Assistant to the President of the Republic of the Sudan and the President of the Southern Sudan Coordinating Council Nevertheless, the end result was a miserable failure making Dr. Machar and his team rejoin the main stream, the New Sudan SPLM/A led by the late Dr. John Garang Mabior.
It seems that Dr. Ghazi Salah al-Din has not learned the lessons from his previous political blunders, as though he has become addicted to failures of the portfolios in his custody.

The falsehood of the so-called ‘new strategy’ stems from the order of priority in the pecking order in which its five main elements are put. The ‘new strategy’ puts negotiations at the rear of the priorities, preferring to resort to repressive security solutions which the people of the region suffered greatly from during the disastrous 7 years of the crisis. Accordingly, the Doha platform which the NCP regime leader, the ICC indicted fugitive, Marshal Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir boastfully stated that it will be the only and the last forum for Darfur peace talks seems now in a vegetative state dying in an intensive care bed.

The root causes of the conflict in Darfur are political and remain to be resolved through negotiated agreement that returns the legitimate rights to their owners. Bearing in mind that the rights include the voluntary return of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the refugees to their places of their origin with the evacuation of the foreigners who occupy the lands illegally, individual and collective compensation to the people affected, wealth and power sharing based on population size, bringing the perpetrators to the international justice for the heinous crimes they committed, the settlement of the issues relating to land tenure (the Hawakeer) and lastly and not the least, security arrangements and finally truth and reconciliation. This might take the form similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid.

It is pathetic that the NCP strategy attributes the complexity of the situation in Darfur is simply to the divisions between the rebel movements which allegedly led to parallel split to the civil society and stalling the negations process through inability of reach a unified vision. Here the strategy deliberately denies the fact that the fundamental cause for the complexity and the failure of the Doha peace talks which is attributable mainly to the intransigence of the government of the NCP. Furthermore, the causes of the failure of the Doha talks relate to NCP clique’s prevarication, denunciation of covenants, deliberate failure to honour agreements made with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) such as the good will and the Confidence Building Agreement for the Settlement of Darfur Question signed in Doha between the Government of National Unity and the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement on the 17th of Feb 2009 and the Framework Agreement for ceasefire on Tue Feb 23, 2010. Worst of all are the regime’s resorting to misleading lies through its Sudan Media Centre (SMC) security media machine, adoption of the evil policy of ‘divide and rule’, use of the outmoded doctrine of the ‘end justifies the means’ to evade the legitimate processes required for sustainable just peace, evading the payment of the negotiated dues agreed upon. No wonder, if all the foregoing factors have played the key role in prolonging the suffering of the people of Sudan in Darfur. This situation continues Seven lean Years on whilst the international community only pays lip service enabling the abhorrent racist despotic regime clings on power.

The so-called strategy for Darfur talks about inability of the rebel movements to unite and to reach a unified vision. Here, we can recall the experience in Abuja, Nigeria, where the two movements, Sudan Liberation Army/M (SLA/M) led by Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by Dr. Khalil Ibrahim Mohmed united their positions and negotiated with the government of Sudan (GoS) under the auspices of the international community and the outcome after two years was the infamous Abuja document, the notorious, Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). Therefore, it is a fallacy to assume that lack of rebel unification as an obstacle to reaching negotiated peaceful settlement and ignoring the NCP regime’s systematic damage and deliberate sabotage of all peace efforts.

It is untrue the allegations by the NCP strategy that the competition between the regional actors and the divisions among the rebel movements as the obstacles that hindered the Doha Forum to function as planned. The facts that made the Qatari Peace platform fail, as pointed out by JEM, were the platform’s lack of clear approach, loss of required impartiality of the chief AU-UN Mediator and the host state of Qatar, the strong influence of the government of Sudan on the mediator and the host country that explains the adherence of NCP regime to the platform while failing to paying the dues of the negotiations, the true motives of the GoS for its adherence to the Doha platform were to buy time through prevarication and shilly-shallying to be able to hold the fraudulent elections the results of which turned out to be inconclusive, total absence of credible international community body to act as a guarantor for what is agreed upon through negotiated talks and the inundation of the Doha platform with uncountable number of groups each of which claiming to be a rebel movement without meeting the precise criteria of the definition of a movement and some these were newly created and loyal to the NCP government and not parties in the conflict!

The new strategy has stated in reference to the Darfur States Governments as an important development and that they reflect the diversity of the people of Darfur. This is a calculated falsehood decorated to bamboozle the naïve! Everyone knows for fact that the elections took place in April 2010 were fraudulent in that the census was built on false and incomplete record (refugees and displaced persons is included in the record did not participate in voting). There was confirmed massive fraud which accompanied the election process in addition to the state of emergency imposed by the despotic oppressive NCP regime along with the bias of the Media in support for the NCP candidates and the reign of terror of arrests, killings and displacement which afflicted the citizens of the devastated region of Darfur. Therefore, the results of the elections did not reflect the will of the people of Darfur. Additionally, the governments which assumed power as an outcome of those elections do not necessarily represent the people of Darfur as the assumption adopted by the new strategy. Nevertheless, this does not negate the fact that the members of those state governments are sons and daughters of Darfur and civil society organisation partners in the crisis of the grieving region. Accordingly, they have the right to struggle with the genuine fighters for the legitimate rights and eliminate the effects of the chronic systematic marginalisation. Moreover, the sons and daughters who are truly sincere with the cause of their people will team together at this critical moment to search for solutions that address the higher interests of the people of Sudan in Darfur away from the narrow partisan pursuits
The NCP strategy tried to jump over the realities of the prevailing situation in Darfur and to throw dust on the eyes in order to justify its evil satanic acts to empty and dismantle the camps for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of Kalma in South Darfur near Nyala and Hamidiyya in West Darfur in Zalingei, both of which the Khartoum regime considers as its arch enemy for the ever growing awareness of the residents of those camps for their usurped rights.

The folk proverb says some types of scourge make people laugh. Here the strategy tries to woe the UNAMID as its prime partner in its conspiracy to evacuate the IDP camps, depriving the international peace keeping force from its duty to become subservient for the NCP regime in carrying out its criminal genocidal pursuits. In the early days of UNAMID, the regime used to say that it has the obligation as a sovereign state to protect its citizens and there was no need for the presence of international troop on the Sudanese soil. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed on 31st July 2007 its Resolution 1769 for the creation of the Hybrid Joint United Nations / African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) formally taken over from the African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS). It is absurd that the UNAMID ignores its mandate to become a puppet in reach of the hands of the NCP government which has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for committing heinous crimes against the people of Sudan in Darfur. The NCP regime is trying to deliberately conceal the real intentions for adopting this devilish strategy which is aimed for a second round of a genocidal spree. It is crystal clear that the so-called strategy for Darfur is merely a camouflage and a whitewash the government is hiding behind to perpetrate its criminal acts of displacement and killing of the innocent civilian citizens who are more vocal in demanding their legitimate rights. Needless to say that has already begun and the hellish mission of ethnic cleansing has been accomplished.

Now that the Falsehood and mockery of the NCP strategy to exterminate the survivors of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Darfur became crystal clear, one sees no choice other than to appeal to the Darfur rebels wherever they are, whichever their loyalty or affiliation to unite their vision and positions. Let us work together to support our people who are today in more serious adversity. It is enough for our fragmentation and antagonising each other at
a time when our arch enemy is one, the NCP regime and as long as our cause for which all of us have been struggling, seven-years on, is only ONE! Our motto from here and on should be ‘Unity of Purpose for One Common Destiny’! Believe me compatriots, this is not rhetoric. The forgoing statements are not for mere sophistry or for domestic consumption and definitely not a way for throwing ashes on the eyes of the readers of it. Fellow comrades, those statements stem from the sense of bitterness one feels about what is happening to our people in Darfur every day throughout the year at all seasons while we continue to antagonise each other and allowing the enemy to enjoy its proxy warfare in peace of mind. Furthermore, we should not count on the International Community to resolve the central issue of Sudan, the crisis in Darfur. This is because the International Community, as we know, is formed of nations each of which has its own interests and priorities that sometimes come into conflict with what is expected. “There isn’t such thing as free lunch in the world of today” except in rural Sudan. The old folk proverb said: “Nothing more ideal to scratch your itchy body parts than your own fingernail”!

At this juncture, it is timely to pass appeals to the trio of the joint mediator, the UNAMID and the International Community to draw their attention to the mockery of the NCP new strategy which I have refuted its credibility in the forgoing parts of this article. The appeal is to be sent to His Excellency Mr. Djibrill Bassolé the joint Chief Mediator, to protect the peace process from the sinister intentions of the NCP government which started to create a mechanism parallel to the peace talks to undermine the negotiations and to keep the Mediation out of the equation. The UNAMID is expected to be committed strictly to the mandate given to it by the UNSC and stand at an equal distance from the warring parties to remain credible. Last and by no means last, it is the legitimate duty of the International Community (UNSC) , other World powers and the regional countries to exert more pressure on the NCP government using their political leverage to make it resort to legitimate means in accordance with the precedents and procedures recognised worldwide that would contribute to help resolving the crisis in Darfur. The NCP regime needs to be and abandon the despicable tricks and conspiracies to evade the payment of the negotiated dues. The Softly-softly approach of the international community with the “outposts of tyranny” such as Khartoum junta will not yield anything other than more misery and suffering to the survivors of the genocide. Furthermore, it would only serve to legitimate brutal acts which the National Congress Party’s ‘evil-doers’ regime is currently experimenting in Darfur under the banner of “New Strategy”.

The message that the Darfur IDPs camps’ residents want to pass to the government of the NCP in Khartoum is as follow: Your” new” strategy masterminded by Ghazi Salah al-Din is by no mean NEW; it is no more than an old garbage newly recycled! Its fate will be abject failure. Abandon your dirty tricks and get serious with the credible peace talks before it become too late when you search for negotiating partner and find none! The people of Sudan in Darfur who are known for their considerable acumen and intuition have distanced themselves from being used to play the role of the foolish sheep which voluntarily surrenders its ear to the butcher’s knife!
Isn’t it high time for this miserable nightmare to depart our beloved country forever to the dustbin of history without anyone shedding tears? This is the SIXTY FOUR DOLLAR QUESTION (($64) The Answer this Time is a BIG YAS!

Dr. Mahmoud A. Suleiman is the Deputy Chairman of the General Congress for Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). He can be reached at [email protected].