A tale of two conflicts: and what Qatar can do to help

By Dr Najeeb Bin Mohammed Al Nauimi

The crisis in Darfur is now a decade old, yet the fighting continues. In fact, more people were displaced by a surge of violence in January this year than in the whole of 2012. Over half the population (3.5 million Darfuris) still receives food aid – about the same amount as five years ago when the Darfur crisis was said to be at its height. Even more telling of the ongoing suffering of civilians, 1.4 million of those receiving food aid are still living in ‘temporary’ camps.

In its ongoing bid to foster peace in this region, Qatar will be hosting the Doha Donors Conference on Darfur this Sunday. Such leadership should be lauded. However, if Qatar wants to see real return on its investment in Sudan, those attending the conference must understand the reality on the ground, and look beyond Darfur to the fundamental drivers of conflict that affect all of Sudan.

The Darfur peace deal brokered by Qatar represents welcome and concrete progress. But the Government of Sudan has demonstrated no real political will to implement this deal in good faith. It has failed to fund the peace process to the degree it originally committed and has taken no real steps to fight impunity, address accountability or resolve complex issues such as land and compensation. The result is that violence persists and stability remains elusive.

Furthermore, the advances that have been made by this peace deal remain extremely fragile and risk being undone by other protracted conflicts sharing the same root cause as the Darfur crisis – namely Sudan’s political and economic marginalization of its periphery.

A case in point is the conflict in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan state, which has been raging for almost two years. It bears many of the hallmarks of the brutality the Sudanese government unleashed on the people of Darfur, including indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas combined with ground attacks that displace thousands of civilians. Sparked in part by Sudan’s failure to engage in genuine consultations about governance reform, the violence in Southern Kordofan quickly spread to the neighbouring border state of Blue Nile and now severely affects over 1 million people. Over 200,000 have fled to South Sudan and Ethiopia and the majority of those that remain are cut off from aid.

The violence in these two states is not just linked to Darfur by common cause, but by common actors. In recent months, the Darfuri rebel faction, the Justice and Equality Movement, has formed a military alliance with the rebels in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army – North. This cooperation and rebel-to-rebel sympathy will proliferate as long as Sudan opts for military solutions rather than governance reform.

These alliances and shared drivers show that the international community must move beyond the current piecemeal approach to Sudan’s conflicts and agree to address them in context, and in relation to Sudan’s central governance issues. Neglecting to do so will ultimately doom peace and nation-building efforts to failure.

Even if fully implemented, the current Darfur peace deal would not address the wider internal conflicts, let alone the broader unresolved issues between Sudan and South Sudan that linger after twenty years of civil war and in turn threaten any fragile Darfur peace. A visionary approach is required within the region, one which Qatar is perfectly placed to champion. Military and repressive responses to internal dissent are not the answer. Instead, leaders need to enable a political forum for alternate views and help create a credible, inclusive political process to bring about long-term stability.

At the upcoming conference, Qatar could demonstrate its characteristic leadership in two ways. Firstly, pledges made by donors should not be at the expense of the supporting ongoing humanitarian response. Evidence-based need and security provisions must drive the international response. Accountability and monitoring mechanisms need to be agreed and affected communities empowered to help implement them. Overall, the Sudanese government needs to be held to account for complying and cooperating with the peace deal.

Secondly, Qatar should champion a comprehensive and joined-up approach to Sudan’s conflicts. As a first step, the conference this week could urge the resolution of the Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile crisis, beginning with a cessation of hostilities to enable immediate and unimpeded humanitarian assistance to reach civilians. Whilst this conflict continues, Qatar’s efforts in Darfur remain at risk.

This weekend could be a turning point. The gathering in Qatar is an opportunity to begin to address Sudan’s conflicts holistically and seek solutions that will deliver lasting peace and stability, not only across the country but for the region as a whole.

Dr Najeeb Bin Mohammed Al Nauimi is a former Qatari Minister for Justice and international human rights lawyer (famously working on Saddam Hussein’s defence team regarding the legality of the trial) and an adviser to the Arab Coalition for Darfur.

This article was first published on The Guardian’s Poverty Matters Blog on 5 April 2013.