Aegis Trust

23 Sept 2010 - On 24 September Foreign Ministers will meet in New York to discuss the dangers of renewed conflict in Africa's largest country.  They have reason to be downbeat, because Sudan is complicated.

The plea of complexity is one reason Governments fail to prevent the world's worst atrocities, according the former UN Chief in Sudan, Dr Mukesh Kapila.  He should know.  Early in 2004, at the height of mass atrocities in Darfur, he sounded the alarm - which was met with a catalogue of excuses for inaction.

Saturday 9th January marked the fifth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended nearly 20 years of civil war between North and South Sudan.  Experts, academics, and NGOs have been highlighting the fragility of the CPA for some time now.  2010 is a critical year for Sudan. Without adequate preparation, the upcoming national elections and referendum could re-ignite conflict between the north and the south. The Sudan365 campaign is calling on the international community to use its influence to press the parties to resolve outstanding issues and prevent a return to all-out conflict.

Two new reports on Sudan are well worth a read.  The first, Decisions and Deadlines: A Critical Year for Sudan is written by Dr Eddie Thomas for Chatham House.    It explores the challenges around the April 2010 elections and the organisation of the three referendums in the coming year, including the one in which Southern Sudanese voters will decide on unity and independence.  The report outlines the critical period that Sudan has entered into and the need for the country's powerful elites to reach agreement on a wide range of complex processes.

The second, Rescuing the Peace in Southern Sudan is from Oxfam.  It focuses more on the humanitarian and security situation in Southern Sudan and calls on the Government of Sudan, the Government of Southern Sudan, key CPA guarantors, donors, UNMIS and the UNSC to take urgently needed measures to prevent conflict ahead of  Sudan's 2010 elections and the 2011 referendum and its aftermath; protect civilians from violence; strengthen humanitarian assistance and access; and provide much needed development to the people of southern Sudan.

04 Sept 09 - by James Smith, Director, Aegis Trust

If the war is over in Darfur it begs the question why 2.5 million displaced people stay put in the camps.   

As the military commander of the UN force in Darfur (UNAMID) leaves his post, the up-beat analysis that the six-year conflict in Darfur is over raises some questions.

General Agwai is right that the key security issue in Darfur is no longer massive brutal attacks on African villages but is now low-level banditry.  That is because the Government of Sudan ceased to support atrocity operations on the scale it did between 2003-6.  But why did the Darfur crisis enter this different phase?  Some of it might be on account of UNAMID's presence, to give General Agwai some credit.  The leadership of the atrocity campaigns were also rattled when the UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court, leading to the indictment of a Government Minister, an Arab Janjaweed leader and eventually the President of Sudan and leader of the National Islamic Front (NIF), Omar al-Bashir.   

But the key reason for the change of level of violence is that after 2.5 million people had been displaced into camps, both inside and outside Sudan's borders, the status quo suited the NIF.  Ethnic cleansing has already taken place in Darfur.  They are content to keep it that way. 

I was on the Kosovo-Albanian border in the summer 1999 after the ethnic cleansing had been orchestrated by the Serbian Government.  Once NATO made it safe for people to return to their homes, I witnessed how the refugee camps emptied within days.  It begs the question then if the war is over in Darfur why these 2.5 million people in stay put in the camps.   They know that the causes of violence have not been addressed and the Government of Sudan and its allies who committed crimes against humanity have not been brought to account.  Banditry is not the main fear.  It is the real threat that if they go home villages will be burned, wells poisoned and the women raped. 

Gen. Agwai is also right that divided rebel groups are a factor in the region's problems.   But the rebels have always been divided - and still there was conflict.  It happens that the rebels being divided in Darfur also suits Khartoum.  Indeed, it is an age-old tactic deployed by the NIF to keep their enemies divided among themselves: because then Khartoum doesn't need to agree to a peace deal that might address their crimes.  Division among rebels is not a cause of the war being over; quite the opposite.  It is a barrier to finding a long term peaceful solution in the region.

Some rogue rebels are accused of killing soldiers under Agwai's command, and one suspect has handed himself in to the ICC this year.  It is unhelpful however to characterize the Darfur rebels as though they are the underlying cause of violence in Darfur.  That is plain wrong.  The crisis will never be solved if the structural issues beyond the rebels are not addressed - principally the wealth and power sharing arrangements. 

As with the rest of Sudan, talk of an end to conflict in Darfur is optimistic indeed.  In the next two years there is risk of not only in Darfur, but in South Sudan and other volatile regions of Sudan.  If wealth and power sharing issues are not addressed with a degree of urgency, intractable violence may erupt in many parts of this largest country in Africa.    The conflicts have the same root causes and the same consequences:  marginalised, oppressed people rising up; bloodshed and mass atrocity in response to subdue them.

Political solutions to Sudan's conflicts are encapsulated by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended the civil war between the North and the South. It has lasted more than two decades and killed nearly 2 million people.  The CPA is imperfect and groups such as the Darfuris in the West of Sudan felt left out. But it is a framework - the only framework with signatories - upon which the future of Sudan can be structured.  Within its provisions, in 2010 there should be elections in Sudan and in 2011 a referendum in which Sudanese may determine whether Sudan will remain unified or whether the South may break away. 

It is these elections and especially the referendum that could spark conflict and violence on multiple fronts causing fragmentation of Sudan and a humanitarian disaster that will inevitably affect other countries, not only those neighbouring Sudan.

The key to the future of Sudan of course lies with the Sudanese: with the National Islamic Front, who hold power in Khartoum and are responsible for most of the atrocities in this troubled region, with the Government of South Sudan who have a fragile coalition with the NIF and somehow also responsibility lies with the rebels in Darfur to unite. 

However the focus to prevent this looming catastrophe for the whole of Sudan must come from those with influence in the region:  The world's only super power, the United States, China who exports the majority of Sudan's oil, the African Union as the regional political body, the Arab League who encourage Khartoum's shameless acts and the European Union and its member states including the UK. 

Consider their diplomats as doctors for a minute.  If doctors covered a wound with a bandage when gangrene was setting in, serious questions would be raised about their competence and duty of care.  Likewise, if diplomatic efforts are not refocused and redoubled many innocent people will perish in Sudan, raising questions about the commitment of world leaders to prevent mass atrocities. 

The implications go beyond Sudan.  Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was born the same year as the CPA, in 2005, when world leaders agreed at the UN World Summit there is a collective responsibility to protect people from genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.   Should those same world leaders allow the CPA to sink in the sea of indifference they should be mindful that R2P may be sucked down with it.

In today's Guardian Lubna Hussein's comment piece, 'When I think of My Trial, I Pray my Fight Won't be in Vain', is certainly worth a read.  Lubna Hussein is a courageous Sudanese woman due to stand trial in Khartoum next week.  She is charged with wearing trousers in a public place.  If she is convicted of breaching Article 152 of Sudanese law, which prohibits dressing indecently, she will face up to 40 lashes and an unlimited fine.  Lubna was a UN employee at the time she was arrested and as such was offered immunity and the chance to escape trial.  She has taken the brave and courageous decision to resign from the UN so that she could face the Sudanese authorities and put Sudanese justice in the spotlight.

I've learned something new reading 'A View from the Foothills, The Diaries of Chris Mullin' - the former FCO minister "responsible" for Africa during the time the Darfur crisis erupted (2003-2005).

It's long been known that, in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, both the UK and US cultivated bilateral ties with Sudanese intelligence; leading to much-reviled trips by Saleh Gosh to both Washington and London. It's also common knowledge that the world was reluctant to jeopardise the long-fought-for Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south Sudan by 'complicating it' through reference to the attacks on Darfuri civilians in the west.

I hadn't also realised that the UK, at least, was also attempting to persuade the Sudanese Government to 'lift' the leadership of the Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda:

Monday 26th January, 2004

A big pow wow in my room to discuss what can be done about the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Hilary Benn came over from DFID, Liz Lloyd from Number 10, Adam Wood, Our Man in Kampala and a host of officials from various departments, including the SIS. ... The consensus was that Museveni can't hope to defeat the LRA militarily and so a way has to be found to open a dialogue with a view to offering their leaders safe passage; all very distasteful considering the horrible atrocities they have committed. Afterwards, however, Adam Wood and the man from SIS stayed behind and old me confidentially that there was a chance - just a chance - that the Sudanese could be persuaded to lift the LRA leadership and hand them over. Now that would be a great prize.

Wednesday 10th June, 2004

Up early to prepare for a Westminster Hall debate on Darfur, a catastrophe entirely man-made. As so often, there is a tightrope to be walked. The only thing that stops us forthrightly condemning the evil, rotten regime which has perpetrated the slaughter is the fact that we need the co-operation of the Sudanese rulers to get aid to the afflicted; and also to preserve the painstakingly negotiated recent agreement between north and south; finally, we want their help delivering up Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army... Whatever we do in Darfur thousands, perhaps tens of thousands are going to die.

When it comes to Darfur the diaries, an otherwise enjoyable romp through wryly observed low-level Ministerial life and political gossip, reek of impotence and relative neglect by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.