Transcripts
"Missing parts to the peace puzzle"
by Frank Russell
Reprinted from Africa Analysis
Peace talks in war-torn Sudan are threatened by ignored groups
One year on and the Machakos talks in Kenya between the Sudan government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) are still seen as offering the best chance yet of ending the 20-year conflict that has killed around 2m people in Sudan.
When the fresh round of talks began in early March under the auspices of the regional intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) it focused on three disputed areas: Abyei in West Kordofan, the Nuba Mountains of southern Kordofan and the Angasana of Blue Nile province. But the talks will exclude a number of north and south political parties and groups representing legitimate constituencies in marginalised areas of the Nuba mountains, Darfur and East Sudan.
These areas also fall outside IGAD’s mandate, but there remains a broad belief among those involved in the talks that the outcome will be accepted as a ‘comprehensive peace agreement.’ A deadline has been set for a start to be made on the implementation of the final agreement. According to the chief Kenyan mediator Lazaors Sumbeiyo, January 2004 will be the start of a nationally accepted ‘transition period’.
However, IGAD Plus, a committee that includes the US, Britain, Norway and Italy, has protested that the Machakos Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Khartoum and the SPLA has fallen short of confronting the real issues. There are also predictions the Machakos and the ongoing talks are doomed to collapse, like the similar North-South Addis Ababa agreement.
Marginalised regions
Defining the Sudanese conflict as a clash between Islam and Christianity or Arabs and Africans is dangerously simplistic. It is true that the North-South clash contains very strong elements of religion and ethnicity. But oil and ideology are complicating factors. Since independence, a northern clique has politically and economically marginalised not only the South, but also regions in the East and West. These areas are home to grievances similar to those in the South. There are no government projects to address the problems of development and economic isolation.
Given the lack of public services in these regions – not only water and electricity, but healthcare and education – as well as the centralisation of power and wealth, it is little wonder that deep-seated resentment against Khartoum exists. There is a growing sense of regional identity among diverse communities sharing the same experience of marginalisation.
Yet the government was apparently caught by surprise when 300 fighters of the newly formed Front for the Liberation of Darfur (FLD) seized the Western town of Gulu, in Jebel Marrah (central Darfur) and installed its own administration. The FLD said it wanted to eradicate ‘the marginalisation and injustices which has deprived the region of development projects.’
There have been outbursts of unrest in Darfur for years, but this is the best organised and regionally united rebellion the government has faced so far. Order in this region has traditionally been maintained by the expedient arming of the nomadic Baggara herders and allowing them to pillage and drive out more settled communities. Now the violence is directed against the government in a manner similar to the simmering rebellion in the oil-rich eastern region where there have recently been calls for the self-determination of the Beja people.
A Darfurian identity
There are obviously ethnic and religious dimensions to the unrest in Darfur. But there also seems to be a conscious effort by the FLD leadership to support, if not create, a Darfurian identity. The rebel movement has been portrayed by different supporters as both a secular and an Islamist movement.
One of the leading figures in the FLD is said to be Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nour, a lawyer and former member of the opposition Communist Party of Sudan. Well known and respected in Darfur, Nour has long been a thorn in the side of the authorities and has been gaoled on numerous occasions. The statements made by the FLD could well have emanated from Nour since they accord with what he has long been preaching. But they have also been supported by another newly formed group, the Sudanese Islamist Opposition.
This could indicate that the days of the government’s divide and rule regime may be ending. But despite this evidence, the government continues to categorise the unrest in Darfur as ‘tribal conflict’. It is also continuing to arm and sponsor gangs of nomads to ;maintain order’. In pursuit of this goal, hundreds of people have been killed and numerous villages burned to the ground.
This is seen by the oppositionists as evidence that the government plans to drive the people of Darfur out of the mineral-rich region bordering Chad, Libya and Egypt. This, they claim, would be similar to what happened to the Nuba people nearly a decade ago. They were driven off the best agricultural land which was then taken over by business people from the North.
‘Somalisation of Sudan’
Although this new rebel movement, as well as the Eritrean-based armed rebellion in the east, clearly pose a threat to Sudan’s territorial integrity and security, they are not being taken seriously by the government. Instead, all hopes are pinned on the Kenyan talks in the apparent belief that if an agreement can be reached that ends the country’s longest rebellion, all others will simply fade into insignificance. It is obvious they will not – and they constitute a real danger of future fragmentation.
Calls are now being made to include other rebel groups in the peace process. One of the leading proponents of this is Ahmed Diraige, a former governor of Darfur and now head of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance. He has warned that the ‘one state, two systems’ solution proposed at Machakos is a recipe for further disaster.
What Sudan needs, he says, is a ‘complete structural change with a decentralised government, real power sharing and the equitable distribution of resources.’ Anything short of this would perpetuate the causes of rebellion. The ‘one state, two systems’ solution proposal was well short of this and Diraige asks whether the international, community, in supporting this solution, realises that they are promoting ‘the Somalisation of Sudan.’
With thanks to Frank Russell,
Committee member of Friends of LMD,
and to the editor of the newsletter Africa Analysis,
who provided the article. frankrussell55@hotmail.com
