05 Jan 2007: ISS Today: Darfur, Four Years On: Prospects for Sudan in 2007

05 January 2007: Darfur, four years on: prospects for Sudan in 2007

A year ago, at the beginning of 2006, informed observers were already much less optimistic about the prospects for peace in Sudan than they had been in 2005, when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed the ruling National Congress Party and the southern rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). By 2006, a year of the interim period had already passed with little change in the relationship between the two parties of the ‘unity government’. In addition the Darfur rebellion in the west had continued unabated despite the signing of a ceasefire and the deployment of an African Union monitoring force (AMIS). This seemed to indicate that hopes that the CPA would provide a framework for the settlement of other internal conflicts and the beginning of a remapping of the Sudanese political landscape had been misplaced. Little has happened since then to promote optimism, despite the signature of a peace agreement covering the east of the country; the Darfur conflict has intensified, and implementation of the CPA has been slow and piecemeal.

Commentary

Much of the diplomatic action in 2006 centered on attempts to persuade the National Congress Party and President Omar el Bashir to agree that AMIS should be replaced or augmented by a United Nations peacekeeping mission with a stronger mandate. These attempts were based on two realities: that the African Union force was neither resourced nor mandated appropriately to deal with the intensification of the conflict, and that the humanitarian impact of war had reached such an alarming level that many international aid agencies were ceasing operations there.

The ISS has through its commentaries on the process highlighted the problem of deadline-driven diplomacy and its unfortunate impact on broader processes. If we “fast forward” to 2007 the Government of Sudan has yet to commit fully to UN involvement in Darfur. Despite UNSC Resolution 1706, which called for a “hybrid force” including AU and UN troops that would ultimately see the command and control of the mission under the UN, the situation remains unchanged. In effect what has been agreed upon is a “hybrid operation” that remains essentially confined to technical assistance to AMIS from the UN. This was agreed upon at the High Level Consultation on Darfur held in Addis Ababa on 16 November, which saw senior representatives of the UN, AU and the P5 Security Council members deliberate on the way forward for Darfur. What was agreed upon was a three-phased plan, with a progression from light to heavy support culminating finally in a hybrid operation. The operation is “agreed to in principle” and there is no consensus on the size of the force or the mandate of the deployed troops. In a letter to the outgoing UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, President Bashir stated that the Government of Sudan is committed to the Addis Ababa Conclusions but also “stresses” that the “recent escalation of violence in North Darfur has been ignited by the National Redemption Force (NRF) formed immediately after the signing of the DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement)”. He goes on to assert that the NRF has at its core the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which with Chadian military support is attempting to undermine the DPA. In response to the actions of the NRF the President says that “it is only natural that the Government undertakes appropriate measures to contain the situation.” What all these diplomatic exchanges tend to obfuscate is that the political crisis in Sudan will not be resolved until peace is addressed in a comprehensive way; one that includes non-signatories to the DPA and indeed takes account of the instability on the borders of Sudan with Chad. It is the crisis of cohesion, between rival power bases within the NCP and their relationships with rebel movements, that is ultimately defining the shape of this conflict.

Should the DPA in its current form be taken as the definitive text for peace in the region, the violence against non-signatories is unlikely to end. Indeed, the first reports on Darfur in 2007 have been of new bombing raids on civilians near Kutum in Northern Darfur, which have killed 5 people.

And even as the war in Darfur continues unabated, fresh fighting in Southern Sudan between the two partners of the ‘unity’ government in November last year does little to inspire confidence in the prospects for the interim period. And all this is to leave aside the broader question of governance. Are peace agreements entered into under international pressures and the media spotlight likely to deliver for the people of Sudan in 2007?

Mariam Bibi Jooma, African Security Analysis Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)