22 Oct 2007: ISS Today: More Bad News for Darfur

22 October 2007: More Bad News for Darfur

 

Just when it seemed like the situation in Darfur had bottomed out following the killing of 10 African Union peacekeepers, news of another far reaching political development from Sudan’s government of National Unity has made the news headlines. On Thursday the 11 October the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), one only of two parties to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that established the Government of National Unity in 2005, suspended its participation in the coalition government. The SPLM have withdrawn cabinet ministers from national ministries and have recalled SPLM Presidential Advisors in a move that has effectively ended all substantive participation in the interim government.  The move is certainly the most severe political break in relations between the dominant National Congress Party (NCP) and the former rebel movement SPLM since the signing of the CPA that ended some two decades of war between the “North” and “South”.   It is believed that the main motivation for the SPLM’s withdrawal has to do with the lack of progress on demarcating the Abyei border as well as the North-South border. This demarcation is crucial to all the other aspects of the CPA, including the wealth sharing and security protocols.

 

The latest development is not surprising given the fundamental lack of consensus around the aims of the interim period. For one thing, the CPA itself provides a dual message that exhorts the signatories to make ‘unity attractive’ while also providing for a referendum that would allow for southern secession in 2011. While this may not seem contradictory at the outset, the actual implementation of a programme of making unity attractive faces two key obstacles. The first relates to the fact that such unity would only be ‘attractive’ through the devolution of substantial authority and resources to the South, a move that would weaken the hegemony of the National Congress Party and one which would also result in an increasing role for other ‘politically marginalized’ areas such as Western, Eastern and Far Northern Sudan. Secondly, a Government of Southern Sudan that is thought to be working for unity could be perceived by southerners as having ‘sold out’ to the secessionist agenda which has been fiercely promoted - particularly as greater oil producing capacity has been identified in the area.

 

These two obstacles also have a direct bearing on the internal dynamics of the respective parties. This is an issue that has largely gone unnoticed by observers, but it is one which the ISS views as the most serious determinant of the way in which the remaining years of the interim period are likely to unfold. It is the clash between the securocrats and the moderates within the NCP, and the split between the pro-secessionists and the ‘give unity a chance’ factions in the SPLM, that explains much of the schizophrenic policy coming out of both parties. The choices open to Bashir and Kiir are far from flexible as they both risk losing their key constituencies if they seek a transformative agenda for the Sudan. Indeed, the SPLM’s move this week signals not only a severe lack of trust between the two parties, but also highlights the increasing resort to international pressure to initiate change within Sudan. This pattern of using and maximizing either regional (as in the case of Eastern Sudan and Eritrea) or international (SPLM - US) relations to achieve a power change at the centre has exacerbated the conflict in Sudan. It also raises the questions about the legitimacy of both the rebel movements and the government, given their attempts to carve external military alliances as a way to avoid the slow and messy business of internal transformation. The USA’s extensive and overt support for the SPLM (by training the SPLM army for one) has been perceived as pre-emptive support for secession. The USA’s position is also, by extension, perceived as reflecting a disinterest in the other marginalized regions of Sudan that, like the South, have suffered from decades of neglect and exclusion.

 

The SPLM’s withdrawal has also thrown into question the viability of the talks on Darfur that are scheduled to be held in Libya on the 27 October. While a delegation of seven rebel factions are currently meeting in Southern Sudan in order to come to a consensus on their demands, there is little chance that a non-engaged SPLM will be able to influence the shape of the ‘government’ position.

 

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